The Glass Kingdom
A Novel
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 $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sura Siu
-
By:
-
Lawrence Osborne
About this listen
A New York Times Notable Book
A New York Times Editors’ Choice
A tense, stunningly well-observed novel of a young American on the run, from Lawrence Osborne, “an heir to Graham Greene” (The New York Times Book Review).
“Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving - restless and rootless and afraid - though a cityscape that has more stories than they know.” (Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies)
Escaping New York for the anonymity of Bangkok, Sarah Mullins arrives in Thailand on the lam with nothing more than a suitcase of purloined money. Her plan is to lie low and map out her next move in a high-end apartment complex called the Kingdom, whose glass-fronted façade boasts views of the bustling city and glimpses into the vast honeycomb of lives within.
It is not long before she meets the alluring Mali doing laps in the apartment pool, a fellow tenant determined to bring the quiet American out of her shell. An invitation to Mali’s weekly poker nights follows, and - fueled by shots of yadong, good food, and gossip - Sarah soon falls in with the Kingdom’s glamorous circle of expat women. But as political chaos erupts on the streets below and attempted uprisings wrack the city, tensions tighten within the gilded compound.
When the violence outside begins to invade the Kingdom in a series of strange disappearances, the residents are thrown into suspicion: both of the world beyond their windows and of one another. And under the constant surveillance of the building’s watchful inhabitants, Sarah’s safe haven begins to feel like a snare.
From a master of atmosphere and mood, The Glass Kingdom is a brilliantly unsettling story of civil and psychological unrest and an enthralling study of karma and human greed.
©2020 Lawrence Osborne (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
On Java Road
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Michael Obiora
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After two decades as a journalist in Hong Kong, ex-pat Englishman Adrian Gyle has very little to show for it. Evenings are whiled away with soup dumplings and tea at Fung Shing, the restaurant downstairs from his home on Java Road, watching the city erupt in violence as pro-democracy demonstrations hit ever closer to home. Watching from the skyrises is Adrian’s old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. Just as Gyle prepares to turn his back on Hong Kong, he finds one last intrigue: Rebecca, a student involved in the protests.
-
-
Another winning novel by Laurence Osborne
- By Reed Ramlow on 09-26-22
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Hunters in the Dark
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the novelist the New York Times compares to Paul Bowles, Evelyn Waugh, and Ian McEwan, an evocative new work of literary suspense. Adrift in Cambodia, Robert Grieve - pushing 30 and eager to sidestep a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher - decides to go AWOL. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future.
-
-
Graham Greene
- By Foxhuntingman on 02-26-16
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
The Forgiven
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stylish, haunting novel, journalist and novelist Lawrence Osborne explores the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of Moroccan Muslims and Western visitors who converge on a luxurious desert villa for a decadent weekend-long party.
-
-
Riveting
- By Anonymous User on 06-09-22
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Only to Sleep
- A Philip Marlowe Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe - now in his 72nd year - is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it. For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn - supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive?
-
-
Brilliant resurrection of greatest detective in US fiction
- By R. G. Shalhoub on 07-28-18
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Bangkok 8
- By: John Burdett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones....
-
-
Very dissapointing
- By Dennis on 05-29-13
By: John Burdett
-
The Hotel Neversink
- By: Adam O'Fallon Price
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-one years after workers first broke ground, the magnificent Hotel Neversink in the Catskills finally opens to the public. Then a young boy disappears. This mysterious vanishing - and the ones that follow - will brand the lives of three generations. At the root of it all is Asher Sikorsky, the ambitious and ruthless patriarch whose purchase of the hotel in 1931 set a haunting legacy into motion.
-
-
A Depressing Book, Depressingly Read
- By Bob P. on 05-29-21
-
On Java Road
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Michael Obiora
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After two decades as a journalist in Hong Kong, ex-pat Englishman Adrian Gyle has very little to show for it. Evenings are whiled away with soup dumplings and tea at Fung Shing, the restaurant downstairs from his home on Java Road, watching the city erupt in violence as pro-democracy demonstrations hit ever closer to home. Watching from the skyrises is Adrian’s old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. Just as Gyle prepares to turn his back on Hong Kong, he finds one last intrigue: Rebecca, a student involved in the protests.
-
-
Another winning novel by Laurence Osborne
- By Reed Ramlow on 09-26-22
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Hunters in the Dark
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the novelist the New York Times compares to Paul Bowles, Evelyn Waugh, and Ian McEwan, an evocative new work of literary suspense. Adrift in Cambodia, Robert Grieve - pushing 30 and eager to sidestep a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher - decides to go AWOL. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future.
-
-
Graham Greene
- By Foxhuntingman on 02-26-16
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
The Forgiven
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stylish, haunting novel, journalist and novelist Lawrence Osborne explores the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of Moroccan Muslims and Western visitors who converge on a luxurious desert villa for a decadent weekend-long party.
-
-
Riveting
- By Anonymous User on 06-09-22
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Only to Sleep
- A Philip Marlowe Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe - now in his 72nd year - is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it. For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn - supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive?
-
-
Brilliant resurrection of greatest detective in US fiction
- By R. G. Shalhoub on 07-28-18
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Bangkok 8
- By: John Burdett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones....
-
-
Very dissapointing
- By Dennis on 05-29-13
By: John Burdett
-
The Hotel Neversink
- By: Adam O'Fallon Price
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-one years after workers first broke ground, the magnificent Hotel Neversink in the Catskills finally opens to the public. Then a young boy disappears. This mysterious vanishing - and the ones that follow - will brand the lives of three generations. At the root of it all is Asher Sikorsky, the ambitious and ruthless patriarch whose purchase of the hotel in 1931 set a haunting legacy into motion.
-
-
A Depressing Book, Depressingly Read
- By Bob P. on 05-29-21
-
The Secret Hours
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.
-
-
Just about perfect
- By June Lapidow on 09-28-23
By: Mick Herron
-
An Accidental Death
- A DC Smith Investigation Series, Book 1
- By: Peter Grainger
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story opens with the apparently accidental drowning of a sixth form student in the Norfolk countryside. As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another case that has led to tensions between officers at Kings Lake police headquarters. As an ex-DCI, Smith could have retired by now, and it is clear that some of his superiors wish that he would do so.
-
-
Excellent British Mystery
- By Customer on 09-07-16
By: Peter Grainger
-
HALO: The Fall of Reach
- HALO, Book 1
- By: Eric Nylund
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 26th century. Humanity has expanded beyond Earth’s system to hundreds of planets that colonists now call home. But the United Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command is struggling to control this vast empire. After exhausting all strategies to keep seething colonial insurrections from exploding into a full-blown interplanetary civil war, the UNSC has one last hope.
-
-
Phenomenal story - problematic performance
- By wotsisname on 07-02-19
By: Eric Nylund
-
Devil Makes Three
- A Novel
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos–and others are just looking to make it through another day.
-
-
Brilliant Novel about US Policy & its Effects
- By Jason on 10-08-23
By: Ben Fountain
-
Reykjavík
- A Crime Story
- By: Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir
- Narrated by: Bert Seymour, Tamaryn Payne
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case.
-
-
Better than expected
- By Shopper on 11-18-23
By: Ragnar Jónasson, and others
-
City on Fire
- A Novel
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful woman comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire. Danny Ryan yearns for a more “legit” life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself.
-
-
Gripping, vivid and extremely entertaining
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 04-26-22
By: Don Winslow
-
Some Danger Involved
- Barker & Llewelyn Series, Book 1
- By: Will Thomas
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved", he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.
-
-
Clever writing!
- By Kathi on 01-13-17
By: Will Thomas
-
The Glass Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: Dylan Moore
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors.
-
-
Don't waste your time and money
- By Anonymous User on 03-26-20
-
Who Is Maud Dixon?
- A Novel
- By: Alexandra Andrews
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Darrow has always felt she was destined for greatness, but after a disastrous affair with her married boss, she starts to doubt herself. All that changes when she sets off for Morocco with her new boss, the celebrated but reclusive author Maud Dixon. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh, Florence begins to feel she’s leading the sort of interesting, cosmopolitan life she deserves. But when she wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night - and no sign of Maud - a dangerous idea begins to take form....
-
-
Whoa! Buy this book!
- By Beth on 03-04-21
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
-
-
Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
Critic reviews
“Exceptional descriptive skills fuel an overwhelming sense of menace: It is no mean feat to make the ending of a novel truly shocking.... The next day you will still be thinking of Sarah’s fate with horror.” (The New York Times Book Review)
"...riveting... There’s an ominous sense of foreboding from the first page, and the tension ratchets up to a terrifying pitch before the horrifying and brutal conclusion. A gripping read.” (Booklist starred review)
"...masterfully drawn, mesmerizing novel.... A seductive, darkly atmospheric thriller with a spine-tingling climax.” (Kirkus Reviews starred review)
Related to this topic
-
Hunters in the Dark
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the novelist the New York Times compares to Paul Bowles, Evelyn Waugh, and Ian McEwan, an evocative new work of literary suspense. Adrift in Cambodia, Robert Grieve - pushing 30 and eager to sidestep a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher - decides to go AWOL. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future.
-
-
Graham Greene
- By Foxhuntingman on 02-26-16
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
Blood Wedding
- By: Pierre Lemaitre, Frank Wynne - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sophie Duguet is losing her grip. Haunted by visions from her past of her loving husband, who committed suicide after a car accident. One morning she wakes to find Leo, the child in her care, strangled in his bed by Sophie's own shoelaces. She can remember nothing of the night before. Could she really have killed him? She flees in panic, but this only cements her guilt in the eyes of the law. Not long afterwards it happens again - she wakes with blood on her hands, with no memory of the murder committed.
-
-
Twisted
- By SH on 02-04-24
By: Pierre Lemaitre, and others
-
Who Is Vera Kelly?
- By: Rosalie Knecht
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows.
-
-
not a whole lot of spycraft just a good story
- By Kirra Krussman on 01-19-19
By: Rosalie Knecht
-
The Beautiful and Damned
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in 1922, Fitzgerald's second novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete, and his beautiful wife, Gloria, as they await to inherit his grandfather's fortune. A devastating satire of the nouveaux rich and New York's nightlife, of reckless ambition and squandered talent, it is also a shattering portrait of a marriage fueled by alcohol and wasted by wealth. The Beautiful and Damned, Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda in 1930, "was all true."
-
-
i loved it
- By Emily on 01-20-05
-
Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
-
-
Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
-
Hunters in the Dark
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the novelist the New York Times compares to Paul Bowles, Evelyn Waugh, and Ian McEwan, an evocative new work of literary suspense. Adrift in Cambodia, Robert Grieve - pushing 30 and eager to sidestep a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher - decides to go AWOL. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future.
-
-
Graham Greene
- By Foxhuntingman on 02-26-16
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
Blood Wedding
- By: Pierre Lemaitre, Frank Wynne - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sophie Duguet is losing her grip. Haunted by visions from her past of her loving husband, who committed suicide after a car accident. One morning she wakes to find Leo, the child in her care, strangled in his bed by Sophie's own shoelaces. She can remember nothing of the night before. Could she really have killed him? She flees in panic, but this only cements her guilt in the eyes of the law. Not long afterwards it happens again - she wakes with blood on her hands, with no memory of the murder committed.
-
-
Twisted
- By SH on 02-04-24
By: Pierre Lemaitre, and others
-
Who Is Vera Kelly?
- By: Rosalie Knecht
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows.
-
-
not a whole lot of spycraft just a good story
- By Kirra Krussman on 01-19-19
By: Rosalie Knecht
-
The Beautiful and Damned
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in 1922, Fitzgerald's second novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete, and his beautiful wife, Gloria, as they await to inherit his grandfather's fortune. A devastating satire of the nouveaux rich and New York's nightlife, of reckless ambition and squandered talent, it is also a shattering portrait of a marriage fueled by alcohol and wasted by wealth. The Beautiful and Damned, Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda in 1930, "was all true."
-
-
i loved it
- By Emily on 01-20-05
-
Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
-
-
Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
-
Life for Sale
- By: Yukio Mishima
- Narrated by: Kotaro Watanabe
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After botching a suicide attempt, salaryman Hanio Yamada decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper. Soon interested parties come calling with increasingly bizarre requests and what follows is a madcap comedy of errors, involving a jealous husband, a drug-addled heiress, poisoned carrots - even a vampire. For someone who just wants to die, Hanio can't seem to catch a break, as he finds himself enmeshed in a continent-wide conspiracy that puts him in the crosshairs of both his own government and a powerful organized-crime syndicate.
-
-
Book is good - Narration is just terrible
- By Vyacheslav Varlakov on 03-12-21
By: Yukio Mishima
-
Fault Lines
- A Novel
- By: Emily Itami
- Narrated by: Lydia Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
-
-
Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
-
56 Days
- By: Catherine Ryan Howard
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores. When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who - and what - he really is.
-
-
A bit disappointing
- By SB on 08-18-21
-
What Storm, What Thunder
- By: Myriam J.A. Chancy
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Earth had buckled, and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the Earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination. At the end of a long sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster
-
-
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 03-15-22
-
Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions
- Auntie Poldi, Book 1
- By: Mario Giordano
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Auntie Poldi can think of no finer place to wait for death than Sicily. All she asks is a sea view, fine wine (and plenty of it), and her family close around. When death instead takes her handsome young friend Valentino - and under mysterious circumstances at that - Poldi will not take it lying down. Perhaps it's in her blood, but Auntie Poldi's hunting instincts have never felt more alive. Justice must be served - if it's the last thing she does....
-
-
More fun and murder in Sicily!
- By MolllyT on 02-19-18
By: Mario Giordano
-
Victoria’s Most Haunted
- Ghost Stories from BC’s Historic Capital City
- By: Ian Gibbs
- Narrated by: Brennan Storr
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beautiful, charming Victoria is world renowned for its seaside attractions, flourishing gardens, and breathtaking ocean views. But looming behind its picture-perfect façade is a city shrouded in mystery, with restless, disembodied beings that whisper ghastly tales of mystery, violence, and horror.
-
-
Very good!
- By Trkmec on 03-13-22
By: Ian Gibbs
-
Before You Knew My Name
- A Novel
- By: Jacqueline Bublitz
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe. She may be dead but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. After travelling halfway around the world, she’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple. Until she stumbles upon a woman’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman.
-
-
Excellent
- By cristina on 11-11-22
-
Lady Oracle
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From fat girl to thin, from red hair to mud brown, from London to Toronto, from Polish count to radical husband - Joan Foster is utterly confused by her life of multiple identities. She decides to escape to an Italian hill town to take stock of her life. But first, she must organize her own death.
-
-
A Feminist Romp
- By annkpowers on 07-02-22
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Beautiful Animals
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements, but still alive. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean Sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies. But when their seemingly simple plan to help Faoud unravels, all must face the horrific consequences they have set in motion.
-
-
please offer more of this author's books
- By S. Liskey on 07-20-17
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
The Night Raven
- Crow Investigations, Book 1
- By: Sarah Painter
- Narrated by: Kate Rawson
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia has always known she has no power, especially next to her infamous and more-than-slightly dodgy family. Which is why she carved her own life as a private investigator far away from London. When a professional snafu forces her home, the head of the family calls in a favour, and Lydia finds herself investigating the disappearance of her cousin, Maddie.
-
-
Ask yourself
- By Ijw on 10-21-19
By: Sarah Painter
-
Dry Bones
- By: Peter May
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happened to Jacques Gaillard? The brilliant teacher at the École Nationale d’Administration, who trained some of France’s best and brightest as future prime ministers and presidents, vanished ten years ago, presumably from Paris. This ten-year-old mystery inspires a bet—one that Enzo Macleod, a biologist teaching in Toulouse, France, instead of pursuing a brilliant career in forensics back home in Scotland, can ill afford to lose.
-
-
Engaging hero, stellar narration
- By Janice on 11-01-13
By: Peter May
-
The Wapshot Chronicle
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.
-
-
Beautiful 1950s Great Expectations-like Novel
- By Darwin8u on 05-31-13
By: John Cheever
What listeners say about The Glass Kingdom
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Reed Ramlow
- 12-29-21
A decent entry by Osborne
Enjoyed this, but Hunters in the Dark was the better effort by Osborne. An excellent rendering of Bangkok and its expats.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 06-09-24
Moody Novel
I most enjoyed the moody, languid atmosphere in this novel. It’s almost a character in itself.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lilly Marlène
- 12-15-20
Mediocre story + mediocre narrator
A book that starts fairly interestingly, but looses momentum quite quickly and subsequently fails to hold the listener's interest. The narrator seems quite inexperienced as well. I gave it two stars for "meh."
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Billye Kay
- 08-29-21
Nothing Happens By Chance
The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne is an intruiging story in a beautiful and mysterious setting. The protagonist is a young literary assistant who uses her position of trust to abscond with a large amount of money. She hides in Bangkok, Thailand and soon falls in with a small group of young women who are each also shady in their own ways. The setting, culture, and political events push and pull the story and the characters. The story is fast moving and well written. The characters are complicated and simple at the same time. The narration performance by Sura Siu supports the story and brings it to life very well. This book exceeded my expectations. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy stories about crime, mysteries, exotic settings, culture clashes, and Karma.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- California Guy
- 09-06-20
Osborne has a handle on internal struggles
I like reading novels no one else could have written and The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne is one such book. As with many of Osborne's books it is setting driven with characters mixed in that pair well with the locale. As for the plot The Glass Kingdom is an improvement over Beautiful Animals, Osborne's previous novel, particularly in the writing of the American woman, Sarah Jennings - very believable. Are there implausibilities? Sure. But never enough to ruin the story. In writing the characters Osborne contrasts the East vs the West with the East scoring most of the advantages. His distinctions between the Japanese salarymen in Bangkok vs the American expats are spot on. A brooding and moody tale with a slow-burning fuse - I went back and forth between the hardcover and the audio book. My plan was to finish up on paper but I so enjoyed the voice work of Sura Siu that I went with an aural ending. It would have been fine either way. Whether you love or hate Thailand there will be much to love about The Glass Kingdom and a bit to hate too. Like a good martini with a lot of bitters - how it goes down will depend on your taste. A Yin Yang story with emphasis on the Yings. Stylish to the very end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Josh
- 05-08-22
Dont buy, narrator intolerable!
The narrator breaks the sentences up inappropriately into phrases pitched in a sing-song cadence that distracts from the meaning of the text, as if concentrating on pronunciation at the cost of overall meaning.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sean Ramsay
- 09-14-20
Of the few I’ve read, it’s Lawrence Osborne’s best
I know Bangkok. I know those characters. But now I know them much better. And I believe them. Osborne’s roaming voice is very compelling. The heavy existential foreboding is something akin to Andre Malraux, dark and hidden. When the new lost soul washes up on the shores of the lovely dreamscape where antiquity and the modern mingle and morph, I’m with it all the way. Especially like the end. It’s so masterfully insightful, seems quite magical.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful