
Sweet Bean Paste
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Narrated by:
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Cindy Kay
About this listen
A charming tale of friendship, love, and loneliness in contemporary Japan
Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste.
But everything is about to change.
Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape and Tokue's dark secret is revealed, with devastating consequences.
Sweet Bean Paste is a moving novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Translated into English for the first time, Durian Sukegawa's beautiful prose is capturing hearts all over the world.
©2013, 2015 Durian Sukegawa; English translation copyright 2017 by Alison Watts (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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The fates of two women, one American, one Japanese, become entwined in this sweeping novel of 19th century Japan on the cusp of radical change and Westernization. The Japanese tea ceremony, steeped in ritual, is at the heart of this story of an American girl adopted by Kyoto's most important tea master and raised as attendant and surrogate younger sister to his privileged daughter, Yukako.
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Captivating
- By Pamela on 04-18-07
By: Ellis Avery
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The Healing Season of Pottery
- By: Yeon Somin, Clare Richards
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Burned out by her TV news writing job, Jungmin leaves in an attempt to salvage her life. When she stumbles upon a mysterious pottery studio, she feels immediately at home. The warmth, the smell of clay, and the incredible coffee awaken her senses and make her feel alive for the first time in months. Over the coming year, season by season, pot by pot, Jungmin returns to herself and builds unexpected friendships with the other members of the studio, who are all working through their own trials at the pottery wheel.
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A lovely surprise
- By Sharon on 02-24-25
By: Yeon Somin, and others
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Lark Rise to Candleford
- By: Flora Thompson
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 20 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In Flora Thompson's semi-autobiographical series Lark Rise to Candleford, she explores the Oxfordshire country life of her protagonist Laura in the 1880s and 1890s. This collection includes all three works in the trilogy, Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green.
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Absorbing and Believable
- By Laura T on 01-19-25
By: Flora Thompson
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The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
- By: Gail Tsukiyama
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan, 1939. On the Street of a Thousand Blossoms in Tokyo, two orphaned brothers are growing up with loving grandparents who inspire them to dream of a future firmly rooted in tradition. The older boy, Hiroshi, shows early signs of promise in sumo wrestling, while Kenji is fascinated by the art of creating exquisite masks for actors in the Noh theater. But as the ripples of war spread all the way to their quiet neighborhood, the brothers must put their dreams on hold - and then forge their own paths in a new Japan.
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Great Audio Book
- By Victor on 09-22-07
By: Gail Tsukiyama
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Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
- By: Hwang Bo-reum, Shanna Tan - translator
- Narrated by: Rosa Escoda
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, divorces her husband, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighbourhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married housewife, and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju - they all have disappointments in their past.
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cozy contemplations on life
- By brittany on 02-22-24
By: Hwang Bo-reum, and others
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Violets
- By: Kyung-Sook Shin, Anton Hur - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul's bustling city center. Haunted by childhood rejection, she stumbles through life—painfully vulnerable, stifled, and unsure. She barely registers to others, especially by the ruthless standards of '90s South Korea. Over the course of one hazy, volatile summer, San meets a curious cast of characters: the nonspeaking shop owner, a brash coworker, quiet farmers, and aggressive customers. Fueled by a quiet desperation to jump-start her life, she plunges headfirst into obsession with a magazine photographer.
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You will cry it’s so dull
- By Rockinpickles8 on 09-05-23
By: Kyung-Sook Shin, and others
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The Nakano Thrift Shop
- A Novel
- By: Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell - translator
- Narrated by: Alexandra Bailey
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers that handle them. But like those same customers and staff, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagancies, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart.
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Entire book is a dialogue of he said she said
- By mz on 01-03-19
By: Hiromi Kawakami, and others
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She and Her Cat
- Stories
- By: Makoto Shinkai, Naruki Nagakawa, Ginny Tapley Takemori
- Narrated by: Winson Ting, Julia Strowski, Jacqui Bardelang, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lying alone on the edge of the sidewalk in an abandoned cardboard box, a nameless narrator contemplates the indifferent world around him. With his mother long gone, his only company is the sound of the nearby train. Just as he fears that the end is near, a young woman peers down at him, this fateful encounter changing their lives forever.
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Poor Narration
- By Melody Powell on 12-31-24
By: Makoto Shinkai, and others
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The Goodbye Cat
- By: Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven cats weave their way through their owners’ lives, climbing, comforting, nestling, and sometimes just tripping everyone up in this uplifting collection of tales by international bestselling author Hiro Arikawa. Bursting with love and warmth, The Goodbye Cat exquisitely explores the cycle of life, from birth to death—as each of the seven stories explores how, in different ways, the steadiness and devotion of a well-loved cat never lets us down.
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Not my favorite
- By gise on 08-17-24
By: Hiro Arikawa, and others
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The Convenience Store by the Sea
- By: Sonoko Machida, Bruno Navasky - translator
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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An international bestseller with over half a million copies sold between Japan and South Korea, The Convenience Store by The Sea tells the delightfully quirky and heartfelt stories of the store’s customers and employees, offering us all a unique recipe for a good, fulfilling life.
By: Sonoko Machida, and others
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There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
- By: Kikuko Tsumura, Polly Barton - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: It’s close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and, ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig - watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods - turns out to be inconvenient. Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all but something altogether more meaningful.
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I LOVED it
- By Rose on 09-29-21
By: Kikuko Tsumura, and others
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The Travelling Cat Chronicles
- By: Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe. With his crooked tail - a sign of good fortune - and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.
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What a wonderful story
- By V. Brown on 11-22-18
By: Hiro Arikawa, and others
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Breasts and Eggs
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Breasts & Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own. It tells the story of three women: the 30-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent.
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Masterful Writing and Performance
- By Noelle on 03-01-21
By: Mieko Kawakami
Amazing, heartfelt
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unexpected history lesson
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Heartfelt Story between the unlikely friendship between an old lady in her 70s and a middle aged chef
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Loved it
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Also brings to light the taboo of disease discrimination that should be considered after the pandemic.
And the ending ponders on life after death. What do we know? We can keep wondering.
Beautiful
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Beautiful story of Japanese history
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I enjoyed learning about the characters and their growth through a short story 💜
Emotional
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All the metaphors track
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This is one I could listen to over and over again
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It starts with an ordinary, small man who needs to find his way after a disappointing life. When he meets an elderly lady with a disability, he finds grace in listening, finding the voice of the beans of life.
Making the Bean Paste is a spiritual process … listen … and enjoy a mindful journey. This made the book already beautiful.
And then it becomes a story of a hidden history. Japan like many countries feared leprocy. What happened to people who caught the decease in the past, is hardly known to us. This part was an eye opener, though sad it is also life affirming.
FYI this story was made into an equally beautiful Japanese film: An.
Thank you, it was a joy to listen
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