-
Finding Motherland: Essays About Family, Food, & Migration
- Narrated by: Helen Thorpe
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
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 $14.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Helen Thorpe, author of a trio of award-winning books about the experiences of immigrants, refugees, and veterans, has turned her writerly lens on her own family, neighborhood, and ethnicity. In Finding Motherland, Thorpe shares seven essays she has written on the related themes of family, food, and migration, sharing observations about race and privilege.
In the first essay, Thorpe takes us to the dairy farm in Ireland where her mother grew up, and shows how Ireland is modernizing. She describes her family's decision to immigrate to the United States and how that reshaped her parents, and writes of becoming a mother herself as an experience analogous to moving to a new country. She profiles an undocumented student in her local school district who carries the American flag for his ROTC unit, and illustrates the social, economic, and legal challenges facing an undocumented mother with whom she shares the same public school. She documents the labor of men from Mexico and Honduras who work to produce the locally grown food that she eats. In the final essay, she reveals the problematic relationship of Irish-American immigrants to their forgotten past, showing us how that has led many prominent Irish-Americans to an adopt anti-immigrant stance at odds with their own history, given that their ancestors arrived penniless during the potato famine.
Thorpe is the author of three additional books of narrative nonfiction: Just Like Us, Soldier Girls, and The Newcomers. Just Like Us was named one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post. Soldier Girls was named the best nonfiction book of 2014 by Time Magazine. The Newcomers was described by The New York Times as “a delicate and heartbreaking mystery story” about 22 immigrant and refugee teens who share a classroom while learning English together.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
The Yellow House
- By: Sarah M. Broom
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.
-
-
Great book. I wish the pictures had been included.
- By Lindsay on 02-28-20
By: Sarah M. Broom
-
Girl, Woman, Other
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Anna-Maria Nabirye
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of Britain's most celebrated writers of color, Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of black British women. Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and short-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, Girl, Woman, Other paints a vivid portrait of the state of post-Brexit Britain, as well as looking back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
-
-
smart, compassionate, confronting and enjoyable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
-
The Less People Know About Us
- A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity
- By: Axton Betz-Hamilton
- Narrated by: Laurie Winkel
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents.
-
-
Holy Shit
- By Jason Wiking on 02-19-20
-
Confucius Never Said
- By: Helen Raleigh
- Narrated by: Helen Raleigh
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....
-
-
Wake up America
- By K and J on 12-14-19
By: Helen Raleigh
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
The Yellow House
- By: Sarah M. Broom
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.
-
-
Great book. I wish the pictures had been included.
- By Lindsay on 02-28-20
By: Sarah M. Broom
-
Girl, Woman, Other
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Anna-Maria Nabirye
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of Britain's most celebrated writers of color, Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of black British women. Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and short-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, Girl, Woman, Other paints a vivid portrait of the state of post-Brexit Britain, as well as looking back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
-
-
smart, compassionate, confronting and enjoyable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
-
The Less People Know About Us
- A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity
- By: Axton Betz-Hamilton
- Narrated by: Laurie Winkel
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents.
-
-
Holy Shit
- By Jason Wiking on 02-19-20
-
Confucius Never Said
- By: Helen Raleigh
- Narrated by: Helen Raleigh
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....
-
-
Wake up America
- By K and J on 12-14-19
By: Helen Raleigh
-
The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
-
-
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
-
Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
-
-
Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
-
American Baby
- A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
- By: Gabrielle Glaser
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Gabrielle Glaser, Margaret Katz
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.
-
-
I felt the love of my birth mom...
- By Mary H. on 02-03-21
By: Gabrielle Glaser
-
Heartland
- A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
- By: Sarah Smarsh
- Narrated by: Sarah Smarsh
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less.
-
-
My favorite memoir of 2018
- By NMwritergal on 11-25-18
By: Sarah Smarsh
-
Rice Room
- Growing Up Chinese-American from Number Two Son to Rock 'N' Roll
- By: Ben Fong-Torres
- Narrated by: Ben Fong-Torres
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of America's best-known rock and entertainment journalists describes his journey from his childhood, cooped up in the "rice room" of his family's restaurant in Oakland's Chinatown, where he did chores, to the major role he played as a writer and editor at Rolling Stone. It is a story of teen worship of Elvis, but also of Chinese customs and the tragic murder of his brother, and of the '60s scene in San Francisco, where he found freedom - and his career.
-
-
I have never left a review before!
- By Lady Rose Powers on 05-21-22
By: Ben Fong-Torres
-
Of Monkey Bridges and Bánh Mì Sandwiches
- From Sài Gòn to Texas
- By: Ms. Oanh Ngo Usadi
- Narrated by: Oanh Ngo Usadi
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, a young girl and her family were exiled from city-living in Saigon to the countryside of Vietnam and, ultimately, escaped to a small town in Texas. Part travelogue and part family drama, this quietly affecting immigrant memoir will make you laugh, cry, and hunger for more, all at the same time.
-
-
Touching story, well told and not to miss!
- By J. de Castro on 07-08-20
-
Pregnant Girl
- A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families
- By: Nicole Lynn Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicky Sunshine
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An activist calls for better support of young families so they can thrive and reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her child. Pregnant Girl presents the possibility of a different future for young mothers - one of success and stability - in the midst of the dismal statistics that dominate the national conversation.
-
-
Political
- By Amazon Customer on 01-16-23
-
Troop 6000
- The Girl Scout Troop That Began in a Shelter and Inspired the World
- By: Nikita Stewart
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Giselle Burgess was a young mother of five trying to provide for her family. Though she had a full-time job, the demands of ever-increasing rent and mounting bills forced her to fall behind, and eviction soon followed. Giselle and her kids were thrown into New York City's overburdened shelter system, which housed nearly 60,000 people each day. They soon found themselves living at a Sleep Inn in Queens, provided by the city as temporary shelter; for nearly a year, all six lived in a single room with two beds and one bathroom.
-
-
An Inspiring and Essential Read for Leaders
- By Digital Lily on 03-30-21
By: Nikita Stewart
-
This Is All I Got
- A New Mother's Search for Home
- By: Lauren Sandler
- Narrated by: Lauren Sandler
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every day, more than 45 million Americans attempt to survive below the poverty line. Every night, nearly 60,000 people sleep in New York City-run shelters, 40 percent of them children. In This Is All I Got, award-winning journalist Lauren Sandler brings this deeply personal issue to life, vividly depicting one woman's hope and despair and her steadfast determination to change her life despite the myriad setbacks she encounters.
-
-
Intriguing story
- By laura wojtowicz on 01-26-23
By: Lauren Sandler
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
Reaching for the Moon
- The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson
- By: Katherine Johnson
- Narrated by: Heather Alicia Simms
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The inspiring autobiography of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who helped launch Apollo 11. Katherine Johnson’s story was made famous in the best-selling book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Now, in Reaching for the Moon, she tells her own story for the first time, in a lively autobiography that will inspire young listeners everywhere.
-
-
Better than the movie!
- By WesternCOriver on 02-26-20
-
West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
Related to this topic
-
West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
-
We Are Each Other's Harvest
- Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy
- By: Natalie Baszile
- Narrated by: Tina Lifford
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine Black people’s connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of Black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.
-
-
Various Voices
- By Peggy Sweeney on 11-06-21
By: Natalie Baszile
-
A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves
- One Family and Migration in the 21st Century
- By: Jason DeParle
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age - the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism", DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class.
-
-
Excellent and Important
- By Booklover on 03-22-20
By: Jason DeParle
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
Out of the Gobi
- My Story of China and America
- By: Weijian Shan, Janet Yellen - foreword
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America.
-
-
Must read for anyone!
- By Alice654 on 06-19-19
By: Weijian Shan, and others
-
Confucius Never Said
- By: Helen Raleigh
- Narrated by: Helen Raleigh
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....
-
-
Wake up America
- By K and J on 12-14-19
By: Helen Raleigh
-
West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
-
We Are Each Other's Harvest
- Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy
- By: Natalie Baszile
- Narrated by: Tina Lifford
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine Black people’s connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of Black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.
-
-
Various Voices
- By Peggy Sweeney on 11-06-21
By: Natalie Baszile
-
A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves
- One Family and Migration in the 21st Century
- By: Jason DeParle
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age - the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism", DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class.
-
-
Excellent and Important
- By Booklover on 03-22-20
By: Jason DeParle
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
Out of the Gobi
- My Story of China and America
- By: Weijian Shan, Janet Yellen - foreword
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America.
-
-
Must read for anyone!
- By Alice654 on 06-19-19
By: Weijian Shan, and others
-
Confucius Never Said
- By: Helen Raleigh
- Narrated by: Helen Raleigh
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....
-
-
Wake up America
- By K and J on 12-14-19
By: Helen Raleigh
-
The Cubans
- Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- By: Anthony DePalma
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Anthony DePalma
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long.
-
-
The real Cuba
- By Tinkerbell on 10-11-20
By: Anthony DePalma
-
American Baby
- A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
- By: Gabrielle Glaser
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Gabrielle Glaser, Margaret Katz
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.
-
-
I felt the love of my birth mom...
- By Mary H. on 02-03-21
By: Gabrielle Glaser
-
The Shanghai Free Taxi
- Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China
- By: Frank Langfitt
- Narrated by: Frank Langfitt
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service - offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation - to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer", a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life.
-
-
Too political
- By dah551 on 06-26-19
By: Frank Langfitt
-
Factory Girls
- From Village to City in a Changing China
- By: Leslie T. Chang
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago.
-
-
Living in Shenzhen - and What A Disappointment
- By Abstraction on 03-01-10
By: Leslie T. Chang
-
The Good Food Revolution
- Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities
- By: Will Allen, Charles Wilson - with, Eric Schlosser - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A pioneering urban farmer and MacArthur "Genius Award" winner points the way to building a new food system that can feed - and heal - broken communities. An eco-classic in the making, The Good Food Revolution is the story of Will's personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats.
-
-
This story teaches how to take back the soil
- By Shawn Borup on 11-09-19
By: Will Allen, and others
-
Under Red Skies
- Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China
- By: Karoline Kan
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply personal and shocking look at how China is coming to terms with its conflicted past as it emerges into a modern, cutting-edge superpower.
-
-
An intimate view of real life in China
- By Lonnie G. Hardy, Jr. on 08-15-19
By: Karoline Kan
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
Pregnant Girl
- A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families
- By: Nicole Lynn Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicky Sunshine
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An activist calls for better support of young families so they can thrive and reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her child. Pregnant Girl presents the possibility of a different future for young mothers - one of success and stability - in the midst of the dismal statistics that dominate the national conversation.
-
-
Political
- By Amazon Customer on 01-16-23
-
Where I Was From
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.
-
-
California belongs to Joan Didion.
- By Darwin8u on 11-04-15
By: Joan Didion
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
An Hour Before Daylight
- Memories of a Rural Boyhood
- By: Jimmy Carter
- Narrated by: Jimmy Carter
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an American story of enduring importance, former President Jimmy Carter re-creates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm, before the civil rights movement that changed the country.
-
-
A rare view of rural America
- By Samantha on 07-05-03
By: Jimmy Carter
-
Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
-
-
Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott