The Wasted Vigil
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Narrated by:
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Basil Sands
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By:
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Nadeem Aslam
About this listen
Five disparate lives come together at the intersection of decades of invasion, occupation, and violence. There's Marcus, an English expat who was married to an outspoken Afghani doctor--she was murdered by the Taliban--and opens his home to the others, the house itself a strange and beautiful monument to the inconceivable losses his family suffered...
David, an American, formerly a spy, who has seen the Afghanis through the invasion of the Russians, the domination of the Taliban, and, now, the incursion of the Americans, and who has seen his own ideas of purpose and reason turned inside out... Lara, from St. Petersburg, looking for evidence of her brother, a Russian soldier who disappeared years before... Casa, a young Afghani whose hatred of the Americans has plunged him into the blinding depths of zealotry... and James, an American soldier in the Special Forces in whom David sees a dangerous revival of the unquestioning notions of right and wrong that he himself once held. In mesmerizing, unexpectedly expressive prose, Aslam reveals the intertwining paths that these characters have traveled, and the complex ties--of love and desperation, pain and salvation, madness and clarity--that bind them. Through their stories emerges a portrait both timely and timeless, broadly drawn and achingly intimate, of the "continuation of wars" that has shaped, and continues to shape, our world. In its combination of radiant language, hypnotic imagery, and unflinching drama, The Wasted Vigil is a luminous work of fiction.
©2008 Nadeem Aslam (P)2011 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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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 Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
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Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
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The Tenth Chamber
- By: Glenn Cooper
- Narrated by: Henri Lubatti
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Abbey of Ruac, rural France: A medieval script is discovered hidden behind an antique bookcase. Badly damaged, it is sent to Paris for restoration, and there literary historian Hugo Pineau begins to read the startling 14th-century text. Within its pages lies a fanciful tale of a painted cave and the secrets it contains - and a rudimentary map showing its position close to the abbey. Intrigued, Hugo enlists the help of archaeologist Luc Simard and the two men go exploring.
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Leaves Dan Brown's "INFERNO" in the Dust
- By karinzart on 07-06-13
By: Glenn Cooper
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Green City in the Sun
- By: Barbara Wood
- Narrated by: Edie Tusor
- Length: 27 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1917 Dr. Grace Treverton arrives in Kenya determined to bring modern medicine to the African natives. Her brother, Sir Valentine Treverton, has his own dream for the British protectorate: to establish an agricultural empire to rival any in England. The aspirations of the wealthy Trevertons collide with those of the Mathenge tribe, an African family that has lived on the land for years. Grace soon finds a deadly rival in Mama Wachera, an African medicine woman who fights to maintain native traditions against the encroaching whites.
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Beautifully written
- By nancy wanty on 12-18-23
By: Barbara Wood
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The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
- A Novel
- By: Jan-Philipp Sendker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be - until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the listener’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
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Basic Story Interesting, But...
- By Monica on 06-04-13
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Birds Without Wings
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds Without Wings is the story of a small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the men and women (Armenians, Christians, and Muslims) whose lives are intertwined and rooted there: Iskander, the potter and local fount of wisdom; Philotei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherd, a great love that culminates in tragedy and madness; and many more.
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Not for the faint of heart
- By a on 01-03-05
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The Last King of Scotland
- By: Giles Foden
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his Maserati, has hit a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, obsessed with all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. So begins a fateful dalliance with the African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror.
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Worst Production Ever
- By James on 01-24-07
By: Giles Foden
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The Hundred-Year Walk
- An Armenian Odyssey
- By: Dawn Anahid MacKeen
- Narrated by: Neil Shah, Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope.
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Everything a memoir should be. You will enjoy it!
- By Jakk on 02-19-18
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Midnight's Children
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Lyndam Gregory
- Length: 24 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.
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Outstanding book, superb narration
- By MarcS on 06-09-09
By: Salman Rushdie
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The Burning Sky
- The Elemental Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Sherry Thomas
- Narrated by: Philip Battley
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Iolanthe Seabourne is the greatest elemental mage of her generation - or so she's been told. The one prophesied for years to be the savior of the Realm. It is her duty and destiny to face and defeat the Bane, the most powerful tyrant and mage the world has ever known. This would be a suicide task for anyone, let alone a reluctant 16-year-old girl with no training.
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The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas Audiobook
- By Anya on 11-11-14
By: Sherry Thomas
What listeners say about The Wasted Vigil
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Audrey
- 05-02-14
Poor reader marred the story.
What disappointed you about The Wasted Vigil?
I found the story very over-drawn and anti-Moslem. Predictable and overly-violent.
If you’ve listened to books by Nadeem Aslam before, how does this one compare?
I thought the reader was poor. The voices he employed when the characters spoke were inconsistent and caricatures. Nearly offensive.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
There was some lovely writing along the way and many interesting details about Afghan life. I took them as true though I don't know if they are.
Any additional comments?
I will never buy an audiobook read by Basil Sands.
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- Paul
- 03-19-18
Despicable, The Audible Equivalent of a Snuff Film
What would have made The Wasted Vigil better?
An editor who would have checked Aslam's perverted love of the violent. Aslam can write a beautiful sentence but he did so in service to a book that is nothing more than torture pornography.
What was most disappointing about Nadeem Aslam’s story?
The slim story--and it was slim--is buried under an avalanche of disgusting violence and repetitive religious zealotry that didn't advance the story at all. The love story aspect of the book was utterly uncompelling. Also, the transitions between locations and time periods were clumsy.
What aspect of Basil Sands’s performance would you have changed?
He's a good performer with the glaring exception of his interpretation of a Russian woman. Lara sounded like a Natasha reject from Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. His accent really took me out of the story, though, given how much I loathed this book, maybe that was a good thing.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Wasted Vigil?
There were so many, many egregiously violent scenes that added nothing to the story. What was a tale of slaughter from the US Revolutionary War doing there? It's as if the author had a check-list of every wartime atrocity ever committed and was determined to shoe-horn them in even if, as they usually did, added nothing to the story.
Any additional comments?
I listened to this book for my book club, which I very much enjoy. If I were reading this on my own, I would have stopped very early on. I cannot remember ever reading a more loathsome book.
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1 person found this helpful