The Colony
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Hogan
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By:
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Audrey Magee
About this listen
It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by curragh, though boats with engines are available and he doesn't much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn't know that a Frenchman follows close behind.
Masson has visited the island for many years, studying their language. He is fiercely protective of their isolation; it is essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity. But the people who live on this rock—three miles long and half a mile wide—have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return.
Over the summer, each of them—from great-grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn to widowed Mairéad and fifteen-year-old James, who is determined to avoid the life of a fisherman—will wrestle with their own values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.
An expertly woven portrait of character and place, a stirring investigation into yearning to find one's own way, and an unflinchingly political critique of the long, seething cost of imperialism, The Colony is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.
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A Golden Age
- A Novel
- By: Tahmima Anam
- Narrated by: Madhur Jaffrey
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Today she will throw a party for her son and daughter. In the garden of the house she has built, her roses are blooming, her children are almost grown, and beyond their doorstep, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air.
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sad, poignant, thought-provoking, beautiful
- By Rio Delta Wild on 06-04-08
By: Tahmima Anam
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Brick Lane
- By: Monica Ali
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Sastre
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Abridged
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Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.
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A truly wonderful book!
- By A M on 11-24-03
By: Monica Ali
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The Shipping News
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons - and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
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Can't Explain Why I Love This Book
- By Polly on 03-06-12
By: Annie Proulx
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The Road Home
- By: Rose Tremain
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008, The Road Home is the best-selling story of Lev, a middle-aged migrant from Eastern Europe, who moves to London in search of work after losing his wife and job. Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency. The world Tremain creates is both convincing and poignant.
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OK - nice narration - good characters
- By bea on 02-21-11
By: Rose Tremain
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A House for Mr. Biswas
- By: V. S. Naipaul
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A House for Mr. Biswas, by Nobel and Booker Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man's struggle for identity and belonging. Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr. Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolize his independence.
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Performance makes a fatal mistake. No Trini accent
- By Christopher on 01-04-19
By: V. S. Naipaul
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The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
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Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
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Casting Off
- By: Nicole R. Dickson
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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On a tiny island off the west coast of Ireland, the fishermen's handmade sweaters tell a story. Each one is unique - feelings stitched into rows, memories into patterns...It is here that Rebecca Moray comes to research a book on Irish knitting. With her daughter, Rowan, in tow, she hopes to lose herself into the history of the island and to forget her own haunting past. Before long, the warm embrace of the townsfolk wraps Rebecca and Rowan in a world of friendship, laughter, and love...
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Great yarn...
- By Shewhee on 03-07-21
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Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
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Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
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Pennies for Hitler
- By: Jackie French
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils' heads to see which of them have the most 'Aryan'- shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy seas to Australia where he must forget his past and who he is in order to survive. Hatred is contagious, but Georg finds that kindness can be, too.
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This could be a Bryce Courtenay novel
- By K Cornwinkle on 07-02-14
By: Jackie French
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Lighthouse Bay
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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This breathtaking novel travels more than a century between two love stories set in the Australian seaside town of Lighthouse Bay. In 1901, a ship sinks off the coast of Lighthouse Bay in Australia. The only survivor is Isabella Winterbourne - escaping her loveless marriage and the devastating loss of her son - who clutches a priceless gift meant for the Australian Parliament. Suddenly, this gift could be her ticket to a new life, free from the bonds of her husband and his overbearing family.
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Excellent story!
- By Kate B. on 11-30-17
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Owls Do Cry
- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters.'
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well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
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a meditation of memory, grief, and motherhood.
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What listeners say about The Colony
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Kathleen M. Garland
- 04-12-23
I was hoping for more
Pros:interesting topic that introduces a way of life and a part of the world not many people know. Very ambitious storytelling, I’m interested to see how this author develops.
The reader was amazing, almost worth listening to the book for his skills.
Cons: None of the characters were like able.The book began to drag towards the end and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
The interior monologues were way too long, though occasionally beautifully written.
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- Nell Fleming
- 01-03-24
I hated it
I hated it. it sucked - because there was so much truth in it I guess.
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- C. P. O. Carroll
- 06-23-22
beware ecstatic reviews
This is not an audible book. It is as slow as a wet week on a cold windswept island. It is maddeningly slow and the characters are utterly unlikeable. The narrator drops to a whisper when reading the internal musings of the artist in the book and one has to turn the volume up and then down again.
Beware reviews that include "lyrical", "magical", or "trenchant". It is "the colony" being nice to one of their own
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5 people found this helpful
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- Maryann Burr
- 09-10-22
absorption then linger
Many others write long erudite reviews of this poignant story. I, then, will simply suggest to you that in conception, language , imagery , history & complexity you will find no superior read
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1 person found this helpful
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- Steven M.
- 11-05-22
Heartbreaker
Very good story
That parallels the troubles and the reasons the Irish went mad killing the colonizers
I hope James’ uncle throws the English painter’s work overboard
The false bullshit the British spew is well described in a way to be believed
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- Madeline
- 09-04-22
Missing 15 pages at the end
This is a beautiful book, but I was reading along with a physical copy at the end, and the audible version just slipped pp356-369! It left out crucial conversations at the very end, and had I not had a book I would never have known. Frustrating for sure! Excellent performance and story, but a fail on the editing end.
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8 people found this helpful
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- myra Scrabeck
- 09-24-22
Maybe my favorite book of 2022
The audiobook version is stunning. So well done! What a gifted writer--- a real artist!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Patrick OToole
- 09-26-22
outstanding story
Loved it. Fantastic prose, hauntingly surreal and expertise intersections of life and senseless violence
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1 person found this helpful
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- Wayne S.
- 08-28-22
A hard slog
It was hard.to.get through on audio,can,t imagine trying reading...Too long and needlessly repetitive.Lacks clear identity.Is it about Art,language,life on.a remote island,or is.it about a.pompous English.artist or a pompous French linguist,or the 2 dimensional Island habitants?....Meandering themes,interspersed with news flashes of the troubles.in.Northern Ireland,which never truly connected.to.the.main.narrative.It was.like a maze with.no.exit...No.satisfying to payoff
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1 person found this helpful