Try an audiobook on us
Babycakes
People who bought this also bought...
-
Tales of the City
- Tales of the City, Book 1
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Frances McDormand
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the City is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening!
- By E J STICKLAND on 27-02-16
-
Tales of the City
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed a singular trail through popular culture, from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a wry comedy of manners and a deeply involving portrait of a vanished era.
-
-
Barbary
- By Rhiannon on 15-02-07
-
Logical Family
- A Memoir
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this funny, poignant and unflinchingly honest memoir, one of the world's best-loved storytellers explains how he evolved from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to claim their own lives. It is a journey that leads him from the racism and misogyny of midcentury North Carolina to a homoerotic navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House.
-
-
Thank you Mr. Maupin
- By the typist on 18-10-17
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taking in the parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo and the purchase of a human skeleton, and culminating in a brilliant account of his attempt to quit smoking - in Tokyo - David Sedaris' sixth story collection is a fresh masterpiece of comic writing.
-
-
Utterly wonderful!
- By Shirley on 01-11-08
-
Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris' cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.
-
-
Rrpeat repeat
- By P. Lee on 08-06-18
-
The Sparsholt Affair
- By: Alan Hollinghurst
- Narrated by: David Dawson
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1940, the handsome young David Sparsholt arrives in Oxford. A keen athlete and oarsman, he at first seems unaware of the effect he has on others - particularly on the lonely and romantic Evert Dax, son of a celebrated novelist and destined to become a writer himself. While the Blitz rages in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove: an ephemeral, uncertain place in which nightly blackouts conceal secret liaisons....
-
-
Good - not extraordinary
- By Tamas Lorincz on 05-03-18
-
Tales of the City
- Tales of the City, Book 1
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Frances McDormand
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the City is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening!
- By E J STICKLAND on 27-02-16
-
Tales of the City
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed a singular trail through popular culture, from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a wry comedy of manners and a deeply involving portrait of a vanished era.
-
-
Barbary
- By Rhiannon on 15-02-07
-
Logical Family
- A Memoir
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this funny, poignant and unflinchingly honest memoir, one of the world's best-loved storytellers explains how he evolved from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to claim their own lives. It is a journey that leads him from the racism and misogyny of midcentury North Carolina to a homoerotic navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House.
-
-
Thank you Mr. Maupin
- By the typist on 18-10-17
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taking in the parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo and the purchase of a human skeleton, and culminating in a brilliant account of his attempt to quit smoking - in Tokyo - David Sedaris' sixth story collection is a fresh masterpiece of comic writing.
-
-
Utterly wonderful!
- By Shirley on 01-11-08
-
Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris' cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.
-
-
Rrpeat repeat
- By P. Lee on 08-06-18
-
The Sparsholt Affair
- By: Alan Hollinghurst
- Narrated by: David Dawson
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1940, the handsome young David Sparsholt arrives in Oxford. A keen athlete and oarsman, he at first seems unaware of the effect he has on others - particularly on the lonely and romantic Evert Dax, son of a celebrated novelist and destined to become a writer himself. While the Blitz rages in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove: an ephemeral, uncertain place in which nightly blackouts conceal secret liaisons....
-
-
Good - not extraordinary
- By Tamas Lorincz on 05-03-18
-
Wise Children
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Tracey Ullman
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Angela Carter's last book, Wise Children, was written and published whilst she was dying from cancer, in 1991. Transcending her physical deterioration in admirable fashion, Carter made this a most life-affirming novel, in support of the vitality of 'otherness.' This Audible exclusive production, expertly read by Tracey Ullman, stands in celebration of a legendary author known for the richness of her imagination, wit and feminist insight.
-
-
Bottled joie de vivre
- By Ms on 22-08-18
-
Ma'am Darling
- 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret
- By: Craig Brown
- Narrated by: Eleanor Bron
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From our funniest writer, a portrait of our most talked-about royal. She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy.
-
-
La-di-da
- By Pamela on 06-11-17
-
Call Me by Your Name
- A Novel
- By: André Aciman
- Narrated by: Armie Hammer
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Call Me by Your Name first swept across the world in 2007. It is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. During the restless summer weeks, unrelenting but buried currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them and verge toward the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.
-
-
Beautiful and bittersweet
- By Vicky on 04-11-17
-
The Spell
- By: Alan Hollinghurst
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Spell is a comedy of sexual manners that follows the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin, an architect in his late 40s who is trying to build an idyllic life in Dorset with his younger lover, Justin; Robin's 22-year-old son, Danny, a volatile beauty who lives for clubbing and casual sex; and the shy Alex, who is Justin's ex-boyfriend.
-
-
A idyll c look on gay life
- By Justin D. Rumsby on 02-11-18
-
East of Croydon
- By: Sue Perkins
- Narrated by: Sue Perkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A few years ago I was asked if I'd like to make a documentary on the Mekong River, travelling from the vast delta in Vietnam to the remote and snowy peaks of Tibet. Up until that point, the farthest east I'd been was Torremolinos, in the Costa Del Sol....
-
-
P...ing your pants one minute, sobbing your heart out the next
- By mat brown on 21-10-18
-
Me Talk Pretty One Day
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter.
-
-
Absolutely hilarious
- By Tracey on 06-01-10
-
The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992
- By: Tina Brown
- Narrated by: Tina Brown
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her 20s who arrives in New York City with a dream. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company.
-
-
Brilliant, spiky and surprisingly warm
- By Mark on 07-02-18
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
-
Outstandingly sad, funny and bitchy family life
- By Kaggy on 06-08-16
-
Brideshead Revisited
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wellsprings of desire and the impediments to love come brilliantly into focus in Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece - a novel that immerses us in the glittering and seductive world of English aristocracy in the waning days of the empire. Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities.
-
-
A total delight
- By Jytte on 17-09-16
-
Heartburn
- By: Nora Ephron
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
-
-
So great!! I don't want it to end!
- By Heather on 05-09-13
-
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mr George Smiley is small, podgy, and at best, middle-aged. He is disillusioned, wrestles with idleness, and has been deserted by his beautiful wife. He is also compassionate, ruthless, and a senior British intelligence officer in short-lived retirement from the Circus, the British Secret Service organisation situated in London. But Moscow centre has infiltrated a mole into the Circus, and it's more than likely the perpetrator is Karla, Smiley's old adversary and his opposite number in Moscow.
-
-
Absolutely fantastic - loved it!
- By ella on 11-05-15
-
Theft by Finding
- Diaries: Volume One
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print or audio.
-
-
Not what you might be expecting...
- By Colin on 15-03-18
Summary
When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby then meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbor, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, Babycakes was the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.
More from the same
What members say
Average customer ratings
Overall
-
-
5 Stars27
-
4 Stars14
-
3 Stars2
-
2 Stars0
-
1 Stars1
Performance
-
-
5 Stars27
-
4 Stars7
-
3 Stars7
-
2 Stars0
-
1 Stars2
Story
-
-
5 Stars28
-
4 Stars9
-
3 Stars4
-
2 Stars1
-
1 Stars1
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Scott
- 07-04-13
Maupin's 4th "Tales" Book with a Male Narrator
See previous reviews for discussion of the characters. The big difference in this book is that the subject matter begins to get more serious as the author and our country began to come to grips with the crisis of AIDS. Since the series was originally published in a newspaper is was necessary to follow current events which makes it all that much more realistic. The other big difference in this audiobook is the male narrator which probably seemed appropriate since the series begins to revolve more around Michael and less around Mary Ann. Alan Cummings can be a bit hard to take at first since you are, by now, likely used to the gentler tones of Ms. McDorland or Ms. Nixon narrating. He's not THAT bad, it's just that he takes his voice acting a bit over the top to the point where his voice is grating for brief moments which is why I knocked a star off the performance. He lands solidly on the acting side of the narrator/actor balance but he gives us stereotypes. As the book goes I adjusted and he does excellent British accents which are necessary and appropriate to the story. Still, he gets four stars. Some will give worse but while the narrator may slightly diminish, he will by no means ruin your enjoyment of this book. (He's still a *lot* better than the alternative which was Maupin reading his own work.) Here Mary Ann struggles with trying to balance a career and pressures to be a parent. There isn't as much of a fantastic mystery at the heart of this fourth book as there were in the previous two. It is again recommended that you start with the original Tales of the City before listening to the subsequent tales of Mr. Tolliver, Mary Ann, Brian, et. al. The standard warning is issued against the prudish & close-minded as these books are nothing if not frank about sexual behavior both gay and straight and in-between. If you are eager, as I was, to revisit the original series but with no time to sit and read it, you'll be satisfied with this book which follows Michael to England during the year of the Queen's visit to America back in the Regan era. If you haven't read this series, as Rachel Maddow says, "you lucky dog" you are in for a treat.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- DickensRocks
- 05-05-15
Alan Cumming ROCKS
All the narrators of this series have been terrific, but Alan Cumming is spectacular. Good series, too; heartwarming characters and hilarious hi jinks.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathleen
- 20-01-16
Wonderful book
Classic Armistead Maupin, Babycakes is a wonderful book. The storyline takes you on outrageous twists and turns but all of it is believable because of Maupin's richly developed characters. Nothing about them is forced or stretched to fit the story, they are already more than enough.
While Alan Cumming narrates very well for the most part, his low voice does not lend itself to doing female voices. Most come across as caricatures, undermining the written strength of the characters. (They can also really grate on your nerves.) Don't give up on the book because of the performance, you'll miss out on so much more! (And take comfort in the fact that he doesn't narrate any other books in the series.)
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
- Kent Valandra
- 31-12-15
Only Maupin
This wonderful col!section of lovable, dreadful characters are the special provenance is Armistead Maupin. If you laugh at and delight in them half as much as I, you will put this book on a special shelf of yout library.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Catnip
- 03-11-16
I ordinarily love Alan Cumming, but...
I've listened to other books narrated by Alan Cumming and loved them, but this one not so much. His British accents in Babycakes are (as you would expect) excellent, but he manages to make every single female character in this book sound extraordinarily shrill. It marred the experience for me.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert R.
- 27-05-13
Fun Book in the Series Destroyed by Poor Narration
Would you listen to Babycakes again? Why?
No, because I can't take Alan Cumming's narration. He's ruining the book and doesn't seem to understand the first thing about acting or character. All of his female characters, regardless of their age, sound like an overly effete, drunk, air-headed, lush of a 13 year old girl. This one's definitely better in book form.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
See above.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, but Alan Cumming made it a chore. His amateurish narration was jarring and pulled me out of the book (which I have happily read at least eight times, like the rest of the series, since it was released).
Any additional comments?
Most of these books are better read than listened to, but this one is the most poorly narrated of all. It's impossible to love the characters the way you do in the book when they all talk like completely gushy drunken idiots.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maurizio
- 21-05-18
Wonderful book - horrible reader
Another fantastic novel in the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin. Unfortunately, Alan Cumming - usually a fantastic actor - ruins almost completely the book with his interpretation.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathleen Fuller
- 15-10-16
Great fun to listen to
Would you listen to Babycakes again? Why?
YES
Who was your favorite character and why?
Mrs. M of course
Have you listened to any of Alan Cumming’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I like the way he can switch back and forth with each character's voice
Who was the most memorable character of Babycakes and why?
Wilfred a definite child abuse survivor with a happy ending
Any additional comments?
I love the series
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jack
- 14-03-14
Alan Cumming: great actor, terrible narrator
Would you try another book from Armistead Maupin and/or Alan Cumming?
I DO intend to buy and listen to the next books in this series.... as long as they are not read by the whimpering Alan Cumming, an actor I DO like on the stage and screen.
What didn’t you like about Alan Cumming’s performance?
Cumming has a weird notion of what American men AND women sound like when they converse. He makes the author's language sound trite, self-pitying, and childish. It will be a pleasure to return to Cynthia Nixon's narration for book FIVE of the series.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful