A Word for Love
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Julia Whelan
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By:
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Emily Robbins
About this listen
A mesmerizing debut set in Syria on the cusp of the unrest, A Word for Love is the spare and exquisitely told story of a young American woman transformed by language, risk, war, and a startling new understanding of love.
It is said there are 99 Arabic words for love. Bea, an American exchange student, has learned them all: in search of deep feeling, she travels to a Middle Eastern country known to hold "The Astonishing Text", an ancient, original manuscript of a famous Arabic love story that is said to move its best readers to tears. But once in this foreign country, Bea finds that instead of intensely reading Arabic she is entwined in her host family's complicated lives - as they lock the doors and whisper anxiously about impending revolution. And suddenly, instead of the ancient love story she sought, it is her daily witness of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet-like romance - between a housemaid and a policeman of different cultural and political backgrounds - that astonishes her, changes her, and makes her weep. But as the country drifts toward explosive unrest, Bea wonders how many secrets she can keep and how long she can fight for a romance that does not belong to her. Ultimately, in a striking twist, Bea's own story begins to mirror that of "The Astonishing Text" that drew her there in the first place - not in the role of one of the lovers, as she might once have imagined, but as the character who lives to tell the story long after the lovers have gone.
With melodic meditation on culture, language, and familial devotion. Robbins delivers a powerful novel that questions what it means to love from afar, to be an outsider within a love story, and to take someone else's passion and cradle it until it becomes your own.
©2017 Emily Robbins (P)2017 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Robbins’ melodic novel is story of war, family, language, but above all, a paean to unabashed, unbridled love. Told in quiet but elegant prose, each thump of this melodic novel’s heart (and what an enormous, rousing heart it is) attests to the timeless and life-giving power of love.” (Khaled Hosseini, New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner)
“A stunning first novel on love, loss and language.” (The Chicago Tribune)
“A beautifully crafted story.... Her poetic style plunges the reader into the scene, her tone reminiscent of Camus.... A Word for Love made this reader cry from feeling the transformative, redemptive power of fiction. This profoundly satisfying novel ventures to the very heart of romance and its literary origins in the seventh-century lyric poetry of the Arabian desert." (Washington Independent Review of Books)
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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....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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The Other Side of Paradise
- A Memoir
- By: Staceyann Chin
- Narrated by: Staceyann Chin
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Stacyann Chin has appeared on television and radio, including The Oprah Winfrey Show , CNN, and PBS, discussing issues of race and sexuality. But it is her extraordinary voice that launched her career as a performer, poet, and activist. Here, she shares her unforgettable story of triumph against all odds in this brave and fiercely candid memoir.
No one knew Staceyann's mother was pregnant until a dangerously small baby was born on the floor of her grandmother's house in Jamaica, on Christmas Day.
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Incredible life, incredible performer
- By RyRy on 10-21-19
By: Staceyann Chin
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One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
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Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
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Habibi
- By: Naomi Shihab Nye
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, life in St. Louis, Missouri is perfect. She loves shopping in the nearby stores and walking down streets where she knows everyone. Even better, she has just had her first kiss. But her father is moving the family to Jerusalem - the land where he was born. Suddenly Liyana finds herself a stranger in a threatening world.
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Very good Performance
- By Muhammad on 04-07-15
By: Naomi Shihab Nye
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Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
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Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
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Fruit of the Drunken Tree
- A Novel
- By: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez, Almarie Guerra, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.
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Maybe better to read this book than listen???
- By Amazon Customer on 12-12-18
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Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
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Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
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Don't Let Him Know
- By: Sandip Roy
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In a boxy apartment building in an Illinois university town, Romola Mitra, a newly arrived young bride, anxiously awaits her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades later, her son Amit finds that letter and thinks he has discovered his mother's secret. But secrets have their own secrets sometimes.
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another great book by Roy
- By Amazon Customer on 04-27-15
By: Sandip Roy
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The Witch of Little Italy
- By: Suzanne Palmieri
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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When young Eleanor Amore gets pregnant, she returns to her estranged family in the Bronx, called by the "Sight" they share. It is the first time she has been back since she was 10, and while everyone else remembers that summer, Eleanor can’t recall anything earlier than the moment she left. With her past coming back to her in flashes, she becomes obsessed with recapturing those memories. Aided by her childhood sweetheart, she learns the secrets still haunting her magical family.
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Kept me entertained......
- By Barbara on 05-25-13
By: Suzanne Palmieri
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The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
- By Pamela Harvey on 06-10-08
By: Ann Patchett
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Brick Lane
- By: Monica Ali
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Sastre
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Abridged
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Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.
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A truly wonderful book!
- By A M on 11-24-03
By: Monica Ali
What listeners say about A Word for Love
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Apto
- 02-01-17
beautiful book
This is a beautiful book. The descriptions of Syria are so rich and there are so many interesting insights into the life of a Syrian family. Well worth a read.
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- Olivia
- 03-18-17
Nice writing and imagery but lacking in plot
I find the best books are written beautifully AND have a plot that keeps you interested. I liked that this book explores Arabic literature (a topic I previously knew nothing about) but I find the love story weak.
Where is presumably meant to drive the plot forward, it feels unrealised and intangible.
A nice read but nothing too challenging.
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