Teatime for the Firefly
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Marisa Vitali
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By:
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Shona Patel
About this listen
Layla Roy has defied the fates.
Despite being born under an inauspicious horoscope, she is raised to be educated and independent by her eccentric grandfather, Dadamoshai. And, by cleverly manipulating the hand fortune has dealt her, she has even found love with Manik Deb - a man betrothed to another. All were minor miracles in India that spring of 1943, when young women's lives were predetermined - if not by the stars, then by centuries of family tradition and social order.
Layla's life as a newly married woman takes her away from home and into the jungles of Assam, where the world's finest tea thrives on plantations run by native labor and British efficiency. Fascinated by this culture of whiskey-soaked expats who seem fazed by neither earthquakes nor man-eating leopards, she struggles to find her place among the prickly English wives with whom she is expected to socialize, and the peculiar servants she now finds under her charge.
But navigating the tea-garden set will hardly be her biggest challenge. Layla's remote home is not safe from the powerful changes sweeping India on the heels of the Second World War. Their colonial society is at a tipping point, and Layla and Manik find themselves caught in a perilous racial divide that threatens their very lives.
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"Better to look at the sky than live there"
- By W Perry Hall on 02-12-14
By: Truman Capote
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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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Wicked
- The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.
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It's not easy being green
- By PangaeaReads on 07-30-08
By: Gregory Maguire
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Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
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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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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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The Kite Runner
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
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A Worhty Read
- By P. C..S. on 08-17-03
By: Khaled Hosseini
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
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Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
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Mustique Island
- A Novel
- By: Sarah McCoy
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s January 1972 but the sun is white hot when Willy May Michael’s boat first kisses the dock of Mustique Island. Tucked into the southernmost curve of the Caribbean, Mustique is a private island that has become a haven for the wealthy and privileged. Its owner is the eccentric British playboy Colin Tennant, who is determined to turn this speck of white sand into a luxurious neo-colonial retreat for his rich friends and into a royal court in exile for the Queen’s rebellious sister, Princess Margaret.
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Vivid Imagery
- By GeauxGetLit on 07-24-22
By: Sarah McCoy
What listeners say about Teatime for the Firefly
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- P Crittenden
- 04-08-17
Forgive the narrator...listen for the story...
Would you listen to Teatime for the Firefly again? Why?
Yes, but only for the story.
What other book might you compare Teatime for the Firefly to and why?
on a much smaller scale, Shantaram
Did Marisa Vitali do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
She tried, but...not so much. I listened at faster speed than I normally do to help distract from narration
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No laughing or crying, but smiling
Any additional comments?
I would recommend this book for the story and setting. Wish for more background history, as in A Suitable Boy
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- G
- 01-11-14
Horrible narration but the story itself is good.
What made the experience of listening to Teatime for the Firefly the most enjoyable?
I cannot recommend this audible purchase at all.I listened to a little over 2 hours of this book today during my commute. I am almost certain that I will love the written version of this book but the narrator in this audible version is just horrible. She has made it painful for me to continue listening and I am thankful that I was able to purchase the book in a kindle daily deal. The narrator places emphasis on words in the wrong places. The reading is choppy. At times she had difficulty transitioning between the different characters. Listening to her today was painful. Her narration is such a distraction. I want to focus on the story, on the characters in the story. Instead I keep getting caught up in hearing the narrator make very blatant mistakes that detract from the story.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
She detracts because she does not appear to be a professional narrator!
Any additional comments?
I will update my review after reading the written book.
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- Avid Reader
- 03-08-16
Beautiful writing, but poor narration
The story is captivating, sweet and very interesting. Patel's writing is very pictorial and poetic. I think I learned quite a bit about tea plantations, Assam, and social relation in that region during the post-war period. However, the narration is weak -- she pauses in all the wrong places -- leaving the listener waiting for the remainder of sentences, also her character voices are inconsistent, and the accents are not accurate.
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- RueRue
- 02-07-14
A novice narrator ?
What did you love best about Teatime for the Firefly?
I loved the story and the writing, both were excellent. I liked the narrators voice and clear diction and pronunciation, but she would pause in the middle of a sentence and this gave the narration a jarring disruption.
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- westborough mom
- 05-07-22
Truly atrocious pronunciation
The story is quite interesting- writing and characterization are good and show the author’s skill. But the audible performance was horrible. Every word of Indian origin was butchered. I don’t understand how the narrator didn’t take the slightest effort to learn how to pronounce even one Indian word- and how the author thought this was a good presentation of her work.
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- Jim L.
- 12-23-22
Great read. Wonderful story both historically and personally interesting
Great read. A Wonderful story about an interesting time for India and the world that is still relevant.
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- Joanne K. Burtaine
- 06-02-22
Performance Mars the Stiry
Terrible performance of an otherwise intriguing story. Couldn’t continue past the 1st chapter. Please choose performers with more care.
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- Elise
- 12-06-16
Sweet story, awful narrator
I think this story might have been sweet if read on original paperback. The narrator was truly awful. I do not recommend wasting time or money on this audiobook.
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- Nell
- 08-06-22
poor performance
I have never experienced listening to a book with such a poor reader. I struggled to follow the story because the words that were emphasized distracted from an understanding of the plot. verbs were consistently emphasized whether or not they contributed to the story. her voice was fine but she it would be helpful for her to be taught how to narrate a book.
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