
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Feodor Chin
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By:
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Jamie Ford
About this listen
New York Times best-seller.
“An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut that explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle era during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love.” (Lisa See)
In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s - Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept.
Now, 40 years later, Henry explores the hotel’s basement for the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.
Praise for Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet:
“A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war - not the sweeping damage of the battlefield but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. This is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more important, it will make you feel.” (Garth Stein, best-selling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“Mesmerizing and evocative, a tale of conflicted loyalties and timeless devotion.” (Sara Gruen, best-selling author of Water for Elephants)
“A wartime-era Chinese-Japanese variation on Romeo and Juliet.... The period detail [is] so revealing and so well rendered.” (The Seattle Times)
“A poignant story that transports the reader back in time...a satisfying and heart-wrenching tale.” (Deseret Morning News)
“A lovely combination of romantic coincidence, historic detail and realism that is smooth and highly readable.... Ford does wonderful work in re-creating prewar Seattle.” (The Oregonian)
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Critic reviews
“An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut that explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle era during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love.” (Lisa See)
“A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war - not the sweeping damage of the battlefield but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. This is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more important, it will make you feel.” (Garth Stein, best-selling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“Mesmerizing and evocative, a tale of conflicted loyalties and timeless devotion.” (Sara Gruen, best-selling author of Water for Elephants)
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Story
For 12-year-old Ernest Young, a charity student at a boarding school, the chance to go to the World's Fair feels like a gift. But only once he's there, amid the exotic exhibits, fireworks, and Ferris wheels, does he discover that he is the one who is actually the prize. The half-Chinese orphan is astounded to learn he will be raffled off - a healthy boy "to a good home". The winning ticket belongs to the flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel, famous for educating her girls.
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Incredible listen
- By Hugh Lewis on 10-04-17
By: Jamie Ford
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Everyone Brave Is Forgiven
- By: Chris Cleave
- Narrated by: Luke Thompson
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1939, and Mary, a young socialite, is determined to shock her blueblood political family by volunteering for the war effort. She is assigned as a teacher to children who were evacuated from London and have been rejected by the countryside because they are infirm, are mentally disabled, or - like Mary's favorite student, Zachary - have colored skin.
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Absolutely No
- By Sara on 05-09-16
By: Chris Cleave
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Sarah's Key
- A Novel
- By: Tatiana de Rosnay
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past.
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Important subject and plot, pedestrian execution
- By Benson on 04-15-10
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The Language of Flowers
- A Novel
- By: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
- Narrated by: Tara Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past. The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it's been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude.
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You don't need a green thumb to enjoy this one
- By Diana - Audible on 04-16-12
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The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Hazel Gaynor
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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1838: Northumberland, England. Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands has been Grace Darling’s home for all of her 22 years. When she and her father rescue shipwreck survivors in a furious storm, Grace becomes celebrated throughout England, the subject of poems and plays. 1938: Newport, Rhode Island. Nineteen-years-old and pregnant, Matilda Emmerson has been sent away from Ireland in disgrace. She is to stay with Harriet until her baby is born. As a deadly hurricane approaches, two women, living a century apart, will be linked forever by their instinctive acts of courage and love.
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Amazing woman - amazing book & rendition
- By M. Santos on 04-03-19
By: Hazel Gaynor
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A Fine Balance
- By: Rohinton Mistry
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers—a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village—will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
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Read this book if your heart is made of steal
- By Amazon Shopper on 03-23-08
By: Rohinton Mistry
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Last Bus to Wisdom
- A Novel
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The final novel from a great American storyteller. Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an 11-year-old's imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for "female trouble" in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
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Such a lovely final book.
- By B.J. on 02-26-16
By: Ivan Doig
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The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
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If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- A Novel
- By: Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.... As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.
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MUCH better than I ever expected! Give it a try!
- By Kent on 10-19-09
By: Mary Ann Shaffer, and others
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The Violin Conspiracy
- A Novel (Good Morning America Book Club)
- By: Brendan Slocumb
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Brendan Slocumb
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.
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Enjoyable But Flawed
- By woodbridge98 on 02-12-22
By: Brendan Slocumb
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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
- A Novel
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Lily is haunted by memories of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower and asks the gods for forgiveness.
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Loved it!
- By Pat on 10-03-05
By: Lisa See
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Oona Out of Order
- A Novel
- By: Margarita Montimore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn 19, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens 32 years in the future in her 51-year-old body.
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Awful
- By M. Esposito on 03-02-20
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When the Emperor Was Divine
- By: Julie Otsuka
- Narrated by: Elaina Erika Davis
- Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her house, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family's possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans, they have been reclassified virtually overnight as enemy aliens, and they are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty internment camp in the Utah desert.
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Well written. Don't agree with the author's point.
- By Stewart Gooderman on 09-25-05
By: Julie Otsuka
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Peace Like a River
- By: Leif Enger
- Narrated by: Chad Lowe
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The quiet 1960s midwestern life of the Land family is upended when son Davy kills two marauders who have come to harm the family. The morning of his sentencing, Davy (a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others) escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover territory even more extraordinary than the Badlands, where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer.
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Poetic Coming Of Age Story
- By Menno on 06-11-08
By: Leif Enger
There was a permanent "Relocation Center" near my home town and even though many young men from our area fought in WWII, the American Japanese earned the respect of the native residents for their quiet dignity as they endured their confinement. This book helped me to see things more clearly through the eyes of the American Japanese people.
I definitely recommend this book and will listen to it again.
Captivating, Beautiful, Poignant
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Sweet and Bitter
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well written
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Young love during Japanese internment ow WWII
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What did you love best about Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet?
I loved the story line. It was very interesting to read about the different cultures and what was happening during the war. I had no idea there were "concentration camps" in the US.This was a beautiful book and worth every minute!!!
Best book I've listened to in a long time.
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If you could sum up Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet in three words, what would they be?
Realistically touching bookWhich scene was your favorite?
Without going into to much detail as to not ruin the story for new readers, I would have to say Henry's second non-sunday visit to Sheldon.If you could take any character from Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Mr. Okabe. While he has a rather small role in the story he is still a fascinating character that implores understanding and unrivaled moral fiber. Hands down he is who I'd want to talk to as his life and his perspective must be truly captivating. (if the author wrote a book about Mr. Okabe I would read it in a heartbeat)Any additional comments?
This book is captivating and memorable. Your heart will stir for many different reasons and while a work of fiction, it touches on real events and very real emotions. Everything about this book is organic in the characters evolution. It provides critical thinking in regards to human emotion and that some actions are not always what they seem or done for malicious reasons. I loved this book and glad my book club picked it out.First (audio)book to make me tear up
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Very well written book
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Loved it! Just a wholesome, heartwarming story!
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bring them together again. Wonderful, poetic writing and great narration will keep you intrigued throughout the book. Barbara C
Happy Ending to a Wartime story
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Once in awhile a story catches your heart.
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