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The Riddles of the Sphinx
- Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle
- Narrated by: Anna Shechtman
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen’s Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively enjoyable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.
The indisputable “queen of crosswords,” Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.
In this fascinating work—part memoir, part cultural analysis—she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the “Crossword Craze” of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they’ve been allowed to fill, and the ways that they’ve used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy.
The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Where You End
- A Novel
- By: Abbott Kahler
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing, Samantha Desz
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Kat Bird wakes up from a coma, she sees her mirror image: Jude, her twin sister. Jude’s face and name are the only memories Kat has from before her accident. As Kat tries to make sense of things, she believes Jude will provide all the answers to her most pressing questions. Amid this tragedy, Jude sees an irresistible opportunity: she can give her sister a brand-new past, one worlds away from the lives they actually led. She spins tales of an idyllic childhood, exotic travels, and a bright future. But if everything was so perfect, who are the mysterious people following Kat?
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It's just okay - a bit odd and hard to like
- By Cathy S on 01-25-24
By: Abbott Kahler
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The Missing Thread
- A Women's History of the Ancient World
- By: Daisy Dunn
- Narrated by: Daisy Dunn, Jenny Funnell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Around four thousand years ago, the mysterious Minoans sculpted statues of topless women with snakes slithering on their arms. Over one thousand years later, Sappho wrote great poems of longing and desire. For classicist Daisy Dunn, these women—whether they were simply sitting at their looms at home or participating in the highest echelons of power—were up to something much more interesting than other histories would lead us to believe. Together, these women helped to make antiquity as we know it.
By: Daisy Dunn
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Tinseltown Gangsters
- The Rise and Decline of the Mob in Hollywood
- By: Jeffrey Sussman
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Like sharks to blood in the water, the mob arrived in Hollywood greedy and ready to tear away huge chunks of cash. Opportunistic mobsters saw labor unions as the means for muscling into the movie industry and extorting millions of dollars from studio bosses. Control the unions to which projectionists, art directors, cinematographers, electricians, scene designers, stagehands, extras belong, and you control the whole industry.
By: Jeffrey Sussman
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Beautiful People
- My Thirteen Truths About Disability
- By: Melissa Blake
- Narrated by: Melissa Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the summer of 2019, journalist Melissa Blake penned an op-ed for CNN Opinion. A conservative pundit caught wind of it, mentioning Blake’s work in a YouTube video. What happened next is equal parts a searing view into society, how we collectively view and treat disabled people, and the making of an advocate. After a troll said that Blake should be banned from posting pictures of herself, she took to Twitter and defiantly posted three smiling selfies, all taken during a lovely vacation in the Big Apple. Now, in her manifesto, Beautiful People, Blake shares her truths about disability.
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A must read
- By joseph on 06-12-24
By: Melissa Blake
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Grand Emporium, Mercantile Monster
- The Antebellum South’s Love-Hate Affair With New York City
- By: Ritchie Devon Watson
- Narrated by: Joshua Saxon
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Focusing on the crucial period of 1820 to 1860, Grand Emporium, Mercantile Monster examines the strong economic bonds between the antebellum plantation South and the burgeoning city of New York that resulted from the highly lucrative trade in cotton. In this richly detailed work of literary and cultural history, Ritchie Devon Watson Jr. charts how the partnership brought fantastic wealth to both the South and Gotham during the first half of the nineteenth century.
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The Truce
- Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party
- By: Hunter Walker, Luppe B. Luppen
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Truce is a definitive history of a half-decade of upheaval in the Democratic Party in which a new generation aggressively pursued their progressive ideals while the powerful, centrist establishment adapted to remain in command. Journalists Hunter Walker and Luppe B. Luppen illuminate this story of backroom maneuvering and political strategy with new revelations about pivotal events and exclusive, on-the-record comments from activists, campaign operatives, and members of Congress.
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Riveting and detailed analysis of the Democratic Party
- By Eva on 03-06-24
By: Hunter Walker, and others
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Mother Island
- A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico
- By: Jamie Figueroa
- Narrated by: Jamie Figueroa, Kelle Rae Oien
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by and against a mother who settled into the safety of assimilation, and presents a cultural coming-of-age story.
By: Jamie Figueroa
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Alphabetical Diaries
- By: Sheila Heti
- Narrated by: Kate Berlant
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.
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I love this book and the narration.
- By Ruth Marks on 02-17-24
By: Sheila Heti
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Be Funny or Die
- How Comedy Works and Why It Matters
- By: Joel Morris
- Narrated by: Joel Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Join professional comedy writer Joel Morris on a hilarious journey into the hidden world of shared laughter, where he reveals the mechanisms that make jokes work and what comedy can teach us about ourselves. Offering astute analysis of everything from stand-up to slapstick and sitcom to spoof, Morris examines comedic patterns, rhythms, and dynamics to uncover the algorithms that secretly underpin comedy.
By: Joel Morris
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Parasol Against the Axe
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Dorje Swallow
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being listened to and who’s doing the listening, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present.
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Narrator’s Czech accent sounds like a low budget Dracula
- By Nina S on 04-23-24
By: Helen Oyeyemi