
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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Thanks to the work of translators and publishers, Japanese literature is now more accessible than ever to English-speaking audiences. If you've ever wanted to learn more about Japanese culture and literature, you cannot go wrong with listening to audiobooks from Japan. We've compiled a list of the most famous Japanese authors who have helped define Japanese literature, and their notable works across genres and time periods.
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Story
As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.
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Intriguing but disturbing
- By C. Parham on 01-01-21
By: Sayaka Murata
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Diary of a Void
- A Novel
- By: Emi Yagi, David Boyd - translator, Lucy North - translator
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that as the only woman at her new workplace—a manufacturer of cardboard tubes—she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can’t clear away her coworkers’ dirty cups—because she’s pregnant and the smell nauseates her. Except Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. But she has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with every stage of her “pregnancy,” the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.
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whiny lost woman
- By Pam Haynes on 12-01-23
By: Emi Yagi, and others
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Moonlight shadow
- By: Banana Yoshimoto
- Narrated by: Marianna Jensen
- Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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C'è un giorno, un giorno soltanto, in cui in condizioni particolari è possibile rivedere i propri cari defunti. Dicono che qualcuno è pure in grado di sentirli e parlar loro. Che sia possibile per Satsuki, che non riesce in alcun modo a scordare il ragazzo perduto, e Hiiragi, che per ricordare Yumiko ne indossa tutti i giorni la divisa alla marinara?
By: Banana Yoshimoto
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Asleep
- By: Banana Yoshimoto
- Narrated by: Emily Zeller
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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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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There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
- By: Kikuko Tsumura, Polly Barton - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: It’s close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and, ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig - watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods - turns out to be inconvenient. Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all but something altogether more meaningful.
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I LOVED it
- By Rose on 09-29-21
By: Kikuko Tsumura, and others
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Convenience Store Woman
- By: Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori - translator
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 3 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Heaven
- A Novel
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Scott Keiji Takeda
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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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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All the Lovers in the Night
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Mirai
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copyeditor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.
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Enjoyable listen
- By Rose on 05-16-22
By: Mieko Kawakami
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Please Look After Mom
- By: Kyung-Sook Shin, Chi-Young Kim - translator
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Samantha Quan, Janet Song, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea - a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation - this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.
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A Life, Deconstructed.
- By Amanda on 12-10-11
By: Kyung-Sook Shin, and others
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Almond
- A Novel
- By: Won-pyung Sohn
- Narrated by: Greg Chun
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Yunjae was born with a brain condition called alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends - the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that - but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you", and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.
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So many quotes to choose from...
- By Lori G. on 01-31-22
By: Won-pyung Sohn
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Kafka on the Shore
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
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What's better than Murakami? More Murakami
- By Dr. Curmudgeon on 04-11-14
By: Haruki Murakami
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Red Harvest
- The Continental Op, Book 1
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: Graham Dunlop
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Red Harvest is a hardboiled classic that set the standard for gritty, no-nonsense crime fiction. Written by Dashiell Hammett, this explosive novel follows an unnamed detective—referred to only as “The Continental Op”—as he arrives in a corrupt industrial town known as “Poisonville.” Hired to clean up the city, he quickly finds himself in the middle of a brutal gang war. Betrayals, double-crosses, and brutal power plays spiral into chaos as the Op’s relentless quest for justice leads to a blood-soaked reckoning.
By: Dashiell Hammett
love
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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.
Not worth a credit
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beautiful story, could have been twice as long
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Really quick read.
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Two Stories
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Definitely see why it was a hit~
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First Time is the Charm
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note: this is 2 stories (and there’s nothing wrong with that)
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A wonderful listen.
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Meh
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