Mozart in the Garden
Silicon Valley and Me. We Grew Up Together
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Narrated by:
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Benjamin McLean
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By:
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Tom Liggett
About this listen
From the Ashes of Fruit Trees Grew Today's Silicon Valley
Thousands of cookie-cutter homes for high-tech workers sprouted from the funeral pyres of a vanishing way of life as acres of lush fruit trees were bulldozed and burned to create today's Silicon Valley.
One of the children who grew up in this new suburbia in San Jose, California, was Tom Liggett, a neglected, unwanted child of dysfunctional (that's being kind) parents, who befriended the "witch" who lived in the Spanish cottage on the hill.
Their unlikely friendship and Tom's adventures are told in this unforgettable memoir. It's a tale of lost dreams, boyhood innocence, and two remarkable characters in midcentury California history.
BONUS story
A stunning story-within-a-story recounts the life and times of Faye Wolfe, the last first-person account of a survivor of the Galveston hurricane in 1900, the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and her connection to the Spanish-style architecture of the region and the sordid history of Silicon Valley - long before it was ever Silicon Valley - as told to an 11-year-old boy in this, his coming-of-age memoir.
Tom Liggett is one of the world’s foremost experts on roses. He founded the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, the second largest public rose garden in the world. This memoir is his third book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Tom Liggett (P)2020 Benjamin McLeanListeners also enjoyed...
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Hap Collins looks like a good ol’ boy. But even in his misspent youth, his best pal is Leonard Pine, who is Black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard climb into the boxing ring, visit their families, get in bar fights, and just go fishing - all the while confronting racists, righting wrongs, and eating a whole lot of delicious food.
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Wringing every last drop
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 04-08-23
By: Kathleen Kent - introduction, and others
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The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season
- By: Molly Fader
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Everything Hope knows about the Orchard House is from the stories of her late mother. So when she arrives at the northern Michigan family estate late one night with a terrible secret and her 10-year-old daughter in tow, she’s not sure if she’ll be welcomed or turned away with a shotgun by the aunt she has never met.
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Really Enjoyed It
- By Kathryn @theBookDate on 03-30-21
By: Molly Fader
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A Different Drummer
- By: William Melvin Kelley
- Narrated by: Jay Smooth
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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June 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.
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A wonderful and moving story
- By E. on 10-25-19
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Vanishing Falls
- A Novel
- By: Poppy Gee
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Deep within the lush Tasmanian rainforest is the remote town of Vanishing Falls, a place with a storied past. The town’s showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its Calendar House - currently occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner; his wife, Celia; and their four daughters. The elaborate, eccentrically designed mansion houses one masterpiece and 52 rooms - and Celia Lily isn’t in any of them. She has vanished without a trace.… Joelle Smithton knows that a few folks in Vanishing Falls believe that she’s simple-minded.
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OK Story
- By Cindy House on 12-21-21
By: Poppy Gee
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Call Down the Hawk (The Dreamer Trilogy, Book 1)
- By: Maggie Stiefvater
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality. Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it. Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer...and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed....
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Unlistenable
- By Nathan Parker on 11-24-19
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A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
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Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
What listeners say about Mozart in the Garden
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Doris Goembel
- 02-02-20
Did not meet my expectations
My expectations of a memoir include: 1) If the circumstances of childhood are truly unusual, then how did those circumstances uniquely manifest in the writer's adulthood? What was learned, or later un-learned, from that circumstance that is different from the life lessons of the other 99 million people who have survived childhood? 2) When a large portion of the story is retelling a hardship or pain, what is the objective of the telling, besides looking for a metaphysical hug from the reader? What perspective grew out of that experience? 3) If the memoir promises to connect the reader to one or more significant historical events, that promise demands a more extensive telling of the event than a brief, "XXX happened at the same time I was growing up."
"Mozart in the Garden" disappointed me on all three of these counts.
While being served repeated anecdotes of (not uncommon) physical deprivation and unhealthy living skills of his childhood, I don't feel I know anything about the man who lives now, or how that shaped him. Nor do I sense an appreciation for the women of his young life who survived with the only coping skills they had.
A significant share of the book is dedicated to the remembrances of events of 100 years ago. Stories of a 1900 hurricane, told to a child in the 1960s, then as remembered by the man another 60 years later in 2020. A historical event for which I would have gladly accepted a few old news photos and clippings in exchange for the abundance of Liggett family album photos peppered throughout the book.
I experienced this book through a combination of hard copy and audiobook, the media combination that permits me to switch back and forth as my day progresses. Sadly, the content did not live up to the grace and convenience of the delivery media.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
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- girl_named_Pete
- 02-04-20
Wasn't sure at first but so glad I stuck with it!
The first two chapters are quite coarse and I wasn't sure if this was going to be the book for me. I am not a prude by any means but I flinched a few times. I stuck with it and now realize the author was trying to set the tone for his family background and upbringing as it was an important aspect of his story. After that, the book just took off. It is a bittersweet story of a kid trying to make his way in very difficult and unfair circumstances. I admire his strength of character especially after it never being modeled to him at home. I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading his others. The narration is awesome.
My only issue (however slight) is the reference to photos throughout the book that you obviously cannot see. I think the book would benefit from editing these references out.
"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-08-20
love this book
This is very colorful book. Never a dull moment. I couldn't stop listening. I would highly recommend it.
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- Suzan
- 02-08-20
Different Silicon Valley
This book should have never been made into an audiobook. There are so many times that the narrator says "this photo..." well there are no photos. I made myself finish this book for two reasons. 1, I was given the book and felt I need to give the book a chance. 2, I also grew up in Silicon Valley but my life was a million times different. I still can't wrap my head around Tom's life. Where were adults that could help? Teachers, neighbors, social workers someone must have seen or heard! Did no one care? I did learn some interesting things about Silicon Valley but not enough to recommend this book. I will say, Benjamin McLean who narrates this book does a great job and if I could give him a separate star rating I would. 5 stars Benjamin. Finally, Tom seems to have risen above his horrible childhood and made a good life for himself. I am happy about that because given the life he describes I would think he would be either a drug/alcoholic or dead.
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