Thunderstruck
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Thunderstruck
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Narrated by:
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Bob Balaban
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By:
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Erik Larson
About this listen
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men", nearly commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.
Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the 20th century.
Gripping from the start, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.
©2006 Erik Larson (P)2006 Random House, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30,579
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,263
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,252
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
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How to Survive the Titanic
- The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
- By: Frances Wilson
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
On the terrifying, chaotic night of April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was sinking, Bruce J. Ismay, the ship's owner, made a decision that would save his life - and end it. Ismay boarded a lifeboat meant for women and children, and within days became The Most Talked-of Man in the World. Branded a coward, he became a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Joseph Conrad's legendary eponymous character, Lord Jim.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not especially uplifting, but quite good
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-12
By: Frances Wilson
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Eighty Days
- Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 151
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 129
On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world. Also departing from New York that day—and heading in the opposite direction by train—was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Who knew?
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 03-18-13
By: Matthew Goodman
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Mark Twain: Man in White
- The Grand Adventure of His Final Years
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden illuminates Mark Twain’s twilight years in this brilliant account of the legendary author’s life. Drawing heavily on Twain’s own letters and journals, Mark Twain: Man in White recounts both Twain’s private family experiences and his larger-than-life public image.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic book
- By Tad Davis on 08-23-10
By: Michael Shelden
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In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 9,042
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,642
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Story4 out of 5 stars 7,629
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
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5 out of 5 stars
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I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
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The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,471
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,172
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,173
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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4 out of 5 stars
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
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Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
- The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
- By: Hugh Brewster
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era", but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research, he accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Lots of interesting details
- By Rachel on 10-16-18
By: Hugh Brewster
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Chief Engineer
- Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: Erica Wagner
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but after John Roebling's sudden death, Washington Roebling built what has become one of American's most iconic structures - as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten - and his life is of interest far beyond his chosen field. It is the story of immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest crisis in American history, and of the making of the modern world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Monumental
- By charles mueller on 07-09-19
By: Erica Wagner
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The Italian Secretary
- By: Caleb Carr
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 583
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 310
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 308
The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A True Delight for the Holmes Enthusiast
- By Sagar on 06-03-05
By: Caleb Carr
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The Wright Brothers
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,973
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,466
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,428
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.
On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Sara on 07-10-16
By: David McCullough
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The Colony
- The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles on Molokai
- By: John Tayman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 266
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 114
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Story4 out of 5 stars 113
In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting
- By Matt on 10-31-06
By: John Tayman
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Voyage of the Damned
- A Shocking True Story of Hope, Betrayal, and Nazi Terror
- By: Max Morgan Witts, Gordon Thomas
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 188
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 159
This book is a meticulous reconstruction of a tragic episode in the history of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The SS. St. Louis left Hamburg in May of 1939 with 937 Jewish refugees on board who thought they had bought visas to enter Cuba. Refused entry in Cuba and the United States the ship eventually had to turn around and return to Europe. The voyage to freedom was in the end nothing more than a roundabout journey to the concentration camps.
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4 out of 5 stars
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No propaganda more damning than the truth
- By Buretto on 10-29-20
By: Max Morgan Witts, and others
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The Witch of Lime Street
- Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World
- By: David Jaher
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4 out of 5 stars 154
The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was also an era of fevered yearning for communion with the spirit world, after the loss of tens of millions in the First World War and the Spanish-flu epidemic. A desperate search for reunion with dead loved ones precipitated a tidal wave of self-proclaimed psychics - and, as reputable media sought stories on occult phenomena, mediums became celebrities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Houdini, Conan Doyle and Marjorie
- By Blue Dragonfly on 10-11-15
By: David Jaher
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,536
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,956
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,944
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating Biography
- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
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50 Children
- One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles - both in Europe and in the United States - Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I didn't want it to end
- By David Shear on 05-07-14
By: Steven Pressman
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Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4 out of 5 stars 32
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
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Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,205
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,039
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,032
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
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1 out of 5 stars
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- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
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