
Shattered
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Art Malik
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By:
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Hanif Kureishi
About this listen
From acclaimed author and playwright Hanif Kureishi comes an urgent and stunning memoir about rebuilding a new life in the wake of devastating physical loss.
In late 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, he realized he could no longer walk. He could do nothing without the help of others and required constant care in a hospital. So began a yearlong odyssey through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home to his house in London.
While confined to a series of hospital wards, he felt compelled to write, but being unable to type or hold a pen, he began to dictate to family members the words that formed in his head—thoughts on his medical condition, but also parenthood, immigration, sex, psychoanalysis, and, of course, writing. The result was an extraordinary series of dispatches from his hospital bed: a diary of a life in pieces, recorded with rare honesty, humor, and verve.
Shattered takes these dispatches—edited, expanded, and meticulously interwoven with new writing—and charts both a shattering and a reassembling: a new life born of pain and loss but also animated by new feelings of gratitude, humility, and love.
©2025 Hanif Kureishi (P)2025 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Memorial Days
- A Memoir
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Geraldine Brooks
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz–just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy–collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.
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Uninspired, mediocre writing.
- By C. Tyler on 03-04-25
By: Geraldine Brooks
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Havoc
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Bollen
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast. But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends. One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at check-in.
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Well written but not for animal lovers
- By Erin G on 01-11-25
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So Far Gone
- A Novel
- By: Jess Walter
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A few weeks after the 2016 election, at Thanksgiving with his daughter’s family, Rhys Kinnick snapped. After an escalating fight about politics, he hauled off and punched his conspiracy theorist son-in-law. Horrified by what he'd done, by the state of the country and by his own spiraling mental health, Rhys chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, off the grid and with no one around—except a pack of hungry raccoons. Now, seven years later, Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep.
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Masterful characters; gripping story.
- By LFR on 06-24-25
By: Jess Walter
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Aflame
- Learning from Silence
- By: Pico Iyer
- Narrated by: Pico Iyer
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Pico Iyer has made more than one hundred retreats over the past three decades to a small Benedictine hermitage high above the sea in Big Sur, California. He’s not a Christian—or a member of any religious group—but his life has been transformed by these periods of time spent in silence. That silence reminds him of what is essential and awakens a joy that nothing can efface. It’s not just freedom from distraction and noise and rush: it’s a reminder of some deeper truths he misplaced along the way. In Aflame, Iyer connects with inner stillness and joy in his many seasons at the monastery.
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The title is misleading. The book doesn't explore "silence" but only talks about being on tge periphery of monasteries.
- By Placeholder on 01-26-25
By: Pico Iyer
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Notes to John
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had “a rough few years.” She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods.
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This autobiography discusses notes from therapy regarding Joan’s daughter’s addiction. Very insightful!
- By Laura Borealis on 04-24-25
By: Joan Didion
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The Pretender
- A Novel
- By: Jo Harkin
- Narrated by: John Hollingworth
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the tumultuous period of the Tudors' ascent, The Pretender brings to life the little-known story of Lambert Simnel. From humble beginnings as a peasant boy, Lambert's life takes an astonishing turn when, at just ten years old, he becomes a claimant to the English throne as one of the last of the Plantagenet line. As Lambert navigates the treacherous waters of royal intrigue and court life, complex themes of identity, power, and destiny unfold, weaving a tapestry of ambition and survival in a world where the stakes couldn't be higher.
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Brilliant Simply Brilliant
- By C. Sanders on 05-10-25
By: Jo Harkin
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Stone Yard Devotional
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte Wood
- Narrated by: Ailsa Piper
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.
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A profound inward journey
- By Kathlene barrett on 02-17-25
By: Charlotte Wood
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Things in Nature Merely Grow
- By: Yiyun Li
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Yiyun Li’s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James. Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li’s indomitable spirit.
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Very Moving thoughtful meditation on tragedy and grief.
- By Zeta on 06-27-25
By: Yiyun Li
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Shattered
- Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign
- By: Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It was never supposed to be this close. And of course she was supposed to win. How Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump is the tragic story of a sure thing gone off the rails. For every Comey revelation or hindsight acknowledgment about the electorate, no explanation of defeat can begin with anything other than the core problem of Hillary's campaign - the candidate herself.
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Hillary was too smart to win: A book of excuses
- By Kevin Tamari on 04-19-17
By: Jonathan Allen, and others
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The Illegals
- Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.”
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Great history of “nelegali”!
- By Amzon Customer on 06-07-25
By: Shaun Walker
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Crush
- A Novel
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Robyn Maryke
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband” and “wife” force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose. Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes.
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insufferable main characters
- By Brian on 05-25-25
By: Ada Calhoun
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Care and Feeding
- A Memoir
- By: Laurie Woolever
- Narrated by: Laurie Woolever
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In this moving, hilarious, and insightful memoir, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there’s more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain.
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Ruined by dull narration
- By pinkwoo on 03-12-25
By: Laurie Woolever
Honest, courageous and beautifully written
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Excellent Narrator for the material
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Honesty
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