Dana
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The Island of Missing Trees
- A Novel
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma, Amira Ghazalla
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,778
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,588
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,583
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish.
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5 out of 5 stars
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WOW! What a great story and narration!
- By Marcy on 12-02-21
- The Island of Missing Trees
- A Novel
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma, Amira Ghazalla
Stop Talking, Fig Tree
Reviewed: 05-31-24
The base story was compelling and I learned some history I didn’t know, but the personified fig tree as narrator did not work. The audio recording was solid though.
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Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great representation of the time
- By AvidReader22 on 06-07-19
- Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
Boring and author is self-centered
Reviewed: 03-20-24
This book is not about Fairyland. It is all just the author whining about her life. There are much better books on this topic. Avoid this one. Her audio is fine but nothing special.
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Dinners with Ruth
- A Memoir of Friendship
- By: Nina Totenberg
- Narrated by: Nina Totenberg
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,488
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,325
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,305
Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth’s legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated “on the basis of sex” to be unconstitutional. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not quite what I expected
- By Debra Malone on 09-23-22
- Dinners with Ruth
- A Memoir of Friendship
- By: Nina Totenberg
- Narrated by: Nina Totenberg
Great to spend time with Nina Totenberg
Reviewed: 02-28-24
I’m an NPR nerd, so I enjoyed this time with Nina. That said, because of the title I expected more about Ruth. And considering Nina Totenberg is a radio journalist, the narration was dry at times. Overall really interesting and enjoyable insights.
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39,780
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 35,519
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35,404
France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever - and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Prose style not to my liking
- By C.V. Cox on 10-18-20
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
Just okay.
Reviewed: 02-13-23
It was fine. The story is entertaining, but it’s a tad too long. My book club enjoyed it more than I did.
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The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 757
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 664
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 658
Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
- The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
Great book
Reviewed: 01-15-23
This is an interesting and funny part history, part parody, part family drama. The narration was great by all three narrators, but the music got a bit annoying.
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Another Country
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 815
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 683
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 682
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, Another Country tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way. Another Country is a work that is as powerful today as it was 40 years ago - and expertly narrated by Dion Graham.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Powerful and sad
- By Kenneth on 04-10-09
- Another Country
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
Interesting exploration but some annoying characters
Reviewed: 01-23-21
I expected more from Baldwin, but this is still a good book. It explores many issues of race but with a cast of characters who are mostly unlikable. It is annoying that the Audible chapters do not match up with the book chapters, but great performance.
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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris, Paula Wilcox
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,403
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,527
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,526
In 1799, the artificial island of Dejima lies in Nagasaki Harbor as Japan’s outpost for the Dutch East Indies Company. There, Jacob de Zoet has come to make a fortune large enough to return to Holland and marry the woman he loves.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good But Uneven
- By Trustme on 07-28-10
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris, Paula Wilcox
Travel to a faraway land
Reviewed: 03-12-12
If you could sum up The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet in three words, what would they be?
Exotic, complex, colorful
What other book might you compare The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet to and why?
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
What does Jonathan Aris and Paula Wilcox bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I appreciated having a female narrator for the parts of the book focused on the one female character. While Jonathan Aris did a good job with all the voices, making it easy to tell them apart, it wouldn't have been the same if he had told Orito's story.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
After putting this one down months ago to start the next book club selection even though I was only halfway through, I finally finished it on audio. With all the character names, the lapse I'm sure took away from the story, but I'm excited to have finished it. I really enjoyed some parts of this book, while I thought others dragged, but overall Mitchell is a great writer of historical fiction who takes you to another place and time with a colorful array of characters. I'm not usually fond of books where babies are killed, but somehow in this strange but interesting book it works!
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