Audio Books for the ‘Fiction’ Category

• Shackleton’s Way

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  Shackleton’s Way – Audio Book Summary

  Sir Ernest Shackleton was one of the greatest explorers and leaders of men in the 20th Century. From 1914 to 1916, following the wreck of his ship Endurance and despite finding himself stranded 1200 miles from any form of communication and with no hope of rescue, he led all 27 of his men to safety. After spending several months on the pack-ice living on seals, dogs, and penguins, they embarked on an heroic 800-mile trip across the frigid South Atlantic – in little more than a rowboat.

  The authors of Shackletons Way, a Shackleton scholar and Wall Street Journal writer, have come together to present the explorer’s timeless leadership skills � skills that can be learned by anyone of any generation. This recording is essential listening, not only for those ambitious for the top job but also for those who are fascinated by the derring-do exploits of a man of immense stature.

  

• Yvonne Keuls’ Favorieten [Yvonne Keuls' Favorites]

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  Yvonne Keuls’ Favorieten [Yvonne Keuls' Favorites] – Audio Book Summary

  Yvonne Keuls reads her favourite stories, a selection of the stories from Familiegedoe and Madame K – van Indisch kind tot Haagse dame. Familiegedoe is a collection of 100 stories, many of them published in the Haagsche Courant in abbreviated form. Family refers to Yvonnes own family, but also to the families of friends and even the Royal family. Yvonne puts the “stuff” in all these families with her keen observations, her humour and her playful use of language.

  Please note: This audiobook is in Dutch.

  

• Zoli

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  Zoli – Audio Book Summary

  Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the travelling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as by desire. As fascism spreads over 1930s Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romanian harpists. Sharpened and inspired by reading books, Zoli becomes the symbol of a supposedly brave new world of tolerance in the Soviet Union. But as her fame grows and her skills deepen, the ruling Communists begin to use her for their own purposes.

  

• Älskade syster: En StorySide novell [Beloved Sister: A StorySide Novel]

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  Älskade syster: En StorySide novell [Beloved Sister: A StorySide Novel] – Audio Book Summary

  Hans systers hjärta var krossat. Överklassynglet hade dumpat henne. Hon hade blivit mager som en sticka och skurit sig i armarna. De stod varandra så nära. När de var små hade de samlat etiketter, på hennes ena födelsedag hade han gett henne hela sin del av samlingen, hon hade blivit så lycklig. Trots att hon var förkrossad tyckte han på sätt och vis att det var skönt, hon var tillbaka där hon hörde hemma, hos honom och modern. Men han skulle hämnas…Utgiven av StorySide AB 2004.

  Please note: This audiobook is in Swedish.

  

• Änkornas Café: En StorySide novell [Widows Cafe: A StorySide Novel]

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  Änkornas Café: En StorySide novell [Widows Cafe: A StorySide Novel] – Audio Book Summary

  Tjugo år stod hon ut. När hon till slut satte stopp för det förundrades hon hur enkelt det var. Ryktet hade fort spridit sig i de dolda nätverk som fanns. Och alla hade de kommit till Änkornas Café. Briljant novell av en av Sveriges största deckarförfattarinnor. Utgiven av StorySide AB 2009.

  Please note: This audiobook is in Swedish.

  

• The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn: A Novel

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn: A Novel – Audio Book Summary

  A failed prodigy and child of divorce, Francesca Dunn is also an adolescent like any other, trying to find her identity and figure out her place in the world. One night, Chester, a visionary homeless man (or an insane one, depending on your point of view) “sees” Francesca hovering over the river, bathed in celestial light. Days later, as Francesca serves meals to the needy in a local cafi, Chester falls to his knees before her in adoration. Word spreads, hordes of followers converge, and the result is a catastrophic storm of fervent belief and doubt, the relentless and perpetual desire for salvation, possible miracles, and an adolescent trapped by events far beyond her control.

  The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn is a beautifully crafted tale about people who pin their hopes for spiritual salvation on a young girl; and how, slowly, surely, and tragically, she comes to believe that she is the divine being they want her to be. At stake for each is nothing less than the fundamental belief in the structure of the world, and the balance between the miraculous and the mundane.

  Narrating by turns are four disparate characters who tell the story as they see it: Chester, who smells fear, disease, and holiness and appoints himself Francesca’s protector and follower; Anne Dunn, Francesca’s paleobotanist mother, who places her faith in Darwin and natural selection; Sid, the schoolmate, who wants to use Francesca’s new circumstances for her own profit; and Francesca herself, who becomes increasingly deluded by the adoration bestowed upon her.

  At once powerful, tender, and humorous, The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn is an astonishing and resonant work from an exciting new talent. With each of its gentle revelations, the novel brings an unforgettable cast of characters to vibrant life as it brilliantly explores the seductive and destructive power of belief.

  

• The Castle in the Forest: A Novel

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  The Castle in the Forest: A Novel – Audio Book Summary

  

  • ABRIDGED | view unabridged
  • by Norman Mailer
  • Narrated by Harris Yulin

  

• The Commoner: A Novel

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  The Commoner: A Novel – Audio Book Summary

  It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family, marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She is the first non-aristocratic woman to enter the longest-running, almost hermetically sealed, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, Haruko is controlled at every turn. The only interest the court has in her is her ability to produce an heir. After finally giving birth to a son, Haruko suffers a nervous breakdown and loses her voice. However, determined not to be crushed by the imperial bureaucrats, she perseveres. Thirty years later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman, a rising star in the foreign ministry, to accept the marriage proposal of her son, the Crown Prince. The consequences are tragic and dramatic.

  Told in the voice of Haruko, meticulously researched and superbly imagined, The Commoner is the mesmerizing, moving, and surprising story of a brutally rarified and controlled existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex relationship between two isolated women who, despite being visible to all, are truly understood only by each other. With the unerring skill of a master storyteller, John Burnham Schwartz has written his finest novel yet.

  

• The Confederate General Rides North: A Novel

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  The Confederate General Rides North: A Novel – Audio Book Summary

  Debut author Amanda C. Gable places the “emphasis of this quietly moving novel…on the daughter’s inner journey toward maturity” (Publishers Weekly).

  It’s the 1960s in Marietta, Georgia, and 11-year-old Katherine McConnell has been raised to see the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression. When her mother plans a business trip north, Katherine tags along, visiting historic battlefields along the way. But with each stop, her perspectives on the war, her mother, and her upbringing undergo drastic changes.

  

• The Deadwood Beetle: A Novel

  Category: Fiction | Response: 0

  The Deadwood Beetle: A Novel – Audio Book Summary

  Tristan Martens, a retired entomologist, is shaken by the discovery of his mother’s sewing table in a New York antique shop. He hasn’t seen it since he was a boy in Holland, but he vividly remembers the last time he did. Only Tristan knows the painful truth behind the scrawled – and misunderstood – inscription on the bottom of the table, and he embarks on a scheme to acquire it from the shop’s owner, Cora Lowenstein, who insists it’s not for sale.

  But as their lives become entangled, Tristan must make a choice. Can he tell Cora the truth? Begun in deceit, their relationship and Tristan’s salvation hinge on his willingness to confront and finally confess the terrible secrets of his family’s past.

  In startlingly beautiful prose resonant with dramatic tension, Mylene Dressler tells the heartrending story of an old man taking his last chance and struggling toward an elusive redemption and the even more distant hope of love.