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We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
Shirley Jackson’s deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family takes readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, macabre humor, and gothic atmosphere.
Six years after four family members died suspiciously of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune—and manages to penetrate into their carefully shielded lives. Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods, resulting in crisis, tragedy, and the revelation of a terrible secret.
Jackson’s novel emerges less as a study in eccentricity and more—like some of her other fictions—as a powerful critique of the anxious, ruthless processes involved in the maintenance of normalcy itself.
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Editor's Pick
"When I first listened to this classic last year, I truly couldn’t believe that I had gone so long without it in my life. With its atmospheric prose, mysterious characters, and a slow revealing plot that's haunting in the purest sense of the word, We Have Always Lived in the Castle has quickly found its way onto my list of top 10 favorite novels (and listens—Bernadette Dunne's performance brilliantly evokes Jackson's melancholy, ominous tone)."
—Sam D., Audible Editor
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- By Kid at Heart on 11-10-18
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The Girl in the Locked Room
- A Ghost Story
- By: Mary Downing Hahn
- Narrated by: Rachel Dulude
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Jules' family moves into an old abandoned house. Her parents love it, but she's frightened and feels a sense of foreboding. When she sees a pale face in an upstairs window, she can't stop wondering about the eerie presence on the top floor - in a room with a locked door. Her fear replaced by fascination, Jules becomes determined to make contact with the mysterious figure and to unlock the door. Past and present intersect as she and her ghostly friend discover the fate of the family who lived in the house all those many years ago.
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Excellent Narrator!
- By Seth Adam Smith on 05-02-20
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I Capture the Castle
- By: Dodie Smith
- Narrated by: Jenny Agutter
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In this coming of age story, Dodie Smith introduces the visionary and eccentric character of seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain. The youngest daughter in a family of impoverished artists, it is her imagination and writing that takes us away from the ramshackle old English castle where they live, and towards an intriguing tale of husband-hunting and light-hearted sibling rivalry.
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Well, that was a surprise
- By Matthew on 12-16-13
By: Dodie Smith
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Blackwater: The Complete Saga
- By: Michael McDowell
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 30 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Blackwater is the saga of a small town, Perdido, Alabama, and Elinor Dammert, the stranger who arrives there under mysterious circumstances on Easter Sunday, 1919. On the surface, Elinor is gracious, charming, anxious to belong in Perdido, and eager to marry Oscar Caskey, the eldest son of Perdido's first family. But her beautiful exterior hides a shocking secret. Beneath the waters of the Perdido River, she turns into something terrifying, a creature whispered about in stories that have chilled the residents of Perdido for generations.
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A 6 Star Worthy Epic!
- By jksullycats on 10-29-17
By: Michael McDowell
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The Lark
- By: E. Nesbit
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.
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It has that wonderful charm of the tales of old...
- By Lidia Chymkowska on 10-03-18
By: E. Nesbit
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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The Probable Future
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window to the future - a future that she might not want to see.
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Nice, gentle story for when you feel bad.
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-17
By: Alice Hoffman
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Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
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not to miss audible experience
- By dallas on 12-08-09
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Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
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When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
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The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker
- By: E. D. Baker
- Narrated by: Emily Bauer
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Cory is a young tooth fairy in training who wants to be anything but that, except there's no way the Tooth Fairy Guild or her mother will let that happen. After yet another bad night on the job, Cory quits to explore other things--like babysitting an adventurous Humpty Dumpty, helping Suzy organize seashells by the seashore, and attempting to finally rid the spiders that plague Marjorie Muffet. But it isn't until Marjorie asks Cory to help set her up with a boy that Cory taps into a power she never knew she had.
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Just alright
- By Angela Hunt on 01-27-15
By: E. D. Baker
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Enemy Brothers (Living History Library)
- By: Constance Savery
- Narrated by: Paul L. Coffey
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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British airman Dym Ingleford is convinced that the young German prisoner, Max Eckermann, is his brother Anthony, who was kidnapped years before. Raised in the Nazi ideology, Tony has by chance tumbled into British hands. Dym has brought him back, at least temporarily, to the family he neither remembers nor will acknowledge as his own.
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More people should read this wonderful story!!!
- By E.F.B. on 08-02-18
By: Constance Savery
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Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.
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Well written horror tale
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Hangsaman
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Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything - even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.
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Julia Whelan’s narration in sweet perfection …
- By Karenique on 12-29-21
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Dark Tales
- By: Shirley Jackson, Ottessa Moshfegh - foreword
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After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.
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Spoilerific Foreword
- By Erik N on 10-29-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Lottery, and Other Stories
- By: Shirley Jackson
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- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.
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Title List:
- By Carol on 10-28-19
By: Shirley Jackson
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The Witchcraft of Salem Village
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Stories of magic, superstition, and witchcraft were strictly forbidden in the little town of Salem Village. But a group of young girls ignored those rules, spellbound by the tales told by a woman named Tituba. When questioned about their activities, the terrified girls set off a whirlwind of controversy as they accused townsperson after townsperson of being witches.
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A true historical horror
- By Felicia J on 10-14-16
By: Shirley Jackson
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The Bird's Nest
- By: Shirley Jackson, Kevin Wilson - foreword
- Narrated by: Linda Jones, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
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Great audio version
- By jaspersu on 10-21-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Haunting of Hill House
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.
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Well written horror tale
- By C K White on 02-11-14
By: Shirley Jackson
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Hangsaman
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
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Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything - even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.
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Julia Whelan’s narration in sweet perfection …
- By Karenique on 12-29-21
By: Shirley Jackson
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Dark Tales
- By: Shirley Jackson, Ottessa Moshfegh - foreword
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Kimberly Farr, Karissa Vacker, and others
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.
-
-
Spoilerific Foreword
- By Erik N on 10-29-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Lottery, and Other Stories
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Gabrielle de Cuir, Kathe Mazur, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.
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Title List:
- By Carol on 10-28-19
By: Shirley Jackson
-
The Witchcraft of Salem Village
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stories of magic, superstition, and witchcraft were strictly forbidden in the little town of Salem Village. But a group of young girls ignored those rules, spellbound by the tales told by a woman named Tituba. When questioned about their activities, the terrified girls set off a whirlwind of controversy as they accused townsperson after townsperson of being witches.
-
-
A true historical horror
- By Felicia J on 10-14-16
By: Shirley Jackson
-
The Bird's Nest
- By: Shirley Jackson, Kevin Wilson - foreword
- Narrated by: Linda Jones, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
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Great audio version
- By jaspersu on 10-21-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Sundial
- By: Shirley Jackson, Victor LaValle - foreword
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Dion Graham
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world.
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Road Through the Wall
- By: Shirley Jackson, Ruth Franklin - foreword
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
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Performance
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Pepper Street is a really nice, safe California neighborhood. The houses are tidy, and the lawns are neatly mowed. Of course, the country club is close by, and lots of pleasant folks live there. The only problem is they knocked down the wall at the end of the street to make way for a road to a new housing development. Now, that’s not good - it’s just not good at all. Satirically exploring what happens when a smug suburban neighborhood is breached by awful, unavoidable truths, The Road Through the Wall is the tale that launched Shirley Jackson’s heralded career.
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Ugh
- By MishiB on 03-27-24
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
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The Turn of the Screw
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Emma Thompson, Richard Armitage - introduction
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy winner Emma Thompson lends her immense talent and experienced voice to Henry James' Gothic ghost tale, The Turn of the Screw. When a governess is hired to care for two children at a British country estate, she begins to sense an otherworldly presence around the grounds. Are they really ghosts she's seeing? Or is something far more sinister at work?
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Great, but Mightn't be the Best on Audible
- By Gillian on 03-16-16
By: Henry James
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Blind Owl
- By: Sadeq Hedayat, Sassan Tabatabai - translator introduction
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef, Sassan Tabatabai
- Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by one of the greatest Iranian writers of the 20th century, Blind Owl tells a three-part story of a pen-case painter, an isolated narrator with a fragile relationship with time and reality. In part one, he relates his own story in the first person, in a string of hazy, dreamlike recollections fueled by opium and alcohol. He spends time painting the covers of pen cases only to paint the exact same scene: an old man wearing a cape and turban sitting under a cypress tree, separated by a stream from a beautiful woman in black who is bending down to offer him a waterlily.
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Masterful Work and Great Narration
- By Anthony W. on 09-24-22
By: Sadeq Hedayat, and others
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Let Me Tell You
- New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Gary Bennett, Mark Deakins, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion.
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Surprise!
- By Donea Clancy on 02-02-23
By: Shirley Jackson
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Shirley Jackson
- A Rather Haunted Life
- By: Ruth Franklin
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Known to millions mainly as the author of the "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson has been curiously absent from the mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
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An incredible writer; a courageous woman
- By Lesley on 10-08-16
By: Ruth Franklin
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The Lottery and Seven Other Stories
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Carol Jordan Stewart
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
It's just townspeople picking numbers for the annual lottery...why, then, is there an ominous feeling to "The Lottery"? Find out just what this lottery is for, and listen to seven other unique stories. The collection reveals Jackson's remarkable range, from hilarious to horrifying, dealing with modern issues of alienation, empowerment, racism, and economic class.
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Literary history, mishandled.
- By Wild Wise Woman on 04-06-12
By: Shirley Jackson
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Lapvona
- A Novel
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be.
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uncomfortable
- By Stetson on 07-04-22
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
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Hell House
- By: Richard Matheson
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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For over 20 years, Belasco House has stood empty. Regarded as the Mt. Everest of haunted houses, its shadowed walls have witnessed scenes of unimaginable horror and depravity. All previous attempts to probe its mysteries have ended in murder, suicide, or insanity.
But now, a new investigation has been launched, bringing four strangers to Belasco House in search of the ultimate secrets of life and death. A wealthy publisher, brooding over his impending death, has paid a physicist and two mediums to establish the facts of life after death once and for all. For one night, they will investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townsfolk refer to it as the Hell House.
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Hell House is like Hill House, but fiercer
- By Phebe on 08-13-12
By: Richard Matheson
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Come Closer
- By: Sara Gran
- Narrated by: Julie McKay
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.
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Don’t listen or read this book, use caution.
- By amyk0506 on 03-02-21
By: Sara Gran
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Turn of the Screw
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble, Julie Teal
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate...an estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows—silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse, the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil.
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The Best Ghost Story Ever Written
- By Anonymous User on 07-19-22
By: Henry James
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The Stranger
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Albert Camus' The Stranger is one of the most widely read novels in the world, with millions of copies sold. It stands as perhaps the greatest existentialist tale ever conceived, and is certainly one of the most important and influential books ever produced. Now, for the first time, this revered masterpiece is available as an unabridged audio production.
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Is amorality bad?
- By Rolando on 03-10-14
By: Albert Camus
What listeners say about We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- jaspersu
- 10-28-12
The narration changed my interpretation
I first read this book as a kid and at the time identified with the teenage Mary Katherine, without questioning her as an "unreliable narrator." When I got the audiobook all these years later, I thought it would be fun to revisit a story I had liked. I was surprised at how Bernadette Dunne voiced the narrator character. She has a kind of tremor of fear in her voice right from the start. This isn't the quirky imaginative heroine who faces down the hateful townfolk and her encroaching cousin that I remember: this is a phobic young woman who tries to use to ritual to try to control her world, who is disturbed and disturbing!
After listening to this recording, I found myself questioning my earlier interpretation of the whole story. Though Mary Katherine calls her cousin Charles a ghost, this one isn't a ghost story. Though Mary Katherine believes in magic, and tries to create magic protection for herself, this one isn't a supernatural story. Still, the further the story goes, the further it is from reality. The ending is what I remembered, but I don't remember finding it so strange and unbelievable. This is a good thing, to me. There is so much more to think about and wonder about after hearing the recording.
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188 people found this helpful
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- Janice
- 10-25-13
Eloquently disturbing
Completely defies definition. Not really a thriller, mystery or horror story. No violence or gore, nothing overtly supernatural, and yet from the very beginning you feel unsettled, disturbed. You know something is just wrong, but have no choice but to take the grand tour of the Blackwood’s home and life with Merricat as your tour guide. No other perspective is provided, and as the tour progresses you kind of want to escape, but remain mesmerized in spite of yourself (like one guest who comes to tea uninvited). The family fears the outside world, the villagers fear the family, and the reader watches transfixed as inevitable forces ignite those fears into horrible actions/reactions. Humans really are the scariest of all creatures. Perfectly read by Bernadette Dunne.
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96 people found this helpful
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- Brent
- 06-23-13
Brilliant and creepy tale of agoraphobic sisters
Some people might not "get" this book, but if it works for you, you are in for a treat. Shirley Jackson is a brilliant writer, and this is her at her best. It is not a horror novel like The Haunting of Hill House, but it's still very unsettling. It is about a family who live a secluded life. The protagonist is creepy, but also very sympathetic, so as the reader you root for her even as she does weird things, like doing things she considers to be magic spells (e.g., nailing things to trees), and trying to avoid society. She is a great example of an unreliable narrator, and seeing the story through her eyes makes it much more affecting and surreal.
The narration is fantastic. Dunne's tone evokes the antisocial fear and strangeness that the text should have.
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40 people found this helpful
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- karen
- 03-08-12
Absolutely marvelous -- creepy as all-get-out
This is really a classic -- not only the fine Shirley Jackson book, but the narration turns it into a work of art, creepy and intense. Even if you've read the story, this is a new experience. It gave me a new appreciation for Shirley Jackson, too, although this is one of those books where the audio version is really preferable to the printed version. If you like classic horror, don't miss this one.
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28 people found this helpful
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- David
- 09-10-11
A savory bit of creepilicousness
Mary Katherine ("Merricat") and Constance Blackwood live with their wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian in their once-grand family home. The wealthy Blackwoods have always been ostracized by the local townspeople, but when almost the entire Blackwood clan is wiped out by arsenic poisoning, the survivors become outcasts, hated and shunned. Constance was tried for the crime but acquitted; now she hides in her home, unable to face the accusing eyes and jeers of the outside world.
The story is narrated from the viewpoint of Mary Katherine, whose life is full of strange rituals and talking to her cat, Jonas. She is fascinated with poisonous herbs, she fantasizes about living on the moon, and she wants most of all to live with her sister Constance and never see anyone else. She creates magic words, buries things in the yard, and uses other spell-like rituals to "protect" the house and her sister, and since Merricat is the one telling the story, it's not clear whether she's really crazy or not.
The story unfolds slowly until you have a pretty good idea of what really happened before it is revealed, but the brooding, sinister tone of this short novel is creepy and dark and gothic, and by the end, it's not clear who the real villains are: the person who murdered an entire family, the greedy cousin who shows up looking for the supposed fortune hidden in the house, or the envious, grudging, small-minded villagers who feign concern and hospitality while mocking the Blackwood girls behind their backs.
Not t your typical horror story; all the deaths have already happened before the book begins, and if you are looking for elements of the supernatural, you will have to look hard. This is what you might call an American psychological thriller, where the horror is what is very subtly revealed about Merricat and Constance and the Blackwood family, and the nature of ordinary people in ordinary small towns.
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28 people found this helpful
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- Mark
- 11-04-10
Gripping Gothic Experience
Dunne's performance of this dark, insinuating book is excellent. The voice of the first-person narrator really gets inside of your head and it is hard to shake her when you take off the head phones. The book explores a lot of Jackson's obsessions, her belief in the reality of magic and witchcraft, and seems built upon her later-in-life fear of people outside her small circle and related agoraphobia.
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- Kali
- 09-12-13
beyond creepy...
“Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
This is an amazing book. I didn't realize going in that Shirley Jackson had written the famous/crazy/haunting short story The Lottery.
I think it is hard for books to capture the pressures of society and its norms on the individual. There is a bit of hysteria that goes on in the mind regarding the world outside of ourselves, that many novels glide right over as they head straight to the action. We Have Always Lived in the Castle captures the inner workings of an unhealthy family in such a true way it is difficult to read. Nothing much happens here, yet everything is laced in fear and suspicion.
The only other books I've discovered which are able to capture the overbearing role a person's mind and thoughts play in their life are older ones, like Poe, or the more recent American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman. It takes a truly incredible author to chronicle little external action, and still create a gripping read.
My only regret here was listening to the Audible version rather than getting the hard copy with the intro from Jonathan Lethem. The audiobook didn't include his introduction, and the narrator really overplayed a story that could have stood on its own without the theatrics.
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- Carol
- 10-21-17
You have to read between the lines
Weird but atmospheric tale of of two sisters, Merricat and Constance who live in agoraphobic isolation in a large old house with their senile old wheelchair bound uncle Julian. All of the rest of their family is long dead. Poisoned with arsenic six years ago. Constance stood trial for the deaths but was acquitted. Still the towns folk taunt and bully them. Thinking Constance killed her family with poisoned food. So the sisters stay at home. With money in a safe instead of a bank.
Eighteen year old Merricat is the only one who ever leaves the house, going out twice a week for food. Dodging the stares and condemnation of the towns folk. Merricat, the narrator of the story lives in a fantasy life. Wishing to be on the moon when people get to close to her. When ever they make fun of her she retreats into her fantasy world.
Her older sister Constance watches over every one constantly cooking, cleaning, gardening and baking and making tea. The entire story is a conversation in Merricat's warped brain. Child like fantasy life of an 18 year old. The unreliable narrator. The best parts of the book are what is not said but implied. Is Constance afraid to leave the house or is there something else going on? This is where Jackson's writing excels. But you have to have the patience to worm out the the unsaid from the silly babbling of girl who refuses to grown up. The implied but not spoken. Mericat buries objects in the garden. She has adventures in her head. Plays and talks to her cat. She secretly wishes people dead or disappeared. She places talisman all over their garden to ward off evil. Then one day a book she nailed to a tree falls and she thinks it is a bad omen. Something bad will happen. And it does.
Excellent writing but such a depressing story of cruelty, manipulation and mental illness. Not at all a horror story but very atmospheric. Leaving more mystery behind. This story is haunting without being a horror story.
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- mary
- 07-02-12
Maybe it's me...
Any additional comments?
I must have missed it. Good performance, but I got more frustrated with the story as it went along. I enjoyed the writing style, especially a few particular scene narratives, but I was left with a "why did I do that? feeling". Not scary, just kind of weird.
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- Darwin8u
- 11-15-18
Our house was a castle, turreted & open to the sky
Our house was a castle, turreted and open to the sky.
- Shirley Jackson, We have Always Lived in the Castle.
This is my second Shirley Jackson in two days. I'm running full-speed into Halloween I guess. This year, as I mentioned in my previous review, I wanted to read something literary, but scary. Lucky for me, Penguin's Deluxe Classics set has two nice editions of Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle and 'The Haunting of Hill House".
Having now read both, I'm not sure which I like the most. This one, probably. It is just a crazy, hot mess. It leaves you, even in the end, wondering who in the story is crazier (more unsettled)? Jonathan Lethem, in his introduction, made a good point, that Jackson's writing, at its core "conveys a vast intimacy with everyday evil, with the pathological undertones of prosaic human configurations: a village, a family, a self. She disinterred the wickedness in normality, cataloguing the ways conformity and repression tip into psychosis, persecution, and paranoia, into cruielty and its masochistitic, injury-cherishing twin."
Perfectly stated. That's why Lethem makes the big bucks. Jackson gets the big bucks because like David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, and Patricia Highsmith, Jackson has the pulse on suburban American wickedness. As I was reading this story, it made me think of the tribal and vicious nature of my Arizona neighbors and friends when presented with something different, odd, and perhaps a bit scary. But not just in my home town. It could be in Montgomery, Pittsburg, Charlottesville. We are living NOW in an era when it doesn't take much for your neighbor to grab a torch, a pitchfork, and come after YOU.
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