-
A Door in the Earth
- Narrated by: Roxanna Hope Radja
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
From the best-selling author of The Submission: A young Afghan American woman is trapped between her ideals and the complicated truth in this "penetrating" (O, Oprah Magazine), "stealthily suspenseful" (Booklist, starred review), "breathtaking and achingly nuanced" (Kirkus, starred review) novel.
Parveen Shams, a college senior in search of a calling, feels pulled between her charismatic and mercurial anthropology professor and the comfortable but predictable Afghan-American community in her Northern California hometown. When she discovers a best-selling book called Mother Afghanistan, a memoir by humanitarian Gideon Crane that has become a bible for American engagement in the country, she is inspired. Galvanized by Crane's experience, Parveen travels to a remote village in the land of her birth to join the work of his charitable foundation.
When she arrives, however, Crane's maternity clinic, while grandly equipped, is mostly unstaffed. The villagers do not exhibit the gratitude she expected to receive. And Crane's memoir appears to be littered with mistakes, or outright fabrications. As the reasons for Parveen's pilgrimage crumble beneath her, the US military, also drawn by Crane's book, turns up to pave the solde road to the village, bringing the war in their wake. When a fatal ambush occurs, Parveen must decide whether her loyalties lie with the villagers or the soldiers - and she must determine her own relationship to the truth.
Amy Waldman, who reported from Afghanistan for the New York Times after 9/11, has created a taut, propulsive novel about power, perspective, and idealism, brushing aside the dust of America's longest-standing war to reveal the complicated truths beneath. A Door in the Earth is the rarest of books, one that helps us understand living history through poignant characters and unforgettable storytelling.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Bewilderment
- A Novel
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.
-
-
Not Usually a Richard Powers Fan
- By Billy on 09-28-21
By: Richard Powers
-
Pandora's Jar
- Women in the Greek Myths
- By: Natalie Haynes
- Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tellers of Greek myths—historically men—have routinely sidelined the female characters. When they do take a larger role, women are often portrayed as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil—like Pandora, the woman of eternal scorn and damnation whose curiosity is tasked with causing all the world’s suffering and wickedness when she opened that forbidden box. But, as Natalie Haynes reveals, in ancient Greek myths there was no box. It was a jar . . . which is far more likely to tip over.
-
-
The Golden Age Continues
- By Stefan Filipovits on 03-29-22
By: Natalie Haynes
-
The Women of Chateau Lafayette
- By: Stephanie Dray
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Emma Bering, Rachel L. Jacobs
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic saga from New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy.
-
-
An absolute masterpiece of a book!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-15-21
By: Stephanie Dray
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Ladies of the Secret Circus
- By: Constance Sayers
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder - a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything. Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of the world until her fiancé disappears on their wedding day.
-
-
Not a fan of the narrator
- By Anonymous User on 07-01-21
By: Constance Sayers
-
The Graveyard Book
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody Owens is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place - he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their ghostly teachings - such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him.
-
-
Masterful Fantasy for the Jaded Heart
- By Guillermo on 10-12-09
By: Neil Gaiman
-
Bewilderment
- A Novel
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son, Robin, is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.
-
-
Not Usually a Richard Powers Fan
- By Billy on 09-28-21
By: Richard Powers
-
Pandora's Jar
- Women in the Greek Myths
- By: Natalie Haynes
- Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tellers of Greek myths—historically men—have routinely sidelined the female characters. When they do take a larger role, women are often portrayed as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil—like Pandora, the woman of eternal scorn and damnation whose curiosity is tasked with causing all the world’s suffering and wickedness when she opened that forbidden box. But, as Natalie Haynes reveals, in ancient Greek myths there was no box. It was a jar . . . which is far more likely to tip over.
-
-
The Golden Age Continues
- By Stefan Filipovits on 03-29-22
By: Natalie Haynes
-
The Women of Chateau Lafayette
- By: Stephanie Dray
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Emma Bering, Rachel L. Jacobs
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic saga from New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy.
-
-
An absolute masterpiece of a book!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-15-21
By: Stephanie Dray
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Ladies of the Secret Circus
- By: Constance Sayers
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder - a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything. Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of the world until her fiancé disappears on their wedding day.
-
-
Not a fan of the narrator
- By Anonymous User on 07-01-21
By: Constance Sayers
-
The Graveyard Book
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody Owens is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place - he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their ghostly teachings - such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him.
-
-
Masterful Fantasy for the Jaded Heart
- By Guillermo on 10-12-09
By: Neil Gaiman
-
Dead Letters from Paradise
- By: Ann McMan
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One sunny Spring morning, EJ's simple life is turned upside down when the town's master gardener unceremoniously hands her a stack of handwritten letters that have all been addressed to a nonexistent person at the garden. This simple act sets in motion a chain of events that will lead EJ on a life-altering quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious letter writer―and into a surprising head-on confrontation with the harsh realities of the racial injustice that is as deeply rooted in the life of her community as the ancient herbs cultivated in the Moravian garden.
-
-
Perfection
- By AGC on 09-08-22
By: Ann McMan
-
Big Sur
- By: Jack Kerouac, Aram Saroyan - foreword
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur "reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion".
-
-
Astonishing Ethan Hawke Performance
- By L E Stewart on 11-10-20
By: Jack Kerouac, and others
-
The Far Pavilions
- By: M. M. Kaye
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 48 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When The Far Pavilions was first published 19 years ago, it moved the critic Edmund Fuller to write this: "Were Miss Kaye to produce no other book, The Far Pavilions might stand as a lasting accomplishment in a single work comparable to Margaret Mitchell's achievement in Gond With the Wind." From its beginning in the foothills of the towering Himalayas, M. M. Kaye's masterwork is a vast, rich, and vibrant tapestry of love and war that ranks with the greatest panoramic sagas of modern fiction.
-
-
Heroism, adventure, sadistic cruelty, and love.
- By Velan on 02-19-13
By: M. M. Kaye
-
Chasing Me to My Grave
- An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South
- By: Winfred Rembert, Erin I. Kelly, Bryan Stevenson - foreword
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, Karen Chilton
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winfred Rembert grew up in a family of Georgia field laborers and joined the civil rights movement as a teenager. He was arrested after fleeing a demonstration, later survived a near-lynching at the hands of law enforcement, and spent the next seven years on chain gangs. During that time he met the undaunted Patsy, who would become his wife. Years later, at the age of 51 and with Patsy’s encouragement, he started drawing and painting scenes from his youth using leather tooling skills he learned in prison.
-
-
Remarkable Memoir, Both Beautiful and Brutal
- By Peter Haas on 10-21-21
By: Winfred Rembert, and others
-
Between Two Kingdoms
- A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world”. She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch - first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival.
-
-
This was painful.
- By Meredith Nutrition on 07-31-22
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
The Mountains Sing
- By: Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
- Narrated by: Quyen Ngo
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North.
-
-
Incredible first English language novel
- By Gregory Barbee on 03-23-20
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
-
-
The Great American Novel is finally inclusive.
- By Margaret on 12-28-21
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Trespasses
- A Novel
- By: Louise Kennedy
- Narrated by: Brid Brennan
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment—Michael is not only Protestant but older and married—Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites.
-
-
Exquisite
- By Suzanna on 11-10-22
By: Louise Kennedy
-
The Delight of Being Ordinary
- A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama
- By: Roland Merullo
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roland Merullo's playful, eloquent, and life-affirming novel finds the Pope and the Dalai Lama teaming up for an unsanctioned road trip through the Italian countryside to rediscover the everyday joys of life that can seem, even for the two holiest men in the world, unattainable.
-
-
Hope this is not the end of the story!
- By LuoL on 10-05-17
By: Roland Merullo
-
Betty
- A Novel
- By: Tiffany McDaniel
- Narrated by: Dale Dickey
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty Carpenter is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence—both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. But despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.
-
-
Well
- By Becky Lake on 03-07-21
By: Tiffany McDaniel
-
Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss
- A Novel
- By: Rajeev Balasubramanyam
- Narrated by: Ramon Tikaram
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Professor Chandra is an internationally renowned economist, divorced father of three (quite frankly baffling) children, recent victim of a bicycle hit-and-run - but so much more than the sum of his parts. In the moments after the accident, Professor Chandra doesn’t see his life flash before his eyes but his life’s work. He’s just narrowly missed the Nobel Prize (again), and even though he knows he should get straight back to his pie charts, his doctor has other ideas. All this work. All this success. All this stress. It’s killing him.
-
-
balanced fun
- By M Ann Revell-Pechar on 04-25-19
Critic reviews
"A masterful debut...Dazzlingly crafted...Waldman unspools her story with the truth-bound grit of a seasoned journalist and the elegance of a born novelist." (Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly)
"Moving...Eloquent...A coherent, timely, and fascinating examination of a grieving America's relationship with itself." (Chris Cleave, Washington Post)
"Waldman is an ingenious and probing situational novelist...In this deeply well-informed, utterly engrossing, mischievously disarming, and stealthily suspenseful tale of slow and painful realizations, she hits the mark over and over again...Every aspect of this complex and caustic tale of hype and harm is saturated with insight and ruefulness as Parveen wises up and Waldman considers womanhood and choice, literacy and translation, hubris and lies, unintended consequences, and the devastating chaos of war." (Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review)
Related to this topic
-
The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
-
-
She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
A Girl Is a Body of Water
- By: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
- Narrated by: Tovah Ott
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
International award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and - most importantly - how they find their way back to each other. In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta - her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts - but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow.
-
-
African narrators for African novels!
- By Lynn on 04-24-21
-
The Nine
- The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
- By: Gwen Strauss
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.
-
-
Soooo good!
- By anne simpson on 09-28-21
By: Gwen Strauss
-
I Am a Bacha Posh
- My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan
- By: Ukmina Manoori, Stephanie Lebrun, Peter E. Chianchiano - translator
- Narrated by: Ariana Delawari
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"You will be a son, my daughter." With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy. In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh: literally "girls dressed as boys." This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and work - and in some cases, it saves them from the disgrace of not having a male heir. But in adolescence, religion restores the natural law.
-
-
Good story, awful pronunciation
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-21
By: Ukmina Manoori, and others
-
A Suitable Boy (Dramatised)
- By: Vikram Seth
- Narrated by: Ayesha Dharker, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, full cast
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. The story unfolds through four middle class families: the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans, and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with.
-
-
would prefer unabridged naration
- By Tamshine on 07-07-11
By: Vikram Seth
-
The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
-
-
She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
A Girl Is a Body of Water
- By: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
- Narrated by: Tovah Ott
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
International award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and - most importantly - how they find their way back to each other. In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta - her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts - but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow.
-
-
African narrators for African novels!
- By Lynn on 04-24-21
-
The Nine
- The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
- By: Gwen Strauss
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.
-
-
Soooo good!
- By anne simpson on 09-28-21
By: Gwen Strauss
-
I Am a Bacha Posh
- My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan
- By: Ukmina Manoori, Stephanie Lebrun, Peter E. Chianchiano - translator
- Narrated by: Ariana Delawari
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"You will be a son, my daughter." With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy. In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh: literally "girls dressed as boys." This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and work - and in some cases, it saves them from the disgrace of not having a male heir. But in adolescence, religion restores the natural law.
-
-
Good story, awful pronunciation
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-21
By: Ukmina Manoori, and others
-
A Suitable Boy (Dramatised)
- By: Vikram Seth
- Narrated by: Ayesha Dharker, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, full cast
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. The story unfolds through four middle class families: the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans, and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with.
-
-
would prefer unabridged naration
- By Tamshine on 07-07-11
By: Vikram Seth
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
Anticipation
- A Novel
- By: Melodie Winawer
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Samantha Desz, Jonathan Davis, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of the “engrossing historical epic” (Booklist) The Scribe of Siena comes a thrilling tale set in the crumbling city of Mystras, Greece, in which a scientist’s vacation with her young son quickly turns into a fight for their lives after they cross paths with a man out of time.
-
-
Historical novel with a twist
- By Jbbee on 07-05-22
By: Melodie Winawer
-
Growing Up bin Laden
- Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World
- By: Jean Sasson, Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A true story that few ever believed would come to light, Growing Up bin Laden uncovers startling revelations and hidden secrets carefully guarded by the most wanted terrorist of our lifetime, Osama bin Laden.
-
-
Fascinating. I could not stop listening.
- By Curatina on 04-14-10
By: Jean Sasson, and others
-
Keeping Hope Alive
- One Woman: 90,000 Lives Changed
- By: Hawa Abdi, Sarah J. Robbins
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Hawa Abdi, "the Mother Teresa of Somalia" and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is the founder of a massive camp for internally displaced people located a few miles from war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. Since 1991, when the Somali government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled, she has dedicated herself to providing help for people whose lives have been shattered by violence and poverty.
-
-
How Refreshing
- By Jean Watz on 07-21-14
By: Hawa Abdi, and others
-
The Library of Legends
- A Novel
- By: Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
China, 1937: When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, 19-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than 100 students, faculty, and staff must walk 1,000 miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by hunger, cold, and the constant threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the student refugees who are at risk: Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure, a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.
-
-
Wonderful and Umique!
- By D. Fields on 02-18-22
By: Janie Chang
-
Mitka’s Secret
- A True Story of Child Slavery and Surviving the Holocaust
- By: Steven W. Brallier, Joel N. Lohr, Lynn G. Beck
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is Mitka’s account of facing the past, confronting his captors, connecting with lost relatives, and finding peace in the rediscovery of his origins. For Mitka, this also meant reclaiming his Jewish heritage - a journey that gave him a new sense of purpose and freedom from the lingering effects of trauma that had filled his life to that point. By the end, Mitka’s Secret is less a story of survival and more one of redemption and transformation - from hidden suffering to abundant joy.
-
-
This should be a movie!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-11-21
By: Steven W. Brallier, and others
-
The Latehomecomer
- A Hmong Family Memoir
- By: Kao Kalia Yang
- Narrated by: Kao Kalia Yang
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 70s and 80s, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to the United States, all in search of a new place to call home. Decades later, their experiences remain largely unknown. Kao Kalia Yang was driven to tell her own family's story after her grandmother’s death. The Latehomecomer is a tribute to that grandmother, a remarkable woman whose spirit held her family together.
-
-
Great Hmong history, lousy literature
- By Isadore Ducasse on 10-12-18
By: Kao Kalia Yang
-
999
- The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
- By: Heather Dune Macadam, Caroline Moorehead - foreword
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few survived.
-
-
I don’t think you can ever fully understand
- By Shelley on 02-25-20
By: Heather Dune Macadam, and others
-
Tears of the Desert
- A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
- By: Halima Bashir, Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Halima Bashir was born into the Zaghawa tribe, whose customs have remained unchanged for centuries, in the remote western deserts of Sudan in the region of South Darfur. Halima's father named his daughter after the traditional medicine woman of the village, and she grew up in a happy and close-knit childhood environment. Her father became a wealthy man by his tribe's standards, so he could afford to send Halima to school and university. Halima went on to study medicine, and at 24 she returned to her tribe and began practicing as their first ever qualified doctor.
-
-
A story that takes you there
- By Justicepirate on 05-22-17
By: Halima Bashir, and others
-
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden
- Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War
- By: Zhuqing Li
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other’s best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated at the end of the Chinese Civil War. One became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist. On Taiwan, Jun married a Nationalist general, established a trading company, and emigrated to the United States. On the Communist mainland, Hong built her medical career under a cloud of suspicion about her family and survived two waves of “re-education” before she was acclaimed for her achievements.
-
-
Wonderful Story of a Family’s Survival Through Political Change…
- By Marie G. on 04-12-23
By: Zhuqing Li
-
Daughter of Fortune
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.
-
-
An adventure to the California Gold Fields of 1849
- By Jean on 07-20-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
After the Last Border
- Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America
- By: Jessica Goudeau
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries - yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the 21st-century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.
-
-
Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
What listeners say about A Door in the Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cathleen Miller
- 09-02-19
A Great Book for Book Clubs
Well written and edited, this book examines our altruistic need to believe we can be the saviour to anyone but ourselves.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Judy in Salt Lake
- 01-31-20
An engrossing and informative read
This book explores what it means to 'help' a developing country - especially one where we have troops stationed - from the angles of all concerned. The book is poignantly told by a young, idealistic Afghan-American woman returning to the land of her heritage, living in a small village which is just outside the American war. She encounters a culture she struggles to understand, the impact of well intended aid, and the consequences of war.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KP
- 02-08-20
Both Sides Now
What I liked about A Door in the Earth is how good Amy Waldman is at showing both sides of all of the issues, of which there are many, in this book. We all know, I’m sure, that the whole situation in Afghanistan is complex. Waldman shows us how and why this is true through her story of a young college student who travels to a remote Afghan village and lives with a family there. Military intervention, sexual harassment and gender roles, medical issues for women, and more are part of her story and are presented in a way that makes the reader see both sides of each conflict. Accidental deaths by the military, while tragic, are rendered almost understandable. We can almost sympathize with the old man who begins to sexually molest Parveen, the main character. In fact Waldman shows both sides in these and other moral and ethical conundrums and also comes up with a story that is thoroughly compelling and even gripping. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book, how much I learned, and how much I wanted to keep reading it!
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
- Cherilyn Parsons
- 09-19-19
Riveting, provocative
What a fascinating and well-told narrative. I couldn’t stop listening. This novel unpacks a complex tangle of ethical and moral questions about “saving” other people and intervening in other countries. It illuminates American instigation of the war in Afghanistan and by extension other US interventions. The characters to me were realistic and complex, very engaging. The plot kept twisting and turning. I read a ton of books (I run a literary festival), and this was one of the most interesting novels I’ve read for a while. I’m recommending it to everyone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karen West
- 09-15-20
not a quick read
For me this was a delving into the many complex issues of war in a land completely culturally removed from that which the main figure, Parveen, comes from, even though she has roots in Afghanistan. Questions include healthcare, especially for women; how to provide aid to a people not really ready for such interventions;
How to deal with lies and cover ups;
and many more problems. Amongst all of this a naive woman with no working experience, drops into provide help. She grows in life as she befriends women of the village and her host. Worth the effort to face the hard truths of occupation in war.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Suramericana
- 11-11-19
THE INTEREST GROUPS IN THE WAR IN Afghanistan
Este libro esta basado en el libro Mother Afghanistan”, a memoir by Dr. Gideon Crane, Parveen Shamsa, a naive Afghan-. American woman. Parveen es una persona ingenua, que cree todo lo que Crane dice en el libro, pero en la vida en Alghanistan es compleja, la cultura de su gente es dificil, las mujeres las casas jovenes, como todas las mujeres musulmanas son controladas por sus esposos. Las condiciones de vida de las personas en las comunidades es dificil.
La guerra en Alghanistan no ayuda tampoco, ya que ayuda a unos pero destruye a otros.
El libro es interesante y demustra los grupos de interest monetario en esta guerra, la corruption de los americanos y de la gente de afghanistan. Mucho dinero y obras que se ofrecen, se hacen solo por gastar pero ni se cuidan como los hospitales ni se protegen. Asi vemos como nuestros dineros de impuestos estan gastados en guerras sin fin y sin proposito.
Espero que President Trump saque a nuestra gente de este tipo de guerra.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MonicainCA
- 11-25-22
Frustrating first half
I found the first half of the book maddening. The protagonist’s delayed recognition of her misplaced faith was absurdly slow and I thought of bailing. The second half kept my interest and overall it was worth sticking with it.
Where was the editor?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!