
This House of Sky
Landscapes of a Western Mind
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Narrated by:
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Ivan Doig
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By:
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Ivan Doig
About this listen
But Doig's Montana isn't bleak - it's filled with humor, laughter, and funny, memorable characters whose lives are played out against this big, wild land. Lacing his vivid narration with poetic interludes, Doig masterfully crafts a remarkable memoir. This House of Sky speaks many truths about family, love, loss, and the landscapes that mold us all.
©1989 Ivan Doig (P)1989 HighBridge Company; 16 9; 2000 HighBridge CompanyListeners also enjoyed...
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English Creek
- The Montana Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Part of Ivan Doig’s acclaimed Montana trilogy, English Creek revolves around Jick McCaskill, a 14-year-old growing up in 1930s Montana. This incandescent coming-of-age tale dramatizes the climatic events of one summer that inevitably mark Jick’s awakening from childhood to adulthood.
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Read this as book two and Dancing as book one
- By Blue on 05-21-13
By: Ivan Doig
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Last Bus to Wisdom
- A Novel
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The final novel from a great American storyteller. Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an 11-year-old's imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for "female trouble" in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
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Such a lovely final book.
- By B.J. on 02-26-16
By: Ivan Doig
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The Bartender's Tale
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Bartender' s Tale stars Tom Harry and his 12-year-old son, Rusty, who live alone and run a bar in a small Montana town in the early 1960s. Their lives are upended when Proxy, a woman from Tom's past, and her beatnik daughter, Francine, breeze into town. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own.
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If you love a good story ...
- By B.J. on 03-08-13
By: Ivan Doig
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Heart Earth
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig had only a vague memory of his mother until he discovered a cache of her letters. They revealed a passionate, can-do woman who loved the lilting rhythm of words. A moving prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig’s Heart Earth highlights his childhood before his mother’s death and eloquently captures the texture of the American West, the fortunes of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.
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Like a warm blanket on a chilly night.
- By Bonpierce on 09-28-18
By: Ivan Doig
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The Whistling Season
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1909, struggling to farm his remote homestead and raise three sons, widower Oliver Milliron desperately needs help. A housekeeper’s ad in a Milwaukee newspaper, “Can’t cook but doesn’t bite,” leads him to hire her sight unseen. When perky Rose Llewellyn arrives, she brings along her brainy brother, Morris. Though Rose whistles through her work at the Milliron house, and Morris becomes teacher at the one-room school, these two newcomers conceal a past that is colorful and infamous.
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A Gem
- By MetaDreaming on 12-30-24
By: Ivan Doig
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Prairie Nocturne
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig writes about Big Sky country with raw authenticity. Set during the 1920s, Prairie Nocturne finds Susan Duff, the young songbird from Doig’s Dancing at the Rascal Fair, now a middle-aged singing coach living in Helena. When her old flame, Wes Williamson, asks her to mentor his black chauffeur, Monty, she agrees. But racial tensions erupt when Susan’s private lessons with Monty attract the attention of the KKK.
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Not to my liking!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-24-14
By: Ivan Doig
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English Creek
- The Montana Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part of Ivan Doig’s acclaimed Montana trilogy, English Creek revolves around Jick McCaskill, a 14-year-old growing up in 1930s Montana. This incandescent coming-of-age tale dramatizes the climatic events of one summer that inevitably mark Jick’s awakening from childhood to adulthood.
-
-
Read this as book two and Dancing as book one
- By Blue on 05-21-13
By: Ivan Doig
-
Last Bus to Wisdom
- A Novel
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The final novel from a great American storyteller. Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an 11-year-old's imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for "female trouble" in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
-
-
Such a lovely final book.
- By B.J. on 02-26-16
By: Ivan Doig
-
The Bartender's Tale
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bartender' s Tale stars Tom Harry and his 12-year-old son, Rusty, who live alone and run a bar in a small Montana town in the early 1960s. Their lives are upended when Proxy, a woman from Tom's past, and her beatnik daughter, Francine, breeze into town. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own.
-
-
If you love a good story ...
- By B.J. on 03-08-13
By: Ivan Doig
-
Heart Earth
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig had only a vague memory of his mother until he discovered a cache of her letters. They revealed a passionate, can-do woman who loved the lilting rhythm of words. A moving prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig’s Heart Earth highlights his childhood before his mother’s death and eloquently captures the texture of the American West, the fortunes of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.
-
-
Like a warm blanket on a chilly night.
- By Bonpierce on 09-28-18
By: Ivan Doig
-
The Whistling Season
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1909, struggling to farm his remote homestead and raise three sons, widower Oliver Milliron desperately needs help. A housekeeper’s ad in a Milwaukee newspaper, “Can’t cook but doesn’t bite,” leads him to hire her sight unseen. When perky Rose Llewellyn arrives, she brings along her brainy brother, Morris. Though Rose whistles through her work at the Milliron house, and Morris becomes teacher at the one-room school, these two newcomers conceal a past that is colorful and infamous.
-
-
A Gem
- By MetaDreaming on 12-30-24
By: Ivan Doig
-
Prairie Nocturne
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig writes about Big Sky country with raw authenticity. Set during the 1920s, Prairie Nocturne finds Susan Duff, the young songbird from Doig’s Dancing at the Rascal Fair, now a middle-aged singing coach living in Helena. When her old flame, Wes Williamson, asks her to mentor his black chauffeur, Monty, she agrees. But racial tensions erupt when Susan’s private lessons with Monty attract the attention of the KKK.
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Not to my liking!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-24-14
By: Ivan Doig
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Sweet Thunder: A Novel
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the winter of 1920, a quirky bequest draws Morrie Morgan back to Butte, Montana, from a year-long honeymoon with his bride, Grace. But the mansion bestowed by a former boss upon the itinerant charmer, debuted in Doig’s best-selling book The Whistling Season, promises to be less a windfall than a money pit. And the town itself, with its polyglot army of miners struggling to extricate themselves from the stranglehold of the ruthless Anaconda Copper Mining Company, seems - like the couple’s fast-diminishing finances—on the verge of implosion.
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Ivan Doig at his best
- By Mama bear on 02-01-14
By: Ivan Doig
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Bucking the Sun
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Acclaimed for his beloved Montana trilogy, National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig crafts masterful portraits of life in rural Big Sky Country. Set in the 1930s, Bucking the Sun follows the Duff clan during the construction of the Fort Peck Dam. Hugh Duff is angry that the dam will flood his farm, yet his sons hasten to get jobs working on the project.
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Too profain.
- By B. Lowe on 09-11-15
By: Ivan Doig
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Mountain Time
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Often hailed as the heir apparent to Wallace Stegner, Ivan Doig is among the finest chroniclers of the contemporary American West. In Mountain Time, Lexa McCaskell and Mitch Rozier leave their Seattle home to visit Mitch’s dying father in Montana. There Mitch clashes with both Lexa and his father as events from the past are explored and difficult memories resurface.
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A Time in the Mountains.
- By Bill on 02-10-15
By: Ivan Doig
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The Eleventh Man
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- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Driven by the memory of a fallen teammate, TSU's 1941 starting lineup made Montana football history, charging through the season undefeated. Two years later, the "Supreme Team" is caught up in World War II. Ten of them are scattered around the globe in the war's various lonely and dangerous theaters. The 11th man, Ben Reinking, has been plucked from pilot training by a military propaganda machine hungry for heroes.
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Didn't really care for it.
- By spencerm on 03-10-09
By: Ivan Doig
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The River We Remember
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- Unabridged
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On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.
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This book makes me believe that there are good books written by good authors.
- By Va on 09-15-23
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Demon Copperhead
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- By: Barbara Kingsolver
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- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
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Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
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Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
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The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
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Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
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Remarkably Bright Creatures
- A Novel
- By: Shelby Van Pelt
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Michael Urie
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
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After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
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Hidden gem, incredible narration!
- By Christine T on 05-17-22
By: Shelby Van Pelt
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The Lincoln Highway
- A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car.
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I'm totally opposite
- By Meaghan Bynum on 10-10-21
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Angle of Repose
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Wallace Stegner's uniquely American classic centers on Lyman Ward, a noted historian who relates a fictionalized biography of his pioneer grandparents at a time when he has become estranged from his own family. Through a combination of research, memory, and exaggeration, Ward voices ideas concerning the relationship between history and the present, art and life, parents and children, and husbands and wives.
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The Quest for Balance
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Horse
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.
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Love Geraldine Brooks
- By Regina on 06-25-22
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A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
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- Narrated by: David Manis
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean claims that “in my family, there is no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.” Nor is there a clear line between family and fly-fishing. It is the one activity where brother can connect with brother and father with son, bridging troubled relationships at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana. In Maclean’s autobiographical novella, it is the river that makes them realize that life continues and all things are related.
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Loved the Movie- and the Short Story is Better!
- By Joe on 08-10-14
By: Norman Maclean
What listeners say about This House of Sky
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Joe K.
- 08-10-08
Seeing is beleiving
Until I moved to Montana, I don't think I could imagine or believe that Ivan Doig was talking about his, not his grandfathers life. Now, I have no doubt. If your longing for wide open spaces come visit Montana.
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- Colleen Schilperoort
- 06-21-23
Sky
What a hard life! Amazing how they managed to keep going with such horrendous weather! Truly tough people.!
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- Claire
- 08-29-23
Excellent writing —engaging
Beautiful account of a way of life and love of the land and a people who gave their love and lives for it.
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Overall
- Bertrand Russel
- 05-14-07
Disappointed
I read two of Mr. Doig's other books, English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair. They were far superior to this book. He is a great writer and has inspired my own writing, but I was terribly disappointed in what I believe is his first book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bill
- 04-13-15
A digested version.
I so wish I had listened to this first. Now I must relisten to all.
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- Tater
- 05-20-19
Powerful story about rural communities
What a insightful story into a time and life of a young Montana man and family.
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- Abraham Edholm
- 10-15-21
This appears abridged
I love Ivan Doig. His writing is important to me. I often read books in text and audio at the same time as I like to flit between media. This audio version appears to leave out great swathes of the text of the book itself. That is annoying. It is fun to hear Ivan Doug’s voice though. I would not have bought this if It had been clearly labeled as abridged so…I’m calling BS.
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