Get Most Popular Full Audiobooks in Fiction, Literary Top Rated

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Title: I, Paris

Author: Rick Garnett

Narrator: Chris MacDonnell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-13-13

Publisher: Rick Garnett

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Paris and Helen - more than a romance, this audiobook depicts the adventures and inner life of the Trojan prince Paris, a complex figure in a world of stark simplicity, moving through passion, betrayal, and violence to a stunning finale. Through interpolation of gripping action scenes, tender vignettes, and vivid dialogue, the audiobook gives new depth and richness to the classic story of Paris, Helen of Troy, and the war their stolen love engendered.

Members Reviews:

Compelling story, lyrically written

Great story. It made "The Iliad" come alive in modern, poetic language. Narrator is first-class.

a modern story with a classic feel

AudioBook Review:

Stars: Overall 4 Narration 5 Story 3

In an elaboration and build out for a classic character from Homers Iliad, Rick Garnett has focused this story on Paris, a character he felt was diminished by many interpretations of the original work and often stood in the background to the more famous Helen of Troy.

Garnett himself has a litany of reasons why he has reworked the original, and the influences brought forward from other classic works that influenced his portrayal and characterization. While I appreciated the obvious attention to detail and care taken in his work, but as a filling out of a classic character, I had difficulty integrating the two works Taken as a stand-alone story, there is a character that has a touch of insouciant confidence, a solid belief in his fighting skills, a curious theres always tomorrow attitude that all hold a deeply seated alpha to solidify his hero status.

The story proceeds apace, and has a touch of romance, humor and some action with plenty to encourage readers and listeners to seek out the classic story. This is the perfect bite to introduce you to a classic that may feel daunting in a small bite. Garnett is obviously familiar with the original and keeps a similar feel in this modern work.

Narration is provided by Chris MacDonnell who manages to add inflections and pacing changes as well as subtle and not so subtle pitch variations to delineate characters all worked well. The narration was a solid performance, enhancing emotional components and delivered smoothly to keep listeners engaged without overwhelming them with too many narrative choices.

If you are looking for a modern story with a classic feel that you can get in an easy afternoons listening, this is the story for you; working well as an influence to seek out the classic work from Homer.

I received an AudioBook copy of the title via AudioBook Jukebox for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

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Title: Under the Dog Star

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Joseph Caldwell

Narrator: Tamara Marston

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-22-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

After her husband's death, a mother moves her family onto a farm and hatches a scheme to win back the land she used to own

An unlikely criminal, Andy Durant is robbing gas stations to buy back land once connected to his wife's farm in upstate New York. But when he's shot and killed during a robbery, he leaves his wife, Grady, and their three children to fend for themselves. Moving back to the debt-laden farm, Grady ignites a plan that involves getting in the middle of an adjoining neighbor's marriage. Meanwhile, one by one the whole family is charmed by Royal Provo, a young and charismatic orphan working on the property. When the money Andy Durant stole resurfaces, all find themselves in escalating danger.

Under the Dog Star is chillingly good storytelling.

Members Reviews:

A twisted tale

This book was a bit wordy, but it mostly kept my interest. It is an entangled plot involving a cast of only 8 characters, and at some point most of them had sexual relations with others in the story. The protagonist brings her family back to the farm she grew up on after her husband is shot and killed in a bank robbery. Most of the story revolves around farming, and is about how our assumptions about others and our hopes for the future do not always mesh with reality. The tragic and ironic ending is both fitting and surprising for this dark and sometimes depressing tale.

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Title: Children of the Jacaranda Tree

Author: Sahar Delijani

Narrator: Mozhan Marnò

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-03-13

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

While held in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, Azar gives birth to a baby girl whom she fears she cannot keep. Arash, a fellow revolutionary, makes his daughter a bracelet of date stones, knowing it will be all she has to remember him by. Leila has to choose between fleeing Iran with her lover or staying to care for the children of her imprisoned sisters. And Forugh must grow up in the shadow of her parent's deaths.

Courageous, heart-wrenching and beautifully written, Children of the Jacaranda Tree is a novel about family, sacrifice, and the search for a better world.

Members Reviews:

Poignant, moving and revalatory.

Would you listen to Children of the Jacaranda Tree again? Why?

There is so much to take in in terms of historical fact and emotional impact, it justifies a repeat listen.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me really sad. We don't realise how luck we are in the UK to be able to say what we want politically without fear. The impact on families, children and individuals of the revolution in Iran was traumatic. It's clear the scars will remain through many generations.

Any additional comments?

Apart from the emotional impact, the book is beautifully written with sensitive character depictions. It's also a very intersting and illuminating story. I had no idea how badly so many Iranians suffered.

Not good

Would you try another book written by Sahar Delijani or narrated by Mozhan Marnò?

No,

What was most disappointing about Sahar Delijanis story?

Unengaging, waited forever for the story to develop but it just jumps from person to person with little to draw the reader to the characters. In the end you just want the story to end and it does, with no lasting thoughts or point being reached.

Did Mozhan Marnò do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

Yes, characters are possible to follow.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Boredom, annoyance.

Any additional comments?

Not worth buying or listening to.

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Title: The Good Muslim

Author: Tahmima Anam

Narrator: Tania Rodrigues

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-27-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

In the dying days of a brutal civil war, Sohail Haque stumbles upon an abandoned building. Inside, he finds a young woman whose story will haunt him for a lifetime to come...

Almost a decade later, Sohails sister Maya returns home after a long absence to find her beloved brother transformed. While Maya has stuck to her revolutionary ideals, Sohail has shunned his old life to become a charismatic religious leader. And when Sohail decides to send his son to madrasa, the conflict between them comes to a devastating climax.

Set in Bangladesh at a time when religious fundamentalism is on the rise, The Good Muslim is an epic story about faith, family and the long shadow of war.

Members Reviews:

Lovely and informative

After reading The Golden Age, I was left with a great desire to continue my journey with the characters that had come to life in it : the widow Rehana and her two children are lifelike and very attaching. Both books offer an understanding of the intertwining between the personal and the political during the period in the history of Bangladesh before and after the war of secession from the union with Pakistan. They are a witnessing act to a redefinition of a nation through its people. I understood the great Bengali culture as dramatically different from the cultures that amalgamated to form Pakistan notwithstanding the commonality of religion between the two countries. I have hopes that Tahmima Anam will continue to tell us in a beautiful style about the stories of the people of her country and thus join the ranks of international writers whose voice springs consistently from their cultural identity.

Just finished reading "The Good Muslim" by Tahmima Anam

Just finished reading "The Good Muslim" by Tahmima Anam. I had to put it down several times... not to take a break from it or to clean house or cook dinner but because I found the content so intense, hard to take. After a few days or even another book in-between (to wash out the intensity), I picked up where I left off. The last time I put it down, I didn't think I'd ever pick it up again. The story wasn't any where near what I was expecting with this kind of a title, yet the title was significantly appropriate. An amazing story giving insight into how war, hunger, societal and religious parameters can so affect us as human beings.

Read The Golden Age firstââ.

I wish I had known that The Golden Age was an introduction to The Good Muslim. I guess I did not read the reviews prior to purchasing it. I think with a stronger background I would have understood the second novel better and could have rated it higher.

I did enjoy the author's writing style very much and the description of post-war Bangladesh and it's aftermath, how it contributed to the rise of Islamic extremism and its effect upon one family. It was an education for me. However, at times, I was confused about the story line in the novel and the direction in which Ms. Anam was taking us. Maybe this is part of what she was aiming for to further illustrate the conflicts that arise when wars exist and the everlasting horrors and trauma they inflict. I certainly am open to reading more of Tahmina Anam and will probably go back to read the Golden Age eventually.

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Title: The Cloning of Joanna May

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Fay Weldon

Narrator: Lesley Parkin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-17-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 1 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Joanna May is the beautiful, passive, perfect wife of nuclear entrepreneur extraordinaire, Carl May - until he discovers her with her Egyptologist lover, in the sacred haven of his own private art gallery.

The lover is murdered, Joanna disgraced, the marriage dissolved. But something of their union, "a ritual performed in the presence of my beauty, his power," will not die. Piqued by a clue Carl cannot contain, the sixty-year old Joanna discovers the demonic experiment he and her gynecologist carried out thirty years ago. Raised an only child, Joanna finds four sisters as lovely as she; convinced that she's childless, she meets four daughters uncannily like her, yet utterly different, knowing nothing - until they're thirty - of each other's existence.

Jane, Gina, Julie and Alice. And Joanna. Among them, though their genes are identical, they celebrate the bewildering array of pursuits, lifestyles, choices open to the new generation of women, pioneered by the old.

A scintillating, exuberant, ruthlessly acute observer of her time, Fay Weldon leaps - not very far - into a future that makes individual identify infinitely more elusive; a future, nonetheless, in which female solidarity and female compassion (for the male) are compatible.

Carl May does come to a nasty end, of his own inimitably daring design. Yet something of him - the opposite of science and calculation - is preserved, cherished even, by the four times stronger, four times wiser, four times more generous Joanna. In The Cloning of Joanna May, Weldon has created a Shakespearean tale of confused identities, an enthralling novel about male control and female power, and about a generation of women for whom almost anything is possible.

Members Reviews:

convoluted

Fay Weldon tries too hard to make the themes presented in this novel seem timeless and universally applicable. Ironically this has the opposite effect and causes the somewhat interesting plot to become less interesting.

a fave-rave

This is great fun. Weldon's prose style shifts with her books and become the voice of the primary character. The movie is superb, if you can find it.

A Bizarre, Original Glimpse into the Future?

I was surprised by the review below, granting this overlooked masterpiece one star. The characters within the book are brilliantly drawn and startlingly humanistic, and the story unfolds at a gentle but engaging pace. Here we have dazzling insights into the very essence of what makes a person a person (or as Weldon refers to it, the 'I') but there is nothing patronising or overloaded about her conclusions. Rather, the irony of the book is wonderfully funny, with some real laugh out loud moments...all cunningly disguised within insights of amazing originality. I have never read a book like this before. Her prose is to be admired. The differing threads of the clone's lives are a pastiche, a carefully woven tapestry of how one person, one being, given seperate choices (or having those choices predetermined), could be so different from their blueprint. This is illustrated with the use of Tarot within the story, and its interesting asides into the very science of prediction.

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Title: Power Ballads

Author: Will Boast

Narrator: Brandon Massey, Meaghan Sullivan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-27-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Real musicians dont sign autographs, date models, or fly in private jets. They spend their lives in practice rooms and basement clubs or toiling in the obscurity of coffee-shop gigs, casino jobs, and the European festival circuit. The 10 linked stories in Power Ballads are devoted to this unheard virtuoso: the working musician.

From the wings of sold-out arenas to hip-hop studios to polka bars, these stories are born out of a nocturnal world where music is often simply work, but also where it can, in rare moments, become a source of grace and transcendence, speaking about the things we never seem to say to one another. A skilled but snobby jazz drummer joins a costumed heavy metal band to pay his rent. A country singer tries to turn her brutal past into a successful career. A vengeful rock critic reenters the life of an emerging singer-songwriter, bent on wreaking havoc. The characters in Power Ballads - aging head-bangers, jobbers, techno DJs, groupies, and the occasional rock star (and those who have to live with them) - need music to survive, yet find themselves lost when the last note is played, the lights go up, and its time to return to regular life.

By turns melancholy and hilarious, Power Ballads is not only a deeply felt look at the lives of musicians but also an exploration of the secret music that plays inside us all.

Members Reviews:

Engrossing Short Fiction

Boast's ability to wield these narratives is awe-inspiring. Beginning with a preteen tuba player who wants to polka, through rock stars and their loved ones, through choir masters and rapping teens, each story echos with musical truth. These stories take the music industry and make it universal, accessible.

Several of the stories have common characters, revolving around Tim, the drummer trying to make it in the Chicago music sphere, and his girlfriend Kate. They way these short stories are independent and yet interwoven provides almost a novel-like quality. This includes 6 of the 10 stories. A 7th is tangentially related, similar to the stories interwoven in Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. Admittedly, I had read the final story "Coda" in Narrative Magazine several months ago. While I enjoyed it then, I found it much richer and a more fulfilling read this time, prefaced by several other stories about the same characters, giving more depth to the emotions therein. The emotions that build over the course of the stories is also quite powerful. After "The Bridge", I had to stop reading. Fiction almost never makes me cry, but this story was one exception.

The other stories show other aspects of the music industry. Perhaps my favorite of these, "Sidemen", examines the life of a touring rock musician's wife and the difficulties with that lifestyle. The sorrow Boast captures in this story resonate with me, someone who has no connection with the music industry. Yet the feelings of loneliness are common and approachable.

I love all of the stories in this collection. Congratulations to Will Boast for winning the Iowa Short Fiction Award.

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Title: The Harsh Voice

Author: Rebecca West

Narrator: Eva Wilhelm

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-23-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

In these four brilliant short novels set in America, England, and Paris, Rebecca West explores the lives and relationships of rich women and men who are ruled by 'the harsh voice we hear when money talks, or hate'.

There is Josie, a flower of American girlhood whose boundless ambition for wealth fatally loosens the bonds of her marriage to Corrie. There is Etienne de Sevenac, a dilettante French aristocrat whose courtly stratagems are no match for Nancy Sarle - a plain but powerful American businesswoman. There is Alice Pemberton, a sensible Englishwoman - the very salt of the earth - but a petty tyrant in her gracious Georgian home. And lastly there is Sam Hartley, an American businessman who has fought his way to riches with his wife at his side, but whose life is now haunted by an abiding vision of beautiful young women.

Rebecca West was born in London in 1892. She was educated in Edinburgh and began to appear in print as a journalist in London as early as 1911. She was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1959 and died in March 1983.

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Title: Zero db: And Other Stories

Author: Madison Smartt Bell

Narrator: Brandon Massey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-10-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Madison Smartt Bells celebrated debut story collection about the daily struggles of life in America.

The characters in this captivating collection of stories are linked by imprisonment in desperate circumstances and the currents of history that carry them along. Praised for its clarity of voice and vision, Zero db and Other Stories begins with a grim tour of the Deep South that includes a visit to a Tennessee slaughter yard, an unflinching look at the underbelly of the Northeast, and even a trip back in time to the Great Plains of the 19th century and the confluence of events leading up to the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Engrossing and brimming with insight, Bells early stories are remarkable for their ambition of scope and the authors deft rendering of human diversity.

Editorial Reviews:

Brandon Masseys rendition of these compelling short stories has an air of gravitas that highlights the tremendous power of award-winning American writer Madison Smartt Bells masterful prose. His understated approach to each performance highlights the clarity of the writing and allows each story to unfurl at the perfect pace. Whether the setting is the Deep South, the Northeast, or the Great Plains during the 19th century, Bell paints a bleak portrait of society, pulling no punches when it comes to exposing the desperation and darkness that permeates daily life.

Members Reviews:

The writing in the first section is beautiful. Had this book been composed only of stories ...

The three sections in this book present stories told in three entirely different voices. Part One is set in the rural South (but not the "deep South" as the Amazon description reads), part two mainly in the ghettos of NYC and part three (a single story) in the Sioux Wars of the 1870s.

The writing in the first section is beautiful. Had this book been composed only of stories in that voice it would merit 5 stars. The stories in part 2 were engaging, but seemed to be variant retellings of the same story--connected not at all to the stories in part one, although I suspect that would have been possible. The story in part 3 has no real place in this collection, in my opinion. It lacks authenticity and is far inferior to the excellent work in part one.

While the stories of the rebellious impoverished young man in the slums are well-handled, the stories of childhood on a Tennessee farm are more compelling. Bell, who interestingly is the son of friends of Andrew Lytle and the Fugitive Poets, would do well by exploring that subject further.

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Title: One of the Family

Author: Monica Dickens

Narrator: Dominic Keating

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-15-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

At 72 Chepstow Villas lives the Motley family: Leonard, the assistant manager of Whiteley's; his gentle wife, Gwen; "new woman" daughter, Madge; and son, Dicky. Into their comfortable Edwardian world comes a sinister threat of murder and a charismatic stranger who will change their lives forever.

Great-granddaughter to Charles Dickens, Monica (1915-1992) was born into an upper-middle-class family. Disillusioned with the world she was brought up in - she was expelled from St Paul's Girls' School in London for throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge - Dickens then decided to go into service, despite coming from the privileged class; her experiences as a cook and general servant would form the nucleus of her first book, One Pair Of Hands, in 1939. Dickens married an American Navy officer, Roy O. Stratton, and spent much of her adult life in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., but the majority of writing continued to be set in Britain. Her book of 1953, No More Meadows, reflected her work with the NSPCC and she later helped to found the American Samaritans in Massachusetts. Between 1970 and 1971 she wrote a series of children's books known as The World's End series which dealt with rescuing animals, and to some extent children. After the death of her husband, in 1985, Dickens returned to England where she continued to write until her death, aged 77.

Members Reviews:

One of the Family

Although this book is quite different from most of the other books I have read by Monica Dickens (set in an earlier period than most), I thoroughly enjoyed it. As always, her characters were well drawn and believable and her story line carried the reader along nicely.

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Title: Everything on the Line

Author: Bob Mitchell

Narrator: Bob Mitchell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-14-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

The year is 2043. God and Satan are dining at a cute little Italian trattoria in Purgatory, when Satan challenges God to a wager: At stake is whether Good or Evil will prevail in the world. Both antagonists will choose someone on earth to compete in a winner-take-all athletic competition. If Gods choice wins, Good will prevail forever. If Satans choice wins.

They select tennis as the ideal crucible in which to have this ultimate mano-a-mano sporting test of physical skills and inner strength.

Throughout the novel (which takes place in Florence, Venice, Rome, New York, Florida, Ohio, Paris, Barcelona, Melbourne, and Wimbledon), Italian wunderkind Ugo Bellezza (God's choice) and American prodigy Jack Spade (Satan's) battle both opponents and their own personal demons - and become the two greatest players in the history of tennis - until, in the final chapter, they clash in a titanic battle at Wimbledon, a cataclysmic, touching, and surprising denouement in which (with everything on the line, literally and figuratively) the eternal battle between Good and Evil is ultimately decided.

Critic Reviews:

Everything on the Line has a line about everything - its a fanciful, exuberant valentine to tennis and the people who play it. (Mary Carillo, CBS, NBC, ESPN commentator, winner [with John McEnroe] of French Open mixed doubles title, Peabody Award winner)

Although few novelists have touched pro tennis, knowledgeable Bob Mitchell makes a big splash with Everything on the Line, filled with surprises and humor, set in a future Obama presidency (Malia's). In a fierce rivalry for No. 1, an American and an Italian (he with a Stradivarius racket!) battle across the planet. (Bud Collins, Boston Globe, ESPN, Tennis Channel, dean of American tennis writers, member International Tennis Hall of Fame)

Bob Mitchells novel, Everything on the Line, is a complex, rich, challenging story weaving together the authors vast knowledge of tennis, history, art, and poetry, with guest appearances by those two well-known superstars, God and Satan. (Peter Bodo, senior editor and chief columnist, Tennis magazine)

Members Reviews:

An amazing book!

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Caro

This was definitely an amazing book to read!. I really liked it and enjoy it. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first book I've read that its story centers around a sport and that specific sport being tennis. It was a first good experience with a different genre than my usual one, fantasy.

I couldn't help, but love this idea of Good vs. Evil and sports that author Bob Mitchell portrays through his writing; two tennis players decide the faith of the world and its inhabitants. I would call this short story, a very well thought out piece of creativity. At the end It just gives you something to think about for a while and wonder what other sport could have God and the Devil chosen for their endless battle.

The characters were a clear representation of what God's good human and what the Devil's bad human would be like, just like the people that surrounds them and helps them grow as a person in their careers, whose roles within the story turn out to be key points, too. This was more than just a very well described tennis game. There's so many art, literature, history, sport and other details well placed within the story that reflect and interfere in Jack and Ugo's life throughout their training that serve as lessons even at the final match.