-
The Memory Palace
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
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 $15.47
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
National Book Critics Circle Award, Autobiography, 2012
When piano prodigy Norma Herr was healthy, she was the most vibrant personality in the room. But as her schizophrenic episodes became more frequent and more dangerous, she withdrew into a world that neither of her daughters could make any sense of. After being violently attacked for demanding that Norma seek help, Mira Bartok and her sister changed their names and cut off all contact in order to keep themselves safe.
For the next 17 years, Mira's only contact with her mother was through infrequent letters exchanged through post office boxes, often not even in the same city where she was living. At the age of 40, Mira suffered a debilitating head injury that left her memories foggy and her ability to make sense of the world around her forever changed. Hoping to reconnect with her past, Mira reached out to the homeless shelter where her mother was living. When she received word that her mother was dying in a hospital, Mira and her sister traveled to their mother's deathbed to reconcile one last time.
Norma gave them a key to a storage unit in which she has kept hundreds of diaries, photographs, and mementos from the past that Mira never imagined she would see again. These artifacts triggered a flood of memories and gave Mira access to the past that she believed had been lost forever.
The Memory Palace explores the connections between mother and daughter that cannot be broken no matter how much exists - or is lost - between them. It is an astonishing literary memoir about the complex meaning of love, truth, and the capacity for forgiveness within a family.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Heartland
- A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
- By: Sarah Smarsh
- Narrated by: Sarah Smarsh
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less.
-
-
My favorite memoir of 2018
- By NMwritergal on 11-25-18
By: Sarah Smarsh
-
The Sound of Gravel
- A Memoir
- By: Ruth Wariner
- Narrated by: Ruth Wariner
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
-
-
Unputdownable
- By Lesley A. on 01-16-16
By: Ruth Wariner
-
The Glass Castle
- A Memoir
- By: Jeannette Walls
- Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family; she called herself an "excitement addict."
-
-
What's normal?
- By Kmrsy on 11-30-13
By: Jeannette Walls
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Minka Kelly
- Narrated by: Minka Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.
-
-
Had me until the white privileged and cis comments
- By Rachel Gilbert on 06-02-23
By: Minka Kelly
-
Never Simple
- A Memoir
- By: Liz Scheier
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things.
-
-
Fine
- By Rae Rae’s Travels on 03-21-22
By: Liz Scheier
-
The Wonderling
- Wonderling, Book 1
- By: Mira Bartók
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve and suffer. Part animal and part human, the groundlings toil in classroom and factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing and music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name - a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck - it is the only home he has ever known.
-
-
Amazing!
- By scoutbird on 02-16-19
By: Mira Bartók
-
Heartland
- A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
- By: Sarah Smarsh
- Narrated by: Sarah Smarsh
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less.
-
-
My favorite memoir of 2018
- By NMwritergal on 11-25-18
By: Sarah Smarsh
-
The Sound of Gravel
- A Memoir
- By: Ruth Wariner
- Narrated by: Ruth Wariner
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
-
-
Unputdownable
- By Lesley A. on 01-16-16
By: Ruth Wariner
-
The Glass Castle
- A Memoir
- By: Jeannette Walls
- Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family; she called herself an "excitement addict."
-
-
What's normal?
- By Kmrsy on 11-30-13
By: Jeannette Walls
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Minka Kelly
- Narrated by: Minka Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.
-
-
Had me until the white privileged and cis comments
- By Rachel Gilbert on 06-02-23
By: Minka Kelly
-
Never Simple
- A Memoir
- By: Liz Scheier
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things.
-
-
Fine
- By Rae Rae’s Travels on 03-21-22
By: Liz Scheier
-
The Wonderling
- Wonderling, Book 1
- By: Mira Bartók
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve and suffer. Part animal and part human, the groundlings toil in classroom and factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing and music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name - a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck - it is the only home he has ever known.
-
-
Amazing!
- By scoutbird on 02-16-19
By: Mira Bartók
-
Between Two Kingdoms
- A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world”. She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch - first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival.
-
-
This was painful.
- By Meredith Nutrition on 07-31-22
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Everything Is Fine
- A Memoir
- By: Vince Granata
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vince Granata remembers standing in front of his suburban home in Connecticut the day his mother and father returned from the hospital with his three new siblings in tow. He had just finished scrawling their names in orange chalk on the driveway: Christopher, Timothy, and Elizabeth. Twenty-three years later, Vince was a thousand miles away when he received the news that would change his life - his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home.
-
-
Brutal and Beautiful
- By 3dogknits on 07-14-21
By: Vince Granata
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Unquiet
- A Novel
- By: Linn Ullmann
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A heartbreaking and darkly funny depiction of the intricacies of family, Unquiet is an elegy of memory and loss, identity and art, growing up and growing old. Linn Ullmann nimbly blends memoir and fiction in her most inventive novel yet, weaving a luminous meditation on language, mourning, and the many narratives that make up a life.
-
-
Marvelous
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 02-03-19
By: Linn Ullmann
-
The Liars' Club
- A Memoir
- By: Mary Karr
- Narrated by: Mary Karr
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all.
-
-
Awful narration
- By JG, Shreveport, LA on 12-10-23
By: Mary Karr
-
North of Normal
- A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea's family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren't trying to build a new society - they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea's grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.
-
-
Entertaining but Frustrating
- By Nikki on 09-01-21
-
Memorial Drive
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Natasha Trethewey
- Narrated by: Natasha Trethewey
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At age 19, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma and now explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became. With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores this profound experience of pain, loss, and grief.
-
-
poetic
- By Amazon Customer on 08-03-20
-
A Manual for Cleaning Women
- Selected Stories
- By: Lucia Berlin
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Dawn Harvey, Carol Monda, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers, and bad Christians.
-
-
Exquisite writing, lopsided performances
- By Sazafrass on 03-02-16
By: Lucia Berlin
-
The Years
- By: Annie Ernaux
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Elin VanD on 05-10-20
By: Annie Ernaux
-
The Escape Artist
- By: Helen Fremont
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and George Hodgman’s Bettyville, Fremont writes with wit and candor about growing up in a household held together by a powerful glue: secrets. Her parents, profoundly affected by their memories of the Holocaust, pass on, to both Helen and her older sister a zealous determination to protect themselves from what they see as danger from the outside world.
-
-
The Ties that Bind...Survival of the Misfits.
- By Elisa R. Goodman on 06-18-20
By: Helen Fremont
-
Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust
- My Friendship with Patsy Cline
- By: Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton - foreword
- Narrated by: Patsy Lynn Russell
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Loretta Lynn and the late Patsy Cline are legends - country icons and sisters of the heart. For the first time ever, Loretta tells their story: a celebration of their music and their relationship up until Patsy's tragic and untimely death. Full of laughter and tears, this eye-opening, heartwarming memoir paints a picture of two stubborn, spirited country gals who'd be damned if they'd let men or convention tell them how to be. Set in the heady streets of the 1960s South, this nostalgia ride shows how Nashville blossomed into the city of music it is today.
-
-
Awesome!
- By Anonymous User on 04-10-20
By: Loretta Lynn, and others
Editorial reviews
Mira Bartok explores the ideas of survival, family, truth, and forgiveness in the haunting literary memoir of a woman reconstructing her past and examining her relationship with her paranoid schizophrenic mother.
Hillary Huber brings lyricism and good pacing to the book. This super prolific narrator performs a wide variety of books, including the vampire series The Midnight Breed and several mysteries. Huber nails the mother’s voice and underscores the compassion and love that Bartok had for her talented and loving mother, who was ravaged by mental illness.
Bartok, an artist and children’s book author, began The Memory Palace after a car accident impaired both her long-term and short-term memory. She writes with an artist’s eye, creating keen visuals. The narrative gets bogged down in places, but the story is always made interesting by the weaving together of excerpts from Bartok’s mother’s letters and journals, her own artwork and travel experiences, and conversations with her sister. Bartok describes the secrets she kept as a child of a paranoid schizophrenic and what she gained and lost from living with her talented, loving, and very ill mother. Eventually, her mother became so violent and disruptive to her life that Bartok made the excruciating decision to change her name and not allow her mother to know where she lived. This act of self-preservation colored the next 17 years of her life. As Bartok makes her way in the world, her mother’s absence looms large, even in the far-flung places she travels, from Israel to the Norwegian Arctic.
With the success of Angela’s Ashes and The Glass Castle, memoirs of painful childhoods have become very popular. The Memory Palace distinguishes itself by its richness peppered with art, music, and cultural explorations. Strong writing by Bartok and a thoughtful performance by Huber combine for a fine listen, particularly for memoir fans, literary fiction followers, and those with an interest in mental illness. Julie MacDonald
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
-
-
THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
Above Us Only Sky
- By: Michele Young-Stone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prudence Eleanor Vilkas was born with a pair of wings molded to her back. Considered a birth defect, her wings were surgically removed, leaving only the ghost of them behind. Growing up in Los Vientos, Florida, Prudence meets her long-estranged Lithuanian grandfather and discovers a miraculous lineage beating and pulsing with past Lithuanian bird-women.
-
-
I'm So Glad I Listened to It!
- By Elizabeth on 08-22-16
-
Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
-
-
Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
-
Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
-
-
Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
-
The Great Spring
- Writing, Zen, and This ZigZag Life
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it take to have a long writing life? Drawing on her years of writing, teaching, and practicing Zen, Natalie Goldberg shares the experiences that have opened her to new ways of being alive - experiences that point the way forward in our lives and our writing. The "great spring" of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again - the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example.
-
-
An enjoyable insight
- By Leigh A on 05-22-23
By: Natalie Goldberg
-
Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
-
-
THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
Above Us Only Sky
- By: Michele Young-Stone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prudence Eleanor Vilkas was born with a pair of wings molded to her back. Considered a birth defect, her wings were surgically removed, leaving only the ghost of them behind. Growing up in Los Vientos, Florida, Prudence meets her long-estranged Lithuanian grandfather and discovers a miraculous lineage beating and pulsing with past Lithuanian bird-women.
-
-
I'm So Glad I Listened to It!
- By Elizabeth on 08-22-16
-
Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
-
-
Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
-
Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
-
-
Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
-
The Great Spring
- Writing, Zen, and This ZigZag Life
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it take to have a long writing life? Drawing on her years of writing, teaching, and practicing Zen, Natalie Goldberg shares the experiences that have opened her to new ways of being alive - experiences that point the way forward in our lives and our writing. The "great spring" of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again - the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example.
-
-
An enjoyable insight
- By Leigh A on 05-22-23
By: Natalie Goldberg
-
A Three Dog Life: A Memoir
- By: Abigail Thomas
- Narrated by: Abigail Thomas
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude.
-
-
Eloquent & Honest
- By Sara on 09-30-15
By: Abigail Thomas
-
All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
-
-
Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
-
Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
-
-
Terrible narration--read, don't listen
- By Penelope on 08-06-17
-
After Visiting Friends
- A Son's Story
- By: Michael Hainey
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone.
-
-
Son's Search for Father Brings on Self-knowledge
- By sheila kehoe on 08-15-13
By: Michael Hainey
-
Habibi
- By: Naomi Shihab Nye
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, life in St. Louis, Missouri is perfect. She loves shopping in the nearby stores and walking down streets where she knows everyone. Even better, she has just had her first kiss. But her father is moving the family to Jerusalem - the land where he was born. Suddenly Liyana finds herself a stranger in a threatening world.
-
-
Very good Performance
- By Muhammad on 04-07-15
By: Naomi Shihab Nye
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
The Probable Future
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window to the future - a future that she might not want to see.
-
-
Nice, gentle story for when you feel bad.
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-17
By: Alice Hoffman
-
Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
-
-
Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Without a Map
- A Memoir
- By: Meredith Hall
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood.
-
-
Not Your Average "16 and Pregnant"
- By Susie on 12-11-12
By: Meredith Hall
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Grief Cottage
- By: Gail Godwin
- Narrated by: Jacob York
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The haunting tale of a desolate cottage, and the hair-thin junction between this life and the next, from best-selling National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin. After his mother's death, 11-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there 30 years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life.
-
-
Character story or ghost story ?
- By RueRue on 12-18-17
By: Gail Godwin
What listeners say about The Memory Palace
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Pamela Harvey
- 01-15-11
Eat Pray Love plus schizophrenia
I wanted to like this book more, but it was difficult. It's almost as if writing as an art form is the wrong medium for a "memory palace". A visual expression would be more suited - perhaps a construction or installation of some kind. Bartok's emphasis, bordering on obsession, with objects and their description, became tiresome after a while, and I kept wanting to get back to what I thought was the real story - the untreated schizophrenic mother and her two daughters and how they dealt with this situation.
It's a sad commentary, though, on the dilemma centering on mental illness and how our institutions treat those afflicted. There is such a taboo on involuntary hospitalization, and perhaps that is as it should be. No official authority should take away a person's liberty, even if that person is ill. The only constraints are if that person becomes a danger to oneself and/or others. But many who could benefit from treatment never admit they are ill, nor do they receive any treatment, and continue to make life a living hell for their families.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Linda
- 11-18-12
Maybe one to read rather than listen...
What would have made The Memory Palace better?
This title would have been better with a different narrator. The reader was so overly dramatic that i could not even finish the title.
Would you be willing to try another book from Mira Bartok? Why or why not?
Yes! I am curious how this book progresses, but after 4 hours of the narrator I gave up on it. The story was great, I'd like to finish the book...heading to the library.
What didn’t you like about Hillary Huber’s performance?
The performance seemed like a bad acting extra on law & order or a drama student who, at first, over acts. She was also very slow!
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Anger! I just wanted the narrator to read the story! A little inflection and character is ok, but this was too over the top.
Any additional comments?
I suggest a sample listen before purchasing. I will be doing this from now on!!
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
- C Douglas
- 01-11-23
Missing something for me.
I grew up similarly, and while we're not all the same, I felt this story was missing something. I'll leave it at that.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 10-16-18
Written by the parasitic antagonist
Can't imagine abandoning anyone, let alone a family member, like the girls did for 17 years. Myra seems like an intense narcissist, who puts her own creative interests above all else .I'm glad Myra's exploitation of the situation made her so much money.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mishka Haznor
- 05-09-12
A little less than expected
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
After hearing rave reviews on NPR, I was excited to have a chance to read this book. It didn't feel as personal and as unique of a look into the mind of a schizophrenic and or individual highly influenced by being brought up by one as I anticipated. Although, Mira did go into detail about many experiences she had with her mother, I still felt like I needed to hear more in order to have a well rounded view of their relationship and the disease. I am not sure what else to say, other than it felt like she was holding back, and I gathered/felt how disconnected she was from her mother more than anything else.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- amanda
- 03-28-11
Awful book
This book starts off with the author saying that she was in an accident which made her lose her memory. I'm thinking, how was she able to remember things to put into this book? Right away the credibility was lost. The book was boring and never took direction to a story. The reader was good though. She was the only thing that kept me listening for as long as I did. I ended up only getting to chpt. 5 and then just downloaded another one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- tlc
- 03-05-14
Could not finish
What was most disappointing about Mira Bartok’s story?
The story was random ramblings of a woman's memories of her childhood, scattered with ramblings from her mentally ill mother's journal, with bits and pieces of current time fit in. I could not get into the story even after listening for 2 hours.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
The book jacket makes it sound like an interesting story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful