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The Ancient Minstrel by Jim Harrison
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The Ancient Minstrel

Novellas

$17.96

Retail price: $19.95

Discount: 9%

This title is not eligible for purchase with membership credits. Why?

Length 6 hours 36 minutes
Language English
Narrators Mark Bramhall, Xe Sands & Keith Szarabajka

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New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison is one of our most beloved and acclaimed writers, adored by both readers and critics. In The Ancient Minstrel, Harrison delivers three novellas that highlight his phenomenal range as a writer, shot through with his trademark wit and keen insight into the human condition.

Harrison has tremendous fun with his own reputation in the title novella, about an aging writer in Montana who spars with his estranged wife, with whom he still shares a home; weathers the slings and arrows of literary success; and tries to cope with the sow he buys on a whim and the unplanned litter of piglets that follow soon after. In ā€œEggs,ā€ a Montana woman reminisces about staying in London with her grandparents and collecting eggs at their country house. Years later, having never had a child, she attempts to do so. And in ā€œThe Case of the Howling Buddhas,ā€ retired Detective Sundersonā€”a recurring character from Harrisonā€™s New York Times bestsellers The Great Leader and The Big Sevenā€”is hired as a private investigator to look into a bizarre cult that achieves satori by howling along with howler monkeys at the zoo.

Fresh, incisive, and endlessly entertaining, with moments of both profound wisdom and sublime humor, The Ancient Minstrel is an exceptional reminder of why Jim Harrison is one of the most cherished and important writers at work today.

Jim Harrison (1937ā€“2016) was the author of over thirty-five books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, including Legends of the Fall, The Road Home, The English Major, and The Farmerā€™s Daughter. His writing appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, and the New York Times. He earned a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association. His work has been recognized worldwide and published in twenty-two languages.

Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their ā€œBest Voices of the Year.ā€ He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.

Xe Sands is an award-winning narrator known for her authentic characterizations and intimate delivery. She has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art, including recordings of Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo, The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro, and Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman. Sands has also been recognized for her engaging romance narrations and was named Most Impressive Narrator Discovery for titles such as Catch of the Day by Kristan Higgins and On Thin Ice by Anne Stuart.

Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbinsā€™s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.

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Reviews

ā€œA trio full of [Harrisonā€™s] trademark humor and insight.ā€

ā€œThese novellas traverse Harrisonā€™s familiar turf: the human relation to nature, how we live in it and consume it, how we believe we can rise above our natural urges and how often that makes us fools, and how natureā€™s mortal effects on humans always win in the end.ā€

ā€œA blend of humor (much of it bawdy), sex (ditto), and observations on the human condition that verge on the profound. When reading Mr. Harrison, itā€™s not uncommon to guffaw one minute and go all transcendental the next.ā€

ā€œFull of grace and humorā€¦A fitting marker for Harrisonā€™s life work.ā€

ā€œJim Harrisonā€™s novellas are always on point.ā€

ā€œThree very different pieces with autobiographical elements in commonā€¦Grand entertainments all and a pleasure.ā€

ā€œOne of his loosest and most playful booksā€¦witty and inspired.ā€

ā€œThree narrators interpret Harrisonā€™s distinctive voice and outlook, and each conveys perfectly the contrary and carefully balanced elements that make up the three central characters. The individual stories are mainly third-person narrative with little dialogue or sustained actionā€”making the narratorā€™s voice that much more important and defining. Mark Bramhallā€¦and Keith Szarabajka bring to maximum effect Harrisonā€™s randy old-man humor and the verbal richness of his style. Xe Sands, working with a quieter and more nuanced story, captures most effectively the intricate bond between people and their livestock. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.ā€

ā€œOne of our grand old writers, Harrison has a way with novellasā€¦and these pieces are classic.ā€

ā€œIt is fitting that for his final book, Jim Harrison return[ed] to the novella, a form that he spent more than three decades breathing fresh life into. The Ancient Minstrel, a collection of two novellas and one longish short story, is the author unadorned, warty and ruminative as ever.ā€

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