Maria Tucci has narrated 8 audiobooks on Listento.it by 21 authors, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 64 ratings. The most-rated is The Iliad.
The Iliad
Summary
Dating to the ninth century BC, Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb Introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls “an astonishing performance”.
©1990 Robert Fagles (translation) (P)1992 Penguin-HighBridge Audio; 1992 Penguin-HighBridge Audio, Packaging ©
Welcome to the Monkey House
Summary
Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American Literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as a "true artist" ( The New York Times) with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers". Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut's shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, what these superb stories share is Vonnegut's audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.
©1950 -1968 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers
Selected Shorts: A Touch of Magic
Summary
By turns funny, moving, romantic and surreal, and filled with unexpected twists and turns, each of the tales on this lineup has a magical element. Andrew Lam's "The Palmist", performed by James Naughton. A chance encounter on a bus between a fortune-teller and a teenage boy. Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt", performed by Stephen Colbert. A room which can take you anywhere in the world - sometimes with dangerous consequences W. W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw", performed by John Lithgow. A wonderful ghost story about a trinket with terrible powers. Saki's "The Occasional Garden", performed by Daniel Gerroll. If you can't grow a garden; poof! - you can rent one. Donald Barthelme's "The Balloon", performed by Maria Tucci. There's something suddenly in the sky in midtown Manhattan.... Kevin Brockmeier's "The Year of Silence", performed by Anthony Rapp. What if everything went quiet? Jonathan Safran Foer's "The Sixth Borough", performed by Jerry Zaks. Yes, New York had a Sixth Borough, but it drifted away.... Aimee Bender's "Drunken Mimi", performed by Bernadette Quigley. A romance between a mermaid and an imp. Haruki Murakami's "The Little Green Monster", performed by Dana Ivey. A piece of Murakami magic: Is this a monster I see before me? T. C. Boyle's "Swept Away", performed by René Auberjonois. This story's weather forecast: Very windy and very funny.
©2009 Symphony Space (P)2009 Symphony Space
Wonderful Town
Summary
New York City is not only The New Yorker magazine's place of origin and its sensibility's lifeblood, it is the heart of American literary culture. Wonderful Town, an anthology of superb short fiction by many of the magazine's most accomplished contributors, celebrates the 75-year marriage between a preeminent publication and its preeminent context with this collection of 44 of its best stories from (so to speak) home. East Side? Philip Roth's chronically tormented alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, has just moved there, in "Smart Money". West Side? Isaac Bashevis Singer's narrator mingles with the customers in "The Cafeteria" (who debate politics and culture in four or five different languages) and becomes embroiled in an obsessional romance. And downtown, John Updike's Maples have begun their courtship of marital disaster, in "Snowing in Greenwich Village". Wonderful Town touches on some of the city's famous places and stops at some of its more obscure corners, but the real guidebook in and between its lines is to the hearts and the minds of those who populate the metropolis built by its words. Like all good fiction, these stories take particular places, particular people, and particular events and turn them into dramas of universal enlightenment and emotional impact. Each life in it, and each life in Wonderful Town, is the life of us all. Including these stories from the magazine's most iconic writers: "The Five-Forty-Eight" by John Cheever "Distant Music" by Ann Beattle "Sailor off the Bremen" by Irwin Shaw "Physics" by Tama Janowitz "The Whore of Mensa" by Woody Allen "What It Was Like, Seeing Chris" by Deborah Eisenberg "Drawing Room B" by John O’Hara "A Sentimental Journey" by Peter Taylor "The Balloon" by Donald Barthelme "Another Marvelous Thing" by Laurie Colwin "The Failure" by Jonathan Franzen "Apartment Hotel" by Sally Benson "Midair" by Frank Conroy "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber "I See You, Bianca" by Maeve Brennan "You’re Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore "Signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov "Poor Visitor" by Jamaica Kincaid "In Greenwich, There Are Many Graveled Walks" by Hortense Calisher "Some Nights When Nothing Happens Are the Best Nights in this Place" by John McNulty "Slight Rebellion off Madison" by J. D. Salinger "Brownstone" by Renata Adler "Partners" by Veronica Geng "The Evolution of Knowledge" by Niccolo Tucci "The Way We Live Now" by Susan Sontag "Do the Windows Open?" by Julie Hecht "The Mentocrats" by Edward Newhouse "The Treatment" by Daniel Menaker "Arrangement in Black and White" by Dorothy Parker "Carlyle Tries Polygamy" by William Melvin Kelley "Children Are Bored on Sunday" by Jean Stafford "Notes from a Bottle" by James Stevenson "Man in the Middle of the Ocean" by Daniel Fuchs "Me Spoulets of the Splendide" by Ludwig Bemelmans "Over by the River" by William Maxwell "Baster" by Jeffrey Eugenides "The Second Tree from the Corner" by E. B. White "Rembrandt’s Hat" by Bernard Malamud "Shot: A New York Story" by Elizabeth Hardwick "A Father-to-Be" by Saul Bellow "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer" by S. J. Perelman "Water Child" by Edwidge Danticat "The Smoker" by David Schickler
©2000 The New Yorker Magazine (P)2000 Random House Audio
The Color of Death
Summary
The phenomenal New York Times best-selling author Elizabeth Lowell brilliantly displays her incomparable talents in a story of treachery, greed, conspiracy, and murder that will hold the reader spellbound until the final word. It is the opportunity of a lifetime for Kate Chandler, the chance to cut seven rare, priceless sapphires and solidify her reputation as a world-class jewel cutter. But something goes tragically wrong during the transfer of goods. The sapphires vanish without a trace. Missing also is the man Kate trusted to transport the gems, her half-brother Lee, who now quite possibly is dead. Suddenly, she is on the run, pursued by federal agents who suspect her of being the criminal mastermind of a cunning bait-and-switch scheme. Special Agent Sam Groves, an essential member of the FBI's elite strike force, could never be scammed by a beautiful confidence woman. But something is troubling about this assignment: someone else is chasing Kate Chandler as well. Kate suspects the awful truth: she has stumbled into a conspiracy that goes far beyond a simple jewel heist. Getting Groves, her constant shadow, to believe her is a step in the right direction, because the order has already been passed down to a ruthlessly efficient assassin: Kate Chandler must not be allowed to live.
©2004 Elizabeth Lowell (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Running Scared
Summary
In the scorching heat of the Southwestern desert, a frightened old man knows his time is quickly running out, as the bad karma of his own good fortune is finally closing in on him after 50 years. Risa Sheridan knows everything there is to know about gold; and her boss, Shane Tannahill, is addicted to the stuff, having already made the precious metal the theme of his ultrasuccessful Las Vegas casino. Now an ancient Celtic piece is being offered to Shane, with the promise of more to come, and the casino owner is hooked. Risa, however, is wary, because something about this particular artifact says "stay away". Soon people are dying all around Risa and Shane, as the wrong hands reach out for a remarkable golden treasure wrapped in a terrifying conundrum that dates back to the time of the Druids. However, it is a more contemporary danger that is drawing the beautiful gold expert and her gold-loving employer closer together, and is placing them in the center of an insidious plot to destroy Shane Tannahill and everything he's struggled so hard to build.
© Elizabeth Lowell; (P)HarperCollins Publishers
Always Time to Die
Summary
The powerful Quintrell family of New Mexico has spent decades in the public eye. Now the recent death of the clan's patriarch has placed his son, Governor Josh Quintrell, squarely in the spotlight as he prepares his run for the highest political office in the land. It is not a good time to be rattling skeletons in the family's closets. Researching personal histories isn't just Carolina "Carly" May's profession, it's her passion. But digging into the past is raising troubling questions about the would-be president's private life. And it soon becomes frighteningly apparent that someone is determined to remove the inquisitive genealogist from the picture by any means necessary. Carly realizes that there is no one whom she dares to trust, perhaps least of all Dan Duran, a dangerous and haunted mystery man who's somehow tied to the Quintrells' past. But she will need an ally to survive, because following the bloodlines of the wealthy and power-hungry can be a bloody business.
©2005 Elizabeth Lowell (P)2005 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
The Wrong Hostage
Summary
Orphaned at 13, Grace Silva clawed her way out of poverty and violence to become one of the most respected judges on the federal bench. Grace believes in the rule of law, lives it, breathes it. She has always been buttoned up and buttoned down. Except once. Joe Faroe has learned that laws are made by politicians, and politicians are all too human. He believes in the innocents, the ones getting ground up by governments that are too polarized or too corrupt to protect their own citizens. He's been through the political meat grinder himself. It cost him his career, his freedom, and the woman who still haunts him. Since then Faroe has worked outside the rules and politics of government as a kidnap specialist for St. Kilda Consulting, a Manhattan-based global business that concentrates on the shadow world where governments can't go. He is good at his work: intelligent, confident, ruthless. Until a friend dies trying to kill him. Now Faroe is out of the business. Retired. He's through trying to save a world that doesn't want to be saved. Then Grace comes to him, past and present collide, and Faroe finds himself sucked back into the shadows, tracking a violent killer who holds the life of Grace's son in his bloody hands.
©2006 Two of a Kind, Inc. (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.