A Family Romance
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Narrated by:
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Fiona Shaw
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By:
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Anita Brookner
About this listen
As the solitary child of mild and gentle parents, Jane is fascinated and astounded by her exotically European aunt, Dolly.
Dolly’s ways are certainly not her parents’ ways, yet she is an object of interest and dread to her beleaguered relatives. It is clear that they have nothing in common: Jane feels no affection for Dolly, and Dolly clearly dislikes children.
Yet the two are fated to go through life in uneasy harness, until such time as their alliance is accepted by both as not only inevitable, but as something of great value.
Read by Fiona Shaw.
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Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
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Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
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Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
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The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
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Dead Med
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Patricia Santomasso, Scott Merriman
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.
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Hmm
- By Morgan Meaux on 08-22-24
By: Freida McFadden
What listeners say about A Family Romance
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- momwifesq
- 07-09-16
Very true to novel
I have read all of the Brookner canon. The narrator of this novel is wonderfully British and authentic. A poignant escape.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Adeliese Baumann
- 08-19-14
Hello, Dolly.
Jane Manning is a characteristic Brookner protagonist: rather shy, intelligent, sensitive, and by design and circumstance, rather alone in the world. Her aunt, Dolly, is a great contrast to her: maddeningly self-absorbed, designing, intriguing, and glamorous. Her many faults do not keep her niece from caring very much what happens to her.
In a culture of oversharing, where the facile observation is mistaken for wit, I find myself looking to writers like Brookner more often. Her depth of psychological wisdom and beautiful voice shine all the brighter by contrast.
Of course, she is not for everyone. But she may be for you.
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15 people found this helpful
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- David P
- 05-18-15
One of Brookner's Best
A beautifully written story of loss and loneliness that is at times funny and as always with Brookner, tremendously
Insightful and witty. Fiona Shaw brings it to life with her vivid, restrained narration.
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7 people found this helpful
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- mybloodhound
- 02-07-15
A very fine writer
Beautifully read, this is a story of what it is to learn to love those who are before us. Anita Brookner travels meticulously with her characters through time, revealing changes through time, uncovering qualities expected and unexpected.
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2 people found this helpful
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- JDS
- 01-06-24
Narrator captures Brookner’s voice perfectly
I found the main character’s focus on her “aunt” tedious at times but then again, this is Anita Brookner—wide latitude allowed!
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