
Motorcycles & Sweetgrass
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $17.10
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Drew Hayden Taylor
About this listen
A story of magic, family, a mysterious stranger...and a band of marauding raccoons.
Otter Lake is a sleepy Anishnawbe community where little happens. Until the day a handsome stranger pulls up astride a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle - and turns Otter Lake completely upside down. Maggie, the Reserve’s chief, is swept off her feet, but Virgil, her teenage son, is less than enchanted. Suspicious of the stranger’s intentions, he teams up with his uncle, Wayne - a master of aboriginal martial arts - to drive the stranger from the Reserve. And it turns out that the raccoons are willing to lend a hand.
©2010 Drew Hayden Taylor (P)2021 Penguin Random House CanadaListeners also enjoyed...
-
Never Whistle at Night
- An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
- By: Shane Hawk - editor, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. - editor
- Narrated by: Erin Tripp, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Joelle Peters, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home. These shiver-inducing tales introduce listeners to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge.
-
-
Just…no…
- By Roger Glenn Duncan on 09-30-23
By: Shane Hawk - editor, and others
-
Firekeeper's Daughter
- By: Angeline Boulley
- Narrated by: Isabella Star LaBlanc
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.
-
-
Che Meegwetch
- By Nix on 03-18-21
By: Angeline Boulley
-
Warrior Girl Unearthed
- By: Angeline Boulley
- Narrated by: Isabella Star LaBlanc
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all. But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes.
-
-
Captivating!!
- By Nova❤ on 06-01-23
By: Angeline Boulley
-
Night of the Living Rez
- By: Morgan Talty
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.
-
-
Powerful and Candid Story
- By M on 07-15-22
By: Morgan Talty
-
The Accidental Tourist
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, adventure, surprises, and anything outside of his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly and alone, anchored by his solitude and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts. Then he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon disappear into himself. Despite Macon’s best efforts to remain insulated, Muriel upends his solitary, systemized life, catapulting him into the center of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined.
-
-
A Favorite
- By eulamen on 06-03-21
By: Anne Tyler
-
Bad Indians
- A Tribal Memoir
- By: Deborah A. Miranda
- Narrated by: Deborah Miranda
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This beautiful and devastating book - part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir - should be required for anyone seeking to learn about California Indian history, past and present. Deborah A. Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems. The result is a work of literary art that is wise, angry, and playful all at once, a compilation that will break your heart and teach you to see the world anew.
-
-
Bad recording
- By Aspyn Maes on 09-18-21
-
Never Whistle at Night
- An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
- By: Shane Hawk - editor, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. - editor
- Narrated by: Erin Tripp, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Joelle Peters, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home. These shiver-inducing tales introduce listeners to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge.
-
-
Just…no…
- By Roger Glenn Duncan on 09-30-23
By: Shane Hawk - editor, and others
-
Firekeeper's Daughter
- By: Angeline Boulley
- Narrated by: Isabella Star LaBlanc
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.
-
-
Che Meegwetch
- By Nix on 03-18-21
By: Angeline Boulley
-
Warrior Girl Unearthed
- By: Angeline Boulley
- Narrated by: Isabella Star LaBlanc
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all. But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes.
-
-
Captivating!!
- By Nova❤ on 06-01-23
By: Angeline Boulley
-
Night of the Living Rez
- By: Morgan Talty
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.
-
-
Powerful and Candid Story
- By M on 07-15-22
By: Morgan Talty
-
The Accidental Tourist
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, adventure, surprises, and anything outside of his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly and alone, anchored by his solitude and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts. Then he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon disappear into himself. Despite Macon’s best efforts to remain insulated, Muriel upends his solitary, systemized life, catapulting him into the center of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined.
-
-
A Favorite
- By eulamen on 06-03-21
By: Anne Tyler
-
Bad Indians
- A Tribal Memoir
- By: Deborah A. Miranda
- Narrated by: Deborah Miranda
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This beautiful and devastating book - part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir - should be required for anyone seeking to learn about California Indian history, past and present. Deborah A. Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems. The result is a work of literary art that is wise, angry, and playful all at once, a compilation that will break your heart and teach you to see the world anew.
-
-
Bad recording
- By Aspyn Maes on 09-18-21
-
The Seed Keeper
- A Novel
- By: Diane Wilson
- Narrated by: Kyla García
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhota people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato - where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited.
-
-
Heartbreaking American History.
- By Regina on 03-12-22
By: Diane Wilson
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
-
The Last Flight
- A Novel
- By: Julie Clark
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam, Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of 10, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.
-
-
Intriguing premise
- By SGS on 06-28-20
By: Julie Clark
-
Sweet Tea B&B
- Sweet Tea B&B, Book 1
- By: Rachel Hanna
- Narrated by: Becky Boyd
- Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mia Carter's life has always been about her family and their charming bed and breakfast in the idyllic Blue Ridge Mountains. When her mother passes away, Mia is left to run the Sweet Tea B&B alone. But a routine DNA test changes everything. Mia discovers she has a sister named Kate, who lives in Rhode Island. The sisters meet for the first time at the will reading and are shocked to learn that their mother's final wish was for them to run the B&B together.
-
-
Great book.
- By Kim Huckabee on 06-10-23
By: Rachel Hanna
-
A Curious Beginning
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Angele Masters
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria's golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry - and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.
-
-
For fans of Elizabeth Peters and Gail Carriger
- By L. Williams on 06-29-16
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Calling for a Blanket Dance
- By: Oscar Hokeah
- Narrated by: Oscar Hokeah, Rainy Fields
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told in a series of voices, Calling for a Blanket Dance takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle through the multigenerational perspectives of his family as they face myriad obstacles. His father’s injury at the hands of corrupt police, his mother's struggle to hold on to her job and care for her husband, the constant resettlement of the family, and the legacy of centuries of injustice all intensify Ever’s bottled-up rage. Meanwhile, all of Ever’s relatives have ideas about who he is and who he should be.
-
-
Like listening to a symphony
- By BEE on 08-11-22
By: Oscar Hokeah
-
The Best of Me
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.
-
-
Almost No New Material
- By Lizardectomy on 11-05-20
By: David Sedaris
-
Empire of Wild
- A Novel
- By: Cherie Dimaline
- Narrated by: Michelle St. John
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joan has been searching for her missing husband, Victor, for nearly a year - ever since that terrible night they’d had their first serious argument hours before he mysteriously vanished. Her Métis family has lived in their tightly knit rural community for generations, but no one keeps the old ways...until they have to. That moment has arrived for Joan. One morning, grieving and severely hungover, Joan hears a shocking sound coming from inside a revival tent in a gritty Walmart parking lot. It is the unmistakable voice of Victor.
-
-
Almost had it…
- By kisa on 04-16-22
By: Cherie Dimaline
-
Keeper'n Me
- By: Richard Wagamese
- Narrated by: Deneh'Cho Thompson, Sam Bob
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Garnet Raven was three years old, he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Having reached his mid-teens, he escapes at the first available opportunity, only to find himself cast adrift on the streets of the big city. Having skirted the urban underbelly once too often by age 20, he finds himself thrown in jail. While there, he gets a surprise letter from his long-forgotten native family. The sudden communication from his past spurs him to return to the reserve following his release from jail.
-
-
If I could read only one book in my lifetime this would be it.
- By J Kennedy on 03-05-19
By: Richard Wagamese
-
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
- By: Alicia Elliott
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated as a mind spread out on the ground. In this urgent, visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of the personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas experienced by her so many Native people. Elliott's deeply personal writing details a life spent between Indigenous and White communities - a divide reflected in her own family - and engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, art, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, and representation.
-
-
Well written, heartfelt, revealing
- By KWK on 07-15-24
By: Alicia Elliott
-
The Return
- By: Nicholas Sparks
- Narrated by: Kyf Brewer
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trevor Benson never intended to move back to New Bern, North Carolina. But when a mortar blast outside the hospital where he worked sent him home from Afghanistan with devastating injuries, the dilapidated cabin he'd inherited from his grandfather seemed as good a place to regroup as any. Tending to his grandfather's beloved beehives, Trevor isn't prepared to fall in love with a local...yet, from their very first encounter, Trevor feels a connection with deputy sheriff Natalie Masterson that he can't ignore.
-
-
2.5
- By Kelly C. on 10-01-20
By: Nicholas Sparks
-
The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek
- By: Rhett McLaughlin, Link Neal
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told - that local students’ strange demises at Whitewood, a local reformatory, were all tragic accidents. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry - and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood - Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.
-
-
Does it hold up beyond the R&L fandom?
- By BrettM on 12-01-19
By: Rhett McLaughlin, and others
Critic reviews
National Best Seller
Finalist 2013-2014 - First Nations Communities Read
2010, Governor General's Literary Awards - Fiction, Short-listed
“Motorcycles & Sweetgrass may be concerned with aboriginal community politics, identity, mythology and intergenerational legacies, but it reads like a romp.... Yet the book’s real strength is its underlying account of a community struggling to weave an increasingly abstract traditional past with some kind of meaningful future.” (Toronto Star)
“A near-perfect debut, a masterful mythic-comedy balancing contemporary issues and realities with magic and history.... Motorcycles & Sweetgrass is a trickster story, but it’s also a fundamentally human account of individuals and of a people struggling to find a place for themselves in the world.... A broad, bawdy, raucous, deeply felt and utterly involving narrative, a genuine pleasure to read.... Motorcycles & Sweetgrass positively crackles with life, love and magic. What more can you ask of a book?” (Robert J. Wiersema, Edmonton Journal)
What listeners say about Motorcycles & Sweetgrass
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anj
- 10-23-23
Nanaboozhoo!
Amazing storytelling hook, line, and sinker! Contemporary trickster tale full of meaning in classic Nanaboozhoo approach. GENIUS!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrew
- 05-18-23
Wonderful
Loved the story. Sweet mystical magical and funny tale. Kept me engaged and tuned in.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-05-23
Such a fun story!
I Love the book, love the audio book. Such a unique & sweet story. Highly recommend!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful