The Spinning Heart
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Wayne Farrell
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By:
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Donal Ryan
About this listen
Winner - The Guardian First Book Award
Winner of two Irish Book Awards - Newcomer of The Year and Book of The Year
Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.
The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.
Donal Ryan's brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in fiction.
©2012 Donal Ryan (P)2013 Steerforth Press LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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- By Jane Meddaugh on 12-19-20
By: Jean Grainger
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Violated: A shocking and harrowing survival story from the notorious Rotherham abuse scandal
- By: Sarah Wilson
- Narrated by: Chloe Massey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The shocking first true account from one of the young girls who lived through and survived the Rotherham sex abuse scandal. In the summer of 2014, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal sent shockwaves through the nation. A report revealed that since the 1990s, up to 1,400 young girls in the town had been regularly abused by sex gangs, predominantly comprised of Pakistani men.
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Horror Story and shocking to think this happened in modern day Britain.
- By Darkangel on 08-13-15
By: Sarah Wilson
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Disappearing Act
- A Host of Other Characters in 16 Short Stories
- By: Robert Sheehan
- Narrated by: Robert Sheehan
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles. Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters’ streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.
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as strange as he is
- By DEKEY on 04-08-24
By: Robert Sheehan
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Brand New Ancients
- By: Kae Tempest
- Narrated by: Kae Tempest
- Length: 1 hr and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Kae Tempest is one of the most exciting and innovative performers to have emerged in spoken-word poetry in many years; her dramatic poem "Brand New Ancients" won the prestigious Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Tempest's wholly unique blend of street poetry, rap, and storytelling - combined with the spellbinding delivery of an open-air revivalist - has won her legions of followers all over the UK. Her remarkable stage presence is wholly audible in this poem, a spoken story written to be told with live music.
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An extraordinary experience
- By James on 04-02-15
By: Kae Tempest
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The Bone Clocks
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
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Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
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Six Stories
- By: Matt Wesolowski
- Narrated by: Tim Bruce, Helen Johns, Leighton Pugh, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.
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Need to fix audio.
- By Mark D on 02-21-21
By: Matt Wesolowski
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The Wicked Girls
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two 11-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside vacation town when her investigation leads her to interview carnival cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it's the first time they've seen each other since that dark day so many years ago.
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I didn't want to like these girls...
- By Lesley on 08-30-13
By: Alex Marwood
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Jar City
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason’s novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets.
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Cerebral Police Procedural
- By Aaron on 09-14-13
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Bone
- By: Yrsa Daley-Ward, Kiese Laymon - foreword
- Narrated by: Yrsa Daley-Ward, Kiese Laymon
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society’s expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward’s bone resonates to the core of what it means to be human.
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Visceral,blood hot, thrilling poetry-prose
- By Pam on 12-28-22
By: Yrsa Daley-Ward, and others
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An Ordinary Wonder
- By: Buki Papillon
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Oto leaves for boarding school with one plan: Excel and escape his cruel home. Falling in love with his roommate was certainly not on the agenda, but fear and shame force him to hide his love and true self. Back home, weighed down by the expectations of their wealthy and powerful family, the love of Oto's twin sister wavers, and, as their world begins to crumble around them, Oto must make drastic choices that will alter the family's lives for ever.
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Intriguing
- By Mary P Browne on 09-20-21
By: Buki Papillon
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The Guards
- By: Ken Bruen
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Still stinging from his unceremonious ouster from the Garda Siochana, and staring at the world through the smoky bottom of his beer mug, Jack Taylor is stuck in Galway with nothing to look forward to. He is teetering on the brink of his life's sharpest edges, his memories of the past cutting deep into his soul and his prospects for the future non-existent.
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This is literature, not just crime fiction
- By John on 08-09-13
By: Ken Bruen
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Wonderful Wonderful - In Every Way
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What listeners say about The Spinning Heart
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Eleanor lusignan
- 01-17-22
Great talent
I thought the writing was excellent !
The narration was also excellent !
The story was good but depressing. I look forward to
reading his next book.
El
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- Anonymous User
- 10-03-22
Excellent
best book I've read in years. wonderful. I'm reading everything offered by Ryan. Good day, Sir
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- 22Wonderful
- 08-23-18
Brutal clarity
With a clear voice Donal Ryan weaves a painfully vivid narrative. Well done, expertly performed.
Its as if he’s describing family and neighbors, people he knows well, such is the authenticity. It may be fiction, but shite man - feels all too real.
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- Edward S Bancroft
- 10-17-16
Dark complex story of a recession ridden Irish town
I can't say I enjoyed the book and often I was confused about who was speaking, but this interwoven tale is a powerful and sad depiction of the weight of family and community.
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- Kathryn
- 10-13-15
Utterly, heartbreakingly brilliant
I was moved to tears half the time when I was reading this book. Listening to it was an even more shattering experience. It couldn't have been more perfectly narrated. Bravo.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jonathan
- 09-17-16
A surprising book that builds like the tide
What did you love best about The Spinning Heart?
Each character is profiled and it builds into a mosaic that gradually becomes clear
What does Wayne Farrell bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The narration perfectly complements the story, which is quite complex yet made simple by the narration.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The end came too soon
Any additional comments?
Terrific book, if this is a first novel we can expect great things in the future.
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1 person found this helpful
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- LilMissMolly
- 07-05-14
Mesmerizing Irish Brogue
Any additional comments?
The Spinning Heart is an excellent collection of 21 stories surrounding the collapse of the Irish economy in County Tipperary. The main character is Bobby Mahon, a young married man who is upset after getting laid off of work at a construction company. He especially feels cheated by his boss, Pokey Burke, because he and all other laid off employees lost their pensions.
Each chapter is a different resident providing commentary on recent events in the town, their neighbors, their businesses, the collapse of Burke’s company, the disappearance of a small child from daycare, and Mahon’s arrest for the murder of his father.
Wayne Farrell's narration is outstanding. He has 21 distinct voices, one for each of the residents of Tipperary. I was fully immersed in Farrell’s narration that I felt like I was listening to 21 different voice actors. Simply put, Farrell’s Irish brogue is mesmerizing!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jennifer W. Weyler
- 11-19-16
Tremendous story and narration
This is a gripping story of an Irish community during the post 2008 recession/depression. The story is told from the perspective of all different narrators in the community. Every chapter reveals something new about both the plot and the other characters. Each narrator gets only one chapter. The result is a tightly fit puzzle of brilliant description and exposition. I ended the book wanting to go back and re-listen all over again. The narrator is top notch, using varied voices to pull you into each character's story. The plot is perfectly played out and the narrator makes it perfect.
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- BB
- 01-16-19
My new favorite book!
I was hesitant to read this because the only Irish writers I’ve read (all amazing) were so depressing! But my book club chose this and so I did - WOW! I was blown away! Not that it’s a happy, uplifting book (there’s plenty of sadness and despair!) but there’s so much MORE than that. In addition, the choice to structure this around multiple viewpoints (no repeat narrators) was brilliant and it didn’t matter at all if you were able to keep track of relationships between characters (author did an amazing job w that). I did find a “prezi” diagram on line that visualizes it though.
The language was fantastic - it’s like poetry !
It’s the first book that I’ve ever read where I want to listen to it immediately again after finishing.
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- G. Courtney
- 01-18-16
Disappointed
I really wanted to like this book. The dialogue was great and I loved all of the old Irish expressions. There were too many characters to follow, so I had to create a chart to show the connections. Then the story abruptly ended.
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