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The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's summary
A NEW YORKER “ESSENTIAL READ”
“Just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed.” – The Washington Post
“Olga Tokarczuk is one of our greatest living fiction writers. . . This could well be a decade-defining book akin to Bolaño’s 2666.” –AV Club
“Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TIME, THE NEW YORKER, AND NPR
The Nobel Prize–winner’s richest, most sweeping and ambitious novel yet follows the comet-like rise and fall of a mysterious, messianic religious leader as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe.
In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumors of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. The story of Frank—a real historical figure around whom mystery and controversy swirl to this day—is the perfect canvas for the genius and unparalleled reach of Olga Tokarczuk.
Narrated through the perspectives of his contemporaries—those who revere him, those who revile him, the friend who betrays him, the lone woman who sees him for what he is—The Books of Jacob captures a world on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence.
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Critic reviews
“Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
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- Narrated by: Phillip Church
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the year 1492, the Inquisition has all of Spain in its grip. Yonah Toledano, the 15-year-old son of a celebrated Spanish silversmith, has seen his father and brother die during terrible days - victims whose murders go almost unnoticed in a time of mass upheaval. Trapped in Spain by circumstances, he is determined to honor the memory of his family by remaining a Jew. On a donkey named Moise, Yonah begins a meandering journey, a young fugitive zigzagging across the vastness of Spain.
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Disappointing narration
- By karen inbal glickman on 04-09-19
By: Noah Gordon
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The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
- By: Sandra Gulland
- Narrated by: Kim Handysides
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true.
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Performance...ugh
- By Lisa on 02-17-18
By: Sandra Gulland
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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Les Misérables
- Penguin Classics
- By: Christine Donougher, Victor Hugo, Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: Adeel Akhtar, Natalie Simpson, Adrian Scarborough, and others
- Length: 65 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
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Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
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The Architect's Apprentice
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Piter Marek
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1540, 12-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan's menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan's beautiful daughter Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire's chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota's help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history.
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I feel like I should like it more than I do
- By nyog on 04-19-17
By: Elif Shafak
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My Name Is Red
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Erdag Goknar - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of 16th-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers.
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Complex and interesting
- By Kathleen on 05-13-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
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Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
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Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
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Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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Shadows on the Rock
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1697, Quebec is an island of French civilization perched on a bare gray rock amid a wilderness of trackless forests. For many of its settlers, Quebec is a place of exile, so remote that an entire winter passes without a word from home. But to 12-year-old Cécile Auclair, the rock is home, where even the formidable Governor Frontenac entertains children in his palace and beavers lie beside the lambs in a Christmas créche.
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wonderful
- By carol perez on 05-18-21
By: Willa Cather
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Push Not the River
- By: James Conroyd Martin
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 19 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Push Not the River is the rich story of Poland in the late 1700's - a time of heartache and turmoil as the country's once peaceful people are torn apart by neighboring countries and divided loyalties. It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, that Lady Anna Maria Berezowska loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known.
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Save your time; buy something else.
- By AMS on 10-22-15
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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The Taker
- By: Alma Katsu
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting another quiet evening of frostbite and the occasional domestic dispute. But the minute Lanore McIlvrae—Lanny—walks into his ER, she changes his life forever. A mysterious woman with a past and plenty of dark secrets, Lanny is unlike anyone Luke has ever met. He is inexplicably drawn to her...despite the fact that she is a murder suspect with a police escort.
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Too dark for my taste
- By Margaret on 05-04-14
By: Alma Katsu
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Mirror Mirror
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough, Kate Forbes, Barbara Rosenblat, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives at Montefiore, the farm of her father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up to the farm. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia, no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a quest, he leaves Bianca under the care of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but salvation can be found in the dark forest as well.
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Interesting re-telling of the fairy tale.
- By Patricia on 03-04-10
By: Gregory Maguire
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Narcissus and Goldmund
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a passionate yet uneasy friendship between two men of opposite character. Narcissus, an ascetic instructor at a cloister school, has devoted himself solely to scholarly and spiritual pursuits. One of his students is the sensual, restless Goldmund, who is immediately drawn to his teacher's fierce intellect and sense of discipline.
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My favorite of Hesse's novels, wonderfully read.
- By David on 10-21-11
By: Hermann Hesse
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In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
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One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
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JR
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Absurdly logical, mercilessly real, gathering it's own tumultuous momentum for the ultimate brush with commodity training, JR captures the listener in the cacophony of voices that revolves around this young captive of his own myths. The disturbing clarity with which this finished writer captures the ways in which we deal, dissemble, and stumble through our words - through our lives - while the real plans are being made elsewhere makes JR the extraordinary novel that it is.
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Possibly superior as an audio book
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Overall
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Performance
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Baking a multitude of tartes tatins for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats and chickens. Also, America's ignoble past, and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, open carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son's toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land and broken treaties, and nobody helps you when you get a flat tire on the interstate? When are you allowed to start swearing?
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In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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With epic breadth and intimate detail, Ludmila Ulitskaya's remarkable work tells the story of three school friends who meet in Moscow in the 1950s and go on to embody the heroism, folly, compromise, and hope of the Soviet dissident experience. These three boys - an orphaned poet; a gifted, fragile pianist; and a budding photographer with a talent for collecting secrets - struggle to reach adulthood in a society where their heroes have been censored and exiled.
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Modern female Russian writer writing a saga starting with Stalin's death and ending with the poet Brodsky's. It also 3 male frie
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The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
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Mixed Feelings
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Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
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A Magical Journey
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Satantango
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Satantango, the novel that inspired Béla Tarr’s classic film, is proof that the devil has all the good times. Set in an isolated hamlet, the novel unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. “Their world,” in the words of the translator George Szirtes is “rough and ready, lost somewhere between the cosmic and tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death.”
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Tone. Sound. Psychology. Humor.
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The Book of Disquiet
- By: Fernando Pessoa
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Assembled from notes and jottings left unpublished at the time of the author’s death, The Book of Disquiet is a collection of aphoristic prose-poetry musings on dreams, solitude, time and memory. Credited to Pessoa’s alter ego, Bernardo Soares, who chronicles his contemplations in this so-called "factless" autobiography, the work is a journey of one man’s soul and, by extension, of all human souls that allow their minds and hearts to roam far and free.
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The book that saved my life
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By: Fernando Pessoa
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Gravel Heart
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Overall
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Performance
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Salim has always known that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors. It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island’s white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict—the longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating into dishevelled introspection, Salim is confused and ashamed. His mother does not discuss the change.
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So enjoyed this!
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When The Far Pavilions was first published 19 years ago, it moved the critic Edmund Fuller to write this: "Were Miss Kaye to produce no other book, The Far Pavilions might stand as a lasting accomplishment in a single work comparable to Margaret Mitchell's achievement in Gond With the Wind." From its beginning in the foothills of the towering Himalayas, M. M. Kaye's masterwork is a vast, rich, and vibrant tapestry of love and war that ranks with the greatest panoramic sagas of modern fiction.
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Heroism, adventure, sadistic cruelty, and love.
- By Velan on 02-19-13
By: M. M. Kaye
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Kristin Lavransdatter (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
- The Kristin Lavransdatter Trilogy
- By: Sigrid Undset, Tiina Nunnally - editor translator, Brad Leithauser - introduction
- Narrated by: Nina Yndis, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 47 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses audiences in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally’s award-winning definitive translation brings this remarkable work to life with clarity and lyrical beauty.
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Ridiculous, excessive, relentless guilt.
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-24
By: Sigrid Undset, and others
What listeners say about The Books of Jacob
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- TWZ
- 10-04-23
Amazing book
The story based on historical events is full of richly developed characters. The narrators are unbelievably good.
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1 person found this helpful
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- other1
- 04-21-24
A sprawling and engrossing historical novel
I loved this book because of its vast scope and range. It centers on a mid-18th century time of political and religious upheaval in Eastern Europe, specifically around the messianic aspirations of one Polish Jewish man, Jacob Frank, and his followers. But that description does not do justice to the involvement of priests, princes, archbishops, generals, mystics and common people moving from what is now Germany east as far as the Muslim cities of the Ottoman empire and back again. With a couple of dozen or so main characters and a hundred or more secondary ones, extending over 3 or 4 generations in families, I found it useful to refer now and again to a reference list of characters I found online. But that small extra effort was worth it to read this Tolstoyan masterpiece and to go on this long, engrossing ride. Narrators both are excellent. Highly recommended.
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- Scentart
- 09-23-22
Sometimes tedious but well worth the effort
All cults are the same. In the 18th century, one sociopath led a multitude of Jewish followers through Eastern Europe. He trafficked women and girls, took money from his faithful and promised fulfilment through his own form of decadence. The history of Jacob Frank is told in the voices of his followers. Some of these members were brilliant and unndeserving of the abuse heaped upon them. I wanted to scream at them for masochistiically allowing Frank to destroy their individuality. But nobody twisted their arms. The biggest tragedy I felt was the destructon of his daughter.
Religion is a hoax and a way to hurt outsiders.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Gary R Brown
- 07-20-23
A truly gorgeous noble
This is a magnificent work of art. A mix of history, culture, magic realism. The narration is superb highly recommended.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mary Blackburn
- 03-17-23
Worthy.
Full of thought. Fact and fiction blur. Eloquent words even in the chaos and confusion of the characters’ lives.
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- Frank Salomon
- 07-07-22
The Moby Dick of religious delusion
From Smyrna to Berlin, from orthodox stetl to the French revolution, Jacob Frank’s sect of heretical Judaism preached salvation through sin. The sins are lively reading, and the Chronicle of families that fell for his visions and frauds fill a panoramic thousand pages. I stayed interested. About 2/3 through, the Jews change their names to Polish names, and after that I found it hard to follow who’s who. if you are interested in the history of Judaism, as I am, you’ll probably like this giant novel.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jason
- 05-04-22
With Moments of Genius, Still a Giant Slog!
This was tough, even with the text in front of me. There were absolutely moments of utter genius but I'm not sure it was worth the time it took.
Pacing was a Huge problem for me in this as it feels like it's never really moving, or at least as slowly as our own lives. There were no moments where pace picks up and audience can get excited or emotional & the character list I kept is longer then that of a Tolstoy book, yet some disappear while others pop up 600pgs later.
Also, book has many images, maps etc that will be missed if only listening to audio version. I like to think many of my issues would go away if read in its original Polish language but whose to know? Not me
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- Anonymous User
- 04-05-22
Incredible
Tokarczuk masterfully weaves history, faith, and legend together into a vast and bitingly human narrative.
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- Cat32
- 12-12-23
Stunning story and beautiful reading
This story is so compelling and beautifully rendered. The reading of the story is gorgeous and helps one hear the foreign names with ease. I have the hard copy too and so reading and listening together make a rich experience.
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- William
- 12-17-23
swooping, large & unstoppable
a monstrous half century brought kicking to life. & no more of a monster than our own.
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