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Paradise
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
"Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their honeymoons. Two brothers shot each other on New Year's Day. Trips to Demby for VD shots common. And what went on at the Oven these days was not to be believed.... The proof they had been collecting since the terrible discovery in the spring could not be denied: the one thing that connected all these catastrophes was in the Convent. And in the Convent were those women."
In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void "Out There...where random and organized evil erupted when and where it chose."
Richly imagined and elegantly composed, Paradise weaves a powerful mystery.
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Critic reviews
“Morrison has brought it all together: the poetry, the emotion, the broad symbolic plan.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed.... The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate.” (Los Angeles Times)
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Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: In a house full of secrets, two babies - one light-skinned, the other dark - are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper's daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm's inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
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Great read!
- By S. Clay on 11-01-17
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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This Side of the Sky
- By: Elyse Singleton
- Narrated by: Myra Taylor, Sharon Washington, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
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A Breath of Fresh Air
- By Adina Andreu on 07-19-12
By: Elyse Singleton
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Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
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Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
- By: Allan Gurganus
- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 49 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.
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Dated.
- By edie butler on 04-06-21
By: Allan Gurganus
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A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
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Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
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Memphis
- A Novel
- By: Tara M. Stringfellow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo, Tara Stringfellow
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
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Awful narrator
- By Rachael edwards on 06-07-22
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Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
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not to miss audible experience
- By dallas on 12-08-09
What listeners say about Paradise
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeneva
- 03-02-20
This is the abridged version
I enjoyed it overall, but would have liked to be aware that this was the abridged version. Overall I enjoyed it!
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- Sarah Sanjuan
- 12-04-15
Paradise
I really really enjoyed this novel, and listening to the author read it was great.
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- Keelia
- 01-07-21
Amazing
Anything Toni Morrison does is amazing! I felt what the characters felt, I saw what the characters seen. I felt I was a part of each ones story.
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- Danielle
- 05-10-15
Pay attention!
I had to listen twice because the ending was confusing. Overall a good book though. Leisure reading, might have been better to physically read.
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- JC
- 05-02-16
Interestingly Bizarre
I read Paradise with my book club. Many had a difficult times making sense of it. I had to listen twice myself. There are a lot characters and it is difficult to keep up with who is who. Over all it was an interestingly bizarre story that introduces you to the strangest group of people. Morrison did make me curious about all these troubled people but it disappointed me by ending so with many unanswered questions.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Nathalie Pierre
- 02-28-15
Grandma Morrison reading at Bedtime
Morrison reading her own words gives deeper depth to the story. The attitudes of each character come forth from her deliberate cadence. It's so worth the 25 bucks.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Gem City Books
- 03-05-14
Great Story (Abridged)
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Not well spent because the story was abridged. I like to read the books alongside of the text. The author kept skipping over segments of the book.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Paradise?
The opening of the book will capture the listener/reader. "They shoot the white girl first."
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Toni Morrison?
The author is the best reader for the project.
Could you see Paradise being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
I would love to see it in film.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Shikeitha Addye
- 02-24-23
Alive and dead
I thought that everyone was alive and turns out they were passed away. Anyway I am addicted to Tony’s voice it’s so motherly. I’ll listen to these anytime but especially when I miss my mama.
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- Carol Binta Nadeem
- 08-13-18
Raiding Life
After being ravaged by the titillating voice and graphic vocabulary of the author, I found myself lost in a sea of personal diaries and historical sequences that took a second reading just to capture pieces of the plot. No complaints though since the second visit to “Ruby” was even better than the first. Which I concluded by reading a Wikipedia study of the summary of the plot only to long for the experience once again of walking along the tragic yet melancholy lives of its inhabitants and almost citizens. The metaphors in Ms Morrison’s work are sculptures of the soul and the jazz rhythms of her narrative with their syncopated messages that tell you their meaning backwards while revealing it to you is like the push and pull of intercourse. This work is mystical, magical and blasphemously symbolic. Ms Morrison is a literary gymnast and her art work is not intended for the faint of heart! Captivating read that raids the heart and soul of the unsuspecting voyeur. Thanks
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- wylanda wynn
- 08-28-20
enjoyed very much. Interesting stories by Toni M.
very interesting stories by Toni Morrison. leaves you intrigued while listening to her. also keeper
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