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Children of the Jacaranda Tree
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
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Publisher's summary
A country divided by revolution. A people united by love.
Neda is born in Tehran’s Evin Prison, where her mother is allowed to nurse her for a few months before the arms of a guard appear at the cell door one day and, simply, take her away. In another part of the city, three-year-old Omid witnesses the arrests of his political-activist parents from his perch at their kitchen table, yogurt dripping from his fingertips. More than 20 years after the violent, bloody purge that took place inside Tehran’s prisons, Sheida learns that her father was one of those executed, that the silent void firmly planted between her and her mother all these years was not just the sad loss that comes with death, but the anguish and the horror of murder. These are the Children of the Jacaranda Tree.
Set in post-revolutionary Iran from 1983 to 2011, this stunning debut novel follows a group of mothers, fathers, children, and lovers, some related by blood, others brought together by the tide of history that washes over their lives. Finally, years later, it is the next generation that is left with the burden of the past and their country’s tenuous future as a new wave of protest and political strife begins.
Children of the Jacaranda Tree is an evocative portrait of three generations of men and women inspired by love and poetry, burning with idealism, chasing dreams of justice and freedom. Written in Sahar Delijani’s spellbinding prose, capturing the intimate side of revolution in a country where the weight of history is all around, it is a moving tribute to anyone who has ever answered its call.
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Story
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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The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
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Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
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Her Body and Other Parties
- Stories
- By: Carmen Maria Machado
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
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Beautiful
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
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Birthmarked
- Birthmarked Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: Caragh M. O'Brien
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In the future, in a world baked dry by the harsh sun, there are those who live inside the wall and those, like 16-year-old midwife, Gaia Stone, who live outside. Gaia has always believed it is her duty, with her mother, to hand over a small quota of babies to the Enclave. But when Gaia's mother and father are arrested by the very people they so dutifully serve, Gaia is forced to question everything she has been taught to believe. Gaia's choice is now simple: Enter the world of the Enclave to rescue her parents, or die trying.
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Great book, HORRIBLE READER!
- By Shamatee on 09-29-13
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Nocturne
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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It is Warsaw, 1939, and Elzunia is an indulged teenager who longs for a heroic life filled with romance. But the outbreak of war shatters all her dreams. As bombs fall, she meets Adam, a taciturn airman whose fate becomes entwined with hers. In despair over the occupation, Adam joins the Polish resistance, then flies bombers for the RAF.
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Blech
- By Caroline H. on 02-20-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
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Hum If You Don't Know the Words
- By: Bianca Marais
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a 10-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising.
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Completely wrong accents
- By Debbie on 02-12-22
By: Bianca Marais
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The Outcast
- By: Jolina Petersheim
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Rachel Stoltzfus never imagined she’d be the talk of her Old Order Mennonite community until whispers stir the moment her belly swells with new life. Unmarried and refusing to repent by naming the partner in her sin, Rachel feels the wrath of the religious sect as she is shunned by those she loves most and eventually forced to leave - driven out by her twin sister’s husband, the bishop. But secrets run deep in this cloistered community, and the bishop is hiding some of his own, threatening his conscience and his very soul.
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full story not the norm for amish fiction
- By susan on 09-15-13
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Like a River from Its Course
- By: Kelli Stuart
- Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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An epic novel exposing the ugliness of war and the beauty of hope. The city of Kiev was bombed in Hitler's blitzkrieg across the Soviet Union, but the constant siege was only the beginning for her citizens. In this sweeping historical saga, Kelli Stuart takes the listener on a captivating journey into the little-known history of Ukraine's tragedies through the eyes of four compelling characters who experience the same story from different perspectives.
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Outstanding narrator of a compelling story.
- By DB on 05-07-18
By: Kelli Stuart
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The Kite Runner
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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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.
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A Worhty Read
- By P. C..S. on 08-17-03
By: Khaled Hosseini
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Arcadia
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lauren Groff’s acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.
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Luscious prose, intimate and realistic
- By Kathleen on 03-22-12
By: Lauren Groff
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The Midwife
- By: Jolina Petersheim
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Graduate student Beth Winslow was sure she was ready to navigate the challenges of becoming a surrogate. But when early tests indicate possible abnormalities with the baby, Beth is unprepared for the parents' decision to end the pregnancy - and for the fierce love she feels for this unborn child. Desperate, she flees the city and seeks refuge at Hopen Haus, a home for unwed mothers deep in a Tennessee Mennonite community.
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Very touching story
- By Kathi on 06-22-14
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The Betrayal
- By: Kate Furnivall
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Could you kill someone? Someone you love? Paris, 1938. This is the story of twin sisters divided by fierce loyalties and by a terrible secret. The drums of war are beating, and France is poised, ready to fall. One sister is an aviatrix, the other is a socialite, and they both have something to prove and something to hide. Discover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage...and betrayal.
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Disappointment
- By Cathey Johnson on 04-14-19
By: Kate Furnivall
What listeners say about Children of the Jacaranda Tree
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Stevon
- 09-23-13
life in Iran for disbelievers
First time author that I heard about on National Public Radio. This is the fictionalized story loosely based on experiences of the author's family in Iran. After the Islamic revolution around 1980 there were lots of Iranians that weren't supportive of the new Islamic government and it strict religious way of life. They were the dissidents. Many of them were arrested and possibly executed over the next several years. This story tells how this affected one extended family and extended friends; the parents, the spouses, siblings, children, all of them and affect them it did. Then twenty five years later a new generation is young and they don't remember how dissidents were treated the first time around and again many are arrested and possibly executed. They were protesting rigged elections, maybe you remember it, it wasn't that long ago. There is no rehabilitation to this, it's just punishment and destruction. If you've ever wondered what life in Iran is like for dissidents you'll enjoy this story. It's not hard to think that those living there and aren't supportive of the Islamic regime find it terrible and brutal. This is that story. This isn't a particularly happy story but it is interesting. Many Iranians yearn to be free and be able to decide themselves how they want to live. It will happen someday but I don't know that it will be in my lifetime.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Benjamin Risha
- 02-22-20
This is poetry for the soul
I listened to this book and fell in love with how the author showed me a knew world through her use of poetic prose. I wish I could see the world she sees if not only for the sense of fullness she conveys, but for the well-rounded vision she provides.
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