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The Golden House: A Novel , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 880min

A modern American epic set against the panorama of contemporary politics and culture - a hurtling mystery that is equal parts The Great Gatsby and The Bonfire of the Vanities. On the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of "the Gardens", a cloistered community in New York's Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is a bubble within a bubble, and the residents are immediately intrigued by the eccentric newcomer and his family. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya, a brilliant recluse with a tortured mind; Apu, the flamboyant artist, sexually and spiritually omnivorous, famous on 20 blocks; and D, at 22 the baby of the family, harboring an explosive secret even from himself. There is no mother, no wife, at least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king - a queen in want of an heir. Our guide to the Goldens' world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down. Set against the strange and exuberant backdrop of current American culture and politics, The Golden House also marks Salman Rushdie's triumphant and exciting return to realism. The result is a modern epic of love and terrorism, loss and reinvention - a powerful, timely story told with the daring and panache that make Salman Rushdie a force of light in our dark new age. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Vikas Adam. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/rand/005237/bk_rand_005237_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping

The Charlotte Stewart Interview, Hörbuch, Digital, 59min

When you pick up a memoir - particularly a celebrity memoir - part of the inherent appeal is that you can safely be a voyeur at arm's reach. But when that celebrity memoir falls short on sharing names and intimate details, well, that’s not a great listen. Because if you just wanted to hear how swell everybody is and how perfect a celebrity’s life is, you could just tune in to Ellen. So, in this interview, when I tell you that actress Charlotte Stewart's autobiography delivers on both boldface names and remarkably personal details, trust me, I’m underselling her book. Like who? Well, she had a long getaway weekend with singer Jim Morrison of The Doors shortly before his fateful final trip to Paris. She was married to actor Tim Considine, one of the sons in the CBS hit comedy My Three Sons - although that didn’t keep her from leading a wild life of sex and drugs of which her husband knew nothing. One of the few men she turned down was her boss for four years as she played the reserved schoolmarm Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie. The boss’s name? Pa Ingalls himself, Michael Landon. A few more names in her life’s story: Elvis Presley. Kevin Bacon. Kyle McLachlan. Neil Young. Joni Mitchell. Jimmy Stewart. Oh, and she inspired a scene in Tom Wolfe’s novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities. She also co-starred in David Lynch's breakthrough cult film Eraserhead as Mary X. And while she and the director never got together off the set, she did live on and off through the years with Eraserhead himself, Jack Nance. (And Lynch gave her the recurring role of Betsy Briggs on his legendary TV show Twin Peaks, a role she returned to in the show's third season in early 2017 on Showtime.) During today’s conversation, Charlotte will also read a short passage from Little House in the Hollywood Hills, which she co-wrote with Andy Demsky. Her book will blow your mind. Promise. Language: English. Narrator: Bob Andelman, Charlotte Stewart. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/bigh/001371/bk_bigh_001371_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping

Another Thing to Fall , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 540min

The California dream weavers have invaded Charm City with their cameras, their stars, and their controversy. When private investigator Tess Monaghan literally runs into the crew of the fledgling TV series Mann of Steel while sculling, she expects sharp words and evil looks, not an assignment. But the company has been plagued by a series of disturbing incidents since its arrival on location in Baltimore: bad press, union threats, and small, costly on-set "accidents" that have wreaked havoc with its shooting schedule. As a result, Mann's creator, Flip Tumulty, the son of a Hollywood legend, is worried for the safety of his young female lead, Selene Waites, and asks Tess to serve as her bodyguard/babysitter. Tumulty's concern may be well founded. Not long ago, a Baltimore man was discovered dead in his own home, surrounded by photos of the beautiful, difficult superstar-in-the-making. In the past, Tess has had enough trouble guarding her own body. Keeping a spoiled movie princess under wraps may be more than she can handle - even with the help of Tess' icily unflappable friend Whitney - since Selene is not as naive as everyone seems to think and is far more devious than she initially appears to be. This is not Tess' world. And these are not her kind of people, with their vanities, their self-serving agendas and invented personas, and their remarkably skewed visions of reality - from the series' aging, shallow, former pretty-boy leading man to its resentful, always-on-the-make co-writer, to the officious young assistant who may be too hungry for her own good. But the fish-out-of-water P.I. is abruptly pulled back in by an occurrence she's all too familiar with: murder. Suddenly, the wall of secrets around Mann of Steel is in danger of toppling, leaving shattered dreams, careers, and lives scattered among the ruins - a catastrophe that threatens the people Tess cares about...and the city she loves. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Linda Emond. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/harp/001613/bk_harp_001613_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping

A Hedge Fund Tale of Reach and Grasp: What's a Heaven For , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 718min

A Hedge Fund Tale of Reach and Grasp recounts the ecstasy and the agony of investors in the hubris-filled years of the great secular bull market and the terrors of the financial collapse. It is a story of personal and investment triumph and tragedy in the tradition of An American Tragedy and Bonfire of the Vanities. Though the tale is fiction, it is faithful to the actual market events of the decade of hedge fund madness and the ensuing destruction in the great bear market of 2007–2009 and its aftermath. In A Hedge Fund Tale of Reach and Grasp, the former top-ranked global strategist for Morgan Stanley, and now a hedge fund manager, expertly weaves fact and fiction to describe how the mysterious world of hedge funds and the people who run them really works. It is the story of how the brilliant but toxic interaction of brains, intensity, raw ambition, hubris, and greed combined with the “perform or perish” creed to fuel the egregious excesses and, eventually, contribute to the bursting of the stock market and financial bubbles. Lifestyles, portfolios, and loves were recklessly leveraged creating stunning excesses, but when the world turned, it wasn’t just proud fortunes that were lost; relationships and souls were ravaged as well. There is a compelling, but tragic, love story here about two people who celebrated love as a solution to spiritual isolation. The novel is also an investment chronicle, a tragic saga of how all brilliant performance is transitory and how, unfortunately, there is no stock market strategy that works forever and that too much money can’t spoil. The protagonist is Joe Hill, an authentic American hedge fund success story if there ever was one, who came from nowhere, reached for heaven, and momentarily grasped it. Joe Hill isn’t the typical Wall Street whiz kid sporting an Ivy League education. Born on the wrong side of the tracks in rural Virginia, Joe had to work for everything he wanted. And he wanted it a ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Don Hagen. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/gdan/000510/bk_gdan_000510_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping

The Barbarian Nurseries , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 958min

The great panoramic social novel that Los Angeles deserves—a 21st-century, West Coast Bonfire of the Vanities by the only writer qualified to capture the city in all its glory and complexity. With The Barbarian Nurseries, Héctor Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, taking us beyond the glimmer of Hollywood and deeper than camera-ready crime stories to reveal Southern California life as it really is, across its vast, sunshiny sprawl of classes, languages, dreams, and ambitions. Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household—one of three Mexican employees in a Spanish-style house with lovely views of the Pacific. She has been responsible strictly for the cooking and cleaning, but the recession has hit, and suddenly Araceli is the last Mexican standing—unless you count Scott Torres, though you’d never suspect he was half Mexican but for his last name and an old family photo with central LA in the background. The financial pressure is causing the kind of fights that even Araceli knows the children shouldn’t hear, and then one morning, after a particularly dramatic fight, Araceli wakes to an empty house—except for the two Torres-Thompson boys, little aliens she’s never had to interact with before. Their parents are unreachable, and the only family member she knows of is Señor Torres, the subject of that old family photo. So she does the only thing she can think of and heads to the bus stop to seek out their grandfather. It will be an adventure, she tells the boys. If she only knew. With a precise eye for the telling detail and an unerring way with character, soaring brilliantly and seamlessly among a panorama of viewpoints, Tobar calls on all of his experience—as a novelist, a father, a journalist, a son of Guatemalan immigrants, and a native Angeleno—to deliver a novel as broad, as essential, as alive as the city itself. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Frankie J. Alvarez. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/blak/004543/bk_blak_004543_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping