-
How to Pronounce Knife
- Stories
- Narrated by: James Tang, Kulap Vilaysack
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 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 $14.81
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Named one of the New York Times' "7 New Books to Watch Out for in April," this revelatory story collection honors characters struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary "grunt work of the world."
In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. Thammavongsa is a master at homing in on moments like this—moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right up against the limits of language. The stories that make up How to Pronounce Knife focus on characters struggling to build lives in unfamiliar territory, or shuttling between idioms, cultures, and values. A failed boxer discovers what it truly means to be a champion when he starts painting nails at his sister's salon. A young woman tries to discern the invisible but immutable social hierarchies at a chicken processing plant. A mother coaches her daughter in the challenging art of worm harvesting. In a taut, visceral prose style that establishes her as one of the most striking and assured voices of her generation, Thammavongsa interrogates what it means to make a living, to work, and to create meaning.
Winner of the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize
“As the daughter of refugees, I’m able to finally see myself in stories.”—Angela So, Electric Literature
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Stories by Heart
- By: John Lithgow, Ring Lardner, W. W. Jacobs, and others
- Narrated by: John Lithgow
- Length: 2 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe Award-winning actor John Lithgow (The Crown, Dexter, 3rd Rock from the Sun) brings his latest critically acclaimed Broadway performance to Audible. Stories by Heart celebrates the transcendent power of great literature and serves as a touching tribute to Lithgow’s late father, actor and director Arthur Lithgow.
-
-
Longing To See Him In Person
- By Comet Kid on 07-02-18
By: John Lithgow, 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
-
Being There
- By: Jerzy Kosinski
- Narrated by: Dustin Hoffman
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman gives an understated and exemplary performance of this satiric look at the unreality of American media culture. Chance, the enigmatic gardener, becomes Chauncey Gardiner after getting hit by a limo belonging to a Wall Street tycoon. The whirlwind that follows brings Chance to his new status of political policy advisor and possible vice presidential candidate. His garden-variety political responses, inspired by television, become heralded as visionary, and he is soon a media icon.
-
-
Darkly Funny
- By Ilana on 07-15-12
By: Jerzy Kosinski
-
Girls & Boys
- By: Dennis Kelly
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When they met at an airport, it was love at first sight. But in time, everything collapsed. As an unnamed but unforgettable woman muses on her life—from meet cute to marriage and parenthood—her recollections inexorably build to a devastating truth. In this shattering performance, Carey Mulligan, star of the critically lauded drama An Education, captivates audiences with playwright Dennis Kelly’s harrowing ruminations on family, ambition, gender, and violence.
-
-
Be aware of the content before listening
- By Anne Marie on 09-11-18
By: Dennis Kelly
-
Zikora
- A Short Story
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Zikora, a DC lawyer from Nigeria, tells her equally high-powered lover that she’s pregnant, he abandons her. But it’s Zikora’s demanding, self-possessed mother, in town for the birth, who makes Zikora feel like a lonely little girl all over again. Stunned by the speed with which her ideal life fell apart, she turns to reflecting on her mother’s painful past and struggle for dignity. Preparing for motherhood, Zikora begins to see more clearly what her own mother wants for her, for her new baby, and for herself.
-
-
Great quick listen.
- By Tally on 11-09-20
-
The Metamorphosis
- A New Translation by Susan Bernofsky
- By: Franz Kafka, Susan Bernofsky - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Victor Bevine, Christa Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Franz Kafka's 1915 novella of unexplained horror and nightmarish transformation became a worldwide classic and remains a century later one of the most widely read works of fiction in the world. It is the story of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. This hugely influential work inspired George Orwell, Albert Camus, Jorge Louis Borges, and Ray Bradbury, while continuing to unsettle millions of readers.
-
-
Mysterious and beautiful
- By Tad Davis on 05-02-15
By: Franz Kafka, and others
-
Stories by Heart
- By: John Lithgow, Ring Lardner, W. W. Jacobs, and others
- Narrated by: John Lithgow
- Length: 2 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe Award-winning actor John Lithgow (The Crown, Dexter, 3rd Rock from the Sun) brings his latest critically acclaimed Broadway performance to Audible. Stories by Heart celebrates the transcendent power of great literature and serves as a touching tribute to Lithgow’s late father, actor and director Arthur Lithgow.
-
-
Longing To See Him In Person
- By Comet Kid on 07-02-18
By: John Lithgow, 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
-
Being There
- By: Jerzy Kosinski
- Narrated by: Dustin Hoffman
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman gives an understated and exemplary performance of this satiric look at the unreality of American media culture. Chance, the enigmatic gardener, becomes Chauncey Gardiner after getting hit by a limo belonging to a Wall Street tycoon. The whirlwind that follows brings Chance to his new status of political policy advisor and possible vice presidential candidate. His garden-variety political responses, inspired by television, become heralded as visionary, and he is soon a media icon.
-
-
Darkly Funny
- By Ilana on 07-15-12
By: Jerzy Kosinski
-
Girls & Boys
- By: Dennis Kelly
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When they met at an airport, it was love at first sight. But in time, everything collapsed. As an unnamed but unforgettable woman muses on her life—from meet cute to marriage and parenthood—her recollections inexorably build to a devastating truth. In this shattering performance, Carey Mulligan, star of the critically lauded drama An Education, captivates audiences with playwright Dennis Kelly’s harrowing ruminations on family, ambition, gender, and violence.
-
-
Be aware of the content before listening
- By Anne Marie on 09-11-18
By: Dennis Kelly
-
Zikora
- A Short Story
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Zikora, a DC lawyer from Nigeria, tells her equally high-powered lover that she’s pregnant, he abandons her. But it’s Zikora’s demanding, self-possessed mother, in town for the birth, who makes Zikora feel like a lonely little girl all over again. Stunned by the speed with which her ideal life fell apart, she turns to reflecting on her mother’s painful past and struggle for dignity. Preparing for motherhood, Zikora begins to see more clearly what her own mother wants for her, for her new baby, and for herself.
-
-
Great quick listen.
- By Tally on 11-09-20
-
The Metamorphosis
- A New Translation by Susan Bernofsky
- By: Franz Kafka, Susan Bernofsky - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Victor Bevine, Christa Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Franz Kafka's 1915 novella of unexplained horror and nightmarish transformation became a worldwide classic and remains a century later one of the most widely read works of fiction in the world. It is the story of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. This hugely influential work inspired George Orwell, Albert Camus, Jorge Louis Borges, and Ray Bradbury, while continuing to unsettle millions of readers.
-
-
Mysterious and beautiful
- By Tad Davis on 05-02-15
By: Franz Kafka, and others
-
Everything My Mother Taught Me
- Inheritance collection
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this haunting short story of loyalty and betrayal, a young woman in early 1900s Massachusetts discovers that in navigating her treacherous coming-of-age, she must find her voice first. For fatefully observant Adeline, growing up carries an ominous warning from her adulterous mother: don’t say a word. Adeline vows to never speak again. But that’s not her only secret. After her mother takes a housekeeping job at a lighthouse off the tip of Cape Ann, a local woman vanishes. The key to the mystery lies with Adeline, the silent witness.
-
-
This story is incredible
- By Shumpie on 02-01-20
By: Alice Hoffman
-
Unexpected Stories
- Two Novellas
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 2 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This exciting collection presents two previously unpublished stories by SF legend Octavia E. Butler. A Necessary Being precedes the events of Survivor, Butler's third (famously disowned) installment in her Patternist series, and includes characters from it, focusing exclusively on the Kohn, aliens who build their social hierarchies on the blueness of their fur. In Childfinder, a black woman with the gift of identifying children with latent psychic ability refuses to share her skill with an organization of white telepaths.
-
-
Octavia B. is the John Coltrane of Scifi fantasy
- By Adé Ngeno on 06-30-19
-
Little Weirds
- By: Jenny Slate
- Narrated by: Jenny Slate
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may "know" Jenny Slate from her Netflix special, Stage Fright, as the creator of Marcel the Shell, or as the star of Obvious Child. But you don't really know Jenny Slate until you get bonked on the head by her absolutely singular writing style. To see the world through Jenny's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility.
-
-
softness is earned and it is wonderful
- By Van on 12-09-19
By: Jenny Slate
-
Ayiti
- By: Roxane Gay
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From New York Times best-selling powerhouse Roxane Gay, Ayiti is a powerful collection exploring the Haitian diaspora experience. A married couple seeking boat passage to America prepares to leave their homeland. A young woman procures a voodoo love potion to ensnare a childhood classmate. A mother takes a foreign soldier into her home as a boarder, and into her bed. And a woman conceives a daughter on the bank of a river while fleeing a horrific massacre, a daughter who later moves to America for a new life but is perpetually haunted by the mysterious scent of blood.
-
-
A Glimpse of Real
- By Lovesmuffins2 on 08-18-18
By: Roxane Gay
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
84, Charing Cross Road
- By: Helene Hanff
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat, John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Helene Hanff makes an innocent inquiry about the possibility of purchasing hard-to-find books through Marks and Co., Booksellers, she begins a 20-year love affair with Frank Doel, the proper English bookseller who answers her letter and sends along her first order in the fall of 1949. They are two very unlikely correspondents.
-
-
Sweet
- By Jody S on 12-02-17
By: Helene Hanff
-
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
- A Novel
- By: Max Porter
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar - a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised. In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter.
-
-
Stunningly Creative
- By Rainking on 07-15-21
By: Max Porter
-
Mad Honey
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Narrated by: Carrie Coon, Key Taw, Jodi Picoult, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
-
-
Good writing but...
- By Suzanna on 10-08-22
By: Jodi Picoult, and others
-
American Dirt
- A Novel
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier, the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city, is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
-
-
Completely unrealistic
- By Marlene L Marquez on 02-12-20
By: Jeanine Cummins
-
The Four Winds
- A Novel
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Elsa must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
-
-
✫✫ 4.75 Stars ✫✫
- By ❤️Cyndi Marie❤️🎧Audiobook Addicts🎧 on 02-03-21
By: Kristin Hannah
-
The Sunset Limited
- A Novel in Dramatic Form
- By: Cormac McCarthy
- Narrated by: Austin Pendleton, Ezra Knight, Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 1 hr and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small apartment, Black and White, as the two men are known, begin a conversation that leads each back through his own history, mining the origins of two fundamentally opposing world views. White is a professor whose seemingly enviable existence of relative ease has left him nonetheless in despair. Black, an ex-con and ex-addict, is the more hopeful of the menthough he is just as desperate to convince White of the power of faith as White is desperate to deny it.
-
-
Wow
- By Wilfredo on 02-28-11
By: Cormac McCarthy
-
We Are What We Pretend to Be
- The First and Last Works
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Colin Hanks, Oliver Wyman, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Called “our finest black-humorist” by The Atlantic Monthly, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now his first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.
-
-
Not a place to start.
- By Robert on 11-02-12
By: Kurt Vonnegut
Critic reviews
**Named one of the most anticipated books of 2020 by Electric Literature, The Millions, and Ms. Magazine**
**Named one of the most anticipated books of the month by the New York Times, O. The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, Bustle, and Salon**
"An impressive debut...Thammavongsa's spare, rigorous stories are preoccupied with themes of alienation and dislocation, her characters burdened by the sense of existing unseen... Her gift for the gently absurd means the stories never feel dour or predictable, even when their outcomes are by some measure bleak...It is when the characters' sense of alienation follows them home, into the private space of the family, that Thammavongsa's stories most wrench the heart."—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"These poignant and deceptively quiet stories are powerhouses of feeling and depth; How to Pronounce Knife is an artful blend of simplicity and sophistication."—MARY GAITSKILL, author of VERONICA and SOMEBODY WITH A LITTLE HAMMER
"In sparse prose braced with disarming humor, Thammavongsa offers glimpses into the daily lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating the desires, disappointments, and triumphs of those who so often go unseen...Though short enough to read in one sitting, [these stories] feel vast in their scope, offering ample room to wander."—THE PARIS REVIEW
Related to this topic
-
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
- By: Danielle Evans
- Narrated by: Daniel Deadwyler, Jeanette Illidge, Je Nie Fleming, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
-
-
things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
-
Black Sunday
- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
-
-
Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
-
Scars and Stilettos - 2nd Edition
- By: Harmony Dust
- Narrated by: Harmony Dust
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scars and Stilettos: At 13, after being abandoned by her mother one summer and left to take care of her younger brother, Harmony becomes susceptible to a relationship that turns out to be toxic, abusive, and ultimately exploitative. She eventually finds herself working in a strip club at the age of 19, and her boyfriend becomes her pimp, controlling her every move and taking all of her money. Ultimately, she discovers a path to freedom and a whole new life.
-
-
A religious book
- By Amazonbuyer on 10-12-21
By: Harmony Dust
-
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
-
A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
-
-
Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
-
Lone Stars
- By: Justin Deabler
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.
-
-
Read for bookclub but fell in Love
- By Ericka Lawson on 09-11-22
By: Justin Deabler
-
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
- By: Danielle Evans
- Narrated by: Daniel Deadwyler, Jeanette Illidge, Je Nie Fleming, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
-
-
things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
-
Black Sunday
- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
-
-
Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
-
Scars and Stilettos - 2nd Edition
- By: Harmony Dust
- Narrated by: Harmony Dust
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scars and Stilettos: At 13, after being abandoned by her mother one summer and left to take care of her younger brother, Harmony becomes susceptible to a relationship that turns out to be toxic, abusive, and ultimately exploitative. She eventually finds herself working in a strip club at the age of 19, and her boyfriend becomes her pimp, controlling her every move and taking all of her money. Ultimately, she discovers a path to freedom and a whole new life.
-
-
A religious book
- By Amazonbuyer on 10-12-21
By: Harmony Dust
-
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
-
A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
-
-
Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
-
Lone Stars
- By: Justin Deabler
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.
-
-
Read for bookclub but fell in Love
- By Ericka Lawson on 09-11-22
By: Justin Deabler
-
Labor Day
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Wilson Bethel
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy, acclaimed author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boy - and the man he later becomes - looking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single, long, hot, life-altering weekend.
-
-
Good story but anti clamatic
- By Nana on 11-25-13
By: Joyce Maynard
-
We Begin at the End
- By: Chris Whitaker
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Duchess Day Radley is a 13-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.
-
-
Horrible narrator in this audible book
- By M. patton on 03-03-21
By: Chris Whitaker
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Reprieve
- A Novel
- By: James Han Mattson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize - a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
-
-
creepy escape room story
- By Barbara S on 11-18-21
-
The Time Traveler's Wife
- By: Audrey Niffenegger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Phoebe Strole
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.
-
-
One of my favorite books
- By Joey on 01-13-08
-
Agatha of Little Neon
- By: Claire Luchette
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Agatha has lived every day of the last seven years with her sisters: They work together, laugh together, pray together. Their world is contained within the little house they share. The four of them are devoted to Mother Roberta and to their quiet, purposeful life. But when the parish goes broke, the sisters are forced to move. They land in Woonsocket, a former mill town now dotted with wind turbines.
-
-
Xceptional!
- By Bebe Guill on 08-11-21
By: Claire Luchette
What listeners say about How to Pronounce Knife
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Older Reviewer
- 10-07-20
A truly delightful book
These short stories are very well written and so different from any thing else I have read. I was given short vivid insights into what living as an immigrant from Laos in this country was like. I enjoyed the book very much.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jami
- 12-10-20
Good collection
I enjoyed these short stories overall. There were one or two that didn’t resonate with me, but the others were interesting. I liked learning a bit about the Laos culture as well.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- sweetypt
- 02-27-22
Resonated...
The stories resonate in my heart & mind. The struggles that parents endure to make a better life for their child/children and forcing their desire on them, while the children struggle to make/find their own dreams, but often give up to protect their parent(s) or disappoint them in attempts to belong outside the realm of their parents' experience. The stories without that theme nevertheless evoke emotions like brushstrokes on the canvas of my senses. If you grew up with insecurities, whether or not you outgrew them, these stories will resonate with you.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- William
- 12-29-20
When Hope Is Survival
“How to Pronounce Knife” is a collection of snippets of life for Laotian immigrants to the US. Once you know that much, the title makes sense. We all can remember times when we were learning to read when we asked ourselves or our teacher, “Why is it spelled like that? Why are there so many letters in ‘thought’ when you only need ‘thot’ and why is ‘though’ pronounced like ‘tho’ when it is only missing one letter?”
I came away from this book with mixed feelings. On the one hand, with my experience of having lived most of my life as a foreigner (American) living in an Asian country, and also my work with Vietnamese refugees trying to adapt to life in America while trying to overcome the personal traumas they had experienced in Vietnam and as boat people escaping from there, I feel I better understood some of their feelings. I identified with so many things about the characters in the book, from their struggle with the language, of looking so different and out of place, the giggles when you make cultural faux pas and you don’t even know what you said or did wrong, and the dependence on others sometimes to help with the most basic and simplest of tasks. Of course, I didn’t experience most of this to the same extent as they did, partly because the people where I lived were so gracious and wanting to help, and also because I didn’t have to struggle with low-paying jobs and others looking down on me for my position. Still, there was a great deal that struck home.
But, I was looking for more coherence to the stories. I kept expecting to find some characters that appeared in more than one story. And, I found each story cut off too soon, just at the point where you might think that something was about to happen, for better or worse. The author could have told me more. I wanted some conclusions, some endings to the stories.
Yet, it still kept pushing my thinking. Maybe the lack of endings was on purpose. Real lives don’t have conclusions until death, and even then the endings are not complete. In fact, maybe the point was that, for immigrants from a culture so very different from ours and especially for those who come from the bottom rung of the ladder, the best that most can hope for is continuation, not conclusion. The focus of most Americans is on immigrants taking jobs from Americans, but in this book, we see more of immigrants being exploited and held back. It exposes racism and our own assumptions that we are an equal society where anyone can get ahead.
The adults are just trying to survive, sometimes by holding everything inside and plodding on, sometimes by focusing on a narrow area and trying to make that their own, from becoming a rabid fan or Randy Travis to working so hard to be the best at your job that you provoke the resentment of others.
The children are torn between wanting to fit in and yet trying to still be Lao. Others go to the extreme of one or the other. And even among the immigrants there are sometimes similar divisions that can divide them.
These are brief snippets built around one short turning point in a life, but in the end they do come together to show the struggles with the dreams. And maybe this book will help others see the real people who clean their offices, do their nails, and work on farms. By the end, I found that I liked the book better than I had thought.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Greg Tarmichael
- 10-01-20
Wow
Each story left me wanting to hear more, to know more. Yet they each ended; sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, each one beautiful.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael J Gore
- 10-25-20
Wonderful collection
Beautifully written stories relating the life and struggles of contemporary immigrants and their adjustments to a new country.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt
- 10-09-20
Amazing
An engaging, inspiring and entertaining glimpse into life and lives. Thank you. I think I’ll groom my toe nails now.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christian C.
- 11-26-20
Short. Sweet. Different. Real.
I stumbled on this little collection of Laoan short stories while browsing on Audible. Each story is full of heart. Some stories are sprinkled with a bit of sadness and others get a hefty dose of "this is just the way life goes." The main characters of these vignettes are resolute yet unsure, confident yet vulnerable. The title story left me feeling like that brief period in early childhood when my parents were infallible, and I fiercely defended them against any kid who dared speak ill. Oh, how that view of my mom and dad did change with each birthday that passed into my rear-view, but I digress. The story featuring a lonely, frustrated middle-aged woman hit too close to home, although she was ultimately braver than I ever could dream of being once her attention turned towards a youthful neighbor. The cultural differences were present throughout, but they didn't detract from the enjoyability of these brief glimpses into what it is to simply be human, no matter your country of origin or current locale.
I listened to the audiobook version and the narrators generally performed well. I felt the female narrator expressed more emotion in her performance as opposed to the male narrator who more or less reads words from a page and rarely sounds as if he's truly invested in making the stories sound unique and separate in their own right. At the same turn, I highly respect all narrators who work hard to record my much-loved audio entertainment, as I would sound like an uncultured Southerner with a frequently incomprehensible backwoods drawl by comparison.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adrian Koch
- 03-13-23
Meh
Some of these stories have really powerful moments (especially Picking Worms) but overall they’re forgettable. Luckily it only took an hour to listen to the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- dorcas kiptoo
- 10-11-20
What a treat! I loved this Book
I have never read a book by this Author. What a gem this was. I will now look up all her Literary work and indulge in them fully. I loved all the stories- my favorite was mani pedi.
The readers brought out all the emotions to the surface. These short stories belong to the same class as NPR’s Selected Shorts.
Bravo, well done!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!