Gavin Bruce has narrated 3 audiobooks on Listento.it by 2 authors, with an average listener rating of 2★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is The Prize.
The Prize
Summary
Novelist Andrew Craig has not been sober in a very long time. After losing his wife in an auto accident he believes to have been his own fault, he turned to the bottle and to his sister-in-law, Leah, who acts as his caretaker and live-in nurse. Then, when he is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his novel, The Perfect State - a historical jab at communism - he heads for Stockholm, hoping to find a reason to live, and to write. The other laureates have their own problems: a heart surgeon who believes that sharing his award with an Italian colleague robs him of his glory, a married couple awarded the prize in medicine in the middle of a serious marital crisis, and others - including Max Stratman, whose heart isn't really up to the trip, but who needs the prize money to provide for niece, Emily. This novel delves into the lives, loves, dreams, and nightmares of these characters, and others, building a panoramic view of the Nobel Prize, life in Stockholm, and the state of world politics in the years following World War II. It is rich and compelling, driving the reader from the pits of despair to the heights of inspiration. A wonderful novel by one of America's finest novelists, The Prize was made into a movie starring Paul Newman.
©1962, 2011 David Wallechinsky & Amy Wallace (P)2012 David N. Wilson
Weird Florida
Summary
The first and original! In 1995, lifelong Florida resident and award-winning journalist Eliot Kleinberg was the first to produce a book-length chronicle of his home state's weirdness - and he's not making it up! "Any time you jam descendants of slaves, rednecks, Indians, con artists, carpetbaggers, drug smugglers, fugitives, UFO abductees, strippers, alligators, and political refugees into a flat peninsula surrounded by water but with hardly a drop to drink anymore, you get a pretty weird place. Weird Florida."
©2006 Florida Historical Society Press (P)2021 Florida Historical Society Press
Weird Florida II
Summary
In 1998, Weird Florida made the bold statement that Florida “is the home of more nuttiness per square mile than any place on earth - and we dare the world to prove us wrong”. A few tried. California comes to mind, but no one came close. And that was before: The 2000 presidential election and the infamous “Butterfly Ballot” Elian Gonzalez Most of the September 11 terrorists were found to have lived and trained in South Florida The National Enquirer writing about being attacked by anthrax and not making it up The American Civil Liberties Union rising to the defense of a Palm Beach resident and confessed drug addict named Rush Limbaugh In fact, it seems the only crazy story lately that didn't have a Florida connection was O.J. Simpson. Oh. Wait. He lives here now. So, we figured the time was right for another round of stories - some sad, some disturbing, but most pretty funny - from the land that seems to draw offbeat people like the Everglades draws mosquitoes. When Weird Florida came out, some people didn't get it. Famed radio commentator Paul Harvey called it “a cry for help”. He described it not as a loving celebration of Florida's colorful aspects, but rather an exposé on the order of The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's shocking look at Chicago's slaughterhouses. And one reviewer, on an online bookseller's web page, wrote, “This shows just what a mosquito-filled muck hole, sand-flea infested, White-trash flooded, odd-ball inhabited place Florida really is. It made me glad I didn't live there.” At first, such reactions hurt us deeply. Then, we thought: Florida's population has gone from two million at the start of World War II, to 17.5 million now. If even one person listens to this audiobook and decides not to move to Florida, after all, the public humiliation is worth it. In that spirit, we bring you Weird Florida II: In a State of Shock.
©2006 Florida Historical Society (P)2021 Florida Historical Society