Discover the Libray of Best Audiobooks in Fiction, Literary

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Title: The End of the Point

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Elizabeth Graver

Narrator: Hillary Huber

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-22-14

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

A precisely observed, superbly crafted novel, The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver charts the dramatic changes in the lives of three generations of one remarkable family, and the summer place that both shelters and isolates them.

Ashaunt Point, Massachusetts, has anchored life for generations of the Porter family, who summer along its remote, rocky shore. But in 1942, the U.S. Army arrives on the Point, bringing havoc and change. That summer, the two older Porter girls - teenagers Helen and Dossie - run wild. The childrens Scottish nurse, Bea, falls in love. And youngest daughter, Janie, is entangled in an incident that cuts the season short and haunts the family for years to come.

An unforgettable portrait of one familys journey through the second half of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Gravers The End of the Point artfully probes the hairline fractures hidden beneath the surface of our lives and traces the fragile and enduring bonds that connect us.

Members Reviews:

Absorbing family saga

Ashaunt Point, located on a rocky shore in Massachusetts, has served as a summer retreat for the Porter family for generations. The story picks up there with the arrival of soldiers in 1947, because of the war. This is the backdrop as Elizabeth Grazer introduces the characters who will gradually reveal themselves through language, interactions and many exquisite small details that make this a very engaging listen. The book tells the story of the family through the remainder of the century, as they each grapple with finding their way through life. She is very skillful at revealing the intentions, emotions and connections among the family members, and showing the ways each one struggles to find a meaningful life, with more and less success.

Hillary Huber's narration is very good. Whether it is the conflicted life of the Scottish nanny Bea, trying to choose between loves, or the neurotically self-absorbed Helen, or her son Charlie, dealing with the burdensome legacy of his namesake, she is good at producing many different voices and evoking moods and emotions. Built upon the duel (perhaps predictive) images of this family shelter being a rocky, remote place, and the early scenes of the army moving in beside them, the novel unsurprisingly reveals the inner (and sometimes outer) challenges for family members finding peace, even sanity, in their lives. They seem always searching for something that is also remote from their grasp, as they move through their often troubled lives. Ashaunt Point remains the place that seems to ground them, that lingers in their memories as a place of shelter.

The book is told through different voices, including letters and diaries. I found it very hard to stop listening. Although somewhat long, the author has written it with so much variety in the ways she presents the characters and story (often using a kind of future commentary that weaves in important information), that it remains interesting throughout. Recommend as a very good listen.

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Title: C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans

Author: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Narrator: John Ortiz

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-11-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Jimmy Santiago Baca's brilliantly received memoir, A Place to Stand, earned him the prestigious International Prize and offered a keyhole view into the brutal personal history that shaped - and continues to inform - his raw, incisive voice. In C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans, he trains his hallmark lyrical intensity on the dark underbelly of addiction and takes us on an unforgettable guided tour of the darkest corners of a brutal, unjust world.

C-Train is a heartstopping series of episodes from the life of Dream-boy, a young man who finds himself seduced, and later enslaved, by the siren song of cocaine. Part paean to the delicious power of intoxication, part lament for those helplessly under its power, C-Train is a ride its hero, and the reader, struggle to get off. In Thirteen Mexicans, Baca writes of the Chicano community and the gulf between the American dream and American reality. In searing, elegiac vignettes he portrays the raw beauty of life in the barrio and the surreal, stomach-turning moment when people of color must confront how they are reflected in the distorted mirror of white society. Giving voice to the dispossessed and the disenfranchised, Baca illuminates the most unforgiving landscapes; yet his is a vision tempered by a searching hopefulness that brings these collections inching toward redemption.

Baca's latest achievement will confirm his place as one of the nation's leading poets, a poet whose words "heal, inspire, and elicit the earthly response of love" (Garrett Hongo). "[Baca] writes with ... an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events." (Denise Levertov)

Members Reviews:

C-Train an Thirteen Mexicans: Dream Boy's Story

This book is absolutely inspiring, thought provoking, root seeking, and makes you think about the life of others, whether we agree with why people are where they are. Jimmy is one of the best writers ever. His thought provoking themes are inspiring.

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Title: In Paradise

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Peter Matthiessen

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-08-14

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 46 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

A profoundly searching new novel by a writer of incomparable range, power, and achievement.

In the winter of 1996, more than 100 women and men of diverse nationality, background, and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths.

Clements Olin, an American academic of Polish descent, has come along, ostensibly to complete research on the death of a survivor, even as he questions what a non-Jew can contribute to the understanding of so monstrous a catastrophe. As the days pass, tensions, both political and personal, surface among the participants, stripping away any easy pretense to healing or closure. Finding himself in the grip of emotions and impulses of bewildering intensity, Olin is forced to abandon his observers role and to embrace a history his family has long suppressed - and with it the yearnings and contradictions of being fully alive.

In Paradise is a brave and deeply thought-provoking novel by one of our most stunningly accomplished writers.

Members Reviews:

I give this book five stars because it is truly an

Matthiessen is the Master who paints with words and reveals an aspect of life that others

only experience when their eyes absorb that gulp of truth so clearly their heart will never be the same .

It is the story of a 1996 gathering of people at Auschwitz. They had come together to pry, meditate,

and contemplate on a deep lever the horrors that had transpired in this place.

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Title: You Are Not a Stranger Here

Subtitle: Stories

Author: Adam Haslett

Narrator: Steven Crossley, Norman Dietz, James Jenner, Jonathan Todd Ross, Scott Sowers

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-04-14

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

In his best-selling and lavishly praised first book of stories, Adam Haslett explores lives that appear shuttered by loss and discovers entire worlds hidden inside them. The impact is at once harrowing and thrilling.

An elderly inventor, burning with manic creativity, tries to reconcile with his estranged gay son. A bereaved boy draws a thuggish classmate into a relationship of escalating guilt and violence. A genteel middle-aged woman, a longtime resident of a psychiatric hospital, becomes the confidante of a lovelorn teenaged volunteer. Told with Chekhovian restraint and compassion, and conveying both the sorrow of life and the courage with which people rise to meet it, You Are Not a Stranger Here is a triumph of storytelling.

Members Reviews:

Great performances of sensitive stories

A collection of well written, compelling and sensitive stories. The performances were excellent, well balanced and authentic. A worthwhile collection of short fiction and great writing.

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Title: The People in the Photo

Author: Hélène Gestern

Narrator: Jeremy Swift, Anna Bentinck, Penelope Rawlins, David Roper

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-17-14

Publisher: Gallic Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

A photograph taken in 1971 sets two people on the path to uncovering the truth about their parents and themselves.

©2014 Gallic Books (P)2014 Gallic Books

Critic Reviews:

"Every note of the characters correspondence rings true" (Le Nouvel Observateur)"A page-turning novel with a skilfully woven plot" (Page des Libraires)"Rich in deftly turned prose and subtle character study: (Sud-Ouest)"A wonderful book about the archaeology of memory" (Le Magazine Littéraire)"Elegant, restrained and poetic" (France Inter)

Members Reviews:

You will enjoy this book

You will enjoy this book, if you have ever looked at old family photographs and wondered how they lived their lives..why does she look so sad, who is the tall, older man who resembles my younger brother so much..or if your grandfather used to tell you stories about "the war" or your aunt, with tears in her eyes, pointed out a grainy, dog-eared photo of a deceased child. Lots of families have stories of past tragedies, hearbreaks, as well as happy times. Some have mysteries that have been solved, some have mysteries that have never been solved.

Bitter-sweet tale of loss and love

I found the author's writing very engaging. The story is written in epistolary form so, for me, it was interesting and made for a great page turner. Hélène is an archivist that happens upon a photo of her mother-who her father and adopted mother have done a superb job of erasing most every hint of her from Hélène's life-with two unknown men. Curious to learn more, she puts an advertisement in the paper hoping to find someone that recognizes the people in the photo. To her surprise, a young biologist replies with the identification of the two men and from there the journey begins! The story has elements of mystery, love, loss, and redemption. It is a story definitely worth the read!

Delightful, and cleaver in how this story is written with all the twists - Highly recommend

I was captivated from the beginning - Loved the story line and was intrigued with how this author put a spin how the narrative. Good book, well worth the read!

Pleasant book which you will enjoy - and which will give you nostalgic thoughts ...........

I enjoyed the book very much, but unfortunately had read, in someonelse's review, the outcome of the story. It really spoiled it for me, knowing what was going to happen. Still, having said that, it was a refreshing change from most of the novels I've read in the past year and if you are looking for a pleasant and quick read, you will enjoy this book. It made me a bit nostalgic for my own parents who have both passed on, and it's not until they're gone that you realise there's a lot you don't know about their past - you look at old black and white photos they had stored away - with no idea of who the people are and what part they played in my parents' lives. Ask questions while you can!

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. A story of intrigue and generations told through letters. I did not want to put it down.

beautifully written story of entwined lives and a reminder of the way our actions affect others and the generations after us.

I highly recommend.

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Title: The Goldfinch: by Donna Tartt: Analysis

Author: BookBuddy

Narrator: Amy Landon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-31-14

Publisher: BookBuddy

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 55 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Donna Tartt's fictional novel The Goldfinch follows the tragic story of a young boy, Theo Decker who loses his mother. Take your listening experience to the next level by analyzing every detail, from the author's writing style to the individual characters. Why did Donna Tartt choose first-person point of view, and how do the boy's memories help convey the story's messages? Travel from New York to Las Vegas as you follow Theo's story and end up in Amsterdam.

Listen to this analysis alongside the The Goldfinch to get chapter-by-chapter overviews that clarify any confusing encounters. The story is divided into five acts with sub-chapters that follow Theo's life in the aftermath of his mother's unexpected death. See firsthand how he copes with the tragic event while receiving expert opinions on what is really going on under the surface of each character.

Dig deeper into the meaning of the story by discovering recurring images like water and birds. The dynamic cast of characters impact Theo's life in diverse ways as he struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and seeks his inner artist. Discussion questions and responses help you look further than the superficial text to prolong your enjoyment of The Goldfinch.

Members Reviews:

Very helpful

Since I missed some symbolism, metaphors, and other insights when I heard the audiobook, this helped me. However, I wish it was longer and more in depth.

Worth it!

This was a wonderful analysis. When I read this book, I knew there was so much more that was going over my head, and I have so much closure finally have it all explained.

Includes good book club questions!

Basic synopsis with maybe one or two interesting analytical points

This is very basic.

I wouldn't buy more of their resources as you're just buying a synopsis with a few interesting comments.

I expected more information about themes, motifs, foreshadowing and a developed discussion about writing techniques.

However, it is just a low GCSE guide

Disappointing

This was not an analysis; it was a precise

Very disappointing. The main bulk of this was just precise; dividing up the parts & chapters & saying in brief what happened . Some pertinent insights Into symbolism used Etc. I felt Boris's role, which was pivotal, was severely understated.

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Title: Andrew's Brain

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: E. L. Doctorow

Narrator: E. L. Doctorow

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-14-14

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 91 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

This brilliant new novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster.

Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves. Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times - funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound. Andrews Brain is a surprising turn and a singular achievement in the canon of a writer whose prose has the power to create its own landscape, and whose great topic, in the words of Don DeLillo, is "the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history."

Critic Reviews:

"E. L. Doctorow is a national treasure, and I mean this in a very specific sense: He has rewarded us, these 45 years, with a vision of ourselves, as a people, a vision possessed of what I might call aspirational verve - he sees us clearly and tenderly, just as we are, but also sees past that - to what we might, at our best, become." (George Saunders)

"[His great topic is] the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history.... Doctorows prose tends to create its own landscape, and to become a force that works in opposition to the power of social reality." (Don DeLillo)

"A writer of dazzling gifts and boundless imaginative energy." (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker)

Members Reviews:

An utterly satifying novel

Wow! I love E.L. Doctorow--especially Ragtime, and couldn't wait to listen to Andrew's Brain. I was not disappointed. In less than 4 hours Doctorow told the story of Andrew's life--and made me care about him, brought in American culture and politics, and a discussion of conciousness and the question of how it arises from brain chemistry. And then there is the question of Andrew's existence. The writing is so compelling I finished this in an evening. Highly recommended.

Interesting story - mediocre narration

Any additional comments?

The story started very slowly, but became interesting after the first hour or so. The book is a good exploration of memory and reality - including the natural ambiguity that arises from their interaction. E. L. Doctorow is an excellent author, but is not a very good narrator - his voice is a near monotone and he doesn't seem to be able to express the emotions necessary to bring the book alive. It was frequently difficult to tell the difference between the two speakers in the book given Doctorow's limited skill at narration. This became even more confusing because it was sometimes difficult to distinguish when the main character was talking "in the present" and when he was remembering the past.

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Title: Sem' podzemnyh korolej [Seven Undeground Kings]

Author: Aleksandr Volkov

Narrator: Mikhail Berezin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-07-14

Publisher: Cdcom Publishing

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Sem' podzemnyh korolej.Rebjata, vy uznali devochku Jelli i ee vernogo pesika Totoshku? Oni snova ochutilis' v podzemnoj strane, gde pravjat azh sem' korolej! Vpered, druz'ja, navstrechu udivitel'nym prikljuchenijam! "Sem' podzemnyh korolej" - zamechatel'naja skazchnaja povest', ljubimaja uzhe ne odnim pokoleniem mal'chishek i devchonok.

Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

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Title: Zheltyj tuman [Yellow Fog]

Author: Aleksandr Volkov

Narrator: Mikhail Berezin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-07-14

Publisher: Cdcom Publishing

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Zheltyj tuman.Tainstvennyj zheltyj tuman okutal Izumrudnyj gorod. Jeto zlaja velikansha Arahna snova prinjalas' za svoi koldovskie shtuchki. Strashila, Drovosek i Lev zovut na pomoshh' Jenni i ee druzej. Ogromnyj zheleznyj rycar' Tili-Villi - jeto vam ne shutka! Beregis', Arahna, potomu chto vse zhiteli Volshebnoj strany - i kroshki-gnomy, i myshinyj narodec, i drakony, i chelovechki, - vse ob#edinilis', chtoby pobedit' zlo. Chem zhe zakonchitsja jeta udivitel'naja istorija?Slushajte - i uznaete!

Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

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Title: Tajna zabroshennogo zamka [The Mystery of the Abandoned Castle]

Author: Aleksandr Volkov

Narrator: Mikhail Berezin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-07-14

Publisher: Cdcom Publishing

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Tajna zabroshennogo zamka. Neobyknovennye prikljuchenija ljubimyh geroev Izumrudnogo goroda - Strashily i Drovoseka, L'va i Tili-Villi prodolzhajutsja! Slushajte poslednjuju skazku Aleksandra Volkova Tajna zabroshennogo zamka!

Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.