Babycakes
Written by Armistead Maupin
Narrated by Armistead Maupin
4/5
()
About this audiobook
""Maupin's San Francisco saga careens beautifully on."" —New York Times Book Review
The fourth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga.
When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there’s more to making a baby than 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 piece of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Maupin is the author of the Tales of the City series, which includes Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others, Sure of You, Michael Tolliver Lives, Mary Ann in Autumn, and The Days of Anna Madrigal. His other books include the memoir Logical Family and the novels Maybe the Moon and The Night Listener. Maupin was the 2012 recipient of the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Pioneer Award. He lives in London with his husband, Christopher Turner.
More audiobooks from Armistead Maupin
Logical Family: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babycakes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Significant Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sure of You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5MAYBE THE MOON Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tales of the City Audio Collection: Tales of the City, Books 1-6 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Babycakes
Titles in the series (13)
More Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Further Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babycakes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Further Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Significant Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sure of You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Days of Anna Madrigal: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Michael Tolliver Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mona of the Manor: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related audiobooks
Sure of You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Touchy Subjects Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More Tales of the City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Significant Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Days of Anna Madrigal: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Michael Tolliver Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of the City Audio Collection: Tales of the City, Books 1-6 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sweet Tooth: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mona of the Manor: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cast: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Birds Sing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Myra Breckinridge: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moo Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lonesome Lies Before Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diary of a Drag Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Later: My Life at the Edge of the World Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Two Sisters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Struck: A Husband's Memoir of Trauma and Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Broken Violin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cursing Mommy's Book of Days: A Novel Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, The Unabrid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Now It's Time to Say Goodbye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thirsty: Confessions of a Fame Whore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWingshooters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mississippi Sissy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
General Fiction For You
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Wings and Ruin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Court of Thorns and Roses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Court of Mist and Fury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Omens: A Full Cast Production Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Frost and Starlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Gods [TV Tie-In]: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neverwhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Duke and I Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Two Towers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Babycakes
459 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My favourite of the TotC series so far.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Never imagine for a moment that Author Maupin is lacking in spinal steel: He kills off a character, a lovely and belovèd character, with the sangfroid of a CIA-trained assassin. It was a painful loss, but it resonated with what was happening in our lives about that time (1984). And there's nothing in any universe anywhere that makes losing someone you've loved easy.Why I don't rate the read higher than three stars is simple: Author Maupin lost control of his cast. Scattered from pillar to post, incoherence of events plagues the story, and that severely limits my pleasure in the read. I won't re-read it, but the issue of its uncenteredness is only part of the reason.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sigh, the first book in the series that I didn't like. There was just something about the story line and the characters that didn't seem as thorough or complete. Hopefully, the next one will be back tot he usual standards.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very fun book!.. I very much enjoyed the first 3 of this series, and this followed suit perfectly. It is silly...sit-com silly......many of the characters are really caricatures - stereotypical....but Maupin makes you love them and root for them in spite of all their silly stereotypicalness (nice word, huh?).....nice compact chapters that jump from scene to scene and you keep reading cuz you have to find out how they survive their ridiculous situations. I read the others quite a few years ago and the characters and their connections came a little slowly at first, but it eventually all clicked. A little too many drugs taken way too casually to suit me, but we are talking about San Francisco in the early 1980's. No Pulitzer here, but an awful lot of fun!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5[Babycakes] by Armistead MaupinWell, that was a fun romp. Maupin finds silly ways to put his characters into predicaments and then even sillier ways to extricate them. I read this book in one day, a few hours. I am not a fast reader any more. Used to be one. Not now. But his books are easy reading. And fun. And make you laugh out loud.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Things start getting a bit darker after the third book: AIDS has shifted Maupin's focus a bit, and he's beginning to get a bit tired of some of his characters. Mona and Mrs Madrigal are reduced to walk-on parts; Mary Ann still has plenty to do in this one, but she has become a far less sympathetic character than she was in the earlier books. Maupin makes the most of the opportunities for comedy that arise out of Michael going to England, and he gives some more depth to the character of Brian, so there's still plenty to smile about, but it doesn't really feel as though there's much ground for optimism.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I think this is the best yet of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. In addition to favourite characters Michael alias Mouse, Mary-Ann and Brian, Mona and Mrs Madrigal, we have a handsome young English sailor who jumps ship (the Britannia no less), a gay English lord, and a delightful young aborigine Londoner. If you haven’t guessed some of the action takes place in England.I read this some time after reading the preceding Tales of the City books, but very quickly picked up with the familiar characters. Full of unlikely coincidences, Babycakes is not just as funny, possibly even the funniest so far, but is also especially heart-warming with so many endearing individuals, Michael really wins our hearts as does his mischievous young aborigine friend.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the fourth book in The Tales of the City series and probably the best. The 2nd & 3rd books descended into near stupidity, but this book brings Maupin's characters back older, wiser, and more socially aware. This is one of the first works of fiction to deal with the scourge of AIDS. Still, it remains very funny and heartwarming.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Maupin’s Tales of the City series (this is No.4) set in San Francisco is easy to read, gently amusing, lightweight, often sentimental and saccharine. Probably a big influence on TV shows like Friends and Sex In The City. More recently, Alexander McCall Smith has successfully emulated Maupin's achievement of writing his novels in the 44 Scotland Street series as daily newspaper instalments (in The Scotsman).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved all of the Tales of the City books so much that I read one each day when I was on a week-long beach vacation. I don't normally pay full price for books, but I had only brought the first 3 with me, and ended up buying the last three at B&N.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Maupin's delightful and fascinating characters find their way through San Francisco in the late 70s. AIDS and social awareness has crept into the lives of the inhabitants of Barbary Lane. The party is winding down. Michael and Mary Ann are no longer kids.