Downtown Owl
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
By:
-
Chuck Klosterman
About this listen
Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high-school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. She gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer who listens to Goats Head Soup. Horace Jones has resided in Owl for 73 years. He consumes a lot of coffee, thinks about his dead wife, and understands the truth. They all know each other completely, except that they've never met.
Like a colder, Reagan-era version of The Last Picture Show fused with Friday Night Lights, Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing.
Loaded with detail and unified by a (very real) blizzard, it's technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time...but it's really about a problem. And the problem is this: what does it mean to be a normal person? And there is no answer. But in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.
©2008 Chuck Klosterman (P)2008 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Visible Man
- A Novel
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Annabella Sciorra, Scott Shepherd
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient....
-
-
Hillarious & Disturbing In (almost) Equal Measure
- By Amanda on 11-07-11
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
- A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the kid who brought you Fargo Rock City, the first book in history to garner the praise of Stephen King, David Byrne, Donna Gaines, Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Lethem, and Rivers Cuomo, comes Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, the first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks.
-
-
A Brilliant Manifesto
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 01-09-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
-
-
A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Raised in Captivity
- Fictional Nonfiction
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Sloane Crosley, Chris Gethard, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fair warning: Raised in Captivity does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though. Funny, wise and weird in equal measure, Raised in Captivity bids fair to be one of the most original and exciting story collections in recent memory, a fever graph of our deepest unvoiced hopes, fears and preoccupations.
-
-
Two Favorite Stories: Fluke & Of Course It Is
- By Austin Pierce on 07-30-19
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Chuck Klosterman X
- The Audio Companion to a Highly Specific and Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman presents a unique Audio Companion for Chuck Klosterman X, in which he contextualizes and reads from the collection of his best articles and essays, providing both a fascinating tour of the past decade and an ideal introduction to the mind of one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.
-
-
Buyer Beware
- By Jim Myers on 05-16-17
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Killing Yourself to Live
- 85% of a True Story
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of 21 days, Chuck had three relationships end, one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field.
-
-
Good, But Not What I Expected
- By Lori on 11-29-06
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Visible Man
- A Novel
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Annabella Sciorra, Scott Shepherd
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient....
-
-
Hillarious & Disturbing In (almost) Equal Measure
- By Amanda on 11-07-11
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
- A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the kid who brought you Fargo Rock City, the first book in history to garner the praise of Stephen King, David Byrne, Donna Gaines, Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Lethem, and Rivers Cuomo, comes Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, the first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks.
-
-
A Brilliant Manifesto
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 01-09-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
-
-
A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Raised in Captivity
- Fictional Nonfiction
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Sloane Crosley, Chris Gethard, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fair warning: Raised in Captivity does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though. Funny, wise and weird in equal measure, Raised in Captivity bids fair to be one of the most original and exciting story collections in recent memory, a fever graph of our deepest unvoiced hopes, fears and preoccupations.
-
-
Two Favorite Stories: Fluke & Of Course It Is
- By Austin Pierce on 07-30-19
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Chuck Klosterman X
- The Audio Companion to a Highly Specific and Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman presents a unique Audio Companion for Chuck Klosterman X, in which he contextualizes and reads from the collection of his best articles and essays, providing both a fascinating tour of the past decade and an ideal introduction to the mind of one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.
-
-
Buyer Beware
- By Jim Myers on 05-16-17
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Killing Yourself to Live
- 85% of a True Story
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of 21 days, Chuck had three relationships end, one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field.
-
-
Good, But Not What I Expected
- By Lori on 11-29-06
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
I Wear the Black Hat
- Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined)
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In I Wear the Black Hat, Klosterman questions the very nature of how modern people understand the concept of villainy. What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don't we see Batman the same way we see Bernhard Goetz? Who's more worthy of our vitriol - Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson's second-worst decision? Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and limitless imagination, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the anti-hero.
-
-
My Favorite Writer Falls a Little Short...
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 08-20-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
But What If We're Wrong?
- Thinking About the Present as If It Were the Past
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a culture of casual certitude. This has always been the case, no matter how often that certainty has failed. Though no generation believes there's nothing left to learn, every generation unconsciously assumes that what has already been defined and accepted is (probably) pretty close to how reality will be viewed in perpetuity. And then, of course, time passes. Ideas shift. Opinions invert. What once seemed reasonable eventually becomes absurd, replaced by modern perspectives that feel even more irrefutable and secure - until, of course, they don't.
-
-
Another bad review for the narrator
- By Matty N on 06-13-16
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Eating the Dinosaur
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Ira Glass, Errol Morris, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny.
-
-
Brilliant Way To Spend 6.5 Hours
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 06-21-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Chuck Klosterman IV
- A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chuck Klosterman IV consists of three parts:
THINGS THAT ARE TRUE
Profiles and trend stories: Britney Spears, Val Kilmer, McDonalds, '70s rock band nostalgia cruises. With new introductions and asides.
-
-
9.6 out of 10
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 01-23-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Cinema Speculation
- By: Quentin Tarantino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Quentin Tarantino
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining.
-
-
A letdown I didn't see coming.
- By polycow on 11-03-22
-
The Running Man
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was the ultimate death game in a nightmare future America. The year is 2025 and reality TV has grown to the point where people are willing to wager their lives for a chance at a billion-dollar jackpot. Ben Richards is desperate - he needs money to treat his daughter's illness. His last chance is entering a game show called The Running Man where the goal is to avoid capture by Hunters who are employed to kill him.
-
-
Skip the intro
- By Jball359 on 04-29-16
By: Stephen King
-
Friday Night Lights
- A Town, a Team, and a Dream
- By: H. G. Bissinger
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 25th anniversary edition of the number-one New York Times best seller and Sports Illustrated's best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the author. Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa - the winningest high school football team in Texas history.
-
-
Keep This In Mind When You Listen
- By K. on 09-21-18
By: H. G. Bissinger
-
I'd Like to Play Alone, Please
- Essays
- By: Tom Segura
- Narrated by: Tom Segura
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Segura is known for his twisted takes and irreverent comedic voice. But after a few years of crazy tours and churning out podcasts weekly, all while parenting two young children, he desperately needs a second to himself. It’s not that he hates his friends and family — he’s not a monster — he’s just beat, which is why his son’s (ruthless) first full sentence, “I’d like to play alone, please,” has since become his mantra.
-
-
Hot sauce is the best!
- By Michael Bowen on 06-15-22
By: Tom Segura
-
The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
-
-
My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
-
Of Mice and Men
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.
-
-
KETCHUP
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
New Spring
- The Wheel of Time Prequel
- By: Robert Jordan
- Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For three days battle has raged in the snow around the great city of Tar Valon. In the city, a foretelling of the future is uttered. On the slopes of Dragonmount, the immense mountain that looms over the city, a child is born, an infant prophesied to change the world. That child must be found before he can be killed by the forces of the Shadow.
-
-
Read it after reading others in the series
- By Stacy Fair on 12-13-07
By: Robert Jordan
-
Heat 2
- A Novel
- By: Michael Mann, Meg Gardiner
- Narrated by: Peter Giles
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Mann, four-time-Oscar-nominated writer-director of The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, Ali, Miami Vice, Collateral, and Heat teams up with Edgar Award–winning author Meg Gardiner to deliver Mann’s first novel, an explosive return to the universe and characters of his classic crime film—with an all-new story unfolding in the years before and after the iconic movie.
-
-
The entire book is read in the "trailer voice"
- By Anonymous User on 08-09-22
By: Michael Mann, and others
Related to this topic
-
Road Dog
- Life and Reflections from the Road as a Stand-up Comic
- By: Dov Davidoff
- Narrated by: Dov Davidoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Road Dog is comedian, actor, and writer, Dov Davidoff's unflinching memoir told through reflections of twelve months on the road. Davidoff travels across the country from college campuses to local theaters doing stand-up comedy and telling it like it is. He's been known to wax poetic about everything from encounters with large fake breasts, to people who have too many kids, to magnum condoms the size of CD cases. He is hilarious and relatable and will have you laughing at yourself in no time.
-
-
dark, real, & exceptional
- By Luis F Rodriguez on 11-22-17
By: Dov Davidoff
-
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker
- A Memoir in Essays
- By: Damon Young
- Narrated by: Damon Young
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing Black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.
-
-
Reviewed by a B![c# @$$ White Boy
- By netusera on 04-13-19
By: Damon Young
-
Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
-
-
Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
-
The Boy Kings of Texas
- A Memoir
- By: Domingo Martinez
- Narrated by: Emilio Delgado
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
-
-
It was Okay
- By DebKoo on 05-17-13
By: Domingo Martinez
-
Wilde Lake
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Nicole Poole
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.
-
-
In a word saccharine and boring
- By Rena on 05-12-16
By: Laura Lippman
-
An Abundance of Katherines
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has $10,000 in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines.
-
-
struggled to finish listening
- By Daniel on 03-11-20
By: John Green
-
Road Dog
- Life and Reflections from the Road as a Stand-up Comic
- By: Dov Davidoff
- Narrated by: Dov Davidoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Road Dog is comedian, actor, and writer, Dov Davidoff's unflinching memoir told through reflections of twelve months on the road. Davidoff travels across the country from college campuses to local theaters doing stand-up comedy and telling it like it is. He's been known to wax poetic about everything from encounters with large fake breasts, to people who have too many kids, to magnum condoms the size of CD cases. He is hilarious and relatable and will have you laughing at yourself in no time.
-
-
dark, real, & exceptional
- By Luis F Rodriguez on 11-22-17
By: Dov Davidoff
-
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker
- A Memoir in Essays
- By: Damon Young
- Narrated by: Damon Young
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing Black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.
-
-
Reviewed by a B![c# @$$ White Boy
- By netusera on 04-13-19
By: Damon Young
-
Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
-
-
Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
-
The Boy Kings of Texas
- A Memoir
- By: Domingo Martinez
- Narrated by: Emilio Delgado
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
-
-
It was Okay
- By DebKoo on 05-17-13
By: Domingo Martinez
-
Wilde Lake
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Nicole Poole
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.
-
-
In a word saccharine and boring
- By Rena on 05-12-16
By: Laura Lippman
-
An Abundance of Katherines
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has $10,000 in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines.
-
-
struggled to finish listening
- By Daniel on 03-11-20
By: John Green
-
Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster)
- Life Lessons from Dave Barry
- By: Dave Barry
- Narrated by: Dave Barry
- Length: 3 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An uproariously funny examination of what one generation can teach to another - or not - from the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times - best-selling author of You Can Date Boys When You're Forty and Insane City. During the course of living (mumble, mumble) years, Dave Barry has gained much wisdom* (*actual wisdom not guaranteed), and he is eager to pass it on - to the next generation, the generation after that, and those idiots who make driving to the grocery store in Florida a death-defying experience.
-
-
Clever!
- By Sharlotte on 01-31-17
By: Dave Barry
-
The Todd Glass Situation
- A Bunch of Lies about My Personal Life and a Bunch of True Stories about My 30-Year Career in Standup Comedy
- By: Todd Glass, Jonathan Grotenstein
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life. Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results. Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an effort to help everyone - young and old, gay and straight - breathe a little more freely.
-
-
Worth It
- By Heather on 11-17-14
By: Todd Glass, and others
-
A Bad Idea I'm About to Do
- True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure
- By: Chris Gethard
- Narrated by: Chris Gethard
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Gethard has often found himself in awkward situations most people, including you, probably would have safely avoided. The good news is now, thanks to this book, you can enjoy the painfully funny consequences of his unfortunate decisions at a safe distance. A Bad Idea I'm About to Do invites listeners to join Chris as he navigates an adolescence and adulthood mired in hilariously ill-fated nerdom, and to take comfort in the fact that - as his experiences often prove - things could always be much, much worse.
-
-
Loved it!!!
- By Amber G on 10-02-20
By: Chris Gethard
-
Schadenfreude, a Love Story
- Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of Attempted Transformations, Unfortunate Miscommunications, and Humiliating Situations That Only They Have Words For
- By: Rebecca Schuman
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Schadenfreude is the story of a teenage Jewish intellectual who falls in love - in love with a boy (who breaks her heart), a language (that's nearly impossible to master), a culture (that's nihilistic but punctual), and a landscape (that's breathtaking when there's not a wall in the way). Rebecca is an everyday, misunderstood '90s teenager with a passion for Pearl Jam and Ethan Hawke circa Reality Bites until two men walk into her high school civics class: Dylan Gellner and Franz Kafka, hitching a ride in Dylan's backpack.
-
-
A humorous, delectable read
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-17
By: Rebecca Schuman
-
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed contains a dozen short works by John Irving, beginning with three memoirs, including an account of Mr. Irving’s dinner with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The longest of the memoirs, The Imaginary Girlfriend,” is the core of this collection.
-
-
Unabridged?
- By K. Stiffler on 02-11-22
By: John Irving
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
The Death of Cool
- From Teenage Rebellion to the Hangover of Adulthood
- By: Gavin McInnes
- Narrated by: Gavin McInnes
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is his story, or, rather, stories - lots of them, and all gut-punchingly hilarious, from that first far reach into a girl's tight jeans to turning forty with a cataclysmic party. In between you’ll hear about acid trips, threesomes, Nazi skinheads, his band Anal Chinook (Inuit for “warm wind”), Martians in northern Canada, throwing pedophiles in jail, dinner with the Clash, what happens when you crash Bill Maher's show wasted, and the true story of Vice magazine.
-
-
if you don't buy this book, the terrorists win
- By Kelsey Gholi on 04-03-17
By: Gavin McInnes
-
Loudmouth
- Tales (and Fantasies) of Sports, Sex, and Salvation from Behind the Microphone
- By: Craig Carton
- Narrated by: Craig Carton
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this debut, Carton invites the listener to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio's craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.
-
-
Fun but too much about early life
- By Anthony A. Ciaccio on 07-13-13
By: Craig Carton
-
The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
-
-
Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
-
Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
-
-
I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
-
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven
- Or, How I Made Peace with the Paranormal and Stigmatized Zealots and Cynics in the Process
- By: Corey Taylor
- Narrated by: Corey Taylor
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this book, Corey Taylor undertakes something never before attempted in the history of rock superstardom: he takes you with him as he journeys undercover through various ghostbusting groups who do their best to gather information and evidence about the existence of spirits. Taylor also gives you a behind-the-scenes tour of his crazy life and the many beyond-the-grave events he's encountered. (You'll be shocked how often Slipknot has been invaded by the supernatural).
-
-
Too Much Padding
- By W. Maughan on 01-26-16
By: Corey Taylor
-
How to Find Your Way in the Dark
- The Sheldon Horowitz Series, Book 1
- By: Derek B. Miller
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve-year old Sheldon Horowitz is still recovering from the tragic loss of his mother only a year ago when a suspicious traffic accident steals the life of his father near their home in rural Massachusetts. It is 1938, and Sheldon, who was in the truck, emerges from the crash an orphan hell-bent on revenge. He takes that fire with him to Hartford, where he embarks on a new life under the roof of his buttoned-up Uncle Nate.
-
-
Absolutely wonderful story.
- By George Thomas on 12-11-21
By: Derek B. Miller
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Killing Yourself to Live
- 85% of a True Story
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of 21 days, Chuck had three relationships end, one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field.
-
-
Good, But Not What I Expected
- By Lori on 11-29-06
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
- A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the kid who brought you Fargo Rock City, the first book in history to garner the praise of Stephen King, David Byrne, Donna Gaines, Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Lethem, and Rivers Cuomo, comes Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, the first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks.
-
-
A Brilliant Manifesto
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 01-09-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
-
-
A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Chuck Klosterman X
- The Audio Companion to a Highly Specific and Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman presents a unique Audio Companion for Chuck Klosterman X, in which he contextualizes and reads from the collection of his best articles and essays, providing both a fascinating tour of the past decade and an ideal introduction to the mind of one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.
-
-
Buyer Beware
- By Jim Myers on 05-16-17
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Eating the Dinosaur
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Ira Glass, Errol Morris, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny.
-
-
Brilliant Way To Spend 6.5 Hours
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 06-21-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Visible Man
- A Novel
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Annabella Sciorra, Scott Shepherd
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient....
-
-
Hillarious & Disturbing In (almost) Equal Measure
- By Amanda on 11-07-11
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Killing Yourself to Live
- 85% of a True Story
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of 21 days, Chuck had three relationships end, one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field.
-
-
Good, But Not What I Expected
- By Lori on 11-29-06
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
- A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the kid who brought you Fargo Rock City, the first book in history to garner the praise of Stephen King, David Byrne, Donna Gaines, Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Lethem, and Rivers Cuomo, comes Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, the first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks.
-
-
A Brilliant Manifesto
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 01-09-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Nineties
- A Book
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
-
-
A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Chuck Klosterman X
- The Audio Companion to a Highly Specific and Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman presents a unique Audio Companion for Chuck Klosterman X, in which he contextualizes and reads from the collection of his best articles and essays, providing both a fascinating tour of the past decade and an ideal introduction to the mind of one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.
-
-
Buyer Beware
- By Jim Myers on 05-16-17
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
Eating the Dinosaur
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Ira Glass, Errol Morris, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny.
-
-
Brilliant Way To Spend 6.5 Hours
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 06-21-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
-
The Visible Man
- A Novel
- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Annabella Sciorra, Scott Shepherd
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient....
-
-
Hillarious & Disturbing In (almost) Equal Measure
- By Amanda on 11-07-11
By: Chuck Klosterman
What listeners say about Downtown Owl
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tom
- 07-29-19
Eight hours inside the Author’s Head is Challenging
“It is important to have questionable friends you can trust unconditionally.” One character’s words in a book filled with characters who live and die in a small town where everyone knows everyone and yet is entirely alone.
This is an intriguing snapshot of a brief time in a farming community in the Northern Plains of the US in the 80’s. Each character’s life is perfectly drawn in miniature portraits in words and actions that go absolutely nowhere and have absolutely no meaning. And yet they are fascinating in their emptiness.
Having lived in Cities and Towns of all sizes all over the country, I have met these small town people. Their completely limited, circumscribed lives never cease to amaze me, yet they seem perfectly satisfied with them. It’s a puzzlement, but it focuses the reader on what a life is at its base, with none of the trappings of goals, ambitions, adventures, dramas, thrills or tragedies. Just life: getting up in the morning, doing your life and going to bed.
Klosterman paints these little portraits of these folks and it works, but I’m not sure I want to spend too much time inside his imagination.
The multiple excellent narrators bring the work to life. Good job!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sandy
- 01-19-12
Small town America
I'm a teacher in a small town in Montana. The story is great. Many of the charactors are in every town around here. People drink in these towns and the weather is always cold in the winter. It's -20 outside right now. I enjoyed listening to the three stories and they captured small town America in the northern midwest.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RK
- 07-13-15
Downtown Owl - goodnight
Chuck Klosterman captures North Dakota like a getaway man asleep behind the wheel. Hands up. Gotcha.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 01-15-21
Excellent
A fantastic novel with a very very well done reading by multiple voice and screen actors
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matty N
- 02-27-15
Amazing Trip to Nowhere
Any additional comments?
Escape to rural North Dakota where everyone dreams to venture. Follow the lives of an underachieving High School kid, a saucy young female social studies teacher and stoic old widowed farmer. Sounds terrible right? It manages to be quite entertaining. The narrative device (each chapter of the book is broken down by character and delivered in third person limited) lends itself extremely well to audio (there are multiple narrators). The story is all about the bringing the town to life. This is not a plot that races forward. Like the town of Owl, the story trickles ahead with one day bleeding into the next. A trip to nowhere. It sounds terrible. Somehow, it gets 5 stars.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Book Lover
- 01-23-12
A quirky story well told
What did you love best about Downtown Owl?
I'm in the middle of this book but I feel confident I will enjoy it to the end. The language is so perceptive and the characters so unique. I love getting to know them all.
What about the narrators???s performance did you like?
Usually I'm not a fan of multiple narrators but in this case the narrators brought so much to each chapter, giving each section its own special tone and character.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer Ryan
- 06-14-21
slow start
it was hard to get into at first. but if you're patient it will pick up
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cheryl
- 10-17-14
Dark Comedy Story
This is the first book that I have ever read by the author Chuck Klosterman. It is all about the characterizations of the people in this small town. I could have done without one of the key characters, Horace Jones, who was very old and quite boring. I liked the teacher, Julia Rabia, and I wish he could have dropped Horace Jones from the story altogether and given her more pages in the book. I also liked the high school football player, Mitch Hrlicka, and would have liked to have gotten to know him better too.
I wish there could have been more to the book rather than just a snowstorm ending. After going to all of that trouble to get to know the characters, it would have been more satisfying to know how these characters were after the storm.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Harry
- 02-21-09
A Great Listen
This book is constructed in an episodic character-centric manner. The readers are well suited to their characters and I particularly loved Philip Baker Hall...He reminded me of Eli on youtube's eli the accountant channel. Klosterman has some good insights into 80's America...it's too bad that he's about 20 years or so too late, that makes those insights seem a bit facile. Nonetheless, the story is interesting and the narration fun.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andre
- 09-07-13
Great Fun!!
A hilarious story and commentary on small (really small) town american life. The narrators did an excellent job! The story will make you laugh and maybe cry a little as well.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful