The Calling
A Life Rocked by Mountains
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The Calling
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Narrated by:
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Barry Blanchard
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By:
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Barry Blanchard
About this listen
With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world. At 13 he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone's Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family's cycle of poverty. He describes early climbs attempted with nothing to guide him but written trail descriptions and the cajones of youth. He slowly acquired the skills, equipment and partners necessary to tackle more and more difficult climbs, farther and farther afield: throughout the Canadian Rockies, into Alaska and the French Alps and on to Everest, Peru, and the challenging mountains in Pakistan. From each he learned lessons that only nature and extreme endeavor can teach. This is the story of the culture of climbing in the days of punk rock, spurred on by the rhythm of adrenaline and the arrogance of youth. It is also a portrait of the power of the mountains to lift us.
©2014 Barry Blanchard (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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By: Jim Davidson, and others
-
End of the Rope
- Mountains, Marriage, and Motherhood
- By: Jan Redford
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
As a teenager, in a fit of rage toward her father, Jan pits herself against a steep rock face near their cottage. At the top, fired up by the victory, she sets her sights on the improbable dream of climbing mountains. By age 20, she's a nomadic climber with a magnetic attraction to misadventures and the wrong men. Jan finally finds the love of her life, an affable Banff climber. When he is killed in an avalanche in Alaska, a grieving Jan finds comfort in the arms of another extreme alpinist. Before long they are married, with a baby on the way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good read
- By Anonymous User on 04-25-21
By: Jan Redford
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The Wall
- By: Jeff Long
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
On the vast, sunlit walls of the world's greatest monolith, two veteran climbers unwittingly ascend into a vertical underworld. In a place where obsession kills, they quickly fall prey to past loves, old demons, and ghostly revenge.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable
- By Bikerclimber on 06-20-07
By: Jeff Long
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Wildfire
- A Novel
- By: Mary Pauline Lowry
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Julie has an obsession with fire that began after her parents died when she was 12 years old. Her pyromania leads her to take an unlikely job as a forest firefighter on an elite, Type 1 "Hotshot" crew of forest firefighters who travel the American West battling wildfires. The only woman on the 20-person crew, Julie struggles both to prove her worth and find a place of belonging in the dangerous, insular, and very masculine world of fire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wildfire a novel
- By Harvey Miller on 11-12-18
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The Beast of Barcroft
- By: Bill Schweigart
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 261
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 244
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Story4 out of 5 stars 245
Ben McKelvie believes he's moving up in the world when he and his fiancée buy a house in the cushy Washington, DC, suburb of Barcroft. Instead he's moving down - way down - thanks to Madeleine Roux, the crazy neighbor whose vermin-infested property is a permanent eyesore and looming hazard to public health. First Ben's fiancée leaves him; then his dog dies, apparently killed by a predator drawn into Barcroft by Madeleine's noxious menagerie. But the worst is yet to come for Ben.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just Bearable
- By Nancy Chilton-Kendrick on 06-18-17
By: Bill Schweigart
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Don't Look Back
- By: Gregg Hurwitz
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,763
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,552
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,544
Eve Hardaway, newly single mother of one, is on a trip she’s long dreamed of - a rafting and hiking tour through the jungles and mountains of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Eve wanders off the trail, to a house in the distance with a menacing man in the yard beyond it, throwing machetes at a human-shaped target. Disturbed by the sight, Eve moves quickly and quietly back to her group, taking care to avoid being seen. As she creeps along, she finds a broken digital camera, marked with the name Teresa Hamilton.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Page turner
- By Dan Murrell on 09-05-14
By: Gregg Hurwitz
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In the Shadow of the Mountain
- A Memoir of Courage
- By: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
- Narrated by: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her pulse-raising memoir. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.
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3 out of 5 stars
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How much was not said in so many words
- By Emma Pavich on 10-25-24
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The Boat Runner
- A Novel
- By: Devin Murphy
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 177
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
Beginning in the summer of 1939, 14-year-old Jacob Koopman and his older brother, Edwin, enjoy lives of prosperity and quiet contentment. Many of the residents in their small Dutch town have some connection to the Koopman lightbulb factory, and the locals hold the family in high esteem. On days when they aren't playing with friends, Jacob and Edwin help their uncle Martin on his fishing boat in the North Sea, where German ships have become a common sight. When war breaks out, Jacob's world is thrown into chaos.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not a typical World War II story
- By Marsha L. Woerner on 01-31-18
By: Devin Murphy
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The Romanov Cross
- By: Robert Masello
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 427
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 388
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Story4 out of 5 stars 386
Army epidemiologist Frank Slater is facing a court-martial, but after his punishment is mysteriously lifted, he is offered a job no one else wants - to travel to a small island off the coast of Alaska and investigate a potentially lethal phenomenon. The permafrost has begun to melt, exposing bodies from a colony that was wiped out by the dreaded Spanish flu of 1918. Frank must determine if the thawed remains still carry the deadly virus in their frozen flesh and, if so, ensure that it doesn't come back to life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Meh
- By Anne on 01-09-16
By: Robert Masello
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Touching the Void
- By: Joe Simpson
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Daniel Weyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,464
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,302
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,300
Joe Simpson, with just his partner, Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000-foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1985. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderfully told true story
- By David Shear on 01-17-14
By: Joe Simpson
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Yoga of Max's Discontent
- By: Karan Bajaj
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4 out of 5 stars 85
Max Pzoras is the poster child for the American dream. The child of Greek immigrants who grew up in a dangerous New York housing project, he triumphed over his upbringing and became a successful Wall Street analyst. Yet on the frigid December night that his mother dies of cancer and he's involved in a violent street scuffle, Max begins to confront the nagging questions he has about life. He begins his search for answers by impulsively traveling to India, first to the foothills of the Himalayas and then to an ashram in the drought-stricken south.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Then the seer dwells in His own true splendor.
- By Darwin8u on 06-13-16
By: Karan Bajaj
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Blood and Ice
- By: Robert Masello
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 228
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4 out of 5 stars 186
Journalist Michael Wilde - his world recently shattered by tragedy - hopes that a monthlong assignment to the South Pole will give him a new lease on life. There, in the most inhospitable place on earth, he is simply looking to find solace...until, on a routine dive in to the polar sea, he unexpectedly finds something else entirely: a young man and woman, bound with chains and sealed forever in a block of ice. Beside them is a chest filled with a strange, and sinister, cargo.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I really enjoyed this book
- By Nicole on 04-24-16
By: Robert Masello
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Clear to Lift
- By: Anne A. Wilson
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story5 out of 5 stars 54
Navy helicopter pilot Lt. Alison Malone has been assigned to a search and rescue team based at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, near the rugged peaks of the Sierra Nevada, and far from her former elite H-60 squadron. A rule follower by nature, Alison is exasperated and outraged every time she flies with her mission commander, "Boomer" Marks, for whom military procedures are merely a suggestion. Alison is desperate to be transferred out of the boonies, where careers stagnate, and back to her life and fiancé in San Diego.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Do The Right Thing
- By Empress Karen on 12-11-16
By: Anne A. Wilson
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 196
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 195
With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Ashes
- Ashes Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Ilsa J. Bick
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,230
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,097
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,105
An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device and killing billions. Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom, a young soldier, and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it's now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.
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1 out of 5 stars
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No Thank You
- By KK on 06-27-12
By: Ilsa J. Bick
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Track of the Cat
- By: Nevada Barr
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,744
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,319
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,317
From the vivid opening vista, high in craggy mountains, to the final haunting glimpse of a moonlit canyon, Nevada Barr's first mystery, Track of the Cat, instantly caught the attention of readers and reviewers. Its popularity gained it both an Agatha and an Anthony Award.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Guadalupe Mountain Mystery
- By Sara on 10-15-15
By: Nevada Barr
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Breaking Wild
- By: Diane Les Becquets
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,014
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 928
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Story4 out of 5 stars 928
Driven to spend days alone in the wilderness, Amy Raye, mother of two, is compelled by the quiet and the rush of nature. But this time, her venture into a remote area presents a different set of dangers than Amy Raye has planned for, and she finds herself on the verge of the precarious edge that she's flirted with her entire life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Rampant animal cruelty. Unsympathetic characters.
- By Lori on 05-21-16
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Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- By: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,222
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,061
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,056
When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Sherpas, The True Unsung Heroes
- By Kathy in CA on 07-26-15
By: Peter Zuckerman, and others
What listeners say about The Calling
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Shane Kramer
- 04-13-18
Great. entertaining, and honest
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would. Anyone interested in adventure/alpinism books will love The Calling by Barry Blanchard.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Barry Blanchard. Since the story is told by Barry he was the most relatable character to me (insights into his feelings during expeditions, uncertainties in life, etc)/
What does Barry Blanchard bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Candidness, Barry's background story, upbringing, and path into Alpinism.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I laughed out loud many times during the book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Harri
- 05-13-17
A really good read
I have listened to a lot of books on climbing but this one was definitely my favorite. Honest, good descriptions on the climbing. I felt like I was right there with Blance kicking the steps in the snow. The book is really funny too. At times I was laughing with tears in my eyes. Also I must say that the narration is spot on.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brenden horn
- 06-06-18
Wow... Get this book
I loved this book so much and when I find myself on long drives or hikes I’m might dive back into the world of Barry Blanchard and his extraordinary detail and imagery.
RECOMMEND HIGHLY
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Roxie in Dallas
- 12-03-22
armchair adventure with compulsive clinber
typically I love hearing authors voice reading own words but his gratuitous cursing pulled down one notch. mostly fascinating
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Faissal
- 12-22-22
Great chronicling of the author's journey
I liked how the author chronicled his physical journey, and dropped nuggets from forays into his mental/head space.
It's sobering, rather than being too upbeat, and it fulfilled my wanting a book that takes me on a journey, and makes me think.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Casey L. Stroud
- 04-17-19
stories of a man in the mountains rocked with love
barry is an eloquent storyteller. his writing seeps with passion and his humanity.
the fact that he narrated it is icing to the cake
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- barbara
- 06-25-20
Honest, beautifully written, heartfelt
I loved this book, and I loved listening to Blanchard's delightful Canadian accent! He's a great writer, very expressive, and very self-effacing. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn the brass tacks about rock and ice climbing. Blanchard tells many stories about epic climbs, some terrifying, some tragic, some exhilarating and awe-inspiring, and he's generous about his internal thought processes, which I particularly appreciated. He's a guy who has lived life according to his passion for climbing, and I'm so grateful he was able to write this book to share his passion with us.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Brennan Burns
- 05-20-21
Great Book!
Loved that it was narrated by Barry himself. You can picture yourself there during each of his climbs.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Shannon
- 12-22-17
Phenomenal. gripping and inspiring book!
Phenomenal. gripping and inspiring book! It will make any adventurer long to be in the mountains!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Walter Wadlow
- 09-19-17
Fine Climbing Literature!
Quite simply, you must read-- or even better-- listen to Barry Blanchard read this book! Mr. Blanchard cites the immense impact that classic mountaineering literature had on his life. His very honest and very personal story deserves a place in that same classic canon--as acknowledged by his winning of the Boardman Tasker Prize in 2015. If you have the good fortune to be both an avid reader and a climber, this book will entertain and touch you personally. Thank you very much Barry Blanchard!
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