
The Gift of Rain
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Narrated by:
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Gordon Griffin
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Luke Thompson
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By:
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Tan Twan Eng
About this listen
In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell.
For the first time, available as an audiobook.
The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the book-selling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits.
In 1939, 16-year-old Philip Hutton - the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families - feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei - to whom he owes absolute loyalty - is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.
©2009 Tan Twan Eng (P)2018 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"This remarkable debut saga of intrigue and akido flashes back to a darkly opulent WWII-era Malaya. Phillip Hutton, 72, lives in serene Penang comfort, occasionally training students as an akido master teacher of teachers. A visit from Michiko Murakami sends him spiraling back into his past, where he grows up the alienated half-British, half-Chinese son of a wealthy Penang trader in the years before WWII. When Hutton's father and three siblings leave him to run the family company one summer, he befriends a mysterious Japanese neighbor named Mr. Endo. Japan is on the opposing side of the coming war, but Endo paradoxically opts to train Hutton in the ways of aikido, in what both men come to see as the fulfillment of a prophecy that has haunted them for several lifetimes. When the Japanese army invades Malaya, chaos reigns, and Phillip makes a secret, very profitable deal. He cannot, however, offset the costs of his friendship with Endo. Eng's characters are as deep and troubled as the time in which the story takes place, and he draws on a rich palette to create a sprawling portrait of a lesser explored corner of the war. Hutton's first-person narration is measured, believable and enthralling." (Publishers Weekly)
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- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Rice Moore is just beginning to think his troubles are behind him. He’s found a job protecting a remote forest preserve in Virginian Appalachia where his main responsibilities include tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s hard work, and totally solitary - perfect to hide away from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, the quiet solitude he’s so desperately sought is suddenly at risk.
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Other Reviews Pretty Accurate, Positive & Negative
- By Daniel McAfee on 03-04-19
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Missing Molly
- By: Natalie Barelli
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone has secrets, and Rachel Holloway is no exception. She’s worked hard to keep the past where it belongs: dead and buried. And so far, she’s been very successful. But now the small newspaper where she works wants to produce a podcast on a cold case: the disappearance 12 years ago of young Molly Forster. Some secrets should never see the light of day, and, as far as Rachel is concerned, whatever happened to little Molly is one of them.
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Thrilling -from a verified Audible Junkie
- By Katie LeF on 04-22-19
By: Natalie Barelli
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The Museum of Failures
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby from a young pregnant girl—and to see his elderly mother for the first time in several years. Discovering that his mother is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has become.
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I loved this story...until I didn't...
- By R Cravey on 11-24-23
By: Thrity Umrigar
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Take Back the Magic
- Conversations with the Unseen World
- By: Perdita Finn
- Narrated by: Perdita Finn
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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What if you could live in a world where the guidance of those who were gone was available, right at your very fingertips? It's possible, if we are open to it. Anyone can reclaim the forgotten guidance of the dead, and anyone can return to the realm of magic and miracles. In Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, author, spiritual teacher, and co-founder of The Way of the Rose Perdita Finn reveals that life is beginningless, love is endless, and those who have passed don’t truly go anywhere when they die.
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Join the therapy session
- By Ingrid Kellas on 10-16-23
By: Perdita Finn
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The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
- By: Nadia Hashimi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Navabi
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters. But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great grandmother, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.
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beautiful story
- By Crickcrack on 04-07-25
By: Nadia Hashimi
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The Joy of Missing Out
- Live More by Doing Less
- By: Tanya Dalton
- Narrated by: Tanya Dalton
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overwhelmed. Do you wake up in the morning already feeling behind? Does the pressure of keeping it all together make you feel anxious and irritable? Tanya Dalton, CEO and productivity expert, offers you a liberating shift in perspective: Feeling overwhelmed isn't the result of having too much to do - it's from not knowing where to start. Doing less might seem counterintuitive, but doing less is more productive, because you’re concentrating on the work you actually want to be doing.
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Have JOMO not FOMO!
- By Shannon on 10-09-19
By: Tanya Dalton
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All the Ways We Said Goodbye
- A Novel of the Ritz Paris
- By: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
- Narrated by: Helen Sadler, Nicola Barber, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling authors of The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris’ legendary Ritz hotel. The heiress...the Resistance fighter...the widow...three women whose fates are joined by one splendid hotel.
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Too Many Cooks in this Kitchen
- By Eve453 on 02-15-20
By: Beatriz Williams, and others
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Ribbons of Scarlet
- A Novel of the French Revolution's Women
- By: Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, and others
- Narrated by: Marisa Calin, Lisa Flanagan, Barrie Kreinik, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Six best-selling and award-winning authors bring to life a breathtaking epic novel illuminating the hopes, desires, and destinies of princesses and peasants, harlots and wives, fanatics and philosophers - six unforgettable women whose paths cross during one of the most tumultuous and transformative events in history: the French Revolution.
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Ribbons of Scarlet
- By Kathryn Green on 12-04-19
By: Kate Quinn, and others
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A Day's Read
- By: The Great Courses, Emily Allen, Grant L. Voth, and others
- Narrated by: Arnold Weinstein, Emily Allen, Grant L. Voth
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
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Join three literary scholars and award-winning professors as they introduce you to dozens of short masterpieces that you can finish - and engage with - in a day or less. Perfect for people with busy lives who still want to discover-or rediscover-just how transformative an act of reading can be, these 36 lectures range from short stories of fewer than 10 pages to novellas and novels of around 200 pages. Despite their short length, these works are powerful examinations of the same subjects and themes that longer "great books" discuss.
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Stories not included, only discussed
- By Julie Newman on 01-15-16
By: The Great Courses, and others
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Acid for the Children
- A Memoir
- By: Flea
- Narrated by: Flea
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Iconic bassist and co-founder of the immortal Red Hot Chili Peppers finally tells his fascinating life story, complete with all the dizzying highs and the gutter lows you'd expect from an LA street rat turned world-famous rock star.
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Flea gets it right...
- By Anonymous User on 11-15-19
By: Flea
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A Secret History of Witches
- By: Louisa Morgan
- Narrated by: Polly Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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After Grand-mere Ursule gives her life to save her family, their magic seems to die with her. Even so, the Orchires fight to keep the old ways alive, practicing half-remembered spells and arcane rites in hopes of a revival. And when their youngest daughter comes of age, magic flows anew. The lineage continues, though new generations struggle not only to master their power, but also to keep it hidden. But when World War II looms on the horizon, magic is needed more urgently than ever.
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Such Beautiful Writing, Such Terrible Characters
- By Katie M on 11-26-17
By: Louisa Morgan
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The Pull of the Stars
- A Novel
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders - Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumored Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways.
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A compelling that relates to today’s times
- By Liana Murzak on 07-29-20
By: Emma Donoghue
What listeners say about The Gift of Rain
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- T
- 10-27-19
Beautiful and thoughtful writing
This work is a beautiful story that threads its way in between thorny and eternal , profound spiritual questions. It contains violence, none of it gratuitous or excessive.
One of the two narrators is excellent. The other is to phlegmy, and not always fully differentiated between characters.
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- VEH
- 08-22-24
A powerful and moving book
Another brilliant book by Tan Twan Eng, set in the Malay region in the early days of WWII, and told through the eyes of an old man looking back on his youth during the time leading up to and including the Japanese occupation of his homeland, and the choices he made at the time. The characters are rich and fully believable, as are the plot lines of family, conflicting loyalties, loss and betrayal. The narrator is excellent. Highly recommended.
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- Ale P
- 02-07-25
Beautiful Story
Good historical novel about Malaysia and growing up under British occupation first and Japanese invasion after. Beautifully narrated.
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- glass1748
- 10-25-19
Extraordinary and Beautifully Tragic
From time to time, when listening to an Audible book, I don't mind missing a few sentences here and there. While listening to The Gift of Rain, I had to hear every word. Not only were the narrators superb, the content was, as the cover says, "robustly absorbing...achingly poignant."
My rating is 5 stars in every category.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Cynde A. Bostick
- 04-13-23
A brilliant novel in many ways
There aren’t enough words to describe the depth and beauty of the story that is told, which gripped my heart and mind in depths that I didn’t realize possible.
I will listen to this novel again and will also seek to have the printed book. Thank you to the narrator and to Audible.
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- Joy S Young
- 01-01-24
All of life’s complications are contemplated
This book is a beautiful reflection on life’s complexity and nuances- it addresses death with the subtle understanding of all its layers and emotions
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- Karen Skadsheim
- 07-25-20
The best book I’ve listened to this year
I was completely engrossed in this book. I wept and I laughed together with the characters. The story is heartbreaking, warm and historically interesting. It is very well written, and the narrator also did a fantastic job; the different voices worked perfectly. I was deeply moved and I miss the characters. I just want to read more! I highly recommend the book, just buy it! You will not regret it.
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- C. SAIDI
- 11-09-19
Historical Fiction at its best
My own grandmother had a similar story as a child in Singapore during the Japanese invasion. Was truly a blessing to listen to this story and get an idea of the strife and horrors that occurred during this war. The performances were so well performed that each character was easily distinguished immediately. True artists.
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- Martha
- 07-09-22
lovely
I thought this was lovely to listen to. All characters lived in the pages. Worth the listen but a tough story to get your head around.
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- Card
- 01-29-24
Exquisite Journey through Time
Having lived in Penang, I was taken back through the author’s detailed descriptions. Yet, it wasn’t his descriptions that kept me thoroughly engaged, but the story that wove together the shadows of lives lived by the characters before this manifestation as well as through the events of the Japanese occupation of Penang. I am wiser for having followed along with the sharing of this tale.
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