Driving the Saudis
A Chauffeur's Tale of the World's Richest Princesses (plus Their Servants, Nannies, and One Royal Hairdresser)
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Narrated by:
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Jayne Amelia Larson
About this listen
After more than a decade of working in Hollywood, actress Jayne Amelia Larson found herself out of luck, out of work, and out of prospects. Without telling her friends or family, she took a job as a limousine driver, thinking that the work might be a good way to dig out of debt while meeting A-list celebrities and important movie moguls. When she got hired to drive for the Saudi royal family vacationing in Beverly Hills, Larson thought she’d been handed the golden ticket. She’d heard stories of the Saudis giving $20,000 tips and Rolex watches to their drivers. But when the family arrived at LAX with millions of dollars in cash, Larson realized that she might be in for the ride of her life.
With awestruck humor and deep compassion, she describes her eye-opening adventures as the only female in a detail of over 40 assigned to drive a beautiful Saudi princess, her family, and their extensive entourage. To be a good chauffeur means to be a “fly on the wall”, to never speak unless spoken to, to never ask questions, to allow people to forget that you are there. The nature of the employment - Larson was on call 24 hours a day and 7 days a week - and the fact that she was the only female driver gave her an up close and personal view of one of the most closely guarded monarchies in the world, a culture of great intrigue and contradiction, and of unimaginable wealth.
The Saudis traveled large: They brought furniture, Persian rugs, Limoges china, lustrous silver serving trays, and extraordinary coffees and teas from around the world. The family and their entourage stayed at several luxury hotels, occupying whole floors of each. Each day the royal women spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery and mega-shopping sprees on Rodeo Drive. Even the tea setup had its very own hotel room, while the servants were crammed together on rollaway beds in just a few small rooms down the hall.
Larson witnessed plenty of drama: hundreds of hours of cosmetic surgery recovery, the purchasing of Hermes Birkin bags of every color, roiling battles among the upper-echelon entourage members all jockeying for a better position in the palace hierarchy, and the total disregard that most of the royal entourage had for their exhausted staff. But Driving the Saudis also reveals how Larson grew to understand the complicated nuances of a society whose strict customs remain intact even across continents. She saw the intimate bond that connected the royals with their servants and nannies; she befriended the young North African servant girls, who supported whole families back home by working night and day for the royals but were not permitted to hold their own passports lest they try to flee. While experiencing a life-changing “behind the veil” glimpse into Saudi culture, Larson ultimately discovers that we’re all very much the same everywhere - the forces that corrupt us, make us desperate, and make us human are surprisingly universal.
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Kabul Beauty School
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- By: Deborah Rodriguez, Kristin Ohlson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Most Westerners working in Afghanistan spend their time tucked inside a military compound or embassy. Not Deborah Rodriguez. Here, she tells the story of the beauty school she founded in the middle of Kabul and of the vibrant women who were her students. When Rodriguez opened the Kabul Beauty School, she not only empowered her students with a new sense of autonomy but also made some of the closest friends of her life.
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Thumbs down
- By Becky on 06-14-07
By: Deborah Rodriguez, and others
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Power & Beauty
- By: Tip "T.I." Harris, David Ritz
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Hip-hop artist Tip "T.I." Harris has received every acclaim the music world has to offer. Now, working with bestselling celebrity collaborator David Ritz, T.I. applies all his talent and experience to the world of fiction by creating the epic love story of Power and Beauty. After the death of his mother, Charlotte, Paul “Power” Clay allows himself to be guided by Slim, a local businessman. Slim always has the best of everything, and Power is sure that if he learns Slim's ways, he'll make something of himself - and perhaps be worthy of Tanya “Beauty” Long.
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Suprised by T.I.'s story telling skills
- By Dream on 07-11-12
By: Tip "T.I." Harris, and others
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After Perfect
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Christina McDowell
- Narrated by: Christina McDowell
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of New York Times best sellers What Remains by Carole Radziwill and Oh the Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey, Christina McDowell's unflinching memoir is a brutally honest, cautionary tale about one family's destruction in the wake of the Wall Street implosion.
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Mixed reaction
- By Margaret on 07-09-15
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My Inappropriate Life
- Some Material Not Suitable for Small Children, Nuns, or Mature Adults
- By: Heather McDonald
- Narrated by: Heather McDonald
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In her hilarious New York Times best seller You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again, Heather McDonald recounted her adventures as an unwilling virgin in Hollywood. Now happily married with three wonderful kids, she shows that life as a grown-up - even a pretend grown-up - has its challenges. Heather’s a working mom with parents who live next door, a sister who keeps asking for one of her still-fertile eggs, and friends who are up to more hijinks than even Heather can handle.
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Irritating
- By TrishS on 04-23-13
By: Heather McDonald
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Bitter Is the New Black
- Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jamie Heinlein
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Jen Lancaster was living the sweet life-until real life kicked her to the curb. She had the perfect man, the perfect job-hell, she had the perfect life - and there was no reason to think it wouldn't last. Or maybe there was, but Jen Lancaster was too busy being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, and generally adored to notice.
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Intolerable
- By Betty on 09-12-09
By: Jen Lancaster
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The Upside
- A Memoir
- By: Abdel Sellou
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1992, Count Phillippe Pozzo di Borgo, on the heels of his wife's diagnosis with a terminal illness, suffered a paragliding accident that left him a quadriplegic. Forty-two years old, trapped inside his luxurious Paris town house, he was an outcast for the first time in his life. Abdel, an unemployed Algerian immigrant who had been an outcast for his entire existence, would become Phillipe's unlikely caretaker. Quick-thinking, unsentimental, and more than a little wild, Abdel surprises both himself and his employer.
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loved it
- By RockyDog on 01-31-19
By: Abdel Sellou
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Babylon Sisters
- By: Pearl Cleage
- Narrated by: Pearl Cleage
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Catherine, busy working with refugee and immigrant women through her small firm, Babylon Sisters, has taken on a powerful new client. She doesn't have much time for Phoebe's complicated questions of paternity - that is, until Phoebe's real father, B. J., a renowned investigative reporter, shows up in town to work on a story connected to Catherine.
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Sister Love
- By Florence Graydon on 03-26-21
By: Pearl Cleage
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The Red Hat Club
- 3 in 1 Contemporary Romantic Novellas
- By: Cynthia Hickey
- Narrated by: April Sugarman
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Now in one volume, you can listen to the escapades of unsuspecting beauties as the ladies of the local Red Hat Club decide to wed them off! One by one, the club takes in a "pink" hat as their special project and finds just the right man, whether the lady realizes it or not.
By: Cynthia Hickey
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32 Candles
- A Novel
- By: Ernessa T. Carter
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Davie—an ugly duckling growing up in small-town Mississippi—is positive her life couldn’t be any worse. She has the meanest mother in the South, possibly the world, and on top of that, she’s pretty sure she’s ugly. Just when she’s resigned herself to her fate, she sees a movie that will change her life— Sixteen Candles. But in her case, life doesn’t imitate art.
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2 High Fives - for Monkey Night
- By Nevada on 10-03-12
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All You Could Ask For
- A Novel
- By: Mike Greenberg
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Happily married Brooke discovers her loving husband has led a separate life with…another wife. Newlywed Samantha learns of her husband's cheating heart when she finds the goods on his computer. High-powered career woman Katherine works with heartbreaker Phillip, the man who hurt her early on in her career. Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don't know one another, but their stories are about to intertwine in ways no one could have imagined. And all three are about to discover the power of friendship to conquer adversity.
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Annoyed by Hidden Theme
- By parsnip on 08-12-13
By: Mike Greenberg
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The Scoop
- Godmothers, Book 1
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living - not to mention eight much-loved husbands - into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity.
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GREAT FUN
- By Linda Louise on 03-12-12
By: Fern Michaels
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Good Mourning
- By: Elizabeth Meyer
- Narrated by: Cris Dukehart
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Elizabeth Meyer stumbled upon a career in the midst of planning her own father's funeral, which she turned into an upbeat party with Rolling Stones music, thousands of dollars worth of her mother's favorite flowers, and a personalized eulogy. Starting out as a receptionist, Meyer quickly found she had a knack for helping people cope with their grief as well as creating fitting send-offs for some of the city's most high-powered residents.
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Great Listen!
- By rmp on 09-08-15
By: Elizabeth Meyer
What listeners say about Driving the Saudis
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Little Miss Read's A lot
- 03-03-15
Too much about the author
Is there anything you would change about this book?
I thought this book would be an unbiased inside look at the lives of Saudi royal families. Boy was I wrong. What should have been a book about an interesting expose turned out to be the shameless self-aggrandizing autobiography of a failed Hollywood actress. Chapter two is literally all about her childhood, what schools she went to, how many plays she starred in, what celebrities she has met and experiences on various film sets. Nothing about the Saudis. In further chapters I learned all about her relationship with her boyfriend, her love of ritualistic vaginal hair removal, that time when a super hot Beverly Hills police officer checked out her butt and her incessant love of power bars. There was even an entire chapter where she explained what SHE would do if she had millions of dollars. Wow... That's some inciteful speculation Jayne. What little bit the author did write about the Saudis came off racist as she argued with their wishes and imitated their accents. I really can't believe this book made it to publication. I wish one of the other chauffeurs would publish their account with the Saudi royals. This one was all about the author.
Has Driving the Saudis turned you off from other books in this genre?
no
Which character – as performed by Jayne Amelia Larson – was your favorite?
yikes, they all came off a bit racist.
Did Driving the Saudis inspire you to do anything?
Not to talk too much about myself in social environments
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11 people found this helpful
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- Mikey Snyder
- 11-07-21
Should’ve been two books
This should’ve been two different books. A single memoir, and then a book strictly about the Saudi experience. The author tells a few too many personal stories, and pats herself on the back a little too much. I didn’t particularly enjoy those parts, but hadn’t been in a separate book, I probably still would’ve read it. However those parts take away from the overall experience of the book. Overall I liked it, but I feel like it could’ve been improved.
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- Connie T.
- 06-10-21
Better than I imagined
What a true story of unbelievable wealth and a foreign desire for the good life in America. I truly enjoyed the easy listening and non-stop adventures in this book. A first hand view of what it is like to be Saudi princess with dozens of people at your beck and call. Fascinating.
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- Sound off
- 05-13-21
Interesting & delightful glimpse
I loved reading about the families the author chauffeured. Her stories gave me a peek at the private world of personal drivers and interaction with her Saudi families
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- Victoria Eriksson
- 01-02-21
Really fascinating memoir
I read this in a single sitting. The author tells the story of the women and girls of the Saudi royal family and their deeply troubling limitations on options and opportunities as females, despite their unfathomable wealth. The book made me feel extremely grateful as a young woman to have been born in the USA. It also made me feel troubled as our country has been a crucial ally to Saudi Arabia, and in so doing, we are all complicit in the brutal oppression and repression by the male rulers of the Saudi Kingdom of women and girls. This was not the first time I've reflected on the US-Saudi relationship and its moral failings, but it provided a unique perspective and was exceedingly entertaining in addition to honestly informative. Highly recommend.
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- Marina Smith
- 08-24-16
Thoroughly enjoyed!!
As an expat living in Saudi and having worked for a royal family, I could absolutely relate to this story. I so enjoyed hearing the "other" side of the Family and how they behaved in the States. Well done Jayne. I bought the ebook and audiobook to make up for the small tip.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Michael M.
- 06-13-20
Incredible book with great reader!
This book is phenomenal I finished it in two days. I learned so much about the Middle Eastern culture, and the insane conspicuous consumption. However, there is so much more to the book than just that. If you’re looking for a very entertaining audible this is it!
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- Ad
- 07-09-21
3 NOTEs..!
1. Many thanks for the book + the narration.
2. Looks like a culture shock...
3. (General) Please 🙏 learn about islam from its resources..
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- Stacy
- 04-27-16
Just ok
I'm sure part of my lower rating has to do with my expectations more than the actual quality of the book but it just seemed to skim the surface. It had details, sure, but when the story was finished, I didn't get the sense of awe that I expected to feel after hearing of being so close to such immense wealth.
The narrator has a nice voice but is not the best reader. Plus, her voice seemed disconnected from the story. There were times when the story's words sounded hip and energetic but the voice reading it sounded soft and smooth. Just a disconnect.
Overall, it wasn't exactly boring but it also wasn't wildly entertaining.
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- Jacqueline Faville
- 02-29-24
Learned alot
I really liked this book. The narration was very enjoyable. Great voice by the narrator.
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