-
The Way of Beauty
- Narrated by: Meredith Starkman
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
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Publisher's summary
Hearts and dreams evolve in the shadow of the once-magnificent Penn Station.
Vera Keller, the daughter of German immigrants in turn-of-the-century New York City, finds her life upended when the man she loves becomes engaged to another woman. But Angelo Bellavia has also inadvertently opened up Vera’s life to unexpected possibilities. Angelo’s new wife, Pearl, the wealthy daughter of a clothing manufacturer, has defied her family’s expectations by devoting herself to the suffrage movement. In Pearl, Vera finds an unexpected dear friend…and a stirring new cause of her own. But when Pearl’s selfless work pulls her farther from Angelo and their son, the life Vera craved is suddenly within her reach—if her conscience will allow her to take it.
Her choice will define not only her future but also that of her daughter, Alice.
Vera and Alice—a generation and a world apart—are bound by the same passionate drive to fulfill their dreams. As first mother and then daughter come of age in a city that is changing as rapidly as its skyline, they’ll each discover that love is the only constant.
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Story
From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, seeming to float on champagne bubbles above the mundane cares of the world. But to those who truly knew them, the endless parties were only a distraction from their inner turmoil and from a love that united them with a scorching intensity.
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If you want to read about Zelda and Scott, move on
- By Leahmgordon on 11-14-17
By: Erika Robuck
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When the Moon Is Low
- A Novel
- By: Nadia Hashimi
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Mahmoud’s passion for his wife, Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world implodes when their country is engulfed in war and the Taliban rises to power. Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness.
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Good story. Poor ending
- By Janine on 01-14-22
By: Nadia Hashimi
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Diamond Head
- A Novel
- By: Cecily Wong
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Samantha Chen, Angela Lin, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Told through the eyes of the Leongs' secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning the Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, Diamond Head is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice, and miraculous hope.
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- By Gina on 09-06-15
By: Cecily Wong
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The Mayfair Bookshop
- A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Eliza Knight
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.
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Perfectly Voices, Upliftingly Fun
- By Syd Young on 04-15-22
By: Eliza Knight
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The Magnolia Palace
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, 21-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge
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This isn't my favorite but entertaining
- By Linda on 02-01-22
By: Fiona Davis
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Gold Dust
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
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It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
- By Maria on 12-04-17
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I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
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Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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The Red Address Book
- By: Sofia Lundberg, Alice Menzies - translator
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The global fiction sensation - published in 32 countries around the world: Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny - her American grandniece, and her only relative - give her great joy and remind her of her own youth. In writing down the stories of her colorful past - working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the '30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War - she may help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family....
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narrator was overwrought
- By Janet L. Hamilton on 02-22-19
By: Sofia Lundberg, and others
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The Other Mother
- By: Rachel Harper
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, William DeMeritt
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Jenry Castillo is a musical prodigy, raised by a single mother in Miami, who arrives at Brown University on a scholarship—but also to learn more about his late father, Jasper Patterson, a famous ballet dancer who died tragically when Jenry was two. On his search, he meets his estranged grandfather, Winston Patterson, a legendary professor of African American history and a fixture at the Ivy League school, who explodes his world with one question: Why is Jenry so focused on Jasper, when it was Winston’s daughter, Juliet, who was Jenry’s mother’s lover?
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Very good.
- By Roland Harper on 05-22-22
By: Rachel Harper
What listeners say about The Way of Beauty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Hall Ways
- 05-02-18
Lyrical, dreamy, eye-opening historical romance
Audio book / print combo review. Warning! This book is going to take way longer to read with your ears than indicated. And that’s NOT a problem since what slowed me down was stopping, re-playing, and writing down the numerous quotes that caught my ear. The Way of Beauty is a treasure chest full of memorable lines uttered by characters with whom we want to spend time and know better. Listening to the story unfold makes the reader disappear into the past and into the hearts of the generations of people who live there.
In her first book, The Memory of Us, author Camille Di Maio convinced me that I am, in fact, capable of enjoying reading a romance. Happily, The Way of Beauty seals the deal, but like TMOU, it sets the bar high for all other books to follow. Camille’s books are gloriously literary, and the reader is swept into the passion and love the characters develop for each other. But the romance element is so much more than between people. Di Maio manages to evoke an air of romance with the setting and the times and the history. Readers fall in love with every piece of it, generation after generation.
“It was the one good thing about having little. There was little to lose.”
While there is passion abounding, Di Maio also brings in the less than beautiful truths of the early 20th century. She has done considerable research that highlights the ugliness associated with immigration, workplace safety, extreme poverty, women’s rights, prejudice, sexual harassment, and war – and the government's lack of interest or ability to handle the issues. (Hmm. And we are still dealing with new iterations of these same issues today.) Without being preachy or feeling like a history lesson, the book informs, subtly, and makes the reader think. The historical details are seamlessly woven into the rich tapestry that is The Way of Beauty.
“What was the value of a life of a man when thousands of immigrants were desperate to take his place?”
There is a stark contrast between the privileged and the poor, but glamour is often presented in terms of the sacrifice it took to make that glamour happen. Again, Di Maio makes the reader think about the conveniences we take for granted and, literally, the lives forever altered or lost to provide them to us.
The Way of Beauty is clean (tasteful and classy), and cleanly edited, and the writing is lyrical and even dreamy at times. Dialogues are natural and work to further immerse the reader in the setting. Written in two parts, the story flows smoothly from that of Vera to that of Alice, Vera’s daughter. There is a prologue with one sentence that demands explanation that will begin niggling at the reader as Alice’s story progresses in part two. Audio book listeners miss out on this, but for those who read the book with their eyes, don’t skip the informative Author’s Note for even more tidbits to enrich the story. (And the Acknowledgments. Thank YOU, Camille, for sharing your beautiful stories with us. I am honored.) My only complaint is that I wanted more of everything! The story spans many years, and I hated missing out on any of the delicious details that surely must have happened in the in-betweens. I think a novella just about Vera and Angelo is in order!
The narration, performed by Meredith Starkman, is well-done. I listened at 1.25x speed, which was perfect for me and didn’t alter the vibe of the story. Starkman’s voicing of male characters is especially good, and she handles both the Italian and German accents and pronunciations admirably. Vera and Pearl are perfection. In part two, Alice sounds a bit too modern-teenish rather than how I would imagine a teen in the ‘40s should sound. And Emmett seems creepy instead of mysterious, and I’m not sure he reads that way. Overall, Starkman does a great job of keeping the pace even and there are no glitches or mispronounced words that I noticed. The style and pace of The Way of Beauty translate very well as an audio book.
Thank you to Lone Star Book Blog Tours and the author for providing me the audio book and the eBook in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I give.
MORE LINES THAT CAUGHT MY EAR:
“She might never be able to see the world, but all the world came to her through the tunnels of Penn Station.”
“Why do people change their voices when speaking to someone in sorrow? As if death were played on the left side of the piano while life was played on the right.”
“Being a strong woman didn't mean she couldn't accept assistance, especially when she really did need it.”
“Our wrinkles tell our story, etched out like a road map. That’s the way of beauty. Birth, middle age, decline.”
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Overall
- Kindle Customer
- 05-19-18
Just enough
History, romance and mystery to keep me distracted from the drudgery of my daily work commute.
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- Evelyn Schumacher
- 07-19-18
Historical,.moving
This book covered many years and the changes that took place during those times. It was slow in some areas, but a very good story.
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- diane s. tutterrow
- 05-25-23
Enjoyed the book. The tires with history were good.
The storyline was good, and I appreciated the tie with history. The overall performance of the reader was good as far as I am concerned.
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- Talia
- 02-06-19
I loved this story.
The narrator was okay. Not my favorite, but pretty good. It has moments of classic feminism, which is great!!
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- MarilynB2012
- 06-22-21
Excellent story and performance.
I wish they made this book into a movie. I had to Google what Pen station and New York city looked like in the 20's, 40's, and 60's. This book took me back in history of the hardships that I'm too young to understand. Like I said, excellent book.
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- Rosie
- 06-15-18
Excellent
This book was excellent! All the characters were so well written and the description of the buildings makes you feel as if you are there! Beautifully done!!
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- Ashley T
- 06-21-24
Wow just WOW!
What a story! A must read! This story lacks all cliche and is rich with true-to-life inward reflection in every paragraph. Di Maio is a master at weaving surprise twists throughout without them seeming contrived!
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- NMwritergal
- 06-18-18
Free but a waste of 11 hours
The first part of the book featuring Vera the Martyr should have been half as long--there's only so many ways to describe fluttering hearts, pounding pulses, and all that longing over and over and over. Honestly, at least 50 percent of part one seem to be Vera's thoughts and feelings about the man she loves but can't have, and the repetition was excruciating.
The other 50 percent of part 1 is divided into 25 percent dry history lesson (told to us as if it were a text book) and 25 percent story, which was ok.
The second half, about Alice, Vera's daughter was slightly more interesting but you have to suffer through even more romance (but less description of beating hearts, trembling, swooning, etc.) but more plot.
I really hate when romance is categorized as other types of fiction. Thankfully, this was free.
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- Heidi Marks
- 05-23-22
The worst Audible yet
The reader was horrible, she read the whole book in one monotone voice that was hard to listen to. It made the character seem so very boring.
Non of the beautiful settings were described in a way that included the listener, it didn't put me at the scene. The story line was more tabloid puppy love and often times just didn't make sense. The story missed fluidity.
I've been listening to audio for years, this was my first true disappointment.
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