
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Tim Carroll
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By:
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Anna Johnston
About this listen
A zany case of mistaken identity allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family in this warm, life-affirming debut novel.
“A funny, heartfelt story about found family and seeing the silver lining in life. Fans of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove and Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures will especially enjoy this new novel.”—Library Journal
“Would you mind terribly, old boy, if I borrowed the rest of your life? I promise I’ll take excellent care of it.”
Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness.
But Fred’s luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of grumpy Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head—as long as his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up.
Denise Simms is stuck breathing the same disappointing air again and again. A middle-aged mom and caregiver at Bernard's facility, her crumbling marriage and daughter's health concerns are suffocating her joy for life. Wounded by her two-faced husband, she vows never to let a man deceive her again.
As Fred walks in Bernard’s shoes, he leaves a trail of kindness behind him, fueling Denise's suspicions about his true identity. When unexpected truths are revealed, Fred and Denise rediscover their sense of purpose and learn how to return a broken life to mint condition.
Bittersweet and remarkably perceptive, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a hilarious, feel-good, clever novel about grief, forgiveness, redemption, and finding family.
©2024 Anna Johnston (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story
Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that keeps getting smaller every day. The square is strange but also familiar, full of the odds and ends that have made up their lives: Grandpa's work desk, the stuffed dragon that Grandpa once gave to Noah, the sweet-smelling hyacinths that Grandma loved to grow in her garden.
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Heartbreakingly Perfect
- By Jmo930 on 11-21-16
By: Fredrik Backman
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Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
- A Novel
- By: Kirsten Miller
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
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Small town attitudes
- By Maureen Teague on 08-26-24
By: Kirsten Miller
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Family Family
- A Novel
- By: Laurie Frankel
- Narrated by: Laurie Frankel, Patti Murin
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero. Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do—she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie.
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Interesting story but horrible language
- By Jed on 01-26-24
By: Laurie Frankel
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You Belong with Me
- A Novel
- By: Mhairi McFarlane
- Narrated by: Olivia Vinall
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
She found The One. But when everyone wants him, can she keep him? Edie found true love. And on Christmas day, he’s knocking at her door. Elliot Owen is handsome, charming and basically Hollywood royalty. And, he insists, madly in love with Edie Thompson: an ordinary citizen with tomato soup stains on her coat. It’s going to be complicated. Edie will have to learn how to live in the limelight, but they’re just too good together not to try.
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I didn’t realize this was book 2
- By Ashley Nootnagel on 12-20-24
By: Mhairi McFarlane
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Saving Ceecee Honeycutt
- A Novel
- By: Beth Hoffman
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.
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A Wonderful Listen!
- By Jeanne on 03-02-10
By: Beth Hoffman
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The Phoenix Ballroom
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Hogan
- Narrated by: Jane Copland
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For fifty years, Venetia Hargreaves’s world revolved around her husband. She built their life around his big career, with dinner on the table at six, a lovely home, and a dutiful son just as business-minded as his father. Now Venetia’s a wealthy widow left with a beautiful but empty home, an enviable bank balance, and a distinct feeling that she missed the boat. Once upon a time, she was a dance instructor who dreamed of opening her own ballroom school with a fellow teacher who won her heart. Instead, Venetia chose the safer path.
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Hope, renewal,
- By Jennifer A Hayes on 04-12-25
By: Ruth Hogan
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Five Minutes from Chaos
- By: William Missouri Downs
- Narrated by: Rob Farella
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Funny, fast-moving, and thought-provoking, Five Minutes from Chaos tells the story of Charlie Neb, a philosophy professor who spends his days lecturing to anxiety-filled frat boys and cheerleaders.
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How to Read a Book
- A Novel
- By: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.
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This book wrecked me!
- By BlaneClark on 05-27-24
By: Monica Wood
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You Were Always Mine
- A Novel
- By: Christine Pride, Jo Piazza
- Narrated by: Alexis Floyd, Jenni Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible—a good man by her side, a steady job as a career counselor at a local community college, and a cozy house in a quaint little beach town. It may not look like much, but it’s more than she ever dreamed of or what her difficult childhood promised. Her life’s mantra is to be good, quiet, grateful. Until something shifts and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying question: “Is this all there is?”
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You Were Always Mine
- By Patricia on 09-01-23
By: Christine Pride, and others
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You Are Here
- A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: Lee Ingleby, Lydia Leonard
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house. Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.
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Slow build
- By V. B.A. on 06-08-24
By: David Nicholls
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Across a Hundred Mountains
- A Novel
- By: Reyna Grande
- Narrated by: Marisa Blake, Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
After a tragedy separates her from her mother, Juana García leaves in search of her father, who left them two years earlier. Out of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves - in a Tijuana jail - in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways.
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Women
- By BB on 05-02-22
By: Reyna Grande
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I See You've Called in Dead
- A Novel
- By: John Kenney
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company’s system has him listed as dead. And the company can’t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living.
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wonderful book. Comic edge but full of heart
- By Amazon Customer on 04-10-25
By: John Kenney
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Familiaris
- By: David Wroblewski
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 37 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle’s imagination has gotten him into trouble … again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin’s northwoods, where they hope to make a fresh start—and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends—human, animal, and otherworldly—to realize their dreams.
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A great story!
- By gypsietraveler on 10-25-24
By: David Wroblewski
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My Friends
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier.
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How can he keep doing this? Another masterpiece!
- By Blue on 05-08-25
By: Fredrik Backman
Heartwarming, humorous, and real
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The wonderful interaction of people
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book club material
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I laughed - I cried
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Heartwarming!
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Amazing and heartwarming!!
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Funny and heartfelt!
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Heartwarming listen
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Comedy, a little suspense and heartwarming!!!!
Everything
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Recommend if you need a lift 👍
Made me feel warm
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