
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Traci Kato-Kiriyama
About this listen
The international best-selling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami
When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart, and when grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain.
Then, one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around.
Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of her mother’s death.
Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is the signpost pointing to the healing that can come after.
* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF of reading group questions and a glossary from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Laura Imai Messina (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The Lovely Bones: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! * Once in a generation comes an audiobook that taps a vein of universal human experience, resonating with listeners of all ages. The Lovely Bones is such an audiobook - a number one best seller celebrated at once for its artistry, for its luminous clarity of emotion, and for its astonishing power to lay claim to the hearts of millions of fans around the world.
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If you need a good cry, read this book
- By Alex AO on 02-25-19
By: Alice Sebold
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The Nakano Thrift Shop
- A Novel
- By: Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell - translator
- Narrated by: Alexandra Bailey
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers that handle them. But like those same customers and staff, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagancies, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart.
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Entire book is a dialogue of he said she said
- By mz on 01-03-19
By: Hiromi Kawakami, and others
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book Set
- By: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Narrated by: Arina Ii, Kevin Shen
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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What would you do if you could travel back in time? Discover the internationally bestselling novels of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, now a worldwide phenomenon and BookTok sensation, in this special new book set. Step inside Tokyo’s whimsical Café Funiculi Funicula and travel back in time with a cast of unforgettable characters.
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very profound, lost in translation?
- By Ashlyn C. on 10-06-23
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Strange Weather in Tokyo
- A Novel
- By: Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Tsukiko, 38, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei", in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is 30 years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy, which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
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Cozy Love Story and Leisure Time in Japan
- By mz on 01-02-19
By: Hiromi Kawakami, and others
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The Didomenico Fragment
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: John Lithgow
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Original Recording
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Like many well-to-do Upper East Siders over the age of 65, esteemed art appraiser Percival Skinner had planned to spend his retirement living off his savings. But a market correction has left him living below his prior means. One day he’s visited by a dapper fixer in search of a famous work by a Renaissance master. Skinner knows the work well: The original was owned by his ancestor, and was passed down through his family over the generations. If, as an intermediary, he can coordinate a sale, a small fortune awaits. Problem is, he might not be the only one on the make.
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enchanting
- By Utah Cowgirl on 04-03-21
By: Amor Towles
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Telephone
- A Novel
- By: Percival Everett
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. Expert in a very narrow area—the geological history of a cave forty-four meters above the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon—he is a laconic man who plays chess with his daughter, trades puns with his wife while she does yoga, and dodges committee work at the college where he teaches. After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world crumbling.
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Unresolved
- By Amazon Customer on 04-22-25
By: Percival Everett
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The Midnight Library
- A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
- By: Matt Haig
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? In The Midnight Library, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision.
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Exceptional.
- By Richard B. on 10-05-20
By: Matt Haig
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The Memory Police
- A Novel
- By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder - translator
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses - until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards.
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A Calm, Quiet Dystopian
- By Booky Nooky on 12-13-19
By: Yoko Ogawa, and others
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The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
- By: Gail Tsukiyama
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan, 1939. On the Street of a Thousand Blossoms in Tokyo, two orphaned brothers are growing up with loving grandparents who inspire them to dream of a future firmly rooted in tradition. The older boy, Hiroshi, shows early signs of promise in sumo wrestling, while Kenji is fascinated by the art of creating exquisite masks for actors in the Noh theater. But as the ripples of war spread all the way to their quiet neighborhood, the brothers must put their dreams on hold - and then forge their own paths in a new Japan.
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Great Audio Book
- By Victor on 09-22-07
By: Gail Tsukiyama
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Heaven
- A Novel
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Scott Keiji Takeda
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami’s novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters.
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Great listen
- By Anthony on 07-30-21
By: Mieko Kawakami
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Life Ceremony
- Stories
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi, Nancy Wu, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.
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read if ur autistic
- By Anonymous User on 05-07-25
By: Sayaka Murata
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Breasts and Eggs
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Breasts & Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own. It tells the story of three women: the 30-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent.
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Masterful Writing and Performance
- By Noelle on 03-01-21
By: Mieko Kawakami
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What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
- A Novel
- By: Michiko Aoyama
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman, Susan Momoko Hingley, Kenichiro Thomson, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose. In Komachi’s unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams.
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The power of honesty and an open mind
- By ili pika on 09-10-23
By: Michiko Aoyama
Top Notch
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Heart and depth
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A unique presentation of grief
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Thumbs up
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I am recommending this book to friends who can appreciate the journey of life.
A Testament of Resilience following Trauma
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Love never dies
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I really appreciated the way that real life situations, especially traumatic ones were woven into the story and the characters in a believable way. I also very much enjoyed learning about Bell Gardia, the actual location described in the book. The concept of the wind phone is very reassuring to anyone who has suffered from a traumatic loss, or even a traumatic breakdown in communication. Fans of fictionalized history will especially appreciate this work.
The narration performance by Traci Kato-Kiriyama was a distraction for me. The unevenness of the volume and speed of the narration performance caused frustration for me at times. Some of the choices the actor made were odd or not helpful in supporting and expanding the impact of the material. The delivery style was stilted at times and it was also very on target and emotionally engaging at other times.
I would recommend this book to fans of the author, fans of Mitch Albom, and readers who would like to know more about Wind Phones, which are now found all over the world.
Grief is Like the Wind
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For the Tsunami in Your Heart
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You will cry
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Worth a listen
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