Alan Doyle has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 426 ratings. The most-rated is A Newfoundlander in Canada.
A Newfoundlander in Canada
Summary
Following the fantastic success of his best-selling memoir, Where I Belong, Great Big Sea front man Alan Doyle returns with a hilarious, heartwarming account of leaving Newfoundland and discovering Canada for the first time. Armed with the same personable, candid style found in his first book, Alan Doyle turns his perspective outward from Petty Harbour toward mainland Canada, reflecting on what it was like to venture away from the comforts of home and the familiarity of the island. Often in a van, sometimes in a bus, occasionally in a car with broken wipers "using Bob's belt and a rope found by Paddy's Pond" to pull them back and forth, Alan and his bandmates charted new territory, and he constantly measured what he saw of the vast country against what his forefathers once called the Daemon Canada. In a period punctuated by triumphant leaps forward for the band, deflating steps backward, and everything in between - opening for Barney the Dinosaur at an outdoor music festival, being propositioned at a gas station mail-order bride service in Alberta, drinking moonshine with an elderly churchgoer on a Sunday morning in PEI - Alan's few established notions about Canada were often debunked, and his own identity as a Newfoundlander was constantly challenged. Touring the country, he also discovered how others view Newfoundlanders and how skewed these images can sometimes be. Asked to play in front of the queen at a massive Canada Day festival on Parliament Hill, the concert organizers assured Alan and his bandmates that the best way to showcase Newfoundland culture was for them to be towed onto stage in a dory and introduced not as Newfoundlanders but as "Newfies". The boys were not amused. Heartfelt, funny, and always insightful, these stories tap in to the complexities of community and Canadianness, forming the portrait of a young man from a tiny fishing village trying to define and hold on to his sense of home while navigating a vast and diverse and wonder-filled country.
©2017 Alan Doyle (P)2017 Penguin Random House Canada
Where I Belong
Summary
From the lead singer of the band Great Big Sea comes a lyrical and captivating musical memoir about growing up in the tiny fishing village of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, and then taking to the world stage. Singer-songwriter and front man of the great Canadian band Great Big Sea, Alan Doyle is also a lyrical storyteller and a creative force. In Where I Belong, Alan paints a vivid, raucous, and heartwarming portrait of a curious young lad born into the small coastal fishing community of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, and destined to become a renowned musician who carried the musical tradition of generations before him and brought his signature sound to the world. He tells of a childhood surrounded by larger-than-life characters who made an indelible impression on his music and work; of his first job on the wharf, cutting out cod tongues for fishermen; of growing up in a family of five in a two-bedroom house with a beef-bucket as a toilet, yet lacking nothing; of learning at his father's knee how to sing the story of a song and learning from his mother how to simply "be good"; and, finally, of how everything he ever learned as a kid prepared him for that pivotal moment when he became part of Great Big Sea and sailed away on what would be the greatest musical adventure of his life. Filled with the lore and traditions of the East Coast and told in a voice that is at once captivating and refreshingly candid, this is a narrative journey about small-town life, curiosity, and creative fulfillment and, finally, about leaving everything you know behind only to learn that no matter where you go, home will always be with you.
©2015 Alan Doyle (P)2015 Random House Audio
All Together Now
Summary
One of Newfoundland's funniest and most beloved storytellers offers his cure for the Covid blues. Is there a more sociable province than Newfoundland and Labrador? Or anywhere in Canada with a greater reputation for coming to the rescue of those in need? At this time of Covid, singer, songwriter and best-selling author Alan Doyle is feeling everyone's pain. Off the road and spending more days at home than he has since he was a child hawking cod tongues on the wharfs of Petty Harbour, he misses the crowds and companionship of performing across the country and beyond. But most of all he misses the cheery clamour of pubs in his hometown, where one yarn follows another so quickly "you have to be as ready as an Olympian at the start line to get your tale in before someone is well into theirs already". We're all experiencing our own version of that deprivation, and Alan, one of Newfoundland's finest storytellers, wants to offer a little balm. All Together Now is a gathering in book form - a virtual Newfoundland pub. There are adventures in foreign lands, including an apparently filthy singalong in Polish (well, he would have sung along if he'd understood the language), a real-life ghost story involving an elderly neighbour, a red convertible and a clown horn, a potted history of his social drinking, and heartwarming reminiscences from another past world, childhood - all designed to put a smile on the faces of the isolated-addled. Alan Doyle has never been in better form - nor more welcome. As he says about this troubling time: "We get through it. We do what has to be done. Then, we celebrate. With the best of them".
©2020 Alan Doyle (P)2020 Doubleday Canada
Sky Realms Online Books 1-3: A LitRPG Series Box Set
Summary
It was a game, now it's his life. The Sky Realms Online Books 1-3 Bundle is 30+ hours of epic LitRPG adventure set in a virtual world where anything can happen... maybe even death. Hall had played the VRMMORPG, Sky Realms Online, since beta. During one gaming session, a freak accident traps Hall and other players in the game. They awaken to find out their bodies are comatose and they have been downloaded fully into the virtual world. Even worse, the rules have changed, they've been forced back to level 1, and permadeath might be possible. Join Hall and his growing circle of friends and enemies, both Players and NPCs, as they discover that Sky Realms Online is not the same game they knew. New lands, new foes, and new mysteries. Grayhold (Book 1): Hall finds himself trapped in the game world, but not the game that he remembered. Things have changed. Hall gets his first quests, meets his first friends, and finds what could be his future home. Silverpeak (Book 2): Now the Lord of a ruined village, Hall takes his first steps toward turning Skara Brae into a real village. A journey to the city of Silver Peak Keep involves Hall and friends in a war between guilds. Axestorm (Book 3): Skara Brae is growing and it's time to take the next step. Hall and companions journey to the Dwarf fortress of Axestorm Hall in search of an airship. There they encounter more mysteries and another Player, Iron, who is working to conqueror the entire island of Huntley. Grab this special edition box set today and dive headfirst into the action-packed world of Sky Realms Online. It's a LitRPG saga perfect for fans of J.A. Hunter, Dakota Krout, and Edward Brody.
©2019 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Audio
Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds
Summary
In a world dictated by probabilities, Clay was an anomaly.... Thousands of Heroes protect the land, defending against the periodic incursions by gigantic monsters known as World Threats. This was the way it had always been, and Clay Shuntwise was perfectly fine with that. Running deliveries for his family’s shop in the sleepy town of Renton, the young teenager barely even thought about Heroes and their role in keeping the world safe. That was, at least, until the world came crashing down on him. Reborn into the brand new and unfamiliar form of a Dungeon Core, Clay struggles through learning more about Heroes and the dungeons they delve through to get stronger. According to the guide that was trying to help him understand his new life, however, because he was a former Hero, Clay should already know most of what he needed to succeed; all of the finer parts regarding the relationship between Heroes and dungeons, including information about probabilities and drop rates, should be common knowledge. The problem? Despite wishing that he had been that lucky in his past life, Clay had never been a Hero…but now, he might be forced to become one, though not quite in the way he ever expected. This book contains Dungeon Core, LitRPG, and GameLit elements including dungeon construction and defense, monster summoning, character progression, and a game-like interface. In addition, many of the probabilities the world is based upon are similar to Gacha-type mechanics. Contains no profanity, harems, or explicit sexual content.
©2020 Jonathan Brooks (P)2020 Jonathan Brooks