Listen to Best Sellers Audiobooks in Fiction, Literary

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Title: Birds of Paradise

Author: Diana Abu-Jaber

Narrator: Tamara Marston

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-06-11

Publisher: HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 33 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Avis Muir is a brilliant pastry chef, Brian Muir a corporate real estate attorney. Their son, Stanley, is the proprietor of a trendy food market. Their beautiful daughter, Felice, is missing. A runaway at 13, Felice has spent five years modeling tattoos, skateboarding, clubbing, and sleeping in a squat house or on the beach. She's about to turn 18. Soon all of the Muirs will be forced to confront their anguish, loss, and sense of betrayal. And Felice must reckon with the guilty secret that drove her away, then face her fear of losing her family and her sense of self forever.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of contemporary Miami, Birds of Paradise is filled with piercing insights into the politics of food and sugar, teen culture, and of the ebb and flow of marriage. The writing is sumptuous, the story moving, and the descriptions of food (one of Abu-Jaber's specialties) are mouth-watering.

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Title: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Jenny Wingfield

Narrator: Catherine Taber

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-12-11

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 197 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Every first Sunday in June, members of the Moses clan gather for an annual reunion at the old home place, a sprawling hundred-acre farm in Arkansas. And every year, Samuel Lake, a vibrant and committed young preacher, brings his beloved wife, Willadee Moses, and their three children back for the festivities. The children embrace the reunion as a welcome escape from the prying eyes of their fathers congregation; for Willadee its a precious opportunity to spend time with her mother and father, Calla and John. But just as the reunion is getting under way, tragedy strikes, jolting the family to their core: Johns untimely death and, soon after, the loss of Samuels parish, which set the stage for a summer of crisis and profound change.

In the midst of it all, Samuel and Willadees outspoken 11-year-old daughter, Swan, is a bright light. Her high spirits and fearlessness have alternately seduced and bedeviled three generations of the family. But it is Blade Ballenger, a traumatized eight-year-old neighbor, who soon captures Swans undivided attention. Full of righteous anger, and innocent of the peril facing her and those she loves, Swan makes it her mission to keep the boy safe from his terrifying father.

With characters who spring to life as vividly as if they were members of ones own family, and with the clear-eyed wisdom that illuminates the most tragic - and triumphant - aspects of human nature, Jenny Wingfield emerges as one of the most vital, engaging storytellers writing today. In The Homecoming of Samuel Lake she has created a memorable and lasting work of fiction.

Critic Reviews:

Wingfield writes complex, believable heroes... with redemption trumping tragedies in scenes ripe with tension and dread. (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

LOVED LOVED LOVED this book!

Where does The Homecoming of Samuel Lake rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?

Near the top and I listen to lots of books.

What other book might you compare The Homecoming of Samuel Lake to and why?

On par with A Prayer for Owen Meany. Made me laugh, made me cry, made me want to seek justice against awful people.

What does Catherine Taber bring to the story that you wouldn???t experience if you just read the book?

Loved her narration and I'm a narration snob. Didn't use fake southern accents. Great job.

If you could rename The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, what would you call it?

hmmmm...good question. Throughout most of the book I thought the title wasn't a good one. The book was about so much more than just Sam Lake. In my opinion, Swan is the strongest, most dominant character in the book. Maybe I would name it A Moses Never Lies

Any additional comments?

I highly recommend this, especially for readers who like Southern literature. It was hard to listen to at a times because the subject matter was so upsetting but it was a great book.

One of my favorites for 2011...!

I can't remember a book I've liked this much for ages! I listened to it several times, just to continue savoring each character and to enjoy the friendships and understanding which emerge. These are brave folks who we can learn from.

A great read

One of the best books I've read in ages! I'll be looking for more by Jenny Wingfield. The narrator was terrific, as well.

Makes you feel like you just watched an Andy Griffith show---

I loved the reader. SO appropriate for this book.

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Title: No Orchids for Miss Blandish

Author: James Hadley Chase

Narrator: Jeff Harding

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-11-11

Publisher: CSA Word

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 16 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

No Orchids for Miss Blandish was crime author James Hadley Chases first novel, and an experiment in adapting American hard-boiled crime fiction by a British author. Inspired by James Cain and The Postman Always Rings Twice, it worked so well that it launched the former salesmans writing career. He went on to write over eighty novels sold worldwide with a huge American, Asian and European following.

Exciting, hard-hitting and gruesome by turn, Jeff Hardings thrilling narration injects new energy to this fast-paced crime classic. Written in 1939, the book also inspired an essay on the mood of post-War Britain by George Orwell, Raffles and Miss Blandish (1944), noting the enthusiasm for violent, bloody fiction. No Orchids for Miss Blandish delivers on both counts. American heiress Miss Blandish is kidnapped by a gang of inept criminals trying their hand at big-time crime, whose plans are foiled when a rival mob, led by the sadist Slim Grisson, set their sights on the glamorous million-dollar hostage. Meanwhile, Private Detective Dave Fenner is hired to rescue her. Fenner is no stranger to the criminal underworld. If corruption and violence are necessary, Fenner will do what it takes to get the job done. Behind the scenes, Slim becomes obsessed with his hostage, lashing out at anyone who attempts to wrestle Miss Blandish from his charge. When Fenner makes his move, Slim wont give her up without a fight.

Members Reviews:

Served With Too Much Ham

Chase's great noir-ish crime novel gets a mediocre treatment here.

Jeff Harding's narrative voice is fine (despite some strange pronunciations, like DYE-van, STALAG-tites and "rum" for "room"), but -- and I'm not sure if it was the Director or Harding's choice - the colloquialisms of 1939 crime writing communicate the hard-boiled period sufficiently without the character voice readings sounding variously like Edward G. Robinson, The Dead End Kids or Ma Kettle.

This corny presentation serves to do the one thing you never want in an audiobook - provide a distraction from a great genre story.

Can't recommend this one.

No place for Thugs in modern society

What made the experience of listening to No Orchids for Miss Blandish the most enjoyable?

The voice Of the reader just kept me hooked on.The story is wonderfully written in a way that non other Hadley Chase could do it. I wish the book never ended.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Slim was my favorite character. He is ruthlessly efficient, mean and consistent in his quest for evil. Just the perfect bad Guy you would love to see in a crime thriller.

Which character as performed by Jeff Harding was your favorite?

DOC.He has that demeanour about him, voicewise that lets you wondering What the Hell an educated man should be doing with a gang. His character is so real to reflect life situations Of the good Guy gone bad, and Jeff Harding does a good voice Job with Doc's character.

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

I smiled.

Any additional comments?

Waiting to see the movie version soon

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Title: That Old Ace in the Hole

Author: Annie Proulx

Narrator: Tom Stechschulte

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-26-11

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 88 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, when he takes a job with Global Pork Rind - his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.

Dollar finds himself in a Texas town called Woolybucket, whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country. These are tough men and women who witnessed first-hand tornadoes, dust storms, and the demise of the great cattle ranches. Now it's feed lots, hog farms, and ever-expanding drylands.

Dollar settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for $50 a month, helps out at Cy Frease's Old Dog Cafe, targets Ace and Tater Crouch's ranch for Global Pork, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old owners will hold on to their land, even though their children want no part of it.

Robust, often bawdy, strikingly original and intimate, That Old Ace in the Hole tracks the vast waves of change that have shaped the American landscape and character over the past century. In Bob Dollar, Proulx has created one of the most irresistible characters in contemporary fiction.

Critic Reviews:

"Proulx is our laureate of landscape, the expansive descriptions of natural phenomena worthy of Barry Lopez or Edward Hoagland. [Her] fiction has become even richer book by book. With this funny and haunting panorama... she has managed to outdo her previous outdoing." (The New York Observer)

"Annie Proulx's writing is charged with wit - alive, funny, packed with brilliantly original images." (USA Today)

"[In] That Old Ace in the Hole, Proulx's hardscrabble wit and wisdom are heightened by the force of her language - her bone-deep feel for its curves and crevices." (The Boston Globe)

Members Reviews:

Doesn't work as a novel

I just could not ever get into this book and I love Annie Proulx's work, including her short stories and memoir Bird Cloud. But this one just seemed like a creative writing excercise where the author goes through a ton of research into the Panhandle area of Oklahoma and Texas and puts her thoughts on the history, geography, architecture, weather patterns, farming history, and photographic record into the mouths of various extremely oddly named characters. These people serve no function but exposition. They orate the facts Proulx has learned in conducting her extensive research on this region. I would like to look at the old photos her characters describe, and see some of the downtrodden eccentric old towns and settlements, but I just do not want to keep reading this book. Also--I find the narrator's voice and accent ridiculous. He is a huge distraction, something I don't need when the book itself is so hard to latch onto.

Novel but like a series of stories

I love Annie Proulx's work. This novel is less structured than her famous The Shipping News and more like her great short stories. Her wit and sass always amuse me. The underlying story concerns a young man sent to the Texas Panhandle region as a scout for huge hog operations -- who loves the region and develops a connection to its people.

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Titel: Alle Toten fliegen hoch

Untertitel: Amerika

Autor:: Joachim Meyerhoff

Erzähler: Joachim Meyerhoff

Format: Unabridged

Spieldauer: 11 hrs and 39 mins

Sprache: Deutsch

Veröffentlichungsdatum: 04-21-11

Herausgeber: Random House Audio, Deutschland

Kategorien: Fiction, Literary

Zusammenfassung des Herausgebers:

"Mit achtzehn ging ich für ein Jahr nach Amerika. Noch heute erzähle ich oft, dass es ein Basketballstipendium war, aber das stimmt nicht. Meine Großeltern haben den Austausch bezahlt." So beginnt der erste Roman von Joachim Meyerhoff, der seinen Ich-Erzähler aus der norddeutschen Provinz in die Weiten des amerikanischen Westens führt - und in ein Wechselbad der Gefühle.

©2011 Random House Audio (P)2011 Random House Audio

Kritik Bewertungen:

So wenig wie Meyerhoff seine Erinnerungen schönfärbt, so seltsam trocken und unterkühlt liest er sie vor: mit erstaunlicher Wirkung. Nach dem ersten Befremden hört man sich in die scheinbar emotionslose Diktion ein - und folgt der Stimme mit wachsender Spannung.

-- Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger

Dieser mitreißende Entwicklungsroman erzählt von Liebe, Fremde, Verlust und begeistert durch Sensibilität, Selbstironie und Witz - gelesen vom Autor!

-- Lübecker Nachrichten

Mitglieder Bewertungen:

Five Stars

Excellent product and service!

Schönes Buch, das sehr traurig ist, während sie ...

Schönes Buch, das sehr traurig ist, während sie innig zu unterhalten verwaltet. Es erzählt die Geschichte eines 17 Jahre alt Junger, den ein Schuljahr in den USA verbracht in den 80er Jahren, und wenn er zurückkommt , hat er sich verändert, aber es ist nicht der einzige.

Bel libro, che riesce a divertire pur essendo intimamente molto triste. Ambientato negli anni '80, racconta la storia di un diciassettenne che trascorre un anno di scuola negli Stati Uniti, e quando torna é cambiato, ma non é il solo.

Five Stars

An outstanding narrative!

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Title: Crime and Punishment

Subtitle: CliffsNotes

Author: James L. Roberts, Ph.D.

Narrator: Tim Wheeler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-16-11

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

The CliffsNotes study guide on Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, a graphical character map, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries, and a comprehensive index, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work. This study guide was written with the assumption that you have read Crime and Punishment. Reading a literary work doesnt mean that you immediately grasp the major themes and devices used by the author; this study guide will help supplement your reading to be sure you get all you can from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. CliffsNotes Review tests your comprehension of the original text and reinforces learning with questions and answers, practice projects, and more. For further information on Fyodor Dostoevsky and Crime and Punishment, check out the CliffsNotes Resource Center at www.cliffsnotes.com.

Members Reviews:

Read it while you (like me) are struggling thru the book

Greatly improved my ability to read and appreciate Crime & Punishment

This is the only time I ever used one of ...

This is the only time I ever used one of these. It helped me pinpoint parts of the book that I needed for writing a paper. Very helpful.

Reading the full text is no easier than it was ...

Reading the full text is no easier than it was in college, over a half century ago. Too many Characters !

1

Very good companion.

Very helpful condensation of this book.

Cliffs Notes

Cannot go wrong reading Cliffs Notes prior to reading the subject volume. Highly recommend Cliffs Notes. They are the first thing I look for before purchasing most books.

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Title: Animal Farm: CliffsNotes

Author: Daniel Moran

Narrator: Tim Wheeler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-16-11

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

This CliffsNotes study guide on George Orwell's Animal Farm supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, a graphical character map, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries, and a comprehensive index, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work. This study guide was written with the assumption that you have read Animal Farm. Reading a literary work doesnt mean that you immediately grasp the major themes and devices used by the author; this study guide will help supplement you reading to be sure you get all you can from Orwell's Animal Farm.

CliffsNotes Review tests your comprehension of the original text and reinforces learning with questions and answers, practice projects, and more. For further information on George Orwell and Animal Farm, check out the CliffsNotes Resource Center at www.cliffsnotes.com.

Members Reviews:

Must read!

This should be a must read for everyone!

Five Stars

Good price...high school summer reading!

Five Stars

2 classics I've always wanted to read!

Buy it, read it, understand it.

Classic must read. Read the classics people.

I ordered this for my teen-aged grand daughter because it ...

I ordered this for my teen-aged grand daughter because it is a book that changed my way of thinking when I was only 12. She had not read it, nor had her parents. This is one everyone with half a brain should read.

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Title: Billy Liar

Author: Keith Waterhouse

Narrator: John Simm

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-11-11

Publisher: CSA Word

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

For William Billy Fisher, an energetic imagination makes life tolerable, but well-nigh intolerable for all around him. He lies his way into and out of every situation, making any promise to get him out of trouble, thereby creating ever more tortuous entanglements to be wriggled out of in the future.

Billy dreams of escaping the dull drudgery of his life at home with his parents and grandmother in the monotony of his stifling Yorkshire hometown. He has three fiancées and a truly dead-end job as an undertakers clerk, but dreams of becoming a writer for a comedian and escaping his everyday life. Unable to separate fantasy from reality, Billy becomes embroiled in a mess no lie will eradicate; the web of lies will bring many a chuckle to listeners, but will the outcome of his mistruths be quite as funny to Billy? Quasi-comic, this novel has enjoyed many interpretations, as a film, play, musical, TV series and now, an unabridged audiobook.

Members Reviews:

Audible Could Not Have Picked A Better Narrator

Would you listen to Billy Liar again? Why?

Yes - it's the unusual combination of a classic novel which is hugely entertaining, and John Simm's performance takes the experience to a whole different level.

What other book might you compare Billy Liar to, and why?

It's a product of the 60s, so could be compared to 'Look Back in Anger', 'Poor Cow' or 'Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner' or other books from the 'kitchen sink' genre, but it really is unique in its characterisation and its combination of comedy, escapism and social commentary.

What does John Simm bring to the story that you wouldnt experience if you had only read the book?

John Simm's narration is spectacularly good - getting a really classy actor to read an audiobook is one thing, but Simm inhabits the main character in a way I've not heard another actor achieve. He simply is Billy. His accents throughout are pitch perfect, but it is his performance as Billy which is the real standout.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, if I could have I would.

Any additional comments?

Hugely entertaining, highly recommended.

Billy Is A Liar!

Billy Fisher has a remarkable imagination. This gets him through the day!

For those around him, Billy's imagination makes life very difficult.

He lies his way through every situation, constantly promising what he cannot deliver.

Billy dreams of liberating himself from the drudgery around him.

If I hadn't of been studying this book, I would not have continued listening to it.

Funny, poignant, true to life and very Yorkshire!

I enjoyed this very much and was sorry to reach the end. I am a Lancashire lass but related very well to the setting and culture and ordinary people of Yorkshire and the era this was set in, having grown up then myself. Billy is endearing, pitiful and horrible in equal measure. The writing is also down to earth, prosaic and poetic in equal measure. A story with parts that are almost Monty Python, but also a haunting book in a certain way. I doubt that anyone who has read this will forget it. John Simm reads it perfectly and makes it real. His portrayal of every character is wonderful.

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Title: Girl with Curious Hair

Subtitle: Stories

Author: David Foster Wallace

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-03-10

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 117 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Available as an audiobook for the first time ever, Girl with Curious Hair is being produced as part of Hachette Audio's ambitious David Foster Wallace audiobook publishing program, joining Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Consider the Lobster, and This Is Water, and Broom of the System.

Here are remarkable, hilarious, and unsettling re-imaginations of reality by "a dynamic writer of extraordinary talent " (Jennifer Levin, New York Times Book Review). David Foster Wallace was one of the most prodigiously talented and original young writers in recent American history, and Girl with Curious Hair displays the full range of his gifts. From the eerily "real", almost holographic evocations of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and over-televised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, in which terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, and the familiar strange.

Members Reviews:

This book is not NOT a Datsun!

This book is not not a Datsun. A couple uneven stories, but all in all a nice early collection of DFW stories.

Some great, Some awful, but bookmark problems

I finally broke down and bought this David Foster Wallace collection because I had read "Lyndon" before and thought it was written by a genius. I still love "Lyndon," and "Little Expressionless Animals," but the title story "Girl With Curious Hair" was awful--and doubly awful because of the way it was performed. So, it's an uneven collection, but worth it for the good pieces.

But please, Audible, improve your bookmarking. I made a number of bookmarks in one of the stories for a class, but then they suddenly disappeared.

No way to locate individual stories!!!

What disappointed you about Girl with Curious Hair?

Why on earth didn't you set the tabs at the beginning of each individual story? Do you imagine that listeners are so bovine as to have no opinions about which stories they want to hear, that they'd just as soon listen to all of them with no way of returning to a specific story? Other story collections are set up so you can click forward and go to the next story, so why not this one?? Not a single story begins at the beginning of a tab!! So stupid!!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Girl with Curious Hair?

When I realized they didn't even think that I might want to locate a specific story!!

Any additional comments?

Think about these things from the consumer's point of view, for God's sake. It's like with Infinite Jest, how you decided readers wouldn't care to hear the invaluable footnotes. But at least there was an argument for that boner. There's no excuse for this.

No Chapter Headings or Markings

What would have made Girl with Curious Hair better?

When purchasing an Audio book, the absolute minimal thing I would expect is that the Chapters will be marked and numbered. It boggles the mind that the chapters in this book are randomly cut up and organized into different sections making it impossible to skip to the next story easily.

Great stories, Chapters don't match up to stories

Would you try another book from David Foster Wallace and/or Robert Petkoff?

Yes,p.

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Title: The Ice Storm

Author: Rick Moody

Narrator: David DeSantos

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-23-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 84 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

The year is 1973. As a freak winter storm bears down on an exclusive, affluent suburb in Connecticut, cars skid out of control, men and women swap partners, and their children experiment with sex, drugs, and even suicide. Here two families, the Hoods and the Williamses, com face-to-face with the seething emotions behind the well-clipped lawns of their lives-in a novel widely hailed as a funny, acerbic, and moving hymn to a dazed and confused era of American life.

Members Reviews:

A Stark and Dormy Night

What made the experience of listening to The Ice Storm the most enjoyable?

Some things work in audio, some don't. The Ice Storm works. Well. The narrative voice, mostly paraphrasing what its characters are saying and thinking rather than quoting them directly via dialogue, makes it quite a good listen. I had originally tried reading the book in print about a year ago, had difficulty getting into it, and when (just 30-40 pages in) lost it, I didn't rush out to replace it. But when I got a chance to listen to it, I thought it might just be a better listen than a read, and that proved to be true.

That the narration is good helps, of course, but what I'm really referring to is the author's narrative voice, especially as he shifts his perspective among the four Hood family members and occasionally throws in his own personal musings.

Who was your favorite character and why?

My favorite character in The Ice Storm is 1973. Not to sound smarmy about it, but all of the human characters are not exactly charismatic, not likeable in any sense. They are interesting but they are highly damaged and dysfunctional. But the setting is as much a character as the characters who people that setting -- New Canaan, Connecticut, on Thanksgiving, 1973.

One could have chosen New Canaan as one's favorite character, since the tony suburban setting is crucial to where the characters are at the start of the book and where they end up after the events of the day (and night). But I choose the time rather than the place -- 1973. If America "lost its innocence" in the wake of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, a decade later, in the wake of Nixon's Watergate scandal and the arrival of the sexual revolution in a buttoned up suburb, America's jaded and browbeaten heart and soul had completely frozen over.

I had just started college in the fall of 1973 and was stunned by a presidency that killed itself off with hubris, a world that began its long slow burn with the oil embargo that followed the Yom Kippur War, a crime-ridden city (New York) that was on the verge of bankruptcy (both literal and metaphorical), and a culture that was in the last stages of perverting the utopian social ideals of the 60s into the dissolute self-absorption of the "Me Decade".So I remember it well. Too well. Not very fondly. Rick Moody uses that moment in American social, cultural and political history, lashed both literally and metaphorically by a deadly ice storm, to recount the demise of the American family, both literally and metaphorically.

Which scene was your favorite?

My favorite passages in the Ice Storm were the ones where the narrator steps away from the point of view of a particular character and riffs on a particular cultural element of the era -- politics, style, music, TV, comic books, religion, et.al. Had the book been written contemporaneously with its era, these references would surely feel dated.