
Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Clare Corbett
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By:
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Clare Pooley
About this listen
Nobody ever talks to strangers on the train. It’s a rule. But what would happen if they did? From the New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of The Authenticity Project, a heartwarming novel about unexpected friendships and the joy of connecting.
Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu.
Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Constant-Reader and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do.
Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.
This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. It turns out that talking to strangers can teach you about the world around you—and even more about yourself.
©2022 Clare Pooley (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A soothing story where bad things happen yet are overcome, and friendship leads the way to personal acceptance and rebirth.”
—Kirkus
“Why don't I ever meet people this delightful on a train? This feel-good ensemble story will bring joy to readers who loved Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine—not to mention fans of quirky London-set fare such as Ted Lasso. Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting is a warm, fun pick-me-up of a book.” —Mary Laura Philpott, bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink and Bomb Shelter
“Pooley's grasp on the constraints and longings of the human condition proves immensely entertaining. Readers will be charmed by this uplifting, hopeful story rife with tender insights. Traveling with Iona Iverson is a literary journey well worth taking!” —Shelf Awareness
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Story
When sixty-three-year-old Sylvia finds her husband in bed with the floozy of their Boca retirement community, she’s shocked and furious . . . at first. By the time her head stops spinning, Sylvia realizes that actually, this isn’t what she wants anymore anyway. So she enlists her best friend, the glamorous older widow Evie, to join her in setting up a new life in Manhattan. Sylvia’s ex-husband may have lost her life savings, but Sylvia and Evie are scrappy and determined, unopposed to pawning jewelry and roughing it in tiny apartments.
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Wonderful Listen
- By Iteachart on 06-26-24
By: Hillary Yablon
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The Words We Whisper
- By: Mary Ellen Taylor
- Narrated by: Shannon McManus, Carlotta Brentan, Tim Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees - despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.
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When you stay in the car to keep listening...
- By JCM on 09-14-21
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The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
- By: Abbi Waxman
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all - or mostly all - excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster!
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Engaging story but not well written
- By Rachel A. on 08-16-19
By: Abbi Waxman
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The Bookshop of Second Chances
- A Novel
- By: Jackie Fraser
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Thea Mottram is having a bad month. She’s been let go from her office job with no notice - and to make matters even worse, her husband of nearly 20 years has decided to leave her for one of her friends. Bewildered and completely lost, Thea doesn’t know what to do. But when she learns that a distant great uncle in Scotland has passed away, leaving her his home and a hefty antique book collection, she decides to leave Sussex for a few weeks. Escaping to a small coastal town where no one knows her seems to be exactly what she needs.
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Childish
- By Elizabeth Miller on 11-13-21
By: Jackie Fraser
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Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame
- A Novel
- By: Olivia Ford
- Narrated by: Melanie Crawley
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Nothing could be more out of character, but after fifty-nine years of marriage, as her husband Bernard’s health declines, and her friends' lives become focused on their grandchildren—which Jenny never had—Jenny decides she wants a little something for herself. So she secretly applies to be a contestant on the prime-time TV show Britain Bakes. Whisked into an unfamiliar world of cameras and timed challenges, Jenny delights in a new-found independence. But that independence, and the stress of the competition, starts to unearth memories buried decades ago.
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Beautifully plotted
- By Patty Says on 02-28-24
By: Olivia Ford
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The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
- By: Lori Nelson Spielman
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan, Kathleen Garrett, Lori Nelson Spielman
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A trio of second-born daughters sets out on a whirlwind journey through the lush Italian countryside to break the family curse that says they’ll never find love, by New York Times best seller Lori Nelson Spielman, author of The Life List.
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You Will Not Be Disappointed
- By Lynn on 12-17-20
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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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Overall
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Story
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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Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
- A Novel
- By: Kirsten Miller
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
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Small town attitudes
- By Maureen Teague on 08-26-24
By: Kirsten Miller
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Beach House Rules
- By: Kristy Woodson Harvey
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Suehyla El-Attar Young
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
When Charlotte Sitterly’s husband is arrested for a white-collar crime, she and her daughter Iris are locked out of their house by the FBI and—what’s potentially even worse—thrust into the spotlight of @JuniperShoresSocialite, the town’s snarky anonymous Instagram account. Cut off from her bank accounts and feeling desperate, Charlotte takes up an acquaintance’s offer to stay at a beachfront former bed-and-breakfast that’s home to a community of single mothers and draws plenty of gossip in the small coastal North Carolina town.
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The Correspondent
- A Novel
- By: Virginia Evans
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.
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Phenomenal Story Plus Performances!
- By M. Ryder on 05-21-25
By: Virginia Evans
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After Annie
- A Novel
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life. Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie.
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Quindlen’s latest
- By Anonymous User on 03-03-24
By: Anna Quindlen
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Britt-Marie Was Here
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Britt-Marie can't stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It's just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis.
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A Gem
- By Sara on 05-12-16
By: Fredrik Backman
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The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot
- A Novel
- By: Marianne Cronin
- Narrated by: Sheila Reid, Rebecca Benson
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets the magnificent Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined. As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years.
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A Must Read (Listen)
- By Patricia on 06-03-21
By: Marianne Cronin
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The Phoenix Ballroom
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Hogan
- Narrated by: Jane Copland
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
For fifty years, Venetia Hargreaves’s world revolved around her husband. She built their life around his big career, with dinner on the table at six, a lovely home, and a dutiful son just as business-minded as his father. Now Venetia’s a wealthy widow left with a beautiful but empty home, an enviable bank balance, and a distinct feeling that she missed the boat. Once upon a time, she was a dance instructor who dreamed of opening her own ballroom school with a fellow teacher who won her heart. Instead, Venetia chose the safer path.
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Hope, renewal,
- By Jennifer A Hayes on 04-12-25
By: Ruth Hogan
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The Matchmaker's Gift
- A Novel
- By: Lynda Cohen Loigman
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky, Gabra Zackman
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves.
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Delightful
- By Little Ms Fun on 04-04-23
Stories - something for everyone
Life - is short, find the meaning moments & right people (and animals) & make the most.
Fun and touching
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Delightful!
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Also, the narrator was AMAZING! The differentiation between the men’s voices and women, children…whomever, she nailed it! Well done!
Perfect mix of a light read with twists & turns!
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Such fun!
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I adore Iona and her friends
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Loved it!
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Love this book!
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Something for everyone- and more
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Excellent story
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Loved it!
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