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This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett's life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore.
As she shares stories of the people, places, ideals, and art to which she has remained indelibly committed, Ann Patchett brings into focus the large experiences and small moments that have shaped her as a daughter, wife, and writer.
Critic reviews
"Readable and candid, Patchett’s collection is a joyful celebration of life, love and the written word." (Kirkus Reviews)
"Reading Patchett is like spending time with a deeply perceptive longtime pal, or a new friend that one instantly connects with." (USA Today)
"[A] sparkling collection." (The New Yorker)
Featured Article: 65+ Quotes About Love from Much-Loved Authors
While saying "I love you" speaks volumes, there are times when you yearn to express your feelings for a loved one—whether a cherished friend, serious crush, or your soul mate—in a way that's more creative, more eloquent, more memorable...in a word: quotable. For those times, there's no better source to turn to than great authors. We've collected some of most tender, most romantic, and most passionate quotes from the world's most-loved authors.
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Writer, poet, and teacher Natalie Goldberg shows you how to unleash your "wild mind" - the true source of your creative power. In this crisp mix of memoir, teaching guide, nonfiction and poetry, Goldberg strips creativity to the essential mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive, and hungry." Natalie is compassionate, practical, and humorous. "Even if it's just a leg hanging out the window, she says, "write it down." Highlights include: provocative "try this" exercises to compel you into action, advice on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block. She'll also explore the larger vision of the writer's task: knowing when to take risks as a writer and a person, learning self-acceptance in life and art.
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Get to know Natalie Goldberg
- By Sven Severin on 04-21-15
By: Natalie Goldberg
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To See the Moon Again
- By: Jamie Langston Turner
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it …Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world.
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Beautiful Story of Forgiveness and Selfless Love
- By sharon on 09-20-14
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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Laughing Without an Accent
- Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition. (Hint: It may have to do with brushing and flossing daily.)
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Sigh
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Firoozeh Dumas
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There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
- By: Paula Poundstone
- Narrated by: Paula Poundstone
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
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What do the lives of Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and other historical figures have in common with Paula Poundstone? In the hands of this wryly observant and self-deprecating comedian, the answer is outrageously funny and unexpectedly touching. Poundstone compares her crazy life to theirs, as she holds forth on her children, her career, and the time in her life when it appeared she would lose them both.
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More!
- By Evelyn on 02-11-07
By: Paula Poundstone
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Flesh Wounds
- By: Richard Glover
- Narrated by: Richard Glover
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family...Richard Glover's favourite dinner-party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?' It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed toy collector.
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Such a Meaningful Reflection
- By Awarenessing on 11-28-15
By: Richard Glover
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Chicken Soup for the Soul - Find Your Happiness
- 101 Inspirational Stories about Finding Your Purpose, Passion, and Joy
- By: Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen
- Narrated by: Cynthia Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What makes you happy? Others share how they found their passion, purpose, and joy in life in these 101 personal and exciting stories that are sure to inspire and encourage listeners to find their own happiness. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness will encourage listeners to pursue their dreams, find their passion and seek joy in their life with its 101 personal and inspiring stories. This book continues Chicken Soup for the Soul’s focus on inspiration and hope, reminding us that we all can find our own happiness.
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I got even more depressed
- By Tom on 09-08-14
By: Jack Canfield, and others
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My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
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An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
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Because I Come from a Crazy Family
- The Making of a Psychiatrist
- By: Edward M. Hallowell
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edward M. Hallowell was 11, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, an alcoholic mother, an abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behaviour from those around him and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control.
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Love and connection permeates through this book!
- By Steve Steinmetz on 06-29-18
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An Uncomplicated Life
- A Father's Memoir of His Exceptional Daughter
- By: Paul Daugherty
- Narrated by: Robert McCollum
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A father’s exhilarating and funny love letter to his daughter with Down syndrome whose vibrant and infectious approach to life has something to teach all of us about how we can better live our own. Jillian Daugherty was born with Down syndrome. On the day Paul and Kerry, her parents, brought her home from the hospital they were flooded with worry and uncertainty, but also overwhelming love, which they channeled to “the job of building the better Jillian”. While their daughter had special needs, they refused to allow her to grow up needy - “expect, don’t accept” became their mantra.
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A Story on the Beauties of DS
- By Matthew on 04-16-23
By: Paul Daugherty
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And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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Run
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- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
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It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
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Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
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Truth & Beauty
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The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
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A grim tale of unrecovered co-dependency
- By Charles on 04-05-05
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Taft
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: J.D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft - Fay and Carl's dead father - and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers.
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Patchett's Novel's all Available on Audio Now
- By Murmansk on 09-26-19
By: Ann Patchett
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State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
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Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
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Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
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The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
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When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
- By Pamela Harvey on 06-10-08
By: Ann Patchett
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What Now?
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 53 mins
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Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by best-selling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, "What now?"
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A commencement message for life
- By Annie M. on 06-17-08
By: Ann Patchett
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Run
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
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Overall
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It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
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Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
By: Ann Patchett
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Truth & Beauty
- A Friendship
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
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A grim tale of unrecovered co-dependency
- By Charles on 04-05-05
By: Ann Patchett
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Taft
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: J.D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft - Fay and Carl's dead father - and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers.
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Patchett's Novel's all Available on Audio Now
- By Murmansk on 09-26-19
By: Ann Patchett
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State of Wonder
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Overall
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Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
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Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
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The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
- By Pamela Harvey on 06-10-08
By: Ann Patchett
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What Now?
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by best-selling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, "What now?"
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A commencement message for life
- By Annie M. on 06-17-08
By: Ann Patchett
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The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
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Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
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Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
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- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
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One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
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Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
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These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
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Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
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Bel Canto
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Ann Patchett’s award winning, New York Times best-selling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Pratchett’s other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician’s Assistant, the author’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
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Opera Has Charms to Soothe the Savage Guerillas
- By Mel on 03-01-13
By: Ann Patchett
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The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
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Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
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Escape Goat
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Farmer family has a big problem! Every day, their goat escapes, and every day, Mr. Farmer brings him back. So when things start to go awry on the farm, it must be the goat’s fault. Who’s to blame when Mrs. Farmer’s petunias are trampled? Or when all the cupcakes for Archie’s party disappear? And when the whole bucket of paint is spilled? Of course, everyone blames the goat! But is it really his fault?
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Great story
- By michelle on 11-07-20
By: Ann Patchett
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Mother Daughter Me
- A Memoir
- By: Katie Hafner
- Narrated by: Katie Hafner
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner's remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a "year in Provence" with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoe, Katie's teenage daughter. Katie and Zoe had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a 77-year-old woman set in her ways....
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Listen and be swept away!
- By Barbara Quick on 06-02-22
By: Katie Hafner
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If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother
- By: Julia Sweeney
- Narrated by: Julia Sweeney
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since her time on Saturday Night Live, where she created the infamous androgynous character "Pat", Julia Sweeney has gone on to establish herself as a witty, captivating performer of one-woman shows, like God Said Ha!, In the Family Way, and Letting Go of God. She gave a TED talk sharing how she explained the birds and the bees to her eight-year-old daughter, Mulan, which ignited an incredible response. Now, when it comes to talking about motherhood, people want to hear what Julia has to say.
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I Love Julia Sweeney
- By Lisa on 04-05-13
By: Julia Sweeney
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Happiness: A Memoir
- The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After
- By: Heather Harpham
- Narrated by: Heather Harpham
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant - Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends.
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Long & Tedious. If Only She'd Had a Good Editor.
- By Carolyn on 07-05-18
By: Heather Harpham
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Lambslide
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Nicolette Farmer is running for class president, and the rest of the Farmer family tells her she’ll win by a landslide. A pack of overconfident lambs mistakenly hear lambslide and can’t believe there’s a slide made just for them. But when they can’t find one on the farm, there’s only one thing left to do: take a vote! They campaign. They bargain. They ask all the other animals if they, too, would like a lambslide.
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Short and Sweet. And good.
- By Susanna Goodin on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
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Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
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So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
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You Think It, I'll Say It
- Stories
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout the 10 stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we're all thinking - if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
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Stories of people thinking and acting horribly towards each other
- By Ali K on 06-02-18
What listeners say about This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bonny
- 01-07-14
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage is everything other reviewers have said, and more. It’s a wonderfully-written and varied collection of Ann Patchett’s essays, ranging from musings about how she considered joining the Los Angeles Police Dept. in order to write about it and how she is influenced by her father, a retired LAPD police captain, to her feelings about her dog Rose and Sister Nena, the nun that taught her to read and write, to the eloquent and moving account of caring for her grandmother during her progression into dementia.
I’ve read and enjoyed (with reservations) several of Patchett’s novels. Bel Canto was great but I hated the ending, and I liked State of Wonder, except for some of the more ludicrous plot points. I personally found this collection of essays much more engrossing than any of her novels that I’ve read. She can write about almost anything, revealing thoughts, emotions, and advice without becoming preachy and overbearing.
I was completely unaware of Lucy Grealy, Patchett’s long-term friendship with her, and the controversies arising from their relationship. I’m very tempted to read Patchett’s Truth and Beauty to delve into this further, and may do that after I’ve had some time to digest the essay from Grealy’s sister in The Guardian. I’m hoping that Patchett will further show, as she did in this collection, that there are often quite a few ways of viewing a situation, and one absolute truth does not always exist.
I do have to thank Ann Patchett for leading me to an epiphany. In “Love Sustained”, she writes about the long and painful decline of her grandmother Eva:
“My grandmother had spent her life taking care of other people, cooking their food, cleaning their houses. It was her proof that she was valuable in the world. Now I cleaned my grandmother's apartment, which hurt her every single time. My cleaning was an accusation, no matter how quietly I went about it.”
When I read “It was her proof that she was valuable in the world.”, I gained a much better understanding of my dear mother-in-law. She raised five children with lots of hard work and no time to herself. Now that she has too much time to herself, she is missing that visible proof that she is valuable in the world. I could see her so clearly in that one simple sentence. I’m grateful for this entertaining and elucidative collection of essays that was a pleasure to read, and even more so when read by the author in the audio version.
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60 people found this helpful
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- Alisen Kona
- 03-10-15
David Sedaris said I'd like it, and I did.:-)
I went to see David Sedaris on his last tour and he usually has a book recommendation and this time it was this book. Huzzah.
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27 people found this helpful
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- Victoria Evangelina
- 09-13-14
for Ann Pratchett's fans
I was expecting a book on Ann's writing life, but got a collection of her essays, published during her life in a number of magazines. While the writing is good, and stories are sometimes good, too, it is quite repetative. I did love the essay about her dog and grandma's passing.
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24 people found this helpful
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- CGJ
- 03-20-14
The Story of an unhappy life
What did you like best about This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage? What did you like least?
Liked Rose the dog best. Author's narration was the worst. She sounded miffed, angry, just plain pissed off at so many things, people, places...the whole world.
Would you be willing to try another book from Ann Patchett? Why or why not?
Not really. Didn't like Bel Canto. Maybe this author is just not for me.
Would you be willing to try another one of Ann Patchett’s performances?
no. she does not have a reading voice that one wants to hear for more than 30 seconds.
Do you think This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Oh NO!
Any additional comments?
Many of us have been waitresses. Perhaps less bitter because we weren't frustrated poets and didn't go to Iowa to study graduate writing.
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23 people found this helpful
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- Andrea
- 10-12-15
Interesting and Engaging
Where does This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Pretty high: I've had a run of badly written or read books lately, so this was a welcome surprise. I truly had a sense of relief listening to it.
Who was your favorite character and why?
It's a series of essays, so there aren't any characters, only real people. The one consistency is the voice of the author, Ann Patchett. She comes across as very matter-of-fact, if not particularly introspective or self-reflective. That is partly what I liked about the book, as she doesn't wallow about in self-indulgent personal analysis. She seems to encounter life with the curiosity, bemusement and bewilderment of someone from another planet. One can almost see her squinting as she tries to figure out how other people approach their lives or perceive hers.
Which character – as performed by Ann Patchett – was your favorite?
Ann Patchett, as herself. Usually a book read by the author is the kiss of death for an audiobook, but in this case it works. She knows the cadence of her writing and, most importantly, her humor. I don't think it would work with anyone else reading.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. I listened to the chapters or articles sequentially but over the course of a few days of driving.
Any additional comments?
This is a very engaging collection of articles, especially as read by the author. My main image of it was as a beautiful workhorse of a book. It was a surprise, as I didn't realize she had a parallel career in non-fiction. I have had mixed-reactions to her novels, although I find the writing in them to be brilliant. Now I have fallen in love with her non-fiction writing. She has a pace and cadence, along with a combination of information, description, and humor, that is unerringly satisfying.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Momof3
- 07-15-16
Can't finish it
Writing is clean but horribly boring. It's only about Anne- the Title is misleading. Narrator is monotone and I can't stand listening to her talk. Cannot believe I wasted credits to buy this book. Save yourself- this is better off as firewood than a book taking up space.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Joanie elsten
- 04-15-16
Insufferable
Couldn't finish, even though I'm sure the author had fantastic advice. she reminded me of a cynical, weary professor.
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19 people found this helpful
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- nadine
- 04-25-14
Just go with it or not !
What did you love best about This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage?
Well I tried to like it. I even listened to it twice, no luck. She shouldn't narrate her books.
What did you like best about this story?
It just went on and on. Her voice drove me crazy,sorry,
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18 people found this helpful
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- Kim
- 06-04-15
Beautiful Non-Fiction short pieces
Ann Patchett at her finest. Real and surprising, funny, touching and honest. Each piece engaging in its own way. I learned so much, about writing, about what it's like to go through the police academy in LA, own an indie bookstore, love a nun, stand up and speak out in the face of criticism, and yes, have a happy marriage. Some of it is repetitive because of the nature of the collection. This is work collected over the years. Highly recommended.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Marcia Wilkinson
- 05-14-15
Unbelievably great!
Ann Patchett is a natural storyteller. Up until this point I had only read her fiction. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage are essays. At first glance I thought, oh, I'm not sure I'm going to like that. But from the first essay I read, I couldn't get enough. Stories of her life, her husband, being a divorced woman, her dog... Are all enchanting. Reading her stories is like sitting down with your best friend in learning about her life. Absolutely delightful. I'd recommend it to anyone. Thank you Ann Patchett for writing this book!
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6 people found this helpful