
Rules for Visiting
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Emily Rankin
About this listen
National Best Seller
Named One of the Best Books of the Year By: O Magazine * Good Housekeeping * Real Simple * Vulture * Chicago Tribune
Named One of the Best Books of the Summer By: The Today Show * Good Morning America * Wall Street Journal * San Francisco Chronicle * Southern Living
An INDIE NEXT LIST Pick
PickShortlisted for the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
Long-listed for the 2020 Tournament of Books
"Fun, hilarious, and extremely touching." (NPR)
A beautifully observed and deeply funny novel of May Attaway, a university gardener who sets out on an odyssey to reconnect with four old friends over the course of a year.
At 40, May Attaway is more at home with plants than people. Over the years, she's turned inward, finding pleasure in language, her work as a gardener, and keeping her neighbors at arm's length while keenly observing them. But when she is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, May is inspired to reconnect with four once close friends. She knows they will never have a proper reunion, so she goes, one-by-one, to each of them. A student of the classics, May considers her journey a female Odyssey. What might the world have had if, instead of waiting, Penelope had set out on an adventure of her own?
Rules for Visiting is a woman's exploration of friendship in the digital age. Deeply alert to the nobility and the ridiculousness of ordinary people, May savors the pleasures along the way - afternoon ice cream with a long-lost friend, surprise postcards from an unexpected crush, and a moving encounter with ancient beauty. Though she gets a taste of viral online fame, May chooses to bypass her friends' perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them in their messy analog ones. Ultimately, May learns that a best friend is someone who knows your story - and she inspires us all to master the art of visiting.
©2019 Jessica Francis Kane (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"When 40-year-old gardener May receives a surprise windfall of one month of vacation from the university where she works, she decides to visit four old friends, each one from different periods of her life. Through this initially simple and irresistible starting point, Jessica Francis Kane investigates the most universal mysteries of all." (Isaac Fitzgerald, Today)
“This beautiful novel tackles loneliness in the digital age and the lost art of visiting. Introvert May Attaway is granted some unexpected time off as a university gardener and is inspired to reconnect with four once-close friends. May chooses to bypass her friends' perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them IRL. Gives a whole new meaning to Instagram vs. reality.” (Good Morning America)
"This spirit-warming saga, an antidote to the uncivil, is a novel to be read again and again, whenever one needs a reminder to seize the day.... Treat yourself to Jessica Francis Kane's novel Rules for Visiting, an elixir in book form about a quest for friendship that could have been written by Jane Austen’s great great-great-granddaughter.” (O Magazine)
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Story
Katherine, an attentive mother to her teenagers, comfortably married to her strapping provider of a husband, longs to overcome her dark thoughts and intermittent fears of sexual intimacy. This brisk, mesmerizing version of her life is told in alternating short chapters by Truitt, Star, and Smooshed Bug—her inner children, each with their particular strategy for coping with Katherine’s past at the hands of a hopeless mother and a terrifying, seductive father.
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So accurate
- By AJ250 on 07-18-23
By: Boo Trundle
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Whoever You Are, Honey
- A Novel
- By: Olivia Gatwood
- Narrated by: Olivia Gatwood
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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On the Santa Cruz, California, waterfront, every house is a flawless glass monolith. Except for one. In a dilapidated bungalow, Mitty and her elderly roommate, Bethel, are the oddball pair who represent the last vestiges of a free-spirited town taken over by the tech elite. But their lives are about to be forever changed when a new couple, Sebastian and Lena, move in next door. Sebastian is a renowned tech founder and Lena is his girlfriend. But Lena has secrets; she feels uneasy about her oddly spotty memory and is growing increasingly wary of the way Sebastian controls their relationship.
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Interesting…..but kept me listening
- By Kate on 04-10-25
By: Olivia Gatwood
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The Empress of Cooke County
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Bass Parman
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Thirty-eight-year-old Posey Jarvis is the self-appointed “empress” of rural Spark in Cooke County, Tennessee. She spends her days following every word about her idol and look-alike Jackie Kennedy, avoiding her stalwart husband Vern, and struggling to control her newly defiant daughter Callie Jane—all while sneaking nips of gin. When Posey unexpectedly inherits a derelict mansion from her quirky old aunt Milbrey, she finagles her way into hosting her high school’s twentieth reunion there.
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Southern small town charm
- By Britain Singleton on 10-15-24
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The Austen Escape
- By: Katherine Reay
- Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary Davies finds safety in her ordered and productive life. Working as an engineer, she genuinely enjoys her job and her colleagues—particularly a certain adorable and intelligent consultant. But something is missing. When Mary’s estranged childhood friend, Isabel Dwyer, offers her a two-week stay in a gorgeous manor house in England, she reluctantly agrees in hopes that the holiday will shake up her quiet life in just the right ways.
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I like this foray into Jane Austin
- By MVF on 04-08-18
By: Katherine Reay
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Between You and Us
- A Novel
- By: Kendra Broekhuis
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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When Leona Warlon heads across the city to meet her husband, David, for a rare dinner out, she hopes they can share a moment of relief after their year of loss. But Leona quickly realizes this is no ordinary date night. She hasn’t just stepped into an upscale ristorante; she’s stepped into a different version of her life. One in which her marriage is no longer tender, in which her days are pressured by her powerful in-laws, and in which her precious baby girl lived.
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Such a great book!!
- By Mykayla Johnson on 10-10-24
By: Kendra Broekhuis
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Songbirds
- A Novel
- By: Christy Lefteri
- Narrated by: George Georgiou, Indira Varma, Art Malik, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Living on the island of Cyprus, Nisha is far from her native Sri Lanka. Though she longs to return home, she knows that working as a nanny and maid for a wealthy widow is the only way to earn enough to support her daughter, left behind to be raised by relatives. Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the illegal market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha.
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Lovely prose, heartbreaking story
- By RueRue on 12-10-23
By: Christy Lefteri
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The Sweet Taste of Muscadines
- A Novel
- By: Pamela Terry
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them.
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Absolutely LOVED it!
- By Kenny Cook on 07-07-21
By: Pamela Terry
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Better by Far
- A Novel
- By: Hazel Hayes
- Narrated by: Hazel Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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About her debut, Out of Love, Hazel Hayes said, “The journey from writing horror to writing love stories was a short one. There is nothing more horrific than love.” In her new novel, she sets out to prove it. This genre-defying, meta-modern novel is unlike anything you have ever heard, and yet at its core it is a story we all deeply understand. A story of love and liminality, and the ways in which grief grips us all. Prepare to laugh and cry; Hazel Hayes will break your heart, but then she’ll mend it for you.
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Worth every second
- By Corbin Mckee on 06-03-24
By: Hazel Hayes
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Swimming in Paris
- A Life in Three Stories
- By: Colombe Schneck, Lauren Elkin - translator, Natasha Lehrer - translator
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In Seventeen, Friendship, and Swimming, Colombe Schneck orchestrates a coming-of-age in three movements. Beautiful, masterfully controlled, yet filled with pathos, they invite the listener into a decades-long evolution of sexuality, bodily autonomy, friendship, and loss.
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a chronicle of transitions
- By Amazon Customer on 05-30-24
By: Colombe Schneck, and others
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The Stars Are Fire
- A Novel
- By: Anita Shreve
- Narrated by: Suzanne Elise Freeman
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In October 1947, after a summer-long drought, fires break out all along the Maine coast, from Bar Harbor to Kittery, and are soon racing out of control from town to village. Five months pregnant, Grace Holland is left alone to protect her two toddlers when her husband, Gene, joins the volunteer firefighters. Along with her best friend, Rosie, and Rosie's two young children, Grace watches helplessly as their houses burn to the ground, the flames finally forcing them all into the ocean as a last resort.
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Disaster Strikes In 1947
- By Sara on 06-02-17
By: Anita Shreve
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The Book of Fire
- A Novel
- By: Christy Lefteri
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it, races toward them.
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Disappointment
- By Anonymous User on 01-27-24
By: Christy Lefteri
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The Lost Letter
- A Novel
- By: Jillian Cantor
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan, George Newbern, Betsy Struxness, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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A historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers during World War II Austria and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families, The Lost Letter reveals the lasting power of love.
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This was absolutely fantastic!!!
- By Jennifer Masterson on 06-22-17
By: Jillian Cantor
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Long Division
- A Novel
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Ruffin Prentiss III, Jaime Lincoln Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985.
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Quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, but...
- By Sherrye LeRoy on 05-08-25
By: Kiese Laymon
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Statistically Speaking
- By: Debbie Johnson
- Narrated by: Louise Williams
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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On paper, Gemma's life is just like any other successful, single thirtysomething. Her students adore her. She lives in a cute beachside cottage next door to the world's sweetest neighbor, Margie. And she's definitely caught the eye of Karim, the resident hot PE teacher at her school. But every day of her life, she can't get one thing out of her mind: the baby she gave up for adoption when Gemma was just sixteen years old. This is the year that Baby--the only name Gemma has for her little girl--will turn eighteen. And it might be the year she actually meets her daughter face-to-face.
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Completely unlikable main character
- By Abby on 03-19-25
By: Debbie Johnson
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At the Edge of the Orchard
- By: Tracy Chevalier
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck - in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the 50 apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.
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The performance was superb
- By cheryl retired bookseller on 05-30-17
By: Tracy Chevalier
An unexpected pleasure
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Three and a half stars
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Poetic prose
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Gradually the reader realizes how stunted the narrator’s emotional life has been and how much she does need the friend visits she gradually makes. Whew! Growth on many fronts gradually.
A story in which the gardener does some needed growing
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delightful, intuitive listen!
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I will listen to this multiple times I suspect!
Beautiful story and narration
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Bleh story
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Reader wasn’t compelling
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I think it was a fine listen for turning on while doing chores, but it definitely didn’t grab my attention in the way I hoped it would.
A Tree-Hugging Book
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Really loved this book!
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