The Last Night at the Ritz
Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries
- By: Elizabeth Savage
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 7 hours
Description
Brazen, candid, and always willing to take chances, the unnamed and not entirely trustworthy narrator of The Last Night at the Ritz celebrates her birthday with three old and dear friends. Two of them, Gay and Len, are a long-married couple and her best friends from college. The third, Wes, was once her lover.
Organizing a luncheon at Boston’s esteemed Ritz Carlton—an old favorite of the group’s—the narrator expects the occasion will be an excellent chance to catch up with her friends and enjoy each other’s company. But almost immediately upon arriving at the hotel, she senses things are different, though she can’t quite put her finger on what’s wrong. Even the Ritz has changed, no longer displaying the lion—its trademark symbol of hospitality—on its ashtrays.
As the afternoon gives way to evening and as the drinks flow, the past and present intrude upon the festivities and the atmosphere turns somber. Before the night is through, truths and secrets slip out that will change their relationships forever.
Back in print for the first time in a generation, The Last Night at the Ritz, a masterfully written novel of friendship and love and the ways we deceive each other and ourselves, is quite simply unforgettable.
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Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries Series

The Lion in the Lei Shop
By: Kaye Starbird
Narrated by: Tanya Eby, Kate Rudd & Nancy Pearl
Length: 8 hours 57 minutes
Abridged: No
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After Life
By: Rhian Ellis
Narrated by: Shannon McManus
Length: 10 hours 20 minutes
Abridged: No
Naomi Ash was born in New Orleans and raised by her mother, Patsy, a medium who schooled her young daughter in the parlor-trick chicanery of the trade. From Naomi recreating presences with table cloths to providing the voice of the dead by talking through a fan, their act is part theater, part magic, and a little too much playing with the letter... Read more »
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The Last Night at the Ritz
By: Elizabeth Savage
Narrated by: Janet Metzger
Length: 7 hours
Abridged: No
Brazen, candid, and always willing to take chances, the unnamed and not entirely trustworthy narrator of The Last Night at the Ritz celebrates her birthday with three old and dear friends. Two of them, Gay and Len, are a long-married couple and her best friends from college. The third, Wes, was once her lover.
Organizing a luncheon at Boston’s... Read more »
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One Sweet Quarrel
By: Deirdre McNamer
Narrated by: Joyce Bean & Nancy Pearl
Length: 10 hours 38 minutes
Abridged: No
“Marvelous prose…McNamer’s book is full of it, and full too of an unwavering commitment to, and wonder at, humanity. Add to those its grand story, its fine sense of irony and humor, its emotional accuracy, and One Sweet Quarrel becomes one sweet — and unforgettable — novel.” — New York Times Book Review Leaving behind their provincial... Read more »
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Fool
By: Frederick G. Dillen
Narrated by: David Colacci
Length: 10 hours 35 minutes
Abridged: No
Self-absorbed Barnaby Griswold has to lose it all—money, homes, and family—before he gets a shot at becoming the unlikely hero of his own life.
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One Minus One
By: Ruth Doan MacDougall
Narrated by: Amy McFadden
Length: 5 hours 34 minutes
Abridged: No
The year is 1969, a time of turmoil for the United States—and for thirty-year-old Emily Bean, who, following her devastating divorce, leaves her home in the New Hampshire mountains to work as a teacher in the state’s coastal region.
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The Cowboy and the Cossack
By: Clair Huffaker
Narrated by: Phil Gigante
Length: 12 hours 41 minutes
Abridged: No
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A Gay and Melancholy Sound
By: Merle Miller
Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
Length: 21 hours 26 minutes
Abridged: No
The first book in nationally renowned librarian Nancy Pearl’s new Book Lust Rediscoveries series, this lost literary classic is available for the first time in decades. As funny and entertaining as it is captivating and heartrending, A Gay and Melancholy Sound is a shattering depiction of modern disconnection and the tragic consequences of a... Read more »
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Plum & Jaggers
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The Girls From the Five Great Valleys
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The Soul of Viktor Tronko
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Abridged: No
When Soviet agent Viktor Tronko defected to the US in 1964, he made two intriguing claims: he insisted that Russia had not placed a mole inside the CIA, and that Lee Harvey Oswald had not been recruited to assassinate the president. Convinced that Tronko was working as a disinformation agent, the CIA furiously did everything they could to break... Read more »
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The Man in the Window
By: Jon Cohen
Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
Length:
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“An off-beat love story…alternately deeply moving and laugh-aloud funny.” —Good Housekeeping
“Jon Cohen conjures magic, weaving a gentle romantic fantasy of piercing and eccentric beauty.” —Boston Globe
Since he was disfigured in a fire sixteen years ago, recluse Louis Malone has remained hidden from the prying eyes of his neighbors in the small... Read more »
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