
Sidecountry
Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports
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Narrated by:
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Charles Constant
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By:
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John Branch
About this listen
New York Times reporter John Branch's riveting, humane pieces about ordinary people doing extraordinary things at the edges of the sporting world have won nearly every major journalism prize. Sidecountry gathers the best of Branch's work, featuring 20 of his favorites from the more than 2,000 pieces he has published in the paper.
Branch is renowned for covering the offbeat in the sporting world, from alligator hunting to wingsuit flying. Sidecountry features such classic Branch pieces as "Snow Fall", about downhill skiers caught in an avalanche in Washington state, and "Dawn Wall", about rock climbers trying to scale Yosemite's famed El Capitan. In other articles, Branch introduces people whose dedication and decency transcend their sporting lives, including a revered football coach rebuilding his tornado-devastated town in Iowa and a girls' basketball team in Tennessee that plays on despite never winning a game. The book culminates with his moving personal pieces, including "Children of the Cube", about the surprising drama of Rubik's Cube competitions as seen through the eyes of Branch's own sports-hating son, and "The Girl in the No. 8 Jersey", about a mother killed in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting whose daughter happens to play on Branch's daughter's soccer team.
©2021 John Branch (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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Overall
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Performance
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Good book by Millard, narrator ruined it
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Much ado about nothing
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Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn’t the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult it can be to replicate one of nature’s greatest creations. Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting 50 years of false starts, abysmal failures, and miraculous triumphs.
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Didn’t hate it, didn’t like it.
- By Gotta Tellya on 09-07-18
By: Mimi Swartz
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The Art Thief
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
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A book that's steals your attention!
- By samy on 07-23-23
By: Michael Finkel
What listeners say about Sidecountry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- M Aurelius
- 12-22-21
Repetitive and boring
Mr Branch’s approach to a story is well suited to interest pieces in The NY Times. Accumulated in a single volume, he comes off like a one-trick-pony whose cookie cutter journalistic approach is applied to new topics in an attempt at a refresh. Unfortunately, this poorly edited volume does him no favors, and I found listening to him, and the mediocre reader, a trial of self-satisfied writing read poorly.
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- Vas Sladek
- 09-01-21
The book title is more exciting than the content
Overall I enjoyed the book but the content isn't as exciting as the title and cover picture suggest. The bowling story will stay with you forever!
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- JS
- 03-13-25
Very interesting stories. It wasn’t what I was expecting. JS.
The narrator was very good. The stories were all interesting, some more than others. Just short stories about events that have taken place in the past that the author wrote about. Good but I probably won’t ever read it again. JS.
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- Mg
- 07-13-24
Human endurance and resilience
I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. I heard about this book after an interview with the author on a podcast. The disappointment of the book, is not the author’s fault but fault of my own. I wanted a book full of survival stories testing nature’s biggest challenges such as Everest and the featured avalanche story; however this is not the focus of the book.
The author is very talented and deserves all the achievements he has earned. I did enjoy all the stories and I’m glad that I finished it. Human endurance is a fascinating thing that Mr Branch captures and wraps around the reading pulling at our every emotion.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-14-21
Great title, okay content
It would have been nice if the serial pieces had been re-edited to reduce the redundant. Also, few of the stories- while interesting, live up to the suspense suggested by the Side Country title.
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- Kate
- 07-17-22
Why so repetitive?
The stories are interesting but someone did a lousy job of editing. Why do we have to hear a summation of the same story in each chapter. Cannot finish what could be a much shorter and better book.
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1 person found this helpful