
Nora
A Love Story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jenn McGuirk
-
By:
-
Nuala O'Connor
About this listen
In sensuous, resonant prose, Nuala O’Connor has conjured the definitive portrait of this strong, passionate and loyal Irishwoman. Nora is a tour de force, an earthy and authentic love letter to Irish literature’s greatest muse.
Dublin, 1904. Nora Barnacle is a 20-year-old from Galway, working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. On June 16th, Bloomsday, her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce - a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland.
But as their life unfolds, Nora finds herself in conflict between their intense desire for each other and the constant anxiety of living in poverty throughout Europe. She desperately wants literary success for Jim, believing in his singular gift and knowing that he thrives on being the toast of the town. When Jim writes and drinks his way to literary acclaim, Nora provides unflinching support and inspiration but at a cost to her own happiness and that of their children.
Nora is a heartfelt portrayal of love, ambition and the quiet power of an ordinary woman who was, in fact, extraordinary.
©2021 Nuala O'Connor (P)2021 by HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
The London Girls
- By: Soraya M. Lane
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1941. The Blitz. When a Royal Navy memo arrives at head office, requesting female recruits to sign up as motorcycle dispatch riders, delivering highly classified orders across the country, three women jump at the chance to sign up for the most dangerous jobs in London.
-
-
The London Girls
- By Brenda Welchel on 07-04-23
By: Soraya M. Lane
-
The Queen of Dirt Island
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love.
-
-
Donal Ryan never disappoints
- By Chris C on 03-17-23
By: Donal Ryan
-
Trespasses
- A Novel
- By: Louise Kennedy
- Narrated by: Brid Brennan
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment—Michael is not only Protestant but older and married—Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites.
-
-
Exquisite
- By Suzanna on 11-10-22
By: Louise Kennedy
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Dubliners (Tantor Edition)
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubliners is a collection of short stories by James Joyce that was first published in 1914. The 15 stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written at a time when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.
-
-
Superb reader for Joyce
- By Paul on 06-14-17
By: James Joyce
-
Forever Amber
- By: Kathleen Winsor
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Jasicki
- Length: 42 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abandoned pregnant and penniless on the teeming streets of London, 16-year-old Amber St. Clare manages, by using her wits, beauty, and courage, to climb to the highest position a woman could achieve in Restoration England - that of favorite mistress of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. From whores and highwaymen to courtiers and noblemen, from events such as the Great Plague and the Fire of London to the intimate passions of ordinary - and extraordinary - men and women, Amber experiences it all.
-
-
Outstanding. one of the best I've ever listened to
- By Patsyzip on 08-17-20
By: Kathleen Winsor
-
The London Girls
- By: Soraya M. Lane
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1941. The Blitz. When a Royal Navy memo arrives at head office, requesting female recruits to sign up as motorcycle dispatch riders, delivering highly classified orders across the country, three women jump at the chance to sign up for the most dangerous jobs in London.
-
-
The London Girls
- By Brenda Welchel on 07-04-23
By: Soraya M. Lane
-
The Queen of Dirt Island
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love.
-
-
Donal Ryan never disappoints
- By Chris C on 03-17-23
By: Donal Ryan
-
Trespasses
- A Novel
- By: Louise Kennedy
- Narrated by: Brid Brennan
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment—Michael is not only Protestant but older and married—Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites.
-
-
Exquisite
- By Suzanna on 11-10-22
By: Louise Kennedy
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Dubliners (Tantor Edition)
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubliners is a collection of short stories by James Joyce that was first published in 1914. The 15 stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written at a time when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.
-
-
Superb reader for Joyce
- By Paul on 06-14-17
By: James Joyce
-
Forever Amber
- By: Kathleen Winsor
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Jasicki
- Length: 42 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abandoned pregnant and penniless on the teeming streets of London, 16-year-old Amber St. Clare manages, by using her wits, beauty, and courage, to climb to the highest position a woman could achieve in Restoration England - that of favorite mistress of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. From whores and highwaymen to courtiers and noblemen, from events such as the Great Plague and the Fire of London to the intimate passions of ordinary - and extraordinary - men and women, Amber experiences it all.
-
-
Outstanding. one of the best I've ever listened to
- By Patsyzip on 08-17-20
By: Kathleen Winsor
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
Katherine
- A Novel
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Lorna Bennett
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the vibrant fourteenth century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II—who rule despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already-married Katherine. Their affair persists through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption.
-
-
my favorite novel brought to life
- By Heather on 10-04-23
By: Anya Seton
-
Our Best Intentions
- A Novel
- By: Vibhuti Jain
- Narrated by: Ulka Simone Mohanty
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Babur “Bobby” Singh, single parent and owner of fledging Uber business “Move with Bobby,” remains ever hopeful about ascending the ladder of American success. He lives in an affluent suburb of New York with his daughter Angie, an introverted teenager who is uncomfortable in her own skin unless she’s swimming.
-
-
Excellent
- By Suzanna on 03-23-23
By: Vibhuti Jain
-
The Kingdom
- A Novel
- By: Robert Ferguson - Translator, Jo Nesbø
- Narrated by: Euan Morton
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roy has never left the quiet mountain town he grew up in, unlike his little brother Carl who couldn't wait to get out and escape his troubled past. Just like everyone else in town, Roy believed Carl was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown. And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in the town's past come under new scrutiny. Soon powerful players set their sights on taking the brothers down by exposing their role in the town's sordid history.
-
-
What Was That?
- By michelle nelson on 12-03-20
By: Robert Ferguson - Translator, and others
-
The Chaperone
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Elizabeth McGovern
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
> The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922, and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a famous actress and an icon for her generation, a 15-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita to make it big in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle is a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip.
-
-
Perfection.
- By Amanda on 06-07-12
By: Laura Moriarty
-
The Bohemians
- A Novel
- By: Jasmin Darznik
- Narrated by: Dylan Moore
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this novel of the glittering and gritty Jazz Age, a young aspiring photographer named Dorothea Lange arrives in San Francisco in 1918. As a newcomer - and naïve one at that - Dorothea is grateful for the fast friendship of Caroline Lee, a vivacious, straight-talking Chinese American with a complicated past, who introduces Dorothea to Monkey Block, an artists’ colony and the bohemian heart of the city. Dazzled by Caroline and her friends, Dorothea is catapulted into a heady new world of freedom, art, and politics.
-
-
Fascinating time, people and place
- By Claudio Salusso on 10-01-21
By: Jasmin Darznik
-
The Paris Wife
- A Novel
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
-
-
Narration Issues
- By Sara on 10-06-15
By: Paula McLain
-
Curse of Riches
- By: Claire Prentice
- Narrated by: Claire Prentice, Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did the Wendels, one of New York’s most famous Gilded Age families, disappear from history? The Wendels built a fortune from New York real estate, and rubbed shoulders with the Astors, Vanderbilts, and Stuyvesants. But as the 19th century came to an end, the Wendel family tore itself apart. Following six years of painstaking archival research, Claire Prentice has prised open the door of the Wendels’ Fifth Avenue mansion—dubbed “the house of mystery” by the press—to reveal a fascinating and dysfunctional family imprisoned in a gilded cage.
-
-
Kept Waiting for it to be Interesting
- By Mary on 06-23-23
By: Claire Prentice
-
Tears of Amber
- By: Sofía Segovia, Simon Bruni - translator
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Angela Dawe
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With war looming dangerously close, Ilse’s school days soon turn to lessons of survival. In the harshness of winter, her family must join the largest exodus in human history to survive. As battle lines are drawn and East Prussia’s borders vanish beneath them, they leave their farm and all they know behind for an uncertain future. But Ilse also has Janusz, her family’s young Polish laborer, by her side. As they flee from the Soviet army, his enchanting folktales keep her mind off the cold, the hunger, and the horrors unfolding around them.
-
-
A remarkable book - compelling story
- By just asking for some common sense on 05-11-21
By: Sofía Segovia, and others
-
Three Daughters
- A Novel
- By: Consuelo Saah Baehr
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in rural Palestine, just before the dawn of the 20th century, Miriam adores her father and is certain his love will protect her, but she soon finds that tradition overrides love. Uprooted by war, Miriam enters a world where the old constraints slip away with thrilling and disastrous results. Miriam's rebellious daughter, Nadia, is thrilled with the opportunity for a modern life that her elite education provides. But when she falls in love with an outsider, the clan reins her back with a shocking finality.
-
-
Thrilling
- By valerie on 12-18-14
-
Elixir
- A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life
- By: Theresa Levitt
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For centuries, scientists believed that living matter possessed a special quality—a spirit or essence—that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But by the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that the building blocks of one were identical to the building blocks of the other. Elixir tells the story of two young chemists who were not convinced, and how their work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife.
-
-
Thrilling History of Organic Chemistry
- By Mark E. White on 06-13-23
By: Theresa Levitt
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
Critic reviews
"The Nora that leaps off these pages is at once muse, temptress, earth mother and warrior queen all rolled into one glorious package." (The Irish Times)
"This fictional Nora is entirely convincing in her raw sensuality, her stubborn determination, her powerful sense of grievance and her inability to stop loving a deeply erratic, wildly manipulative yet enormously talented man." (The New York Times)
"An exceptional novel by one of the most brilliant contemporary Irish writers, this is a story of love in all its many seasons, from ardent sexuality to companionable tenderness, through strength, challenge and courage." (Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the Sea)