The Art of Leaving
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Ayelet Tsabari
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By:
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Ayelet Tsabari
About this listen
An intimate memoir in essays by an award-winning Israeli writer who travels the world, from New York to India, searching for love, belonging, and an escape from grief following the death of her father when she was a young girl.
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
This searching collection opens with the death of Ayelet Tsabari’s father when she was just nine years old. His passing left her feeling rootless, devastated, and driven to question her complex identity as an Israeli of Yemeni descent in a country that suppressed and devalued her ancestors’ traditions.
In The Art of Leaving, Tsabari tells her story, from her early love of writing and words, to her rebellion during her mandatory service in the Israeli army. She travels from Israel to New York, Canada, Thailand, and India, falling in and out of love with countries, men and women, drugs and alcohol, running away from responsibilities, and refusing to settle in one place. She recounts her first marriage, her struggle to define herself as a writer in a new language, her decision to become a mother, and finally, her rediscovery and embrace of her family history - a history marked by generations of headstrong women who struggled to choose between their hearts and their homes. Eventually, she realizes she must reconcile the memories of her father and the sadness of her past if she is ever going to come to terms with herself.
With fierce, emotional prose, Ayelet Tsabari crafts a beautiful meditation about the lengths we will travel to try to escape our grief, the universal search to find a place where we belong, and the sense of home we eventually find within ourselves.
Praise for The Art of Leaving
"The Art of Leaving is, in large part, about what is passed down to us, and how we react to whatever it is.... [It] is not self-help - we cannot become whatever we put our mind to - yet it suggests that we can begin to heal from what has broken us, if we only let ourselves.... Tsabari’s intense prose gave me pause." (The New York Times Book Review "Shortlist")
"Told in a series of fierce, unflinching essays...an Israeli Canadian author explores her upbringing and the death of her father in this stark, beautiful memoir." (Shelf Awareness starred review)
"The Art of Leaving will take you on an emotional journey you won’t soon forget." (Hello Giggles)
Candid, affecting...[Ayelet Tsabari’s] linked essays cohere into a tender, moving memoir." (Kirkus Reviews starred review)
©2019 Ayelet Tsabari (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Ayelet Tsabari’s memoir is a passionate account of the pain, fire, and fury of adolescence and young adulthood, the search for a sense of belonging, and reconciling the disparate parts of our lives and ultimately ourselves." (Camilla Gibb, author of This Is Happy and The Beauty of Humanity Movement)
"Ayelet Tsabari is a fierce-tender writer. Her work is an enchanting mix of vivid anecdote and vigorous insight - spanning generations and geographies, glittering with humor and heart." (Kyo Maclear, author of Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation)
"Ayelet Tsabari has written a beautiful, complex, and emotionally breathtaking memoir that captures and transcends her journey of self-discovery as a Jewish Yemeni woman within and beyond Israel’s borders. The Art of Leaving is a marvel of a book, at once tender and fearless, from a writer at the peak of her creative powers." (Kamal Al-Solaylee, author of Intolerable and Brown)
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- By Amazon Customer on 04-27-15
By: Sandip Roy
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Guapa
- By: Saleem Haddad
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother - the woman who raised him - catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend, Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar Guapa, who has been arrested by the police.
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Guapa
- By Mah Maass on 08-25-16
By: Saleem Haddad
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
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Secret Daughter
- By: Shilpi Somaya Gowda
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Debut novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda pens this compelling tale about two families, worlds apart, linked by one Indian child. After giving birth to a girl for a second time, impoverished Kavita must give her up to an orphanage. The baby, named Asha, is adopted by an American doctor and raised in California. But once grown, Asha decides to return to India.
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A Must Read
- By Stephanie on 06-08-11
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How to Be an American Housewife
- A Novel
- By: Margaret Dilloway
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington, Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.
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big disappointment
- By Kirsten on 04-12-12
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Before We Visit the Goddess
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Priya Ayyar, Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she'd imagined.
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Absolutely Worth a Credit
- By Texastanya on 08-27-16
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The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
- By: Brigid Pasulka
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The novel opens on the eve of World War II. In the mountain village of Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon, under the approving eyes of the entire village, courts the beautiful Anielica Hetmanska. But the war's arrival wreaks havoc in all their lives and delays their marriage for six long years.
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The Old & New Worlds Converge & Transcend Time
- By Sara on 11-22-16
By: Brigid Pasulka
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The Bastard of Istanbul
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country's violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a 19-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul.
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A tender gift from far away
- By Barbara on 11-07-07
By: Elif Shafak
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Habibi
- By: Naomi Shihab Nye
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, life in St. Louis, Missouri is perfect. She loves shopping in the nearby stores and walking down streets where she knows everyone. Even better, she has just had her first kiss. But her father is moving the family to Jerusalem - the land where he was born. Suddenly Liyana finds herself a stranger in a threatening world.
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Very good Performance
- By Muhammad on 04-07-15
By: Naomi Shihab Nye
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Chanel Bonfire
- By: Wendy Lawless
- Narrated by: Wendy Lawless
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time Wendy Lawless turned 17, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.... Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She went through men like Kleenex, and didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.
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Not an Engaging Listen
- By Sobriquet on 03-13-13
By: Wendy Lawless
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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Grand Central
- Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion
- By: Melanie Benjamin, Amanda Hodgkinson, Pam Jenoff, and others
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On any particular day, thousands upon thousands of people pass through New York City's Grand Central Terminal, through the whispering gallery, beneath the ceiling of stars, and past the information booth and its beckoning four-faced clock, to whatever destination is calling them. It is a place where people come to say hello and good-bye. And each person has a story to tell.
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Grand Central: Memories
- By ZacharyKindle Customer on 05-03-17
By: Melanie Benjamin, and others
What listeners say about The Art of Leaving
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Noah B
- 04-26-24
Beautifully written, I was very engaged. I learned a lot!
Beautiful writing, the author expresses feelings that most people can’t articulate. I was drawn in and learned a lot about different perspectives from mine. I really enjoyed it!!
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- Jamie M.
- 06-12-23
interesting
feel like i learned many new things. i feel like the end really dragged out though
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- laura
- 10-26-19
Nice story, condense & vary voice
Too long, performance was a bit monotone. Story was interesting , but could have been condensed
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- NK
- 05-29-19
Interesting
Overall I enjoyed the book, which is the author’s (and narrator”s) memoirs. However there were times when I was frustrated by certain developments in her life. There were also times when there was a but too much back-and-forth in the narrative. But the ebook is enjoyable and provided a bit more understanding of the Yemenite culture in Israel. The author, a non-native English speaker has an excellent command of the language and writes beautifully. Her narration is very pleasant too, though there were a few words that she mispronounced, but to the extent that the “reader” doesn’t understand what the word is.
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- Irit
- 01-19-20
Great!
Very interesting book. Learned so much about jews from Yemen. I enjoyed it very much.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Deb S
- 04-05-19
Phenomenal book/audible
I purchased this audible book after reading about the best Israeli books this year. It is incredibly insightful, honest, and you have difficulty putting this down. She is so smart and gives the readers and/or listeners a window into mizrachi life and challenges/opportunities. She is also so generous in letting us glimpse into the good and bad of her growing up.
I feel I know Ayelet and I wonder how she can outdo herself in the next book. But I’ll continue to read her books and be a fan.
Thank you Ayelet for such an excellent book
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- Wild
- 07-18-22
Excellent writing
Do not miss this.
Excellent book.
There’s a stillness in the wisdom here.
Your curiosity will be met and you’ll have the truth in hand that others scratch for.
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- Alex
- 04-16-20
An Emotional Masterpiece
This is probably the best autobiography I have ever read/listened to. Ayelet Tsabari was so deep and nuanced in self evaluating her life story. While coming from a very different background, I found so many of her stories, emotions and even some traumas relatable and heart wrenching. Also she sheds a much needed light on the story of modern Mizrahi Jews in Israel. She is an amazing writer and I really enjoyed her narration too. I highly recommend this.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-17-19
So good
A beautiful collection of stories from the author’s life. These colourful, intimate essays paint a picture of a rich and messy life, and by the end it almost I felt like I knew her personally. I listened to this book a few months ago and it’s really stuck with me. Highly recommend this book!
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- Natalie
- 06-04-19
I loved this book!!
I loved listening to Ayelet’s book.
It was REAL and moving. It was like peeping into a culture I couldn’t have visited otherwise.. It’s a “must read” for me, definitely the best autobiography I’ve read!
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