
A God in Ruins
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Narrated by:
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Alex Jennings
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By:
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Kate Atkinson
About this listen
The stunning companion to Kate Atkinson's number one best seller Life After Life, "one of the best novels I've read this century" (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl).
Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. Her new novel tells the story of Ursula Todd's beloved younger brother, Teddy - would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband, and father - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is facing the difficulties of living in a future he never expected to have.
The stunning companion to Life After Life, A God in Ruins explores the loss of innocence, the fraught transition from the war to peacetime, and the pain of being misunderstood, especially as we age. Proving once again that Kate Atkinson is "one of the finest writers working today" (The Chicago Tribune), A God in Ruins is the triumphant return of a modern master.
©2015 Kate Atkinson (P)2018 Bond Street BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
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A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
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Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
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Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
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Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
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Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
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Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
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Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
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Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
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So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
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The Covenant of Water
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- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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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.
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Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
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Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
-
-
Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
-
-
Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
-
-
Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
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.
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Story Telling At Its Best
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Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
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Critic reviews
National Best Seller
A New York Times Best Seller
Winner of the 2015 Costa Novel Award
A TIME Best Book of the Year
A Guardian Best Book of the Year
An NPR Best Book of 2015
A Telegraph Best Book of 2015
A Washington Post Best Fiction Book of 2015
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A Financial Times Best Book of 2015
A Seattle Times Best Book of 2015
A St. Louis Dispatch Best Book of 2015
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"This book is particularly lovely and melancholy.... [Atkinson] is one of those writers that really can make you weep on one page and laugh on the next.... She just has such a vast humanity for her characters, this incredible empathy.... I don't think I could ever write like Kate." (Gillian Flynn, author of number one New York Times best seller Gone Girl)
"This is a gorgeous novel.... Atkinson [has a] marvellously vinegary sense of humour...[and] extraordinary grace and control over the story.... It is unsettling and exhilarating, and reminds the reader that while the past lives with us at every moment, the future does, too, in every decision made or unmade.... Splendid." (The Globe and Mail)
"Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins, a sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, [reminds you] what a big, old-school novel can do.... It's a masterly and frequently exhilarating performance by a novelist who seems utterly undaunted by the imposing challenges she's set for herself.... Atkinson's a sly and witty observer, with a gift for finding the perfect detail." (Tom Perrotta, The New York Times Book Review)
What listeners say about A God in Ruins
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Wayde
- 01-23-22
So English
I truely loved Alex's performance he managed to really capture that slightly cinical but truely English attitude to the world about them.
And Kate is just always a joy to read, I dont really know why but I have fallen in love with nearly all her characters, from Brody to even Viola.
Be warned this particular book will break your heart
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