-
The Bells of Old Tokyo
- Meditations on Time and a City
- Narrated by: Holly Palance
- Length: 6 hrs
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
An elegant and absorbing tour of Tokyo and its residents.
From 1632 until 1854, Japan’s rulers restricted contact with foreign countries, a near isolation that fostered a remarkable and unique culture that endures to this day. In hypnotic prose and sensual detail, Anna Sherman describes searching for the great bells by which the inhabitants of Edo, later called Tokyo, kept the hours in the shoguns’ city.
An exploration of Tokyo becomes a meditation not just on time, but on history, memory, and impermanence. Through Sherman’s journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo follows haunting voices through the labyrinth that is the Japanese capital: an old woman remembers escaping from the American firebombs of World War II. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. The head of the Tokugawa shogunal house reflects on the destruction of his grandfathers’ city: “A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness.”
The Bells of Old Tokyo marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer who presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life in the guise of a tour through a city and its people.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Pure Invention
- How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World
- By: Matt Alt
- Narrated by: Matt Alt
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.
-
-
great book ruined by ending
- By Grant Holder on 06-07-22
By: Matt Alt
-
A Brief History of Japan
- Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.
-
-
A Brief Review of the Book
- By Than on 12-07-19
-
36 Views of Mount Fuji
- On Finding Myself in Japan
- By: Cathy Davidson
- Narrated by: Alexandra Bailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980 Cathy N. Davidson traveled to Japan to teach English at a leading all-women’s university. It was the first of many journeys and the beginning of a deep and abiding fascination. In this extraordinary book, Davidson depicts a series of intimate moments and small epiphanies that together make up a panoramic view of Japan.
-
-
Loved everything about this book!
- By Kandice on 05-10-16
By: Cathy Davidson
-
Underground
- The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Ian Anthony Dale, Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.
-
-
Just as you breathe, you dream your story
- By Darwin8u on 08-26-15
By: Haruki Murakami
-
The Foundations of Western Civilization
- By: Thomas F. X. Noble, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Thomas F. X. Noble
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.
-
-
Not Engaging or Very Interesting
- By Tommy D'Angelo on 03-05-17
By: Thomas F. X. Noble, and others
-
A Brief History of the Samurai
- Brief Histories
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior. The Samurai emerged as a warrior caste in Medieval Japan and would have a powerful influence on the history and culture of the country from the next 500 years. Clements also looks at the Samurai wars that tore Japan apart in the 17th and 18th centuries and how the caste was finally demolished in the advent of the mechanized world.
-
-
An Excellent History of the Samurai
- By Michael on 08-08-14
-
Pure Invention
- How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World
- By: Matt Alt
- Narrated by: Matt Alt
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.
-
-
great book ruined by ending
- By Grant Holder on 06-07-22
By: Matt Alt
-
A Brief History of Japan
- Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.
-
-
A Brief Review of the Book
- By Than on 12-07-19
-
36 Views of Mount Fuji
- On Finding Myself in Japan
- By: Cathy Davidson
- Narrated by: Alexandra Bailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980 Cathy N. Davidson traveled to Japan to teach English at a leading all-women’s university. It was the first of many journeys and the beginning of a deep and abiding fascination. In this extraordinary book, Davidson depicts a series of intimate moments and small epiphanies that together make up a panoramic view of Japan.
-
-
Loved everything about this book!
- By Kandice on 05-10-16
By: Cathy Davidson
-
Underground
- The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Ian Anthony Dale, Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.
-
-
Just as you breathe, you dream your story
- By Darwin8u on 08-26-15
By: Haruki Murakami
-
The Foundations of Western Civilization
- By: Thomas F. X. Noble, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Thomas F. X. Noble
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.
-
-
Not Engaging or Very Interesting
- By Tommy D'Angelo on 03-05-17
By: Thomas F. X. Noble, and others
-
A Brief History of the Samurai
- Brief Histories
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior. The Samurai emerged as a warrior caste in Medieval Japan and would have a powerful influence on the history and culture of the country from the next 500 years. Clements also looks at the Samurai wars that tore Japan apart in the 17th and 18th centuries and how the caste was finally demolished in the advent of the mechanized world.
-
-
An Excellent History of the Samurai
- By Michael on 08-08-14
-
Norwegian Wood
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. As Naoko retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
-
-
Sorry, but I didn't like the narrator.
- By Kelly McCarty on 10-30-15
By: Haruki Murakami
-
Cloud Cuckoo Land
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Simon Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
-
-
Academic Snobbery
- By TVR on 10-03-21
By: Anthony Doerr
-
The Rise of Modern Japan
- By: Mark J. Ravina, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Mark J. Ravina
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Noted Japan expert Professor Mark J. Ravina of the University of Texas at Austin covers the politics, economics, and culture of the island nation since World War II - a conflict that saw the end of Japan’s dream of regional conquest, which Professor Ravina calls Empire 1.0. The country’s postwar leaders radically changed course, renouncing a strong military to pursue Empire 2.0 - Japan as an economic colossus.
-
-
A great introduction to modern Japan
- By nonrachitect on 12-22-21
By: Mark J. Ravina, and others
-
The Neil Gaiman Reader
- Fiction
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman, George Guidall, Lenny Henry, and others
- Length: 27 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning Gaiman’s career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a captivating collection from one of the world’s most beloved writers, chosen by those who know his work best: his devoted fans. A brilliant representation of Gaiman's groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction, this captivating volume includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults—Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane—and nearly fifty of his short stories.
-
-
52 Bits of Awesome
- By Southard on 08-11-21
By: Neil Gaiman
-
Rice, Noodle, Fish
- Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents, Book 1)
- By: Matt Goulding
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An innovative new take on the travel guide, Rice, Noodle, Fish decodes Japan's extraordinary food culture through a mix of in-depth narrative and insider advice. In this 5,000-mile journey through the noodle shops, tempura temples, and teahouses of Japan, Matt Goulding, cocreator of the enormously popular Eat This, Not That! book series, navigates the intersection between food, history, and culture, creating one of the most ambitious and complete books ever written about Japanese culinary culture from the Western perspective.
-
-
Starts strong tapers off
- By Craig Bryan on 01-02-21
By: Matt Goulding
-
Stranger in the Shogun's City
- A Japanese Woman and Her World
- By: Amy Stanley
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces - and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval - she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan.
-
-
Lovely microhistory
- By JS on 07-26-21
By: Amy Stanley
-
Apeirogon
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Colum McCann
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on, to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend, to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate. Their worlds shift irreparably after 10-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet and 13-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them.
-
-
Too many chapters & interruptions
- By sara robbins on 03-02-20
By: Colum McCann
-
Just Like Heaven
- By: Julia Quinn
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Honoria Smythe-Smith is: A) a really bad violinist; B) still miffed at being nicknamed "Bug" as a child; C) not in love with her older brother's best friend, D) all of the above.
-
-
Very enjoyable!
- By Cathy on 08-30-11
By: Julia Quinn
-
On the Mountain of the Lord
- By: Ray Bentley, Bodie Thoene
- Narrated by: Ray Bentley
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack Garrison lost his wife and their only child in a car accident, and thereafter lost his faith. In this dramatic novel, the 33-year-old skeptic experiences the mysterious wonder of being caught up in visions, dreams, and real-life experiences. Listeners journey with Jack throughout the Holy Land and also globally, from his home in London to the furthest corners of the world.
-
-
Great Book - Disappointing Audio
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-18
By: Ray Bentley, and others
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
What You Have Heard Is True
- A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
- By: Carolyn Forché
- Narrated by: Carolyn Forché
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What You Have Heard is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.
-
-
Beautiful story
- By Norhilda on 05-09-19
By: Carolyn Forché
-
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 24 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Paul Theroux retraces the steps he took thirty years ago in his classic The Great Railway Bazaar. From the Eurostar in London, he once again sets out on a journey to the East, travelling overland through Eastern Europe, India and Asia. Infused with the changes that have shaped the exterior landscape and enriched with developments to his own perceptions and psychology, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is an absorbing and beautifully written follow-up to The Great Railway Bazaar.
-
-
ghost train to the eastern star
- By roger w patton on 07-22-09
By: Paul Theroux
Related to this topic
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Shadow of the Silk Road
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.
-
-
prose meets poetry
- By Paul on 11-05-07
By: Colin Thubron
-
The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
-
-
Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
-
The Amur River
- Between Russia and China
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the 10th longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles, it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Simmering with the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on Earth.
-
-
Bleak
- By Amazon Customer on 11-03-21
By: Colin Thubron
-
Finding George Orwell in Burma
- By: Emma Larkin
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, she has come to know all too well the many ways this police state can be described as "Orwellian". The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. The connection between George Orwell and Burma is not simply metaphorical, of course; Orwell's mother was born in Burma, and he was shaped by his experiences there as a young man working for the British Imperial Police.
-
-
Orwell's Horrors Brought to Life
- By Roger on 09-21-10
By: Emma Larkin
-
Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
-
-
Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Shadow of the Silk Road
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.
-
-
prose meets poetry
- By Paul on 11-05-07
By: Colin Thubron
-
The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
-
-
Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
-
The Amur River
- Between Russia and China
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the 10th longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles, it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Simmering with the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on Earth.
-
-
Bleak
- By Amazon Customer on 11-03-21
By: Colin Thubron
-
Finding George Orwell in Burma
- By: Emma Larkin
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, she has come to know all too well the many ways this police state can be described as "Orwellian". The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. The connection between George Orwell and Burma is not simply metaphorical, of course; Orwell's mother was born in Burma, and he was shaped by his experiences there as a young man working for the British Imperial Police.
-
-
Orwell's Horrors Brought to Life
- By Roger on 09-21-10
By: Emma Larkin
-
Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
-
-
Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
-
What You Have Heard Is True
- A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
- By: Carolyn Forché
- Narrated by: Carolyn Forché
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What You Have Heard is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.
-
-
Beautiful story
- By Norhilda on 05-09-19
By: Carolyn Forché
-
Exile and the Kingdom
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a variety of masterfully rendered perspectives, these six stories depict people at painful odds with the world around them. A wife can only surrender to a desert night by betraying her husband. An artist struggles to honor his own aspirations as well as society's expectations of him. A missionary brutally converted to the worship of a tribal fetish is left with but an echo of his identity. Whether set in North Africa, Paris, or Brazil, the stories in Exile and the Kingdom are probing portraits of spiritual exile, and man's perpetual search for an inner kingdom.
-
-
So good!
- By Christopher A. Douglas on 10-24-24
By: Albert Camus
-
Black Dog of Fate
- A Memoir
- By: Peter Balakian
- Narrated by: Peter Balakian
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia. He was immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced: the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians.
-
-
Great book!
- By Lm on 06-27-13
By: Peter Balakian
-
The Seine
- The River That Made Paris
- By: Elaine Sciolino
- Narrated by: Elaine Sciolino
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elaine Sciolino came to Paris as a young foreign correspondent and was seduced by a river. In The Seine, she tells the story of that river from its source on a remote plateau of Burgundy to the wide estuary where its waters meet the sea, and the cities, tributaries, islands, ports, and bridges in between.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Nom de Guerre on 08-06-21
By: Elaine Sciolino
-
Summer
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Juliette Burton
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the exciting culmination of Ali Smith's celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.
-
-
terrific book, beautifully read.
- By Sasha on 02-07-21
By: Ali Smith
-
Street Without a Name
- Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
- By: Kapka Kassabova
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and grew up under the drab, muddy, gray mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
-
-
Good start, but ended up not liking the author
- By Giselle on 11-02-21
By: Kapka Kassabova
-
On the Plain of Snakes
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A 40-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico.
-
-
A pedantic, poorly narrated, 20 hour lecture
- By Birdshot on 11-16-19
By: Paul Theroux
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
Sovietistan
- Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan
- By: Erika Fatland
- Narrated by: Jill Rolls
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan became free of the Soviet Union in 1991. But though they are new to modern statehood, this is a region rich in ancient history, culture, and landscapes unlike anywhere else in the world. Traveling alone, Erika Fatland is a true adventurer in every sense. In Sovietistan, she takes the listener on a compassionate and insightful journey to explore how their Soviet heritage has influenced these countries, with governments experimenting with both democracy and dictatorships.
-
-
Outstanding book
- By George MP on 04-24-22
By: Erika Fatland
-
The Innocents Abroad
- Or, The New Pilgrim’s Progress
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 1867, Mark Twain set out for Europe and the Holy Land on the paddle steamer Quaker City. His enduring, no-nonsense guide for the first-time traveler also served as an antidote to the insufferably romantic travel books of the period.
-
-
Twain's Hidden Gem
- By Cynthia Franks on 05-08-12
By: Mark Twain
-
The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
-
-
Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
-
-
Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
What listeners say about The Bells of Old Tokyo
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Buretto
- 08-26-19
Endearing view of Tokyo, with a few minor stumbles
The vast majority of the book is charming. As a foreign resident of Tokyo myself, I could appreciate a lot of the nuances of the outsider eagerly trying to learn the intricacies of the city, the language and the people. The author is at her best connecting the history of Edo with the complexity of modern life in Tokyo. My only wish is that it had done more strolling around the neighborhoods of Tokyo, a hobby I like to do myself, literally.
Only a few times does the book stray, primarily in the descriptions of parts of Roppongi and Kabukicho, love hotels and the seedier side of the city. These are certainly parts of the story, but don't neatly fit into her historical time narrative. Similarly, I'm not sure why she was surprised at the Japanese reaction to the foreigners who'd fled after 3/11. As one who stayed, I can entirely understand if a sense of abandonment and betrayal was felt, and later conveyed to those returnees. And, I'm not usually a stickler for pronunciation, but after hearing Asakusa and Tsukiji, (among others) repeatedly bruised, it made me wonder why there wasn't more preparation for the narration.
But ultimately, these few distractions are minor hiccups. it's an otherwise enchanting stroll around Tokyo..
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful