
Rough Beauty
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Narrated by:
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Jayme Mattler
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By:
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Karen Auvinen
About this listen
In the best-selling tradition of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Helen MacDonald’s H Is for Hawk, a stunning, inspirational memoir from an award-winning poet who ventures into the wilderness to seek answers to life’s big questions and finds her way back after losing everything she thought she needed.
During a difficult time, Karen Auvinen flees to a primitive cabin in the Rockies to live in solitude as a writer and to embrace all the beauty and brutality nature has to offer. When a fire incinerates every word she has ever written and all of her possessions - except for her beloved dog Elvis, her truck, and a few singed artifacts - Karen embarks on a heroic journey to reconcile her desire to be alone with her need for community.
In the evocative spirit of works by Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, and Mary Oliver, Karen’s rich and compulsively listenable memoir is as much an inward as it is an outward pilgrimage. Her pursuit of solace and salvation by shedding trivial ties and living in close harmony with nature, along with her account of finding community and love, is sure to resonate with all of us who long for meaning and deeper connection. Rough Beauty is a luminous, lyric exploration of and homage to her 40 seasons in the mountains, embracing the unpredictability and grace of living intimately with the forces of nature while making peace with her own wildness.
©2018 Karen Auvinen (P)2018 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
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In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a White businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.
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Not your story to tell
- By Bianca S on 11-22-20
By: Chip Jones
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Resilience
- Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life
- By: Eric Greitens
- Narrated by: Eric Greitens
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Two years ago, Eric Greitens unexpectedly heard from a former SEAL comrade, a brother-in-arms he hadn’t seen in a decade. Zach Walker had been one of the toughest of the tough. But ever since he returned home from war to his young family in a small logging town, he’d been struggling. Without a sense of purpose, plagued by PTSD, and masking his pain with heavy drinking, he needed help. Zach and Eric started writing and talking nearly every day, and Eric set down his thoughts on what it takes to build resilience in our lives.
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Great Story of What is Important
- By Kevin J. D on 09-15-24
By: Eric Greitens
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It's Not Over
- Leaving Behind Disappointment and Learning to Dream Again
- By: Joshua Gagnon
- Narrated by: Joshua Gagnon, Bill Russell - foreword, Henry O. Arnold - afterword
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Pursuing a dream is essential to living a life with purpose. Yet we often bury our burning desires and dreams deep in our hearts because it seems as if there’s no way we can accomplish them. In It’s Not Over, pastor Joshua Gagnon, founder of the Next Level Church network, reminds us that we were born to dream - and to dream big. In fact, our dreams have the power to shape our lives.
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Greed and narcissism at its best
- By Brian H. on 02-19-23
By: Joshua Gagnon
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Kokoro
- Japanese Wisdom for a Life Well Lived
- By: Beth Kempton
- Narrated by: Beth Kempton
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Join author Beth Kempton on a life-changing pilgrimage through rural Japan in search of answers to some of life's biggest questions: How do we find calm in the chaos and beauty in the darkness? How do we let go of the past and stop worrying about the future? What can an awareness of impermanence teach us about living well?
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Incredible sharing of wisdom
- By Shelly Neto, RN on 11-10-24
By: Beth Kempton
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Go Big or Go Home
- The Journey Toward the Dream
- By: Scotty McCreery, Travis Thrasher
- Narrated by: Scotty McCreery
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Go Big or Go Home narrates Scotty's journey from a kid imitating Elvis on the school bus to 30 million across America tuning in to see him win season 10 of American Idol. Now, as he completes his groundbreaking fourth album, Scotty shares a glimpse of where he came from and the impact his faith, family, and friends have had on a humbled guy who keeps asking, "Why me?"
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Scotty has/is a truly amazing young man!
- By Debbi on 05-05-16
By: Scotty McCreery, and others
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The Darkness Manifesto
- Our Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life
- By: Johan Eklöf
- Narrated by: Owen Findlay
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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How much light is too much light? Satellite pictures show our planet as a brightly glowing orb, and in our era of constant illumination, light pollution has become a major issue. The world’s flora and fauna have evolved to operate in the natural cycle of day and night. But in the last 150 years, we have extended our day—and in doing so have forced out the inhabitants of the night and disrupted the circadian rhythms necessary to sustain all living things, including ourselves.
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A little bit of everything
- By Ionicphly on 05-22-24
By: Johan Eklöf
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Short Life in a Strange World
- Birth to Death in 42 Panels
- By: Toby Ferris
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2012, facing the death of his father and impending fatherhood, Toby Ferris set off on a seemingly quixotic mission to track down and look at - in situ - every painting still in existence by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most influential and important artist of Northern Renaissance painting. The result of that pursuit is a remarkable journey through major European cities and across continents. As Ferris takes a keen analytical eye to the paintings, each piece brings new revelations about Bruegel’s art, and gives way to meditations on mortality, fatherhood, and life.
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Luminous
- By GM on 03-30-25
By: Toby Ferris
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The Director
- My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover
- By: Paul Letersky, Gordon L. Dillow - contributor
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book ever written about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover by a member of his personal staff - his former assistant, Paul Letersky - offers unprecedented insight into an American legend.
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Honest Account
- By ptr on 11-17-21
By: Paul Letersky, and others
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The Impossible First
- By: Colin O'Brady
- Narrated by: Colin O'Brady
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Prior to December 2018, no individual had ever crossed the landmass of Antarctica alone, without support and completely human powered. Yet, Colin O’Brady was determined to do just that, even if, 10 years earlier, there was doubt that he’d ever walk again normally. From the depths of a tragic accident, he fought his way back. In a quest to unlock his potential and discover what was possible, he went on to set three mountaineering world records before turning to this historic Antarctic challenge.
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Impossible Last
- By Mike MacSkivvy on 02-27-20
By: Colin O'Brady
What listeners say about Rough Beauty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Andrea
- 08-29-18
Beautifully Written and Narrated
This book transported me into a dream of mountain living. Fulfilling by proxy the enduring connection with nature I always wished to know and obtain. The Author in so many ways told the story of my own heart. Probably the best articulation of the transforming love and relationship one can have with a dog that I've ever read. This is a wonderful book to live in and I'm just sorry it had an ending.
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- S. Sevilla
- 10-27-23
Enjoyable listen, transported to the rugged mountains of Colorado
Karen has tremendous facility with words.
As others have mentioned, I laughed and teared up many times listening to her poignant descriptions of love, loss and joy.
Th specificity and frequency of alcohol consumption is rampant throughout the book, a constant companion that conjures alcoholism yet she mentions it almost as though brag worthy. Not trying to come off as preachy but a heads up for anyone struggling with alcohol.
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- Sheryl
- 11-04-18
I LOVED this book in so many ways
I loved the author’s descriptions of her mountains, the food she cooks and serves with such care, her friends, and, most of all, her dog. The narration is pitch perfect. Be warned, though. There will be tears to shed, and your heart may break. But this book is worth both the time and the tears.
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- Kylee Morrow
- 08-29-19
Living out of the norm, and connecting to all nature has to offer, comes to life in this book
I love the perspective of how rough unfolds into peace and presence through the trials and tribulations of a beautiful strong woman.
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- Leonora
- 08-06-18
Author's Memoir
First, I need to say that Ms. Auvinen writes beautifully. However, I think I was expecting something a little different in this title. This memoir spends a lot of time on her painful childhood with a harsh father and a hurting family and her ultimate escape for solitude in the Colorado mountains. Overall I would say the story is more about her than about the mountains in which she lives. We are given a glimpse what life in those mountains is like, what the townsfolk are like but, it's really about the author's thoughts and feelings as she travels through these years.
There were two things that took away from my overall enjoyment of the book. First was the reader's voice. In my mind the author has a strong voice, yet the reader was somewhat nasally and ended each sentence with a gravelly down tone. I don't know why, but it quickly began to annoy me.
Secondly, I cried for the author's love of her dog. It was a very special relationship, no doubt. I have dogs and I get that. But, there was no similar emotion for her mother's life threatening illness. That came across as more of an annoyance to the author and something that forced her to have to interact with her family. It was hard for me to empathize with her story when she showed more love and heartbreak for her dog than for her mother.
All in all, I do like her writing style and I will look for other titles by Ms. Auvinen.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-14-18
A wonderful read. Grounded earthy but poetic prose
I found this book impossible to put down. an elegant masterpiece. Best read in decades.have just finished reading the Audible version, which was beautifully and sensitively read by the narrator. One of the most exquisite earthy grounded and yet elegantly written books I have read in a long time. I listened to the novel as I walked my own 'young dog', George, through the national park near our home in Australia each morning. As Karen describes her day with Elvis the rescued Husky, the foxes, bears and other mountain creatures for company - I watched huge kangaroos bounding away at dawn from the tracks we walk. I related to Karen's story so deeply on many levels. READ IT and grow richer. I have now ordered the hard back copy as well as this will remain a long time classic on my shelf. A book to keep and share forever. Thank you Karen. Please write more books. Your prose is of the best of these times.
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- Bambi L. Statz
- 03-31-19
Mountains, animals, plants, and a human life create synergy!
What a beautiful ode to nature and to human nature. The descriptions of animals and plants and their impact on the author’s well-being were heart warming.
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- Karen
- 08-06-18
One of my favorites of 2018
I love this book in so many ways, the poetic descriptions of the landscapes, the strong female friendships, the way it broke my heart.....Please read this book, but be aware that you will be sobbing in all the best ways...
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- aja martin
- 07-12-23
Beautiful story of a beautiful life.
What a beautiful story. I laughed, cried, and was transported into the mountain life with this book. After a very long winter here in Utah and living at 8000 feet, I questioned myself and why I moved to the mountains. It’s not for the faint. But Karen reminds me why we work so hard to live this type of life. The value of living each season to the fullest. Thank you for such a wonderfully inspirational read. I needed that.
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