Kitchen
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Narrated by:
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Emily Zeller
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By:
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Banana Yoshimoto
About this listen
With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend, Yoichi, and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart.
In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, Kitchen and its companion story, Moonlight Shadow, are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.
©1988 Banana Yoshimoto. English translation Fukutake Publishing Co., Ltd., through the Japan Foreign-Rights Centre. Translation 1993 by Megan Backus. (P)2015 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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The Keys to the Street
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- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.
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Mystery with humor and insight
- By Ida Hagman on 10-02-12
By: Ruth Rendell
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Amulet
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Adriana Sananes
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A tour de force, Amulet is a highly charged first-person, semi-hallucinatory novel that embodies in one woman's voice the melancholy and violent recent history of Latin America. Amulet is a monologue, like Bolaño's acclaimed debut in English, By Night in Chile. The speaker is Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan woman who moved to Mexico in the 1960s, becoming the "Mother of Mexican Poetry", hanging out with the young poets in the cafés and bars of the University.
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Read The Savage Detectives first
- By Alicia Grega on 12-05-13
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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The Girl from the Train
- By: Irma Joubert
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They mean to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl's unscheduled train reaches the bomb first. Gretl is the only survivor.
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Excellent story covering the middle of the 20th C.
- By john on 04-12-16
By: Irma Joubert
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Secret Smile
- By: Nicci French
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Miranda's sister Kerri has a new boyfriend. He's a handsome charmer who seems to dote on Kerri. But Brendan isn't the man he says he is. Miranda should know. She broke off her own affair with him just a few weeks ago when she found him reading her diary.
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I want my 9 hours back
- By Ashley on 07-19-23
By: Nicci French
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We Are All Made of Stars
- A Novel
- By: Rowan Coleman
- Narrated by: Ben Allen, Avita Jay
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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We Are All Made of Stars is an unforgettable story about second chances, the power of words, and the resilience of the heart.
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An All-Around 5 Stars!!
- By Trosado on 02-28-20
By: Rowan Coleman
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Outer Banks
- By: Anne Rivers Siddons
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies...sensitive, sensible, self-contained Cecie...Ginger, the heiress, sexy, vibrant, richer than sin...and poor, hopeless, brilliant Fig. They came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus in the '60s. Four young women bound by rare, blinding early friendship, they spent two idyllic spring breaks at Nags Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weather-beaten houses perch defiantly on the edge of a storm-tossed sea.
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Rather Depressing Tho Good Storyline
- By Gracie on 02-16-18
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Despite the Falling Snow
- By: Shamim Sarif
- Narrated by: Shamim Sarif
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Now a major motion picture. After an early career amongst the political elite of Cold War Russia, Alexander Ivanov has lived in America for 40 years and has managed to bury the tragic memories surrounding his charismatic late wife, Katya - or so he believes. For into his life come two women - one who will start to open up the heart he has protected for so long; another who is determined to uncover the truth about what really happened to Katya all those years ago.
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Beautiful snow fall
- By Mary findsplaces on 05-22-20
By: Shamim Sarif
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Way of the Peaceful Warrior
- A Book That Changes Lives
- By: Dan Millman
- Narrated by: Dan Millman
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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This audio edition of the international best seller Way of the Peaceful Warrior is based on the story of Dan Millman, a world-class gymnast who has it all, but is troubled by a vague sense of dissatisfaction with his everyday life. He meets an eccentric old mentor named Socrates, who sets him on a spiritual odyssey that will ultimately deliver or destroy him. Along the way Dan encounters realms of light and darkness, of romance and magic, as he learns what it means to live as a peaceful warrior.
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My Favorite Audiobook
- By Knucks on 01-06-10
By: Dan Millman
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The Samurai's Garden
- A Novel
- By: Gail Tsukiyama
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Gail Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight.
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A Novel Painted with a Master's Brush
- By Bay Area Califa on 06-25-18
By: Gail Tsukiyama
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Call Me Zelda
- By: Erika Robuck
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, seeming to float on champagne bubbles above the mundane cares of the world. But to those who truly knew them, the endless parties were only a distraction from their inner turmoil and from a love that united them with a scorching intensity.
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If you want to read about Zelda and Scott, move on
- By Leahmgordon on 11-14-17
By: Erika Robuck
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The Bastard of Istanbul
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country's violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a 19-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul.
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A tender gift from far away
- By Barbara on 11-07-07
By: Elif Shafak
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Strange Weather in Tokyo
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Tsukiko, 38, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei", in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is 30 years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy, which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
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Cozy Love Story and Leisure Time in Japan
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Moshi Moshi
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Yoshie's much-loved musician father died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimokitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents, that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying—unsuccessfully—to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message through these dreams?
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The story is good but the performance is lacking
- By Juliana on 10-24-24
By: Banana Yoshimoto, and others
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Convenience Store Woman
- By: Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori - translator
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Tokyo resident Keiko Furukara has never fit in - neither in her family, nor in school - but when at the age of 18 she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of national convenience store chain Smile Mart, she realizes instantly that she has found her purpose in life. Delighted to be able to exist in a place where the rules of social interaction are crystal clear (many are laid out line-by-line in the store's manual), Keiko does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and mode of speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a "normal" person excellently, more or less.
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Am amazing and different story
- By D.R. on 04-10-19
By: Sayaka Murata, and others
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Dead-End Memories
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- By: Banana Yoshimoto, Asa Yoneda - translator
- Narrated by: Kathleen Li
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
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First published in Japan in 2003, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery. Yoshimoto's gentle, effortless prose reminds us that one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with, and that happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to pause and reflect. Discover this collection of what Yoshimoto herself calls the "most precious work of my writing career."
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Chapter Six Mostly Missing?
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-23
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The Premonition
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- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
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Yayoi, a nineteen-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, has lately been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day and, as if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino.
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Do not recommend
- By LS on 09-24-24
By: Banana Yoshimoto
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Asleep
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Yoshimoto spins the stories of three young women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by a woman against whom she was once pitted in a love triangle.
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Dreamy and Terrible Unawareness
- By Billye Kay on 08-17-21
By: Banana Yoshimoto
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Strange Weather in Tokyo
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- By: Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
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Tsukiko, 38, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei", in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is 30 years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy, which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
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Cozy Love Story and Leisure Time in Japan
- By mz on 01-02-19
By: Hiromi Kawakami, and others
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Moshi Moshi
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- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
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Yoshie's much-loved musician father died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimokitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents, that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying—unsuccessfully—to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message through these dreams?
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The story is good but the performance is lacking
- By Juliana on 10-24-24
By: Banana Yoshimoto, and others
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Convenience Store Woman
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- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
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Tokyo resident Keiko Furukara has never fit in - neither in her family, nor in school - but when at the age of 18 she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of national convenience store chain Smile Mart, she realizes instantly that she has found her purpose in life. Delighted to be able to exist in a place where the rules of social interaction are crystal clear (many are laid out line-by-line in the store's manual), Keiko does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and mode of speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a "normal" person excellently, more or less.
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Am amazing and different story
- By D.R. on 04-10-19
By: Sayaka Murata, and others
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Dead-End Memories
- Stories
- By: Banana Yoshimoto, Asa Yoneda - translator
- Narrated by: Kathleen Li
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
First published in Japan in 2003, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery. Yoshimoto's gentle, effortless prose reminds us that one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with, and that happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to pause and reflect. Discover this collection of what Yoshimoto herself calls the "most precious work of my writing career."
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Chapter Six Mostly Missing?
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-23
By: Banana Yoshimoto, and others
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- A Novel
- By: Banana Yoshimoto
- Narrated by: Kathleen Li
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Yayoi, a nineteen-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, has lately been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day and, as if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino.
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Do not recommend
- By LS on 09-24-24
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Yoshimoto spins the stories of three young women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by a woman against whom she was once pitted in a love triangle.
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Dreamy and Terrible Unawareness
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The Nakano Thrift Shop
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers that handle them. But like those same customers and staff, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagancies, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart.
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Entire book is a dialogue of he said she said
- By mz on 01-03-19
By: Hiromi Kawakami, and others
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The Housekeeper and the Professor
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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The Wonder Of Kindness & Connection
- By Sara on 06-16-16
By: Yoko Ogawa
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Sweet Bean Paste
- By: Durian Sukegawa, Alison Watts - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape.
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Judging Others Makes Us Blind - Dietrich Bonhoeffe
- By Billye Kay on 09-06-24
By: Durian Sukegawa, and others
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Lizard
- By: Banana Yoshimoto
- Narrated by: Emily Zeller
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In "Newlywed", an unhappily married young man deliberately misses his stop on the train, only to be questioned by a shape-shifting homeless man about the trials of his marriage. In "Blood and Water", a woman recalls how she left the village she grew up in - which was run by a New Age cult - in order to lead a fulfilling life, even against her parents' wishes. And in the title story, "Lizard", a woman who has never before felt truly secure in her life admits a deep secret to her lover.
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Profound!
- By Bonn Karla on 10-03-21
By: Banana Yoshimoto
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Life Ceremony
- Stories
- By: Sayaka Murata
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.
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Interesting concept but boring story
- By Roberta Marques on 09-06-24
By: Sayaka Murata
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Kitchen (Italian edition)
- By: Banana Yoshimoto
- Narrated by: Carolina Crescentini
- Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
"Non c'è posto al mondo che io ami di più della cucina". Così comincia il romanzo di Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen. Le cucine, nuovissime e luccicanti o vecchie e vissute, riempiono i sogni della protagonista Mikage, rimasta sola al mondo dopo la morte della nonna, e rappresentano il calore di una famiglia sempre desiderata. Ma la famiglia si può non solo scegliere, ma anche inventare. Così il padre del giovane amico Yuichi può diventare o rivelarsi madre e Mikage può eleggerli come propria famiglia, in un crescendo tragicomico di ambiguità.
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Poetico e inusuale
- By Giovanni Flammia on 02-22-24
By: Banana Yoshimoto
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Breasts and Eggs
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Breasts & Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own. It tells the story of three women: the 30-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent.
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Masterful Writing and Performance
- By Noelle on 03-01-21
By: Mieko Kawakami
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Heaven
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami’s novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters.
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Great listen
- By Anthony on 07-30-21
By: Mieko Kawakami
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NP
- By: Banana Yoshimoto
- Narrated by: Emily Zeller
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A celebrated Japanese writer has committed suicide, leaving behind a collection of stories written in English, NP. But the book may never be published in his native Japan: Each translator who takes up the 98th story chooses death too - including Kazami Kano's boyfriend, Shoji. Haunted by Shoji's death, Kazami is inexorably drawn to three young people whose lives are intimately bound to the late writer and his work.
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Interesting ... ish?
- By skycrystal on 12-31-20
By: Banana Yoshimoto
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A Personal Matter
- By: Kenzaburo Oe, John Nathan - translator
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Oe's most important novel, A Personal Matter, has been called by The New York Times "close to a perfect novel". In A Personal Matter, Oe has chosen a difficult, complex though universal subject: how does one face and react to the birth of an abnormal child?
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Should have been better
- By Erez on 07-24-12
By: Kenzaburo Oe, and others
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Audition
- By: Ryu Murakami, Ralph McCarthy - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.
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Adequate?
- By Evan Runyon on 01-04-22
By: Ryu Murakami, and others
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Tokyo Ueno Station
- A Novel
- By: Yu Miri, Morgan Giles
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo.
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Goods story, great translation, poor narration
- By Rose on 12-04-20
By: Yu Miri, and others
What listeners say about Kitchen
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Kristi Branham
- 02-20-23
Meh
I listened to the entire novel but I do not know what happened in the end! Something about the narrator’s voice—monotone?—just kept pulling me to sleep .
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- Valerie
- 01-22-23
love
my favorite book that I read almost 26 years ago and still love it to this day
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Story
- Silvia de la Cruz
- 03-23-23
Not worth a credit
Note: its 2 independent stories!
I liked the topic, the stories and characters, but somehow I found the writing a bit superficial and fast, lacking depth.
The performance is ok, but didn’t love it. It still feels weird to me to hear a japanese story in such strong American accent.
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1 person found this helpful
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Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-19-20
Short and sweet book, not the best audio performance
Book was short and sweet but I didn’t like this audiobook and the performance of the narrator. Book was in first person and the voice didn’t feel true to the character and it was kind of robotic and monotonous for the most part.
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1 person found this helpful
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Story
- Gonzalo Landeros
- 06-17-24
Interesting interpretation of death
It was short and had pretty good narrative, although it also seemed like it had an inconclusive ending. I preferred the other story: Moonlight Shadow much better.
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- Mr. Petty
- 08-01-21
beautiful story, could have been twice as long
very easy reading, genuinely interesting characters, I was surprised at how quick it was over.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-20-19
Really quick read.
It was a really quick read. Didn't beat around the bush or have a slow start. It went straight to the warmth and love you receive after a death in the family and also how they dealt with loss. In both stories the protagonist slowly found their own way of dealing with death. It makes you feel somewhat relieved yet hopefully knowing that everyone goes through it differently. Loved this book!
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Story
- Jami
- 03-16-21
Two Stories
I didn’t realize this when I bought it, but this version includes 2 separate stories. Both were about love and loss, although of a different nature. I enjoyed both books; the writing was concise yet tells a complete story.
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- Rei
- 07-13-22
Definitely see why it was a hit~
A very quick read and exceptionally enjoyable. The original Kitchen story is definitely one of my favorites now. While death and loss are heavy themes, found family and acceptance are also prominent themes. I love the characterization of all 3 main characters. While I would’ve loved for a more concrete ending to Mikage’s story, the vague one isn’t lacking and magical in its own way. The “sequel” which plays right after, Moonlight Shadow, doesn’t have the same weight for me as Kitchen, but it is still a nice listen—mainly for Hiiragi.
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- just asking for some common sense
- 08-22-19
First Time is the Charm
I've been interested in Banana Yoshimoto for a long time, but had mostly read male Japanese authors. I bought this a while ago and finally listened to it on my Summer Reading Around the World. The Japanese are known for novellas and short stories and this is 2 stories in 1 volume. There was a lot of loss and more beauty. There was humor and perfect descriptions. It's fairly typical of Japanese literature to combine disparate elements. I definitely will be putting more of her books on my wish list. I just wish I hadn't waited so long.
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6 people found this helpful