The Telling Room
A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese
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Narrated by:
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L.J. Ganser
About this listen
Audie Award Finalist, Non-Fiction, 2014
In the picturesque village of Guzmán, Spain, in a cave dug into a hillside on the edge of town, an ancient door leads to a cramped limestone chamber known as "the telling room". Containing nothing but a wooden table and two benches, this is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets - usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine.
It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a larger-than-life Spanish cheesemaker named Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras as he spun an odd and compelling tale about a piece of cheese. An unusual piece of cheese. Made from an old family recipe, Ambrosio’s cheese was reputed to be among the finest in the world, and was said to hold mystical qualities. Eating it, some claimed, conjured long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong.... By the time the two men exited the telling room that evening, Paterniti was hooked. Soon he was fully embroiled in village life, relocating his young family to Guzmán in order to chase the truth about this cheese and explore the fairy tale-like place where the villagers conversed with farm animals, lived by an ancient Castilian code of honor, and made their wine and food by hand, from the grapes growing on a nearby hill and the flocks of sheep floating over the Meseta.
What Paterniti ultimately discovers there in the highlands of Castile is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he first imagined. Instead, he’s sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery, a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village begins to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti finds himself implicated in the very story he is writing.
Equal parts mystery and memoir, travelogue and history, The Telling Room is an astonishing work of literary nonfiction by one of our most accomplished storytellers.
A moving exploration of happiness, friendship, and betrayal, The Telling Room introduces us to Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras, an unforgettable real-life literary hero, while also holding a mirror up to the world, fully alive to the power of stories that define and sustain us.
©2013 Michael Paterniti (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Black Dog of Fate
- A Memoir
- By: Peter Balakian
- Narrated by: Peter Balakian
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia. He was immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced: the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians.
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Great book!
- By Lm on 06-27-13
By: Peter Balakian
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The Eight
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Neville
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 25 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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New York City, 1972: A dabbler in mathematics and chess, Catherine Velis is also a computer expert for a Big Eight accounting firm. Before heading off to a new assignment in Algeria, Cat has her palm read by a fortune-teller. The woman warns Cat of danger. Then an antiques dealer approaches Cat with a mysterious offer: He has an anonymous client who is trying to collect the pieces of an ancient chess service, purported to be in Algeria. If Cat can bring the pieces back, there will be a generous reward.
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Best Plot-Driven Novel I've Ever Read
- By Tango on 09-08-13
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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
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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.
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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The Winemaker
- By: Noah Gordon
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of The Physician and Shaman now comes this story of a young man - the grapes he grows, the wine he fashions, the women he loves, and his struggle against an evil that seeks to destroy him. Josep Alvarez is a young man in the tiny grape-growing village of Santa Eulália, in Northern Spain, where his father grows black grapes that are turned into cheap vinegar. In Madrid, an assassination plot creates a storm of intrigue that sucks into its vortex a group of innocent young farm workers in Santa Eulália.
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Inspiring, true to life
- By Cody W. on 12-18-20
By: Noah Gordon
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Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
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Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
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Letters from Paris
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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After surviving the accident that took her mother's life, Claire Broussard worked hard to escape her small Louisiana hometown. But these days, she feels something lacking. Abruptly leaving her lucrative job in Chicago, Claire returns home to care for her ailing grandmother. There, she unearths a beautiful sculpture that her great-grandfather sent home from Paris after World War II. At her grandmother's urging, Claire travels to Paris to track down the centuries old mask-making atelier where the sculpture was created.
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love story, a mystery, a historical novel, or all
- By Bonnie on 11-15-16
By: Juliet Blackwell
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Street Without a Name
- Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
- By: Kapka Kassabova
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and grew up under the drab, muddy, gray mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
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Good start, but ended up not liking the author
- By Giselle on 11-02-21
By: Kapka Kassabova
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Remember Us
- My Journey from the Shtetl Through the Holocaust
- By: Vic Shayne, Martin Small
- Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Remember Us is a look back at the lost world of the shtetl: a wise Zayde offering prophetic and profound words to his grandson, the rich experience of Shabbos, and the treasure of a loving family. All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. Through the eyes of 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.
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A Tragic and Rich Life, With Lessons For All
- By still reading on 03-17-16
By: Vic Shayne, and others
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The Winemaker's Daughter
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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When Brunella Cartolano visits her father on the family vineyard in the basin of the Cascade Mountains, she's shocked by the devastation caused by a four-year drought. Passionate about the Pacific Northwest ecology, Brunella, a cultural impact analyst, is embroiled in a battle to save the Seattle waterfront from redevelopment and to preserve a fisherman's livelihood. But when a tragedy among fire-jumpers results from a failure of the water supply - her brother Niccolo is among those lost - Brunella finds herself with another mission.
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Obviously Not Read By A Washington Resident
- By John C Schuyler on 04-24-19
By: Timothy Egan
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The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
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Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
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Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
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Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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Freddy and Fredericka
- By: Mark Helprin
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 25 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling, critically acclaimed author Mark Helprin's work has drawn favorable comparisons to an elite group of literary legends, including James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, and Thomas Mann. Helprin's sheer comic brilliance shines in this ingenious farce.
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Can't rate it high enough (and I'm a tough grader)
- By Annette on 09-06-05
By: Mark Helprin
What listeners say about The Telling Room
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-27-15
Digressions on top of digressions on top of....
I thought this book would never end! The author was very unfocused and rambled on and on. His digressions were endless. For example, while telling of the cheesemaker and how he ended up driving a truck, he somehow got onto the history of Pringles potato chips, which was more then I ever wanted to know, on to some German man, etc. Wait, wasn't this a book about a cheese? He constantly deviated into his tales of woe writing the book and communications from his agent and publisher and excuses as to why he hadn't been able to finish the book. To make it even worse, he was totally unable to maintain a professional distance from his subject. OK, the book did contain some interesting historical information, but it was lost in all the digressions.
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- Ioana
- 10-08-19
Great story
But very poor performance. It's a pity to spoil such a vibrant story with an act that does not have any relation with the spirit of the story, the flow or of the tradition. Audible consider the re-recording of the book...
And while listening, have some cheese to eat around, you will not resist:)
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- Ruth
- 09-16-14
Starts out great but loses it along the way
I really wanted to love this book. Loyalty, family, history, cheese. Fantastic, right?
Unfortunately, the author gets hopelessly bogged down in his story, and this book (which is WAAAY too long), turns into a book about an author getting bogged down by a book he can't finish writing.
When "the end" finally came, I really had no idea why, and found myself saying, "Really?"
I've said the book is too long, and I mean that. Much of the repeated descriptions of the towns and the land and the (extensive) history of Spain seemed like filler, or maybe something to keep the author's mind working while he tried to figure out what his content should be.
I don't NOT recommend this book, but I don't really recommend it either. The story of the cheese is pretty compelling. I'm just not sure it's worth listening this many hours to get it.
A word on the performance: L.J. Ganser read with enthusiasm, but his over-enunciation of every single word (not just the Spanish) was grating and incredibly distracting.
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- KB
- 10-16-13
A little too long but good nevertheless
Is there anything you would change about this book?
First time I've found the reader to detract. Too much artifice/contrived in words chosen.
What did you like best about this story?
Humor, learned a lot about Spain, history of Spain and world incorporated in to story,
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of L.J. Ganser?
ANYONE.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
No.
Any additional comments?
Too long - not enough pace in story. Too much digression and redundant.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Paula Evans
- 11-11-21
Culture of Spain
Loved it. Hard to get going but then you get sucked in and mesmerized. It's not about cheese really, bit then it is. It is about family and Spanish culture and wine making and drinking and campadrees and love and friendship.
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- benefit
- 11-16-14
Unbearable narration.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
No. The narration made it impossible for me to stick with this book. The reader was over the top and stilted--cringe-worthy. He mispronounced a number of words and was just wrong for the book. Maybe he'd be good with self-help books, but not literature.
What did you like best about this story?
Terrific story and well written.
How could the performance have been better?
The narrator read this as though he was reading a storybook to children. His delivery was just too emotive...I tried to block it out so I could hear the words, but it was too much for me. I want to point out, however, that many Audiobook readers appeared to like the narration, so it just may be a style that doesn't work for me. I like a flatter, quieter reading so that I am hearing the words, not the narrator's PERFORMANCE of them. This narrator was like a very bad actor in a high school play...again, that's how it came off to me. Best to listen to a clip first.
Was The Telling Room worth the listening time?
Not sure. Depends on whether you can accept the narrator's style. Would recommend reading the print version, though. I think it's probably a wonderful book.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Roro
- 12-12-20
Narrative
I had to stop listening because the narrative was too boring. I listen while I drive and was falling asleep. The story really interests me but I couldn’t get beyond the narrative.
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- Anthro Prof
- 11-20-16
Overly long and meandering.
Would you try another book from Michael Paterniti and/or L.J. Ganser?
Probably not
If you’ve listened to books by Michael Paterniti before, how does this one compare?
n/a
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
Mostly OK narrator, but he consistently butchered the pronunciation of several Spanish words. That was a serious problem throughout and could have been corrected since the words were fairly common and not difficult.
Was The Telling Room worth the listening time?
Moderately so.
Any additional comments?
The story line of Ambrosio and the Spanish village is reasonably interesting, although the angle of an overworked American discovering a link to a simpler time through Ambrosio is a bit simplistic. A bigger problem is the meandering nature of the digressions, including too many details about the author's own writing of the book. That part is frankly much less interesting and the book would have been better at about 2/3 of its present length. At times the writing style is too self consciously clever and that detracts from the overall flow. The message that each person's own story constitutes a unique distortion of reality is not surprising and a bit predictable.
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- Heidi
- 09-27-13
So Boring
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
No. There is no story
Has The Telling Room turned you off from other books in this genre?
no
How did the narrator detract from the book?
no
Could you see The Telling Room being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
no
Any additional comments?
It just went on and on. Couldn't wait for it to be over
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1 person found this helpful
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- Cello
- 03-23-19
awfully long winded ...
and not much point to it. At times lyrical, then boring. I struggled to finish it. If it hadn't been a book club group read, I would have stopped about 1/3 in. The author probably thinks he is enticing us all to move to Catalan. It sounded unbearably grim. All those fueds and grudges! The story-telling elements were interesting.
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