A Tale of Love and Darkness
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 $21.83
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Stefan Rudnicki
-
By:
-
Amos Oz
About this listen
Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this extraordinary memoir is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz, changes his name, marries, has children, and finally becomes a writer as well as an active participant in the political life of Israel. A story of clashing cultures and lives, of suffering and perseverance, of love and darkness.
©2016 Amos Oz (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Who by Fire
- Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Matti Friedman, Andrew Polk
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a guitar and a group of local musicians, Cohen met hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. In Who by Fire, journalist Matti Friedman gives us a riveting account of those weeks in the Sinai.
-
-
A gem of a book
- By Grace M-T on 04-06-22
By: Matti Friedman
-
Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor
- By: Yossi Klein Halevi
- Narrated by: Yossi Klein Halevi
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Attempting to break the agonizing impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli commentator and award-winning author of Like Dreamers directly addresses his Palestinian neighbors in this taut and provocative book, empathizing with Palestinian suffering and longing for reconciliation as he explores how the conflict looks through Israeli eyes.
-
-
Israel 101 - but for Jews
- By GoingGoingGone... on 06-13-18
-
East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
-
Israel
- A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
- By: Noa Tishby
- Narrated by: Noa Tishby
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby.
-
-
I hope this book will help
- By Wayne on 05-08-21
By: Noa Tishby
-
My Promised Land
- The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
- By: Ari Shavit
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today. Not since Thomas L. Friedman's groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land.
-
-
Great book, but why the accent?
- By Stuart M. Wilder on 12-01-13
By: Ari Shavit
-
Judas
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abravanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her 40s, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets.
-
-
Beautifully written atmospheric
- By Tom on 01-14-19
By: Amos Oz
-
Who by Fire
- Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Matti Friedman, Andrew Polk
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a guitar and a group of local musicians, Cohen met hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. In Who by Fire, journalist Matti Friedman gives us a riveting account of those weeks in the Sinai.
-
-
A gem of a book
- By Grace M-T on 04-06-22
By: Matti Friedman
-
Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor
- By: Yossi Klein Halevi
- Narrated by: Yossi Klein Halevi
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Attempting to break the agonizing impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli commentator and award-winning author of Like Dreamers directly addresses his Palestinian neighbors in this taut and provocative book, empathizing with Palestinian suffering and longing for reconciliation as he explores how the conflict looks through Israeli eyes.
-
-
Israel 101 - but for Jews
- By GoingGoingGone... on 06-13-18
-
East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
-
Israel
- A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
- By: Noa Tishby
- Narrated by: Noa Tishby
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby.
-
-
I hope this book will help
- By Wayne on 05-08-21
By: Noa Tishby
-
My Promised Land
- The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
- By: Ari Shavit
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today. Not since Thomas L. Friedman's groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land.
-
-
Great book, but why the accent?
- By Stuart M. Wilder on 12-01-13
By: Ari Shavit
-
Judas
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abravanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her 40s, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets.
-
-
Beautifully written atmospheric
- By Tom on 01-14-19
By: Amos Oz
-
Impossible Takes Longer
- 75 Years After Its Creation, Has Israel Fulfilled Its Founders’ Dreams?
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1948, Israel’s founders sought a “national home for the Jewish people,” where Jewish life would be transformed. The state they ultimately made, says Daniel Gordis, is a place of extraordinary success and maddening disappointment, a story of both unprecedented human triumph and great suffering.
-
-
Has Israel fulfilled its dream?
- By Nico Vela on 09-22-23
By: Daniel Gordis
-
Israel
- A Concise History of a Nation Reborn
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world's attention, aroused its imagination, and, lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future? We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel's people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions.
-
-
Excellent, mildly but honestly biased, terrible narration
- By Schaq on 04-01-17
By: Daniel Gordis
-
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
- Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
- By: Nathan Thrall
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian.
-
-
We Must Look Deeper into this Struggle
- By Amazon Customer on 10-22-23
By: Nathan Thrall
-
East of Eden
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
-
-
Why have I avoided this Beautiful Book???
- By Kelly on 03-25-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
Arab and Jew
- Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, Revised Edition
- By: David K. Shipler
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 27 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Arab stereotype portrays the Jew as a brutal, violent coward. The Jewish stereotype portrays the Arab as a primitive creature of animal vengeance and cruel desires. In this monumental Pulitzer Prize-winning work, revised in 2002, David Shipler delves into the origins of these prejudices that have been intensified by war, terrorism, and nationalism. Shipler examines the process of indoctrination, the far-ranging effects of socioeconomic differences, and the historical conflicts between Islam and Judaism.
-
-
Review and complete analysis
- By Anonymous User on 05-24-20
By: David K. Shipler
-
Vanderbilt
- The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.
-
-
Interesting Approach to a Well Known History
- By HistoryNerd on 09-24-21
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
-
The Kite Runner
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
-
-
A Worhty Read
- By P. C..S. on 08-17-03
By: Khaled Hosseini
-
Go Set a Watchman
- A Novel
- By: Harper Lee
- Narrated by: Reese Witherspoon
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An historic literary event: the publication of a newly discovered novel, the earliest known work from Harper Lee, the beloved, best-selling author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Originally written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014.
-
-
To Kill A Mockingbird vs Go Set A Watchman
- By Sara on 07-15-15
By: Harper Lee
-
The Poisonwood Bible
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
-
-
Listen to the sample first!
- By Cheryl D on 07-30-08
-
The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
-
-
Narrators spoil it
- By Cookie on 09-27-16
By: Isabel Allende
-
Shuggie Bain
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: She is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good - her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor.
-
-
There’s far too much real pain and sadness in the world to spend any time listening to this tale of woe
- By SuperShopper on 02-18-21
By: Douglas Stuart
-
The Son
- By: Philipp Meyer
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Shepherd, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of one family across two centuries. Eli McCullough is just twelve-years-old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him as a captive.
-
-
Five Stars for the Lone Star, The Son, & Meyer
- By Mel on 06-04-13
By: Philipp Meyer
Related to this topic
-
All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
-
-
Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
-
Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
-
-
Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
-
Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
-
-
Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Women in the Castle
- By: Jessica Shattuck
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
-
-
Skating On The Thin Ice Of Life
- By Sara on 04-29-17
By: Jessica Shattuck
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
-
-
Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
-
Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
-
-
Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
-
Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
-
-
Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Women in the Castle
- By: Jessica Shattuck
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
-
-
Skating On The Thin Ice Of Life
- By Sara on 04-29-17
By: Jessica Shattuck
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
The Vagrants
- By: Yiyun Li
- Narrated by: Jackie Chung
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yiyun Li is the winner of the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The Vagrants, set in 1979 China, is the story of those affected by the execution of a 28-year-old counterrevolutionary. Though suffering, Li's characters nevertheless struggle to maintain hope amid cruel circumstance.
-
-
Lovely prose, good story, deadly narration
- By Athene on 05-10-13
By: Yiyun Li
-
The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
-
-
Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Gift
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write - a book very much like The Gift itself.
One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899.
-
-
A complex and rich Künstlerroman
- By Darwin8u on 11-30-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
-
-
Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
-
Midnight's Children
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Lyndam Gregory
- Length: 24 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.
-
-
Outstanding book, superb narration
- By MarcS on 06-09-09
By: Salman Rushdie
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Brian Keeler
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max Tivoli is uniquely cursed. His mind ages normally, but he is born with the withered body of a 70-year-old man, and his body ages in reverse. Despite this torment, Max manages three times to cross paths with Alice, the woman who captures his heart. Because he appears to be a different person each time they meet, Max has three chances for true love.
-
-
odd premise, but it works!
- By Sean Dunnahoo on 03-03-04
-
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
- A Novel
- By: Jan-Philipp Sendker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be - until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the listener’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
-
-
Basic Story Interesting, But...
- By Monica on 06-04-13
-
Nine Continents
- A Memoir In and Out of China
- By: Xiaolu Guo
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Xiaolu Guo has traveled further than most to become who she needed to be. Now, as she experiences the birth of her daughter in a London maternity ward surrounded by women from all over the world, she looks back on that journey. It begins in the fishing village shack on the East China Sea where her illiterate grandparents raised her, and brings her to a rapidly changing Beijing, full of contradictions: a thriving underground art scene amid mass censorship, curious Westerners who held out affection only to disappear back home.
-
-
must read
- By Jeff Darlington on 10-22-17
By: Xiaolu Guo
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Judas
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abravanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her 40s, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets.
-
-
Beautifully written atmospheric
- By Tom on 01-14-19
By: Amos Oz
-
My Michael
- By: Amos Oz, Nicholas de Lange - translation
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in 1950s Jerusalem, My Michael is the story of a remote and intense woman named Hannah Gonen and her marriage to a decent but unremarkable man named Michael. As the years pass and Hannah's tempestuous fantasy life encroaches on reality, she feels increasingly estranged from him, and the marriage gradually disintegrates. Gorgeously written and profoundly moving, this extraordinary novel is at once a haunting love story and a rich, reflective portrait of a place.
-
-
Well performed
- By Jeff Lacy on 03-30-21
By: Amos Oz, and others
-
Who by Fire
- Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Matti Friedman, Andrew Polk
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a guitar and a group of local musicians, Cohen met hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. In Who by Fire, journalist Matti Friedman gives us a riveting account of those weeks in the Sinai.
-
-
A gem of a book
- By Grace M-T on 04-06-22
By: Matti Friedman
-
Black Dog of Fate
- A Memoir
- By: Peter Balakian
- Narrated by: Peter Balakian
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia. He was immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced: the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians.
-
-
Great book!
- By Lm on 06-27-13
By: Peter Balakian
-
Censoring an Iranian Love Story
- By: Shahriar Mandanipour
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Naila Azad
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of Iran’s most acclaimed and controversial contemporary writers, his first novel to appear in English - a dazzlingly inventive work of fiction that opens a revelatory window onto what it’s like to live, to love, and to be an artist in today’s Iran. The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar - the author’s fictional alter ego - has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
-
-
One of the most creative books to date!
- By Zygote on 10-12-16
-
Israel
- A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
- By: Noa Tishby
- Narrated by: Noa Tishby
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby.
-
-
I hope this book will help
- By Wayne on 05-08-21
By: Noa Tishby
-
Judas
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abravanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her 40s, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets.
-
-
Beautifully written atmospheric
- By Tom on 01-14-19
By: Amos Oz
-
My Michael
- By: Amos Oz, Nicholas de Lange - translation
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in 1950s Jerusalem, My Michael is the story of a remote and intense woman named Hannah Gonen and her marriage to a decent but unremarkable man named Michael. As the years pass and Hannah's tempestuous fantasy life encroaches on reality, she feels increasingly estranged from him, and the marriage gradually disintegrates. Gorgeously written and profoundly moving, this extraordinary novel is at once a haunting love story and a rich, reflective portrait of a place.
-
-
Well performed
- By Jeff Lacy on 03-30-21
By: Amos Oz, and others
-
Who by Fire
- Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Matti Friedman, Andrew Polk
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a guitar and a group of local musicians, Cohen met hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. In Who by Fire, journalist Matti Friedman gives us a riveting account of those weeks in the Sinai.
-
-
A gem of a book
- By Grace M-T on 04-06-22
By: Matti Friedman
-
Black Dog of Fate
- A Memoir
- By: Peter Balakian
- Narrated by: Peter Balakian
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia. He was immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced: the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians.
-
-
Great book!
- By Lm on 06-27-13
By: Peter Balakian
-
Censoring an Iranian Love Story
- By: Shahriar Mandanipour
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Naila Azad
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of Iran’s most acclaimed and controversial contemporary writers, his first novel to appear in English - a dazzlingly inventive work of fiction that opens a revelatory window onto what it’s like to live, to love, and to be an artist in today’s Iran. The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar - the author’s fictional alter ego - has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
-
-
One of the most creative books to date!
- By Zygote on 10-12-16
-
Israel
- A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
- By: Noa Tishby
- Narrated by: Noa Tishby
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby.
-
-
I hope this book will help
- By Wayne on 05-08-21
By: Noa Tishby
What listeners say about A Tale of Love and Darkness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alex
- 02-18-24
Personal and Special
Oz captures the personal history in a time of upheaval. One of the most intense, funny, deeply tragic and unique stories.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jill Steinberg
- 06-21-24
The writing is unbelievable. The use of language and descriptions is like nothing I have ever read.
I loved the individual stories but because it was not chronological sometimes I got confused as to where we were in the sequence of events. I listened rather than read it so that might have been part of the problem. It is a book that could definitely be read or listened to more than once because of the beautiful language.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eliot Kaplan
- 10-21-24
A portrait of a young Israeli in the years around the creation of the State of Israel..
A lovely listen! At times funny, touching, and profound, woven with the lives of his family and the birth of the State..
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- philip carr harris
- 11-06-22
Compelling
The author takes me with him into the winding alleys of his and his country's coming of age.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Laura R. Perera
- 11-05-20
A masterpiece
A beautiful story told in the most lovely way. I takes you to the profound psyche of a boy as he grows up. The story and history of Jewish people narrated with passion and magnificent details.
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
- Lizabeth I. Flores
- 04-24-21
could not put it down
excellent. description of characters brought them to life..narrator
was clear telling the story .
would recommend with enthusiasm
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Book of Odds
- 05-15-23
Extraordinary record of a life and time
Oz grew up in Jerusalem under the Mandate and Mufti, the Israeli War of Independence and Palestinian Nakba. This is a memoir of his coming of age and to prominence and the terrors of post-Holocaust Palestine, his polyglot family, the trauma of his mother’s suicide. In the setting and time of his novel, My Michael, this could be a gloss to that fine work. So many memorable characters, often writers storytellers or scholars, in this profound and truthful telling.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- michael petro
- 08-07-20
An excellent literary work by Mr. Oz
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book. His use of language, literary devices, and a love of words made me purchase a hard copy so that I could follow along. The reader’s voice complemented my visualization. I am looking forward to my next book by Amos Oz.
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
- John Zoetebier
- 02-19-19
Interesting autobiography placed in Isreal
Story gives interesting background of Israel in the 1940-1960 era like the declaration of the state. Striking is the constant danger people had to live in. A thread in the story is the life and death of his mother.
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
- Laura G. Marcantoni
- 05-04-19
Good but a little too long.
It is a very good book but could have used some trimming. There are things that pop up several times for , at least in my opinion, no apparent reason and, in my opinion again could have been edited.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!