The Vanishing Act
A Novel
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The Vanishing Act
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Narrated by:
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Frederic Basso
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By:
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Mette Jakobsen
About this listen
On a small snow-covered island - so tiny that it can’t be found on any map - lives 12-year-old Minou, her philosopher papa (a descendent of Descartes), Boxman the magician, and a clever dog called No-Name. A year earlier Minou’s mother left the house wearing her best shoes and carrying a large black umbrella. She never returned.
One morning Minou finds a dead boy washed up on the beach. Her father decides to lay him in the room that once belonged to her mother. Can her mother’s disappearance be explained by the boy? Will Boxman be able to help find her? Minou, unwilling to accept her mother’s death, attempts to find the truth through Descartes’ philosophy. Over the course of her investigation Minou will discover the truth about loss and love, a truth that The Vanishing Act conveys in a voice that is uniquely enchanting.
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- A Novel
- By: Martha Conway
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
It's 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue - until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena's Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent historical fiction audiobook
- By LindaJS on 10-03-17
By: Martha Conway
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Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 475
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 416
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 415
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
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The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
- By: Eudora Welty
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat, Jessica Almasy, Victor Bevine, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 192
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Story4 out of 5 stars 184
This complete collection includes all of the published stories of Eudora Welty. There are 41 stories in all, including those in the earlier collections A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and The Bride of the Innisfallen, as well as previously uncollected stories.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Too Good For Audio
- By Yennta on 06-18-12
By: Eudora Welty
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All for Nothing
- By: Walter Kempowski, Anthea Bell - translator, Jenny Erpenbeck - introduction
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
In East Prussia, January 1945, the German forces are in retreat, and the Red Army is approaching. The von Globig family's manor house, the Georgenhof, is falling into disrepair. Auntie runs the estate as best she can since Eberhard von Globig, a special officer in the German army, went to war, leaving behind his beautiful but vague wife, Katharina, and her bookish 12-year-old son, Peter. As the road fills with Germans fleeing the occupied territories, the Georgenhof begins to receive strange visitors - a Nazi violinist, a dissident painter, a Baltic baron, even a Jewish refugee.
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5 out of 5 stars
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All for Nothing
- By Lynn on 03-16-19
By: Walter Kempowski, and others
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The Lonely Hearts Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Heather O'Neill
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 266
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 231
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Story4 out of 5 stars 231
From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans - in love with each other since they can remember - whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future. The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one’s origins.
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3 out of 5 stars
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IMPECCABLE BEAUTIFUL Writing, Interesting Story
- By Jordyn on 05-24-17
By: Heather O'Neill
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The Summer Book
- By: Tove Jansson, Thomas Teal - translator
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer - its sunlight and storms - into 22 crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GORGEOUS. FULL OF GRACE. NEEDED THIS.
- By Annie Armstrong on 04-14-22
By: Tove Jansson, and others
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,089
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,398
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,391
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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The Girl from the Train
- By: Irma Joubert
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,003
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 912
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 914
Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They mean to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl's unscheduled train reaches the bomb first. Gretl is the only survivor.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent story covering the middle of the 20th C.
- By john on 04-12-16
By: Irma Joubert
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An Irish Country Doctor
- A Novel
- By: Patrick Taylor
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,360
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,875
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,877
Barry Laverty, M.B., can barely find the village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there, but already he knows that there is nowhere he would rather live than in the emerald hills and dales of Northern Ireland. The proud owner of a spanking-new medical degree and little else in the way of worldly possessions, Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice. At least until he meets Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Something's Missing ... But It's Not the "F Bomb"!
- By Bookworm on 09-06-13
By: Patrick Taylor
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Sweep
- The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
- By: Jonathan Auxier
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 879
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 737
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 737
For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on “climbing boys” - orphans owned by chimney sweeps - to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless, and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived - and a girl. But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature - a golem - made from ash and coal. This is the creature that saved her from the fire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thank you.
- By Tim Smith on 01-20-19
By: Jonathan Auxier
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Casting Off
- By: Nicole R. Dickson
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
On a tiny island off the west coast of Ireland, the fishermen's handmade sweaters tell a story. Each one is unique - feelings stitched into rows, memories into patterns...It is here that Rebecca Moray comes to research a book on Irish knitting. With her daughter, Rowan, in tow, she hopes to lose herself into the history of the island and to forget her own haunting past. Before long, the warm embrace of the townsfolk wraps Rebecca and Rowan in a world of friendship, laughter, and love...
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great yarn...
- By Shewhee on 03-07-21
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The Promise
- By: Ann Weisgarber
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 677
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 612
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Story4 out of 5 stars 614
1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him, but when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston Island, Texas—a thousand miles from home—she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written and read
- By RueRue on 04-21-14
By: Ann Weisgarber
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The Lightkeeper's Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Jean E. Pendziwol
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg, Dawn Harvey, Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family, especially her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father's journals are discovered after an accident, the past suddenly becomes all too present. With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at her senior home, Elizabeth goes through the diaries.
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5 out of 5 stars
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very good
- By Jason Burger on 09-17-17
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The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
- By: Leslye Walton
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 449
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 402
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Story4 out of 5 stars 400
Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful and Haunting Fairytale
- By FanB14 on 07-24-15
By: Leslye Walton