M. McGregor
- 14
- reviews
- 2
- helpful votes
- 46
- ratings
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Stoner
- By: John Williams
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments.
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A story of sadness and serenity
- By Anton on 10-13-12
- Stoner
- By: John Williams
- Narrated by: Robin Field
The painful beauty of ordinary life
Reviewed: 12-26-24
A wonderfully mundane telling of an introspective man's life in the early to middle 20th century. Kind of a primer on how to view and handle disappointment, as well as an evocation of an era and a society we'll never see again. The writing has me looking for more of the author's work.
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The Undertow
- Scenes from a Slow Civil War
- By: Jeff Sharlet
- Narrated by: Jeff Sharlet
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies—sometimes realities—of violence.
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I'm just not feeling this one....
- By J. Richmond on 08-04-23
- The Undertow
- Scenes from a Slow Civil War
- By: Jeff Sharlet
- Narrated by: Jeff Sharlet
Wish I'd read this before the 2024 election
Reviewed: 12-22-24
I would have been better prepared for what happened. Love the Wisconsin Death Trip references. Sharlet's writing is wry and evocative.
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From Here to the Great Unknown
- A Memoir
- By: Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough
- Narrated by: Riley Keough, Julia Roberts
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir. A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and now grieved. Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, lay in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them.
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Beautiful sadness
- By Stacy Eanes on 10-08-24
- From Here to the Great Unknown
- A Memoir
- By: Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough
- Narrated by: Riley Keough, Julia Roberts
Deep soul journey
Reviewed: 12-05-24
Lisa Marie's daughter Riley Keough goes deep in this incredibly moving and often lyrical account of her mother's life. This is more of a family memoir, and that's all to the good. Their fierce love for each other comes through so forcefully, and made me feel a connection to these people whom I will never know in real life. If you're looking for a story that awakens empathy and understanding that we are all here together in a world bigger than we know, this book will do it for you. And Julia Roberts was the perfect narrator for the parts of the story that could not be told in Lisa Marie's voice. Their voices don't match, but they resonate.
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We Loved It All
- A Memory of Life
- By: Lydia Millet
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed novelist Lydia Millet’s first work of nonfiction is a genre-defying tour de force that makes an impassioned argument for people to see their emotional and spiritual lives as infinitely dependent on the lives of nonhuman beings.
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Grief, hope, and love
- By M. McGregor on 11-29-24
- We Loved It All
- A Memory of Life
- By: Lydia Millet
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
Grief, hope, and love
Reviewed: 11-29-24
A heartbreaking meditation on what we lose when we lose other species, through outright harm and heedless negligence. The hints of compassionate humor throughout, narrated in Xe Sands' warm, casual voice, soften the sorrowful truths that Lydia Millet offers, and encourage us toward acceptance, hope, and some step, big or small, to make things better.
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The Revenge of Power
- How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century
- By: Moisés Naím
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Moisés Naím turns to the trends, conditions, and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three “P”s - populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today’s autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed.
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The narrator does not know the names of some politicians)))
- By Philippe Bogdanoff on 08-28-22
- The Revenge of Power
- How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century
- By: Moisés Naím
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
Understanding and fighting autocracy
Reviewed: 11-18-24
I wish this book had an afterword covering the 2024 US presidential election (too soon to be feasible, I know), but the concepts and suggestions within are vital if the world is to pull itself out of this current spiral toward an authoritarian hell.
The narrator has a wonderful voice, but he would do better to narrate quoted material without attempting accents—his strengths lie elsewhere.
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The Feminine Mystique
- By: Betty Friedan
- Narrated by: Parker Posey
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The book that changed the consciousness of a country - and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic - these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name", that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since.
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A landmark book of its time and relevant now
- By Anthony on 01-23-15
- The Feminine Mystique
- By: Betty Friedan
- Narrated by: Parker Posey
Sorry, Ms. Posey
Reviewed: 07-29-24
Being a great actress does not translate to being a great audiobook narrator. I felt like I was back in 5th grade listening to a bored classmate rushing monotonously through her long essay. I have no choice but to actually sit down and read.
The content itself is great, but, of course, somewhat dated. Nevertheless, The Feminine Mystique is a valuable historical document. Everyone needs to know where we were, how we got there, and that we could end up back there if we aren't wise.
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Sleep Toward Heaven
- By: Amanda Eyre Ward
- Narrated by: Carol Monda, Susan Bennett
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Amanda Eyre Ward stormed onto the literary scene with this resounding first novel that commanded immediate acclaim. In Sleep Toward Heaven, Karen sinks inside herself as she awaits execution for murder. Karen’s prison doctor, Franny, is drowning in her own guilt over the death of a patient, and Celia, the widow of one of Karen’s victims, tries desperately to move on with her life.
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Sleep did not come fast enough
- By L. Phipps on 03-13-15
- Sleep Toward Heaven
- By: Amanda Eyre Ward
- Narrated by: Carol Monda, Susan Bennett
Wonderful in audio
Reviewed: 05-01-24
This story is so nuanced and thoughtful, with vivid characters, beautifully voiced by both narrators. The ending is satisfying without having everything wrapped up in a shiny bow.
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House Rules
- A Memoir
- By: Rachel Sontag
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The view from outside couldn't have been more perfect. But within the walls of the family home, Rachel's life was controlled and indeed terrorized by her father's serious depression. In prose that is both precise and rich, Rachel's childhood experience unfolds in a chronological recounting that shows how her father became more and more disturbed as Rachel grew up. House Rules will keep you reading even when you most wish you could look away.
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Painful and revealing
- By M. McGregor on 04-01-24
- House Rules
- A Memoir
- By: Rachel Sontag
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
Painful and revealing
Reviewed: 04-01-24
Yes, the author grew up in relative privilege, but any neglected or abused child knows that college funds and trips abroad don't make up for a self-absorbed parent's heedless cruelty. This was an infuriating listen at times, that had me talking back to her father like I wish the author could have with impunity.
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An American Tragedy
- By: Theodore Dreiser
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 34 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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An American Tragedy is the story of Clyde Griffiths, who spends his life in the desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream.
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Funny in Perspective
- By Michael on 11-23-14
- An American Tragedy
- By: Theodore Dreiser
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
Past as prologue
Reviewed: 12-21-23
I love going back to titles from a century ago or more to see what still resonates today. With An American Tragedy, a lot. Stories like this still happen and probably always will, but not usually told so well. The characters are so fully fleshed out, their environments, their aspirations, their weaknesses, their shameful fears. And Dan John Miller's voice acting is superb, contributing much to the portrait of each individual.
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Pretty Little Killers
- The Truth Behind the Savage Murder of Skylar Neese
- By: Daleen Berry, Geoffrey C. Fuller
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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After killer Shelia Eddy pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison and Rachel Shoaf was sentenced to thirty years for second-degree murder, family, friends, investigators, and other key sources reveal the facts you would have learned if the case had gone to trial.
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"I finally decided to get this....
- By leelee8888 on 02-01-16
- Pretty Little Killers
- The Truth Behind the Savage Murder of Skylar Neese
- By: Daleen Berry, Geoffrey C. Fuller
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
Monongahela
Reviewed: 10-26-23
Let me get my gripe out of the way—please, narrators, learn how to pronounce proper names!!! It's Muh-non-ga-HEE-la.
Otherwise, an absorbing, thorough account of a bewildering crime. I'm not sure we'll ever know the complete "why" but not for lack of trying on the part of the authors.
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