The Secret History of Costaguana
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
The Secret History of Costaguana
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Armando Duran
About this listen
The Informers secured Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s place as one of the most original and exuberantly talented novelist working today. Now he returns with an ingenious new novel of historical invention.
On the day of Joseph Conrad's death, in 1924, the Colombian-born José Altamirano begins to write and cannot stop. Many years before, he confessed to Conrad his life's every delicious detail - from his country's heroic revolutions to his darkest solitary moments. Those intimate recollections became Nostromo, a novel that solidified Conrad’s fame and turned Altamirano’s reality into a work of fiction. Now Conrad is dead, but the slate is by no means clear.
Nostromo will live on and Altamirano must write himself back into existence. As the destinies of real empires collide with the murky realities of imagined ones, Vásquez takes us from a flourishing 20th-century London to the lawless fury of a blooming Panama and back in a labyrinthine quest to reclaim the past - of both a country and a man.
Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s new novel, The Sound of Things Falling, will be available August 2013.
©2010 Juan Gabriel Vasquez (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Shape of the Ruins
- A Novel
- By: Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Anne McLean
- Narrated by: Sheldon Romero
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
The Shape of the Ruins is a masterly story of conspiracy, political obsession, and literary investigation. When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a murdered Colombian politician, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with conspiracy theories, assassinations, and historical secrets; and it haunts those who feel that only they know the real truth behind these killings.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Uncanny valley between fiction and non
- By Radhakrishna Bettadapura on 11-17-18
By: Juan Gabriel Vasquez, and others
-
Bolivar
- American Liberator
- By: Marie Arana
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,403
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,220
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,215
It is astonishing that Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of South America, is not better known in the United States. He freed six countries from Spanish rule, traveled more than 75,000 miles on horseback to do so, and became the greatest figure in Latin American history. His life is epic, heroic, straight out of Hollywood: he fought battle after battle in punishing terrain, forged uncertain coalitions of competing forces and races, lost his beautiful wife soon after they married and died relatively young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
There will be blood.
- By Joselo on 08-02-13
By: Marie Arana
-
Love in the Time of Cholera
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,545
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,074
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,090
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral....
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
When love is sick
- By Vira on 09-02-13
-
The Shadow of the Wind
- By: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,800
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,338
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,352
Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Have the book handy
- By Rebecca on 07-17-05
-
The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,748
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,419
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,424
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Narrators spoil it
- By Cookie on 09-27-16
By: Isabel Allende
-
Hero of the Empire
- The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,543
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,278
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,257
At age 24 Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal, he had to do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Far More Than Simply, Hero of the Empire!
- By Matthew on 09-21-16
By: Candice Millard
-
The Shape of the Ruins
- A Novel
- By: Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Anne McLean
- Narrated by: Sheldon Romero
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
The Shape of the Ruins is a masterly story of conspiracy, political obsession, and literary investigation. When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a murdered Colombian politician, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with conspiracy theories, assassinations, and historical secrets; and it haunts those who feel that only they know the real truth behind these killings.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Uncanny valley between fiction and non
- By Radhakrishna Bettadapura on 11-17-18
By: Juan Gabriel Vasquez, and others
-
Bolivar
- American Liberator
- By: Marie Arana
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,403
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,220
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,215
It is astonishing that Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of South America, is not better known in the United States. He freed six countries from Spanish rule, traveled more than 75,000 miles on horseback to do so, and became the greatest figure in Latin American history. His life is epic, heroic, straight out of Hollywood: he fought battle after battle in punishing terrain, forged uncertain coalitions of competing forces and races, lost his beautiful wife soon after they married and died relatively young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
There will be blood.
- By Joselo on 08-02-13
By: Marie Arana
-
Love in the Time of Cholera
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,545
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,074
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,090
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral....
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
When love is sick
- By Vira on 09-02-13
-
The Shadow of the Wind
- By: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,800
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,338
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,352
Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Have the book handy
- By Rebecca on 07-17-05
-
The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,748
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,419
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,424
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Narrators spoil it
- By Cookie on 09-27-16
By: Isabel Allende
-
Hero of the Empire
- The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,543
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,278
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,257
At age 24 Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal, he had to do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Far More Than Simply, Hero of the Empire!
- By Matthew on 09-21-16
By: Candice Millard
-
River of the Gods
- Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,510
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,322
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,317
For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe—and extend their colonial empires.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Good book by Millard, narrator ruined it
- By Tally D Lykins on 05-25-22
By: Candice Millard
-
The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 70
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Island Beneath the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: S. Epatha Merkerson
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,268
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 847
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 846
Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarit - known as Tt - is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tt finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Very Disappointing
- By New Orleans reader on 06-18-10
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Passion According to Carmela
- By: Marcos Aguinis, Carolina De Robertis - translator
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Thom Rivera, Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 74
It is a time for upheaval in Cuba: the time to build a new society. Even from her position of privilege, idealistic divorcée Carmela Vasconcelos sees the waves of uprising and is caught up in the excitement. Persuaded by her brother, Lucas, she flees her wealthy home to join Fidel Castro’s rebels. In the mountainous jungle of the Sierra Maestra, Carmela meets Ignacio Deheza, a charismatic Argentinian socialist fighting on behalf of the insurrection. On the training fields of a revolution, they bond in the cause - and in a blind passion that stirs their blood and soul.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Misnamed story about the Cuban Revolution
- By TiffanyD on 08-12-19
By: Marcos Aguinis, and others
-
The Last Cavalier
- Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon
- By: Alexandre Dumas
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 146
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 114
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 116
The story of France from the Renaissance to the 19th century, as Dumas vibrantly retold it in his numerous enormously popular novels, has long been absent one vital, richly historical era: the Age of Napoleon. But no longer. Now dynamically, in a tale of family honor and undying vengeance, of high adventure and heroic derring-do, The Last Cavalier fills that gap.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
a word of warning
- By Mary on 12-24-10
By: Alexandre Dumas
-
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
- By: Giovanni Pontiero - translator, José Saramago
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
The year: 1936. Europe dances while an invidious dictator establishes himself in Portugal. The city: Lisbon-gray, colorless, chimerical. Ricardo Reis, a doctor and poet, has just come home after sixteen years in Brazil.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A great novelist deserves a competent reader!
- By Prof. Neil Larsen on 11-26-13
By: Giovanni Pontiero - translator, and others
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 998
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 888
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 889
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
Eva Luna
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell, Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 357
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 310
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 311
Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor’s assistant and a snakebitten gardener - born poor, orphaned at an early age, and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Once upon a time...
- By Anonymous User on 12-14-19
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Dawn Watch
- Joseph Conrad in a Global World
- By: Maya Jasanoff
- Narrated by: Laurel Lekfow
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: These forces shaped Joseph Conrad's destiny at the dawn of the 20th century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
History is like therapy for the present
- By Darwin8u on 01-13-18
By: Maya Jasanoff
-
HHhH
- By: Laurent Binet
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 224
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 194
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
HHhH: "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich," or "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich." The most dangerous man in Hitler's cabinet, Reinhard Heydrich was known as the "Butcher of Prague." He was feared by all and loathed by most. With his cold Aryan features and implacable cruelty, Heydrich seemed indestructible-until two men, a Slovak and a Czech recruited by the British secret service-killed him in broad daylight on a bustling street in Prague, and thus changed the course of History.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Himlers Hirn heisst Heydrich
- By Darwin8u on 02-02-13
By: Laurent Binet
-
The Red-Haired Woman
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before - not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Drags On
- By T. Conrad on 10-25-17
By: Orhan Pamuk
-
A Treacherous Paradise
- By: Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson - translator
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 56
Cold and poverty define Hanna Renström's childhood in remote northern Sweden, and in 1905, at nineteen, she boards a ship for Australia in hope of a better life. But none of her hopes - or fears - prepares her for the life she will lead. After two brief marriages, she finds herself a widow twice over, and the owner of a bordello in Portuguese East Africa, a world where colonialism and white supremacy rule, where she is isolated within society by her profession and her sex, and, among the bordello's black prostitutes, by her color.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fanrastic!
- By Josette Luvmour on 06-12-16
By: Henning Mankell, and others
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 998
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 888
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 889
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 70
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
HHhH
- By: Laurent Binet
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 224
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 194
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
HHhH: "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich," or "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich." The most dangerous man in Hitler's cabinet, Reinhard Heydrich was known as the "Butcher of Prague." He was feared by all and loathed by most. With his cold Aryan features and implacable cruelty, Heydrich seemed indestructible-until two men, a Slovak and a Czech recruited by the British secret service-killed him in broad daylight on a bustling street in Prague, and thus changed the course of History.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Himlers Hirn heisst Heydrich
- By Darwin8u on 02-02-13
By: Laurent Binet
-
The Red-Haired Woman
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before - not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Drags On
- By T. Conrad on 10-25-17
By: Orhan Pamuk
-
The Kindly Ones
- By: Jonathan Littell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 39 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 295
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 221
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 220
The chilling fictional memoir of Dr. Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France. Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Office politics in hell
- By Maine Colonial 🌲 on 04-02-13
By: Jonathan Littell
-
Shame
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
The novel that set the stage for his modern classic, The Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's phantasmagoric epic of an unnamed country that is "not quite Pakistan". In this dazzling tale of an ongoing duel between the families of two men - one a celebrated wager of war, the other a debauched lover of pleasure - Rushdie brilliantly portrays a world caught between honor and humiliation.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Should have quit at chapter 2
- By G. Miller on 06-23-23
By: Salman Rushdie
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 998
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 888
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 889
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 70
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
HHhH
- By: Laurent Binet
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 224
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 194
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
HHhH: "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich," or "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich." The most dangerous man in Hitler's cabinet, Reinhard Heydrich was known as the "Butcher of Prague." He was feared by all and loathed by most. With his cold Aryan features and implacable cruelty, Heydrich seemed indestructible-until two men, a Slovak and a Czech recruited by the British secret service-killed him in broad daylight on a bustling street in Prague, and thus changed the course of History.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Himlers Hirn heisst Heydrich
- By Darwin8u on 02-02-13
By: Laurent Binet
-
The Red-Haired Woman
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before - not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Drags On
- By T. Conrad on 10-25-17
By: Orhan Pamuk
-
The Kindly Ones
- By: Jonathan Littell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 39 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 295
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 221
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 220
The chilling fictional memoir of Dr. Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France. Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Office politics in hell
- By Maine Colonial 🌲 on 04-02-13
By: Jonathan Littell
-
Shame
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
The novel that set the stage for his modern classic, The Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's phantasmagoric epic of an unnamed country that is "not quite Pakistan". In this dazzling tale of an ongoing duel between the families of two men - one a celebrated wager of war, the other a debauched lover of pleasure - Rushdie brilliantly portrays a world caught between honor and humiliation.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Should have quit at chapter 2
- By G. Miller on 06-23-23
By: Salman Rushdie
-
The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
-
The Centurions
- By: Jean Larteguy, Robert D. Kaplan - foreward
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the "age of heroics is over". As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Superbly read. Unbelievably timely
- By Benjamin on 05-05-21
By: Jean Larteguy, and others
-
The Meursault Investigation
- By: Kamel Daoud, John Cullen - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 192
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 162
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 164
He was the brother of "the Arab" killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus' classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling's memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: He gives his brother a story and a name - Musa - and describes the events that led to Musa's casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
An enthralling double feature!
- By Kaui on 06-28-16
By: Kamel Daoud, and others
-
Distant Star
- By: Roberto Bolano
- Narrated by: Walter Krochmal
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 53
A chilling novel about the nightmare of a corrupt and brutal dictatorship. The star of Roberto Bolano's hair-raising novel Distant Star is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multimedia enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions. For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this "star" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Omg
- By Sierra on 08-03-16
By: Roberto Bolano
-
For the Glory
- Eric Liddell's Journey from Olympic Champion to Modern Martyr
- By: Duncan Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 382
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 343
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 342
Many people will remember Eric Liddell as the Olympic gold medalist from the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire. Famously, Liddell would not run on Sunday because of his strict observance of the Christian Sabbath, and so he did not compete in his signature event, the 100 meters, at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He was the greatest sprinter in the world at the time, and his choice not to run was ridiculed by the British Olympic committee, his fellow athletes, and most of the world press.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The challenge of a life lived for God's Glory
- By David on 06-30-16
By: Duncan Hamilton
-
Journey to the End of the Night
- By: Louis-Ferdinand Celine
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 338
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 298
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 298
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every minute of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty, and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the public in Europe, and later in America.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Miserable Ride with Cynic Supreme
- By W Perry Hall on 03-15-17
-
Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 754
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 518
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 519
At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Freedom at Midnight
- By: Dominique Lapierre, Larry Collins
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
This is the story of the eclipse of the British Raj and the birth of an independent India and Pakistan. The fabled India of the maharajas, with their palaces and harems, their gold-caparisoned elephants and their glittering private armies—the India of Kipling’s legendary army, with its young British officers commanding troops of a dozen races, religions, and castes—the India of tiger hunts and pigsticking.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Awful - Need for diversity
- By RNS on 02-01-20
By: Dominique Lapierre, and others
-
River of the Gods
- Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,510
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,322
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,317
For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe—and extend their colonial empires.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Good book by Millard, narrator ruined it
- By Tally D Lykins on 05-25-22
By: Candice Millard
-
The Moor's Last Sigh
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreally imagined and sometimes blasphemous chronicle of modern India and flavors the mixture with peppery soliloquies on art, ethnicity, religious fanaticism, and the terrifying power of love. Moraes "Moor" Zogoiby, the last surviving scion of a dynasty of Cochinese spice merchants and crime lords, is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
The performance is enchanting.
- By Kelly on 05-04-18
By: Salman Rushdie
-
Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
-
Hero of the Empire
- The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,543
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,278
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,257
At age 24 Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal, he had to do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Far More Than Simply, Hero of the Empire!
- By Matthew on 09-21-16
By: Candice Millard