Frankenstein in Baghdad
A Novel
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 $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Edoardo Ballerini
-
Kaleo Griffith
-
By:
-
Ahmed Saadawi
About this listen
Man Booker International Prize finalist
“Brave and ingenious.” (The New York Times)
“Gripping, darkly humorous...profound.” (Phil Klay, best-selling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment)
“Extraordinary.... A devastating but essential read.” (Kevin Powers, best-selling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds)
From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi — a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café — collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial.
But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive — first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path.
A prizewinning novel by “Baghdad’s new literary star” (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.
©2018 Ahmed Saadawi (P)2018 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
- By: Kiersten White
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver", and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets...until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything - except a friend. Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable - and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk.
-
-
Engrossing
- By MK on 02-02-19
By: Kiersten White
-
The Devil Finds Work
- An Essay
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics. Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
-
-
A Critical Masterpiece.
- By Ramon McGee on 05-10-18
By: James Baldwin
-
The Ardent Swarm
- A Novel
- By: Yamen Manai, Lara Vergnaud - translator
- Narrated by: Youssif Kamal
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls” on the outskirts of the desolate North African village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that something has attacked one of his beehives, brutally killing every inhabitant. Heartbroken, he soon learns that a mysterious swarm of vicious hornets committed the mass murder - but where did they come from, and how can he stop them? If he is going to unravel this mystery and save his bees from annihilation, Sidi must venture out into the village and then brave the big city and beyond in search of answers.
-
-
Such a wonderful story
- By Morris-Ken on 07-05-21
By: Yamen Manai, and others
-
At Night All Blood Is Black
- A Novel
- By: David Diop, Anna Moschovakis - translator
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice.
-
-
Compelling story, poor narration
- By Shauna on 07-10-21
By: David Diop, and others
-
Riot Baby
- By: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Narrated by: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative.
-
-
I...wasn’t...ready
- By Amazon Customer1 on 04-28-20
By: Tochi Onyebuchi
-
The Woman in the Dunes
- By: Kobo Abe
- Narrated by: Julian Cihi
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together, their fates become intertwined as they work side-by-side at this Sisyphean task.
-
-
Nihilistic horror
- By Mr. Sagan on 07-20-19
By: Kobo Abe
-
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
- By: Kiersten White
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver", and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets...until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything - except a friend. Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable - and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk.
-
-
Engrossing
- By MK on 02-02-19
By: Kiersten White
-
The Devil Finds Work
- An Essay
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics. Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
-
-
A Critical Masterpiece.
- By Ramon McGee on 05-10-18
By: James Baldwin
-
The Ardent Swarm
- A Novel
- By: Yamen Manai, Lara Vergnaud - translator
- Narrated by: Youssif Kamal
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls” on the outskirts of the desolate North African village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that something has attacked one of his beehives, brutally killing every inhabitant. Heartbroken, he soon learns that a mysterious swarm of vicious hornets committed the mass murder - but where did they come from, and how can he stop them? If he is going to unravel this mystery and save his bees from annihilation, Sidi must venture out into the village and then brave the big city and beyond in search of answers.
-
-
Such a wonderful story
- By Morris-Ken on 07-05-21
By: Yamen Manai, and others
-
At Night All Blood Is Black
- A Novel
- By: David Diop, Anna Moschovakis - translator
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice.
-
-
Compelling story, poor narration
- By Shauna on 07-10-21
By: David Diop, and others
-
Riot Baby
- By: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Narrated by: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative.
-
-
I...wasn’t...ready
- By Amazon Customer1 on 04-28-20
By: Tochi Onyebuchi
-
The Woman in the Dunes
- By: Kobo Abe
- Narrated by: Julian Cihi
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together, their fates become intertwined as they work side-by-side at this Sisyphean task.
-
-
Nihilistic horror
- By Mr. Sagan on 07-20-19
By: Kobo Abe
-
Lost Children Archive
- A Novel
- By: Valeria Luiselli
- Narrated by: Valeria Luiselli, Kivlighan de Montebello, William DeMeritt, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home. Why Apaches? asks the 10-year-old son. Because they were the last of something,answers his father. In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the Southwestern border into the US but getting detained - or lost in the desert along the way.
-
-
Ground Control to Major Tom
- By Nicole Del Sesto on 07-21-19
By: Valeria Luiselli
-
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie's classic fantasy novel. Set in an exotic eastern landscape peopled by magicians and fantastic talking animals, Salman Rushdie's classic children's novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories inhabits the same imaginative space as The Lord of the Rings, The Alchemist, and The Wizard of Oz.
-
-
Great story and great story teller
- By marce on 05-22-18
By: Salman Rushdie
-
Elatsoe
- By: Darcie Little Badger
- Narrated by: Kinsale Hueston
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine an America very similar to our own. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry.
-
-
Not Bad
- By Gabriel on 12-04-22
-
Earthlings
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.
-
-
Intriguing but disturbing
- By C. Parham on 01-01-21
By: Sayaka Murata
-
Empire of Wild
- A Novel
- By: Cherie Dimaline
- Narrated by: Michelle St. John
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joan has been searching for her missing husband, Victor, for nearly a year - ever since that terrible night they’d had their first serious argument hours before he mysteriously vanished. Her Métis family has lived in their tightly knit rural community for generations, but no one keeps the old ways...until they have to. That moment has arrived for Joan. One morning, grieving and severely hungover, Joan hears a shocking sound coming from inside a revival tent in a gritty Walmart parking lot. It is the unmistakable voice of Victor.
-
-
Almost had it…
- By kisa on 04-16-22
By: Cherie Dimaline
-
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep
- A Novel
- By: H. G. Parry
- Narrated by: Calum Gittins
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: He can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob - a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancee, and an utterly normal life - hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life's duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world...and for once, it isn't Charley's doing.
-
-
Exciting, Heartwarming, and Fun
- By Amazon Customer on 11-18-20
By: H. G. Parry
-
The Trackers Series Box Set
- The Trackers Series, Books 1-4
- By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 33 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ripped from the headlines, the explosive Trackers saga is a realistic depiction of what an EMP attack and the aftermath might look like from one of the genre's leading voices, USA Today best-selling author and former Homeland Security disaster mitigation officer Nicholas Sansbury Smith. This box set includes the entire four-book Trackers series with over 30 hours of post-apocalyptic survival fiction and action. This box set includes Trackers, Trackers 2: The Hunted, Trackers 3: The Storm, and Trackers 4: The Damned.
-
-
Honorable, brave, and selfless!
- By RJ on 11-10-18
-
The Kill Artist
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.
-
-
Reluctant Assassin
- By Snoodely on 10-30-13
By: Daniel Silva
-
The Seep
- By: Chana Porter
- Narrated by: Shakina Nayfack
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle--but nonetheless world-changing--invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence--until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life.
-
-
“This is my pain. Let me have it!”
- By Martin Gibbs on 02-03-20
By: Chana Porter
-
After It Happened
- Publisher's Pack, Books 1 & 2
- By: Devon C. Ford
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This omnibus edition contains Survival (book 1) and Humanity (book 2) of the After It Happened series.
-
-
I really wanted to like these series
- By Midwestbonsai on 03-17-18
By: Devon C. Ford
-
The Housekeeper and the Professor
- By: Yoko Ogawa
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He is a brilliant math professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only 80 minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young housekeeper - with a 10-year-old son-who is hired to care for the professor. And every morning, as the professor and the housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.
-
-
The Wonder Of Kindness & Connection
- By Sara on 06-16-16
By: Yoko Ogawa
-
The Power of the Dog
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you've never seen it.
-
-
Gripping Drama
- By Deborah on 01-06-11
By: Don Winslow
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
The Corpse Washer
- By: Sinan Antoon
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Jawad, born to a traditional Shi'ite family of corpse washers and shrouders in Baghdad, decides to abandon the family tradition, choosing instead to become a sculptor, to celebrate life rather than tend to death. He enters Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, in defiance of his father's wishes and determined to forge his own path. But the circumstances of history dictate otherwise.
-
-
Gorgeous story with talented narration
- By N. Barnes on 03-11-18
By: Sinan Antoon
-
The Attack
- By: Yasmina Khadra
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Arab-Israeli citizen, is a respected, dedicated surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. He has learned to live with the violence that plagues his city and works tirelessly to help the victims brought to the emergency room. But one night, a deadly bombing in a local restaurant takes a horrifyingly personal turn, when his wife's body is found among the dead, bearing injuries that match those typically found on the bodies of fundamentalist suicide bombers.
-
-
Powerful
- By Diana - Audible on 04-17-12
By: Yasmina Khadra
-
The Association of Small Bombs
- By: Karan Mahajan
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, pick up their family's television at a repair shop with their friend, Mansoor Ahmed, one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb - one of the many "small" bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world - detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys, to the devastation of their parents. Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb.
-
-
A tragedy of manners
- By jdukuray on 07-22-16
By: Karan Mahajan
-
A Spy by Nature
- A Novel
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alec Milius is young, smart, and ambitious. He also has a talent for deception. He is working in a dead-end job when a chance encounter leads him to MI6, the elite British Secret Intelligence Service, handing him an opportunity to play center stage in a dangerous game of espionage.
-
-
I highly recommend this little gem
- By Chou Young on 02-14-08
By: Charles Cumming
-
Maya's Notebook
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neglected by her parents, 19-year-old Maya Nidal has grown up in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother Nini is a force of nature, a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya's grandfather, is a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya's adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya goes completely off the rails, turning to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime in a downward spiral that eventually bottoms out in Las Vegas.
-
-
Narrator ruins this book
- By R.J. Mulder on 05-13-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Sign of the Cross: A Collins-Burke Mystery, Book 1
- By: Anne Emery
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Monty Collins is a sharp-tongued public defender who just wants to represent an upstanding character for a change. A priest with something to hide isn't quite what he had hoped for, but when the literate, arrogant, and tight-lipped Father Brennan Burke is implicated in the strange murder of a young woman, Monty doesn't just take the case - the case takes him. When Burke won't come clean, Monty is forced to play private detective, traveling into his client's past. Things look good for the case until another body is found....
-
-
Hybrid Mystery
- By connie on 07-31-12
By: Anne Emery
-
The Corpse Washer
- By: Sinan Antoon
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Jawad, born to a traditional Shi'ite family of corpse washers and shrouders in Baghdad, decides to abandon the family tradition, choosing instead to become a sculptor, to celebrate life rather than tend to death. He enters Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, in defiance of his father's wishes and determined to forge his own path. But the circumstances of history dictate otherwise.
-
-
Gorgeous story with talented narration
- By N. Barnes on 03-11-18
By: Sinan Antoon
-
The Attack
- By: Yasmina Khadra
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Arab-Israeli citizen, is a respected, dedicated surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. He has learned to live with the violence that plagues his city and works tirelessly to help the victims brought to the emergency room. But one night, a deadly bombing in a local restaurant takes a horrifyingly personal turn, when his wife's body is found among the dead, bearing injuries that match those typically found on the bodies of fundamentalist suicide bombers.
-
-
Powerful
- By Diana - Audible on 04-17-12
By: Yasmina Khadra
-
The Association of Small Bombs
- By: Karan Mahajan
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, pick up their family's television at a repair shop with their friend, Mansoor Ahmed, one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb - one of the many "small" bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world - detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys, to the devastation of their parents. Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb.
-
-
A tragedy of manners
- By jdukuray on 07-22-16
By: Karan Mahajan
-
A Spy by Nature
- A Novel
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alec Milius is young, smart, and ambitious. He also has a talent for deception. He is working in a dead-end job when a chance encounter leads him to MI6, the elite British Secret Intelligence Service, handing him an opportunity to play center stage in a dangerous game of espionage.
-
-
I highly recommend this little gem
- By Chou Young on 02-14-08
By: Charles Cumming
-
Maya's Notebook
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neglected by her parents, 19-year-old Maya Nidal has grown up in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother Nini is a force of nature, a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya's grandfather, is a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya's adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya goes completely off the rails, turning to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime in a downward spiral that eventually bottoms out in Las Vegas.
-
-
Narrator ruins this book
- By R.J. Mulder on 05-13-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Sign of the Cross: A Collins-Burke Mystery, Book 1
- By: Anne Emery
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Monty Collins is a sharp-tongued public defender who just wants to represent an upstanding character for a change. A priest with something to hide isn't quite what he had hoped for, but when the literate, arrogant, and tight-lipped Father Brennan Burke is implicated in the strange murder of a young woman, Monty doesn't just take the case - the case takes him. When Burke won't come clean, Monty is forced to play private detective, traveling into his client's past. Things look good for the case until another body is found....
-
-
Hybrid Mystery
- By connie on 07-31-12
By: Anne Emery
-
Stasiland
- Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
- By: Anna Funder
- Narrated by: Denica Fairman
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Stasiland, Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship, and of those who worked for its vicious secret police, the Stasi. She meets Miriam, who as a 16-year-old was accused of trying to start World War III. She visits the regime’s cartographer, a man obsessed to this day with the Berlin Wall, then gets drunk with the legendary “Mik Jegger” of the east, once declared by the authorities “no longer to exist.”
-
-
A Great Achievement
- By Sil A. on 08-11-21
By: Anna Funder
-
Babylon Berlin
- Gereon Rath, Book 1
- By: Volker Kutscher
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations.
-
-
It's no Bernie Gunther Mystery ...
- By Brian English on 01-28-18
By: Volker Kutscher
-
Spycatcher
- By: Matthew Dunn
- Narrated by: Rich Orlow
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Matthew Dunn spent years as an MI6 field operative working on some of the West’s most clandestine missions. He recruited and ran agents, planned and participated in special operations, and operated deep undercover throughout the world. In Spycatcher he draws on this fascinating experience to breathe urgent, dynamic new life into the contemporary spy novel. Featuring deft and daring superspy Will Cochrane, Dunn paints a nerve-jangling, bracingly authentic picture of today’s secret world. It is a place where trust is precious and betrayal is cheap....
-
-
Juvenile and just bad
- By R. L. Ketcham on 08-30-11
By: Matthew Dunn
-
Eye of the Storm
- Sean Dillon, Book 1
- By: Jack Higgins
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Former allies in the IRA, Sean Dillon and Martin Brosnan have chosen different paths. Now Dillon is a terrorist for hire, a master of disguise employed by Saddam Hussein. Brosnan is the one man who knows Dillon’s strengths and weaknesses…and brilliant mastery of espionage. Once friends, now enemies, they are playing the deadliest game of their careers. A game that culminates in a frightening - and true - event: Iraq’s attempted mortar attack on the British war cabinet at 10 Downing Street in February 1991.
-
-
YAAA--W--N
- By Trudy Owens on 02-03-15
By: Jack Higgins
-
The Cleaner
- By: Elisabeth Herrmann
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pools of blood, scenes of carnage, signs of agonising death - who deals with the aftermath of violence once the bodies have been taken away? Judith Kepler has seen it all. She is a crime-scene specialist. She turns crime scenes back into habitable spaces. She is a cleaner. It is at the home of a woman who has been brutally murdered that she is suddenly confronted with her own past. The murder victim knew Judith's secret: as a child Judith was sent to an orphanage under mysterious circumstances - parentage unknown.
-
-
Reader was very distracting
- By Merry Unbirthday on 10-16-17
-
All Our Names
- By: Dinaw Mengestu
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Korey Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All Our Names is the story of a young man who comes of age during an African revolution, drawn from the hushed halls of his university into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside. But as the line between idealism and violence becomes increasingly blurred, and the path of revolution leads to almost certain destruction, he leaves behind his country and friends for America. There, pretending to be an exchange student, he falls in love with a social worker and settles into the routines of small-town life. Yet this idyll is inescapably darkened by the secrets of his past....
-
-
A Tale of Two Continents
- By David on 07-31-14
By: Dinaw Mengestu
-
Taking Morgan
- A Political Thriller
- By: David Rose
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Morgan Cooper has always found it difficult to balance her home life - mother of two young children and wife of a workaholic civil rights lawyer - with her work life as an undercover CIA officer. When Morgan gets stressed, anxious, or scared, whether at home or in the field, she tends to talk to herself until she can clear her head. This habit, though, puts her life in danger during an assignment in the strife-torn Gaza Strip.
-
-
unrealistic
- By Coverdale on 08-09-22
By: David Rose
-
The Kindly Ones
- By: Jonathan Littell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 39 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The chilling fictional memoir of Dr. Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France. Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews.
-
-
Office politics in hell
- By Maine Colonial 🌲 on 04-02-13
By: Jonathan Littell
-
The Wind in My Hair
- My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran
- By: Masih Alinejad
- Narrated by: Linda Henning
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A photo on Masih's Facebook page: a woman standing proudly, face bare, hair blowing in the wind. Her crime: removing her veil, or hijab, which is compulsory for women in Iran. This is the self-portrait that sparked "My Stealthy Freedom", a social media campaign that went viral. But Masih is so much more than the arresting face that sparked a campaign inspiring women to find their voices. She's also a world-class journalist whose personal story, told in her unforgettably bold and spirited voice, is emotional and inspiring.
-
-
An inspiring journey
- By Krishna Teja Rekapalli on 01-06-19
By: Masih Alinejad
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
-
-
Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
-
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
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Dark Interval
- Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation
- By: Ulrich Baer - translator, Rainer Maria Rilke
- Narrated by: Rosanne Cash, Ulrich Baer
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke's letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author's thoughts on death and dying as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence.
-
-
touched by magic
- By Vanessa Nazarek on 03-01-20
By: Ulrich Baer - translator, and others
-
After Dark
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.
-
-
Six hour short story
- By Devo on 05-21-07
By: Haruki Murakami
-
Laurus
- By: Lisa C. Hayden - translator, Eugene Vodolazkin
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the late 15th century and a village healer in Russia called Laurus is powerless to help his beloved as she dies in childbirth, unwed and without having received communion. Devastated and desperate, he sets out on a journey in search of redemption. But this is no ordinary journey: it is one that spans ages and countries, and which brings him face-to-face with a host of unforgettable, eccentric characters and legendary creatures from the strangest medieval bestiaries.
-
-
Speechless
- By Yixiao on 11-27-17
By: Lisa C. Hayden - translator, and others
-
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
- By: Kiersten White
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver", and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets...until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything - except a friend. Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable - and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk.
-
-
Engrossing
- By MK on 02-02-19
By: Kiersten White
-
Minor Detail
- By: Adania Shibli, Elisabeth Jaquette - translator
- Narrated by: Siiri Scott
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba - the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people - and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims, they capture a Palestinian teenager, and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder.
-
-
Very powerful
- By Phillip Straghalis on 04-09-21
By: Adania Shibli, and others
-
The Hunger
- By: Alma Katsu
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone—or something—is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow an experimental route West, or just bad luck - the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest adventures in history.
-
-
Soap opera posing as horror
- By Karen Weaver on 03-23-18
By: Alma Katsu
-
The Dark Interval
- Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation
- By: Ulrich Baer - translator, Rainer Maria Rilke
- Narrated by: Rosanne Cash, Ulrich Baer
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke's letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author's thoughts on death and dying as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence.
-
-
touched by magic
- By Vanessa Nazarek on 03-01-20
By: Ulrich Baer - translator, and others
-
After Dark
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.
-
-
Six hour short story
- By Devo on 05-21-07
By: Haruki Murakami
-
Laurus
- By: Lisa C. Hayden - translator, Eugene Vodolazkin
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the late 15th century and a village healer in Russia called Laurus is powerless to help his beloved as she dies in childbirth, unwed and without having received communion. Devastated and desperate, he sets out on a journey in search of redemption. But this is no ordinary journey: it is one that spans ages and countries, and which brings him face-to-face with a host of unforgettable, eccentric characters and legendary creatures from the strangest medieval bestiaries.
-
-
Speechless
- By Yixiao on 11-27-17
By: Lisa C. Hayden - translator, and others
-
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
- By: Kiersten White
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver", and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets...until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything - except a friend. Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable - and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk.
-
-
Engrossing
- By MK on 02-02-19
By: Kiersten White
-
Minor Detail
- By: Adania Shibli, Elisabeth Jaquette - translator
- Narrated by: Siiri Scott
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba - the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people - and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims, they capture a Palestinian teenager, and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder.
-
-
Very powerful
- By Phillip Straghalis on 04-09-21
By: Adania Shibli, and others
-
The Hunger
- By: Alma Katsu
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone—or something—is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow an experimental route West, or just bad luck - the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest adventures in history.
-
-
Soap opera posing as horror
- By Karen Weaver on 03-23-18
By: Alma Katsu
-
Fever Dream
- A Novel
- By: Samanta Schweblin, Megan McDowell - translator
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Experience the blazing, surreal sensation of a fever dream...A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He's not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family. Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale.
-
-
Ghastly tale, brilliantly told.
- By Kat - Audible on 03-22-18
By: Samanta Schweblin, and others
-
The Little Friend
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 25 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The second novel by Donna Tartt, best-selling author of The Goldfinch (winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize), The Little Friend is a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence, and evil. The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved. So Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright and insufferably determined - sets out to unmask his killer.
-
-
Couldn't put it down
- By Sam on 03-15-12
By: Donna Tartt
-
The Memory Police
- A Novel
- By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder - translator
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses - until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards.
-
-
A Calm, Quiet Dystopian
- By Booky Nooky on 12-13-19
By: Yoko Ogawa, and others
-
Solaris
- The Definitive Edition
- By: Stanislaw Lem, Bill Johnston - translator
- Narrated by: Alessandro Juliani
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation - complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani ( Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.
-
-
A comment on negative reviews
- By Burns on 09-20-11
By: Stanislaw Lem, and others
-
Half of a Yellow Sun
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Zainab Jah
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a 13-year-old houseboy working for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who's abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene.
-
-
A Little Background Adjustment
- By Perkbrooke on 03-13-18
-
Lapvona
- A Novel
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consolations is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive transmissions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place.
-
-
uncomfortable
- By Stetson on 07-04-22
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
What listeners say about Frankenstein in Baghdad
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 10-08-21
instant classic
incredible. best book I've read in a long time. rich with metaphor. entertaining and profound
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
- Tinkerbuff
- 09-20-19
I was fascinated the entire time
This book was so fascinating to me. I honestly am so happy I went out on a limb and picked it up.
So, this novel takes place in in the streets of U.S. occupied Baghdad. Our main guy, Hadi, is a scavenger who hangs out at a local café and is known to be a little crazy, he collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a full corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse gains life and escapes, a wave of vigilante style murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed.
And that's only part of it. This story reads and presents like a slice of life from Iraq.
It's all semi realistic with just hints of the supernatural and of course the corpse juggernaut.
There's several perspectives and central characters all dealing with their own arcs and they all intertwine and revolve around the central Frankenstein character who is almost a side character.
There's military factions, mystic astrologists, street gangsters, talks of djinns and angels and the monster who is talked about often in hushed whispers.
Which makes it even more exciting, the realistic perspectives of an urban legend that you as the reader know is fact but most the characters are uncertain.
I don't want to give too much away but the monster concept is freaking cool. Each body part used to build him has a soul attached and these souls guide the monster's quests.
It's almost hard to describe but this would seriously make an amazing TV show. If you're familiar with the anime Durarara it feels very similar but much more adult and conservative, of course.
It's not very action packed or fast paced but I found all of it very interesting. The writer does.an excellent job of making every scene smooth and captivating.
Id really could recommend this book to anyone. It's just a solid novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 11-15-21
overhyped but still interesting
My thoughts on this book are confusing.. I find it a nice overall story and snapshot of Iraqi life, which opened my eyes to the many controversies in that country. however, the writer failed to convey a connected well-rounded story. it felt kind of all over the place.
still I respect that he wanted to illustrate war as being chaotic and not fair.
No connection between the book and Mary shelley Frankenstein.
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
- Julie W. Capell
- 01-10-21
The best superhero I've encountered in a long time
Interesting to me mostly for its portrayal of everyday life in Baghdad circa 2008-2012. How people continue the activities of daily life--taking tea, shopping at the market, writing news articles--while foreign soldiers roam the streets and car bombs explode, randomly killing friends and foes. I know this is how life is, having lived under a military dictatorship. In order to survive under such extraordinary circumstances, most people turn a blind eye to the chaos, keep their heads down and try to go about their business.
I loved the stories of the main characters...the old woman praying every day to the portrait of St. George for her son to come back from the war so that her family would be complete once more...the junk dealer making deals and telling incredible stories in the tea house to stay relevant...the real estate agent searching for any angle to get his hands on certain pieces of property he was sure would make him rich...the general using astrologers to track down criminals to ensure his next promotion...the journalist chasing stories while avoiding his own life. And best of all, the "frankenstein," the best superhero I have encountered in a very long time.
[I listened to this as an audio book read by Edoardo Ballerini, who gave it just the right touch of an Arabic accent so that I felt like I was in Baghdad. I listened at 1.3 speed]
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- QualityPet, LLC
- 08-13-18
Excellent Magical Realist View of Baghdad
This book is well deserving of the Man Booker nomination it received and did a great job of building the picture of a diverse community in Baghdad. The narration was also excellent
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Carol
- 04-09-18
Parts is parts
Elishva the old Christian woman longs for the return of her son Daniel. It has been twenty years since he was forcibly sent off to war but she believes he is still alive and she prays to St George so that he will return someday. Hadi the junk dealer collects and assembles body parts found in the debris of terrorist explosions and there are plenty of explosions in Baghdad. An arm from one body, a leg from another, stitching them together hoping to give them a proper burial as a whole body. One day Hadi leaves the putrid oozing body at his workshop, the Whatsitsname, to buy items for his junk shop. When he returns home, the Whatsitsname is gone. Panic ensues.
Hasib Jaafar was a hotel guard and at the age of 21 he was killed by a suicide bomber driving a garbage truck. There was little left of Hasib. His soul was searching for a body so he can be buried, when he finds the Whatsitsname lying on the ground, he magically enters it. Then the Whatsitsname with its new found soul is found by the old woman Elishva who claims him as her long lost son Daniel. She dresses him and cooks him food. But Daniel's return does not last long as he wanders the streets looking for revenge on the killers of his various body parts. When he finds and kills the murderer, that body part drops off. So he finds replacement murdered body parts and continues looking for murderers. The Watsitsname becomes a bit of a metaphor for a never ending war in Iraq. Murder and revenge. The police pursue him.
A dark satire and intriguing concept for about half of the book. Then Saadawi seems to lose his way and the book meanders in different directions with different characters, some who add nothing to the story. There are lots of astrologers, mistresses, barbers, journalist, priest, janitors and generals. All converging for one big explosion that seems very anti-climatic in the end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael G Kurilla
- 09-17-22
Frankenstein in the Middle East
Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad is an interesting take on the classic Frankenstein tale. Set in Baghdad during the US occupation after the Iraqi war, the city is dangerous with suicide bombers. Body parts tend to be left behind and a junk dealer decides to stitch random parts together in the hope that they can receive a proper burial. Unbeknownst to him, the parts become animated and seek out revenge on the killers of the various parts. He attracts a following and they assist in keeping him up to date with fresh parts. There are numerous side stories that flesh out a diverse and vibrant flavor to the city under occupation.
As a retelling of a classic tale in a distinct culture and time period, Saadawi does a credible job of weaving enough specific lore to create a unique tale based on the Mary Shelly original. He also goes to great lengths to offer a city with diverse people including a Christian subcommunity and the various groups allied the US occupying force including special units on both the American and Iraqi sides hunting the 'monster.'
The narration is well done with good character distinction. Pacing is smooth and just on the brisk side to make for a quick listen.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SinnaPomme
- 09-01-22
You had me at Frankenstein.
This is a rich tapestry woven of deep beliefs in a tortured land with those beliefs both holding it together and tearing it apart. I especially love a difficult story that never forgets to laugh at itself.
This is another instance of five stars given to a novel that I desperately want to step into and poke around.
The narration was so careful and considerate of the characters in all of their trials.
I want more but love this just the way it is.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kukhri
- 08-07-18
A distant cousin to Frankenstein
Do not read this with the expectation that it will closely resemble Shelly's Frankenstein, but you should expect a different, very Iraqi take on the idea. It deals with suicide bombings and average people put under unusually tough conditions. It's an interesting way of looking at the country from the people's perspective.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Roger A Reid
- 06-23-22
No clue what this story was about
Interesting premise but rambled without ever getting to a point. Blah! at best. Don’t bother.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful