Laurus
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Narrated by:
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James Anderson Foster
About this listen
It is the late 15th century and a village healer in Russia called Laurus is powerless to help his beloved as she dies in childbirth, unwed and without having received communion. Devastated and desperate, he sets out on a journey in search of redemption. But this is no ordinary journey: it is one that spans ages and countries, and which brings him face-to-face with a host of unforgettable, eccentric characters and legendary creatures from the strangest medieval bestiaries.
Laurus's travels take him from the Middle Ages to the Plague of 1771, where as a holy fool he displays miraculous healing powers, to the political upheavals of the late 20th century. At each transformative stage of his journey, he becomes more revered by the church and the people, until he decides, one day, to return to his home village to lead the life of a monastic hermit - not realizing that it is here that he will face his most difficult trial yet.
Laurus is a remarkably rich novel about the eternal themes of love, loss, self-sacrifice, and faith, from one of Russia's most exciting and critically acclaimed novelists.
©2015 Eugene Vodolazkin; translation copyright 2015 by Lisa C. Hayden (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
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Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
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Jesus
- A Novel
- By: Walter Wangerin Jr.
- Narrated by: Walter Wangerin Jr.
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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With eloquence and beauty, the award-winning author of The Book of the Dun Cow, The Book of God, and Paul: A Novel, turns his pen to history's most compelling figure, Jesus of Nazareth. In vibrant language, Walter Wangerin, Jr. sweeps away centuries of tradition and reveals a man of flesh-and-heart immediacy. Passionate, intelligent, and irresistibly real, this is a Jesus pulsing with life, who will captivate you as thoroughly as he did the men and women who walked with him across Galilee's golden countryside.
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Terrible
- By Donald on 12-25-05
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Independent People
- By: Halldór Laxness
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 20 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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This magnificent novel - which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature - is now available to contemporary American audiences. Although it is set in the early 20th century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.
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I am so confused about this introduction
- By George M on 09-10-18
By: Halldór Laxness
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Merivel
- A Man of His Time
- By: Rose Tremain
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In search of answers, Merivel sets off for the French court. But Versailles leaves him in despair, until a chance encounter with a seductive Swiss botanist allows him to dream of an honorable future. But back home, his loyalty and medical skill are about to be tested to the limit, while the captive bear he has brought back from France begins to cause havoc.
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On Foolishness and Mortality
- By Ilana on 12-27-14
By: Rose Tremain
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Birds Without Wings
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds Without Wings is the story of a small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the men and women (Armenians, Christians, and Muslims) whose lives are intertwined and rooted there: Iskander, the potter and local fount of wisdom; Philotei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherd, a great love that culminates in tragedy and madness; and many more.
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Not for the faint of heart
- By a on 01-03-05
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Daughter of the Forest
- Sevenwaters, Book 1
- By: Juliet Marillier
- Narrated by: Terry Donnelly
- Length: 26 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives and they are determined that she know only contentment. But Sorcha's joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift - by staying silent.
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Compelling story--but only at 1.5x
- By barefoot rabbit on 09-09-13
By: Juliet Marillier
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The Book of Kells
- By: R. A. MacAvoy
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A contemporary man, John Thornburn (a meek, non-violent and unpredictable artist) and woman, Derval (his tough, confrontational, strong and warrior-like lover) time travel to ancient Ireland to avenge a Viking attack. Packed with fascinating details of historical time and place in Irish history and delicately balanced on the border between realism and fantasy, the story centers around one of the most famous and beautiful illuminated manuscripts in history, the legendary but entirely real Book of Kells.
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The Book of Irish Fantasy
- By S. Wells on 12-10-12
By: R. A. MacAvoy
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The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse
- By: Hermann Hesse, Jack Zipes - translator
- Narrated by: Donovan
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Highlights
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Step into a world of visions, philosophy, and passion in which dreamers, seekers, princesses, and wandering poets dwell. The 6 wonderful, romantic tales in this collection are reminiscent of ancient Oriental and German fairy tales. The selections, "The Poet," "The Flute Dream," "The Dwarf," "Faldum," "Ziegler," and "Dream of the Gods" were hand-picked by the narrator, legendary folk and rock musician Donovan.
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The reading is quiet and heavenly
- By Atalante Lemuria on 11-12-20
By: Hermann Hesse, and others
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Daughters of the Storm
- By: Kim Wilkins
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Lying in a magic-induced coma, the King of Thyrsland is on the brink of death: if his enemies knew, chaos would reign. In fear for his life and his kingdom, his five daughters set out on a perilous journey to try to save him, their only hope an aunt they have yet to meet, a shadowy practitioner of undermagic who lives on the wild northern borders. No one can stand before the fierce tattooed soldier and eldest daughter, Bluebell, an army commander who is rumoured to be unkillable....
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Boring, could not even get through half…
- By Diana M Meredith on 10-30-23
By: Kim Wilkins
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She Would Be King
- A Novel
- By: Wayétu Moore
- Narrated by: Wayétu Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him.
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Beautiful example of magical realism.
- By Danielle on 10-07-18
By: Wayétu Moore
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The Orenda
- A Novel
- By: Joseph Boyden
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Graham Rowat, Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Christophe has been in the New World only a year when his native guides abandon him to flee their Iroquois pursuers. A Huron warrior and elder named Bird soon takes him prisoner, along with a young Iroquois girl, Snow Falls, whose family he has just killed, and holds them captive in his massive village. Champlain's Iron People have only recently begun trading with the Huron, who mistrust them as well as this Crow who has now trespassed onto their land; and her people, of course, have become the Huron's greatest enemy.
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Thoughtful and interesting, if not always gripping
- By David on 06-15-14
By: Joseph Boyden
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The Naming
- The First Book of Pellinor
- By: Alison Croggon
- Narrated by: Eloise Oxer
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Maerad is a slave in a desperate and unforgiving settlement, taken there as a child when her family is destroyed in war. She doesn’t yet know she has inherited a powerful gift, one that marks her as a member of the noble School of Pellinor and enables her to see the world as no other can. It is only when she is discovered by Cadvan, one of the great Bards of Lirigon, that her true identity and extraordinary destiny unfold.
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absolutely enchanting
- By Athemea on 09-05-15
By: Alison Croggon
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After Gleb Yanovsky, a celebrated guitarist, is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at age fifty, he permits a writer, Sergei Nesterov, to pen his biography. For years, they meet regularly as Gleb recounts the life he's lived: a difficult childhood in Kyiv, his formative musical studies in St. Petersburg, and his later years in Munich, where he lives with his wife and meets a thirteen-year-old virtuoso whom he embraces as his own daughter. In a mischievous and tender account, Gleb recalls a personal story of a lifetime quest for meaning, and how the burden of success changes with age.
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Soviet Russia, 1930. Zuleikha, the “pitiful hen,” lives with her brutal husband Murtaza and her mother-in-law in a small Tartar village. When Murtaza is executed by communist soldiers, she is sent into exile to a remote region on the Angara River in Siberia. Hundreds die of hunger and exhaustion on the journey and over the first difficult winter, yet exile is the making of Zuleikha. As she gets to know her fellow survivors, Zuleikha begins to build a new life far removed from the one she left behind.
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From the rubble-strewn streets of US-occupied Baghdad, Hadi - a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café - collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed.
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I was fascinated the entire time
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It is one of the great mysteries of life that in atmospheres of the harshest cruelty, a certain few not only survive, but emerge as beacons of light and life. Father Arseny, former scholar of church art, became Prisoner No. 18736 in the brutal "special sector" of the Soviet prison camp system.
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After Gleb Yanovsky, a celebrated guitarist, is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at age fifty, he permits a writer, Sergei Nesterov, to pen his biography. For years, they meet regularly as Gleb recounts the life he's lived: a difficult childhood in Kyiv, his formative musical studies in St. Petersburg, and his later years in Munich, where he lives with his wife and meets a thirteen-year-old virtuoso whom he embraces as his own daughter. In a mischievous and tender account, Gleb recalls a personal story of a lifetime quest for meaning, and how the burden of success changes with age.
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Fascinating
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Soviet Russia, 1930. Zuleikha, the “pitiful hen,” lives with her brutal husband Murtaza and her mother-in-law in a small Tartar village. When Murtaza is executed by communist soldiers, she is sent into exile to a remote region on the Angara River in Siberia. Hundreds die of hunger and exhaustion on the journey and over the first difficult winter, yet exile is the making of Zuleikha. As she gets to know her fellow survivors, Zuleikha begins to build a new life far removed from the one she left behind.
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I was fascinated the entire time
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Exiled to four years in Siberia, but hailed by the end of his life as a saint, prophet, and genius, Fyodor Dostoevsky holds an exalted place among the best of the great Russian authors. One of Dostoevsky’s five major novels, Devils follows the travails of a small provincial town beset by a band of modish radicals - and in so doing presents a devastating depiction of life and politics in late 19th-century Imperial Russia.
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Excellent translation and narration
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On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ
- Popular Patristics Series, Book 25
- By: Saint Maximus Confessor
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The last half of the 20th century saw the establishment of the reputation of St Maximus the Confessor as the greatest of all Byzantine theologians, with a wholeness of vision that speaks directly to many of our concerns today. Until very recently, however, little of his work has been available in English translation, save for some collections of brief reflections arranged in centuries and a few brief treatises, too easily classified as "spirituality."
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Maximus and Jordan Daniel Wood
- By Kindle Customer on 07-15-24
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Abigail
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Abigail, the story of a headstrong teenager growing up during World War II, is the most beloved of Magda Szabo's books in her native Hungary. Gina is the only child of a general, a widower who has long been happy to spoil his bright and willful daughter. Gina is devastated when the general tells her that he must go away on a mission and that he will be sending her to boarding school in the country. She is even more aghast at the grim religious institution to which she soon finds herself consigned.
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Who knew boarding school could be exciting?
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The Lord of Spirits
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The modern world doesn't acknowledge but is nevertheless haunted by spirits—angels, demons, and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat, secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it well? How do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence?
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Such a cool book
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The Orthodox Way
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Just as undertaking a journey into an unfamiliar land or climbing a mountain requires an experienced and knowledgeable guide, so also an experienced and trusted spiritual guide, a mystagogue, is needed for the spiritual journey, to ascend Mount Sinai and encounter the mysterious God in its darkness, and to climb Mount Tabor and behold the mystery of the transfigured Lord, and to be initiated into the mysteries of the Jerusalem above, our Mother, the Church. The Orthodox Way is such a guide, a book that takes the listener into the very mystery of God, and now speaks to us.
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An Orthodox Christian Classic
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Zorba the Greek
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A wonderful tale of a young man’s coming of age, Zorba the Greek has been a classic of world literature since it was first translated into English in 1952 and made into an unforgettable movie with Anthony Quinn. Zorba, an irrepressible, earthy hedonist, sweeps his young disciple along as he wines, dines, and loves his way through a life dedicated to fulfilling his copious appetites. Zorba is irresistible in this charming audio production by veteran narrator George Guidall.
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Drink life to the lees
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A Moveable Feast
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Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft.
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Hemingway without being TOO Hemingway
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The Name of the Rose
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The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. But his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths that take place in seven days and nights of apocalyptic terror. Brother William turns detective, and a uniquely deft one at that. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon-- all sharpened to a glistening edge by his wry humor and ferocious curiosity.
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The meaning of the mystery & mystery of meaning
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By: Umberto Eco, and others
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The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
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- Unabridged
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In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following.
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Dense & Difficult But Rewarding
- By Nick O. on 02-28-22
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
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A Brief History of Seven Killings
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, and others
- Length: 26 hrs
- Unabridged
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Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.
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A Tough Read
- By KP on 05-07-16
By: Marlon James
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Kristin Lavransdatter (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
- The Kristin Lavransdatter Trilogy
- By: Sigrid Undset, Tiina Nunnally - editor translator, Brad Leithauser - introduction
- Narrated by: Nina Yndis, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 47 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses audiences in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally’s award-winning definitive translation brings this remarkable work to life with clarity and lyrical beauty.
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Ridiculous, excessive, relentless guilt.
- By T on 07-11-24
By: Sigrid Undset, and others
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Nicked
- A Novel
- By: M. T. Anderson
- Narrated by: Euan Morton
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
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The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus. Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says.
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Wildly imaginative yet based on real events
- By Durm Guy on 10-08-24
By: M. T. Anderson
What listeners say about Laurus
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John Wehling
- 11-06-20
Remarkable
I’ve now read and listened to this novel three times in almost as many years and it is truly a remarkable achievement. A profound work of spiritual beauty, and something of a miracle for its insight into the Russian and Orthodox world.
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- Joe G.
- 05-16-19
contemporary but medieval Karamazov
Well, if you appreciate classic Russian novels with Christian themes, this one's for you. the theology is not exactly Orthodox; but it is quite thoughtful. There are many "Easter eggs" to detect (or not), and implications related to relativity and the nature of time. Plastic bottles and guilt in the 15th century leading to a life of renunciation and blessing in a thoroughly enchanted world.
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- Ricardo Diaz
- 11-14-23
A book to read to strengthen your faith
I barely know about this book until a priest told me to read it. So glad I did. It’s long but his journey from birth to his death was hard exciting and had me from start to finish.
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- Father Silouan
- 11-07-18
Wonderful
This book paints a very vivid picture of middle age life in Russia. While it is fiction I think the author has created an accurate portrait of the simple beliefs of Russian Orthodox peasants and the Fools for Christ and Elders of the Middle Ages. I am sure I will listen to this again and again.
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6 people found this helpful
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- C. Yuen
- 07-05-24
Touching and Layered
Vodolazkin broke norms consistently throughout, but it all fit together beautifully. I will re-read this story and I’m certain I’ll pick out more details each time. Compelling all the way though with a rich ending that healed the wounds that were opened, just as Laurus would have done.
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- GSM
- 08-16-20
Moving story
A beautiful tale of a good man in the middle age. Conveys what faith felt like. Well translated and read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 06-11-23
Just wonderful
What a beautiful and inspiring story, laced with plenty of wisdom. I also enjoyed the style of the writing, so well done to the translator. The narration was superb. What a treasure.
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- Saralicia Waugh
- 02-22-24
A Soul-Wrenching Journey
A truly remarkable and human story of a man seeking a repentant life. A journey filled with death, sorrow, miracles, holy fools, asceticism, mystery and love. This is a tale worth living in our own lives.
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- Patrick
- 10-07-24
Redemption
This story is powerful and redemptive. I have read 3 times now and I liked listening along this time to know how to pronounce the places and some names.
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- Adam Shields
- 07-17-18
Hard to describe, but pick it up
I do not often just say, go buy a book, but if you like the mix of books that I tend to review, just go and buy the book. Laurus is a modern Russian novel, wonderfully translated to English. Vodolazkin, the author, is a midevil scholar who has recreated the alien nature of the midevil Russian world wonderfully.
I really have a hard time trying to figure out how to describe Laurus. It is about an ancient Christian healer. So it is sort of Christian fiction. But it is by a Russian so it does not fit into any of the traditional modern christian novel categories. Laurus takes Christianity very seriously, but using what I can only describe as magical realism to give structure to the healing and mysticism of the Russian Orthodox Christianity that is illustrated so well here. In some ways Laurus reads more like a book of ancient Christian devotional literature as much as it read like a novel.
Laurus opens with a boy, Arseny, trained by Christopher to be a healer. The book then follows that boy as through four acts of his life, each with a different name. There is trauma, healing, spiritual wisdom, magic (and by that I don’t mean spells, but the magical and beautiful reality of faith and real life.)
I mostly listened to this as an audiobook, although I have it both as audio and kindle books. I may have more thoughts about it when I read it again. Right now I am still basking in the glow of a book enjoyed. But this is a book that deserves to be read again and I will.
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8 people found this helpful