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Time's Magpie
- A Walk in Prague
- Narrated by: Myla Goldberg
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
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Time's Magpie
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Publisher's summary
Prague's personality is expressed as much by its obvious beauty as by its overlooked details. This unforgettable place is brought to life by acclaimed author Myla Goldberg, a former Prague expat, whose first novel, Bee Season, captivated so many with its unique voice and exhilarating prose.
Myla Goldberg lived in Prague in 1993, just as the process of Westernization was getting under way, the city straddling a past it wished to shed and a future it was eager to embrace. In 2003, she returned to see what the pursuit of capitalism had wrought and to observe the integral ways in which Prague's character had endured. In Time's Magpie, Goldberg explores a city where centuries-old buildings have become receptacles for Western values and a generation defined by the Communist regime coexists with a generation for whom communism is a rapidly fading memory.
This imaginative, individualistic journey will show you the odd and unique corners of a city often seeking to erase what its very stones will not allow it to forget.
Critic reviews
"A rich and vivid reflection on a beautiful, multifaceted city." (Publishers Weekly)
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- My Manhattan
- By: Pete Hamill
- Narrated by: Pete Hamill
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
In Downtown, Hamill leads us on an unforgettable journey through the city he loves, from the island's southern tip to 42nd Street, combining a moving memoir of his days and nights in New York with a passionate history of its most enduring places and people.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A frustrating read
- By David Ross on 09-09-05
By: Pete Hamill
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Lost on Planet China
- By: J. Maarten Troost
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 753
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 505
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 505
When the travel bug bit, J. Maarten Troost took on the world's most populous and intriguing nation. As Troost relates his gonzo adventure - dodging deadly drivers in Shanghai, eating yak in Tibet, deciphering restaurant menus (offering local favorites such as cattle penis with garlic), and visiting with Chairman Mao (still dead) - he reveals a vast, complex country on the brink of transformation that will soon shape the way we all work, live, and think.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I love Troost but...
- By Abigail on 02-25-09
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At Home in the World
- Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe
- By: Tsh Oxenreider
- Narrated by: Tsh Oxenreider
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 437
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 388
As Tsh Oxenreider, author of Notes from a Blue Bike, chronicles her family's adventure around the world. Seeing, smelling, and tasting the widely varying cultures along the way, she discovers what it truly means to be at home.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Having traveled the world as a kid myself.....
- By kmk on 07-31-17
By: Tsh Oxenreider
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Street Without a Name
- Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
- By: Kapka Kassabova
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and grew up under the drab, muddy, gray mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good start, but ended up not liking the author
- By Giselle on 11-02-21
By: Kapka Kassabova
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Vanishing New York
- How a Great City Lost Its Soul
- By: Jeremiah Moss
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
New York City has long been a destination for rebels and rule breakers, artists, writers, and other hopefuls longing to be part of its rich cultural exchange and unique social fabric. But today, modern gentrification is transforming the city from an exceptional, iconoclastic metropolis into a suburbanized luxury zone. Blogger and cultural commentator Jeremiah Moss leads us on a colorful guided tour of the most changed parts of town lovingly eulogizing iconic institutions as they're replaced with soulless upscale boutiques, luxury condo towers, and suburban chains.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A compelling story, but the narration???
- By S. McGee on 11-30-17
By: Jeremiah Moss
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Finding George Orwell in Burma
- By: Emma Larkin
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, she has come to know all too well the many ways this police state can be described as "Orwellian". The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. The connection between George Orwell and Burma is not simply metaphorical, of course; Orwell's mother was born in Burma, and he was shaped by his experiences there as a young man working for the British Imperial Police.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Orwell's Horrors Brought to Life
- By Roger on 09-21-10
By: Emma Larkin
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Black Dog of Fate
- A Memoir
- By: Peter Balakian
- Narrated by: Peter Balakian
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia. He was immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced: the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book!
- By Lm on 06-27-13
By: Peter Balakian
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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
- By: Dinaw Mengestu
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 171
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4 out of 5 stars 141
Ethiopian émigré Dinaw Mengestu is a skilled observer of people who offers a colorful debut work of fiction. Insightful and swiftly paced, this novel evokes past and present in the course of its compelling narrative. It's the `70s, and one D.C. neighborhood is undergoing big changes. In the mix is Ethiopian grocery owner Sepha Stephanos - a man with a complex past who fled his homeland after seeing his father brutalized by themilitary. He hopes for new prospects in D.C.'s gentrification process.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, wonderful reader
- By Lisbeth on 11-22-11
By: Dinaw Mengestu
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In Manchuria
- A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China
- By: Michael Meyer
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
For three years Meyer rented a home in the rice-farming community of Wasteland, hometown of his wife's family, and their personal saga mirrors the tremendous change most of rural China is undergoing in the form of a privately held rice company that has built new roads, introduced organic farming, and constructed high-rise apartments into which farmers can move in exchange for their land rights.
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you liked the Wonder Years...?
- By Judas Mallory on 05-19-15
By: Michael Meyer
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A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir
- By: Lev Golinkin
- Narrated by: Daniel Gamburg
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Lev Golinkin's memoir is the vivid, darkly comic, and poignant story of a young boy in the confusing and often chilling final decade of the Soviet Union. It's also the story of Lev Golinkin, the American man who finally confronts his buried past by returning to Austria and Eastern Europe to track down the strangers who made his escape possible…. and thank them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Touching, moving Memoir
- By Daryl on 04-13-15
By: Lev Golinkin
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House of Stone
- A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
- By: Anthony Shadid
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
When Anthony Shadid—one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya as the region erupted—was freed, he went home, not to Boston, Beirut, or Oklahoma, where he was raised by his Lebanese American family, but to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather, a place filled with memories of a lost era when the Middle East was a world of grace, grandeur, and unexpected departures.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bit depressing
- By Astrid Dahl on 03-17-12
By: Anthony Shadid
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Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
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Last Ember
- By: Daniel Levin
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 55
When Jonathan's firm sends him to Rome to discredit the testimony of a prominent U.N. antiquities official, a chance reunion leads to a hunt for the legendary Tabernacle Menorah: solid gold, eight feet high, stolen 2,000 years ago and never recovered. As Jonathan and his friend scour Rome's ancient sites for hints to its whereabouts, they quickly realize they are not alone and the precious menorah is a key to controlling history itself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Much better than the recent Dan Brown novel
- By Lori on 11-08-09
By: Daniel Levin
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The Art of Travel
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 177
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 155
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Story4 out of 5 stars 155
Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Dull, suggestions for better alternatives
- By J. Natael on 08-07-13
By: Alain de Botton
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Almost French
- By: Sarah Turnbull
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Story4 out of 5 stars 157
After backpacking her way around Europe journalist Sarah Turnbull is ready to embark on one last adventure before heading home to Sydney. A chance meeting with a charming Frenchman in Bucharest changes her travel plans forever. Acting on impulse, she agrees to visit Fredric in Paris for a week. Put a very French Frenchman together with a strong-willed Australian girl and the result is some spectacular - and often hilarious - cultural clashes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Almost Terrific
- By Elizabeth on 02-05-13
By: Sarah Turnbull
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The Sword of the Templars
- By: Paul Christopher
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4 out of 5 stars 83
After a lifetime on the front lines, Army Ranger John Holliday has resigned himself to ending his career teaching at West Point. But when his uncle passes away, Holliday discovers a mysterious medieval sword---wrapped in Adolf Hitler's personal battle standard. Then someone burns down his uncle's house in an attempt to retrieve the sword, and Holliday realizes that he's being drawn into a war that has been fought for centuries.
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2 out of 5 stars
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...And they say waterboarding is torture!!!
- By Daniel on 01-25-11
By: Paul Christopher
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