
This Is Happiness
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $23.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dermot Crowley
-
By:
-
Niall Williams
About this listen
Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a 1,000 years.
For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting.
Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.
As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.
Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community - its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs - and a coming-of-age tale like no other.
Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.
©2019 Niall Williams (P)2019 W. F. Howes LtdListeners also enjoyed...
-
History of the Rain
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Jennifer McGrath
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces, and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to her father.
-
-
The language is astoundingly beautiful.
- By Kindle Customer on 05-30-17
By: Niall Williams
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Horse
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.
-
-
Love Geraldine Brooks
- By Regina on 06-25-22
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
History of the Rain
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Jennifer McGrath
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces, and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to her father.
-
-
The language is astoundingly beautiful.
- By Kindle Customer on 05-30-17
By: Niall Williams
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Horse
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.
-
-
Love Geraldine Brooks
- By Regina on 06-25-22
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Queen of Dirt Island
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love.
-
-
Donal Ryan never disappoints
- By Chris C on 03-17-23
By: Donal Ryan
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
West with Giraffes
- A Novel
- By: Lynda Rutledge
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to become Southern California’s first giraffes. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow.
-
-
Gritty, sweet, amazing, sad, uplifting
- By FL Bird Woman on 02-19-21
By: Lynda Rutledge
-
Small Things Like These
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
-
-
Charming and Inspiring
- By David P on 09-05-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
The House in the Cerulean Sea
- By: TJ Klune
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.
-
-
Good Story Line
- By John on 04-06-20
By: TJ Klune
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
In Kiltumper
- A Year in an Irish Garden
- By: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
- Narrated by: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-five years ago, when they were in their 20s, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth.
-
-
An intimate, beautifully written memoir
- By Anonymous User on 12-10-23
By: Niall Williams, and others
-
Foster
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.
-
-
A story that will stay with me a long time
- By CTKG on 11-01-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
To Kill a Mockingbird
- By: Harper Lee
- Narrated by: Sissy Spacek
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep south - and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred, available now for the first time as a digital audiobook. One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the country.
-
-
A gift to be treasured
- By David Shear on 07-09-14
By: Harper Lee
-
All the Beauty in the World
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
- By: Patrick Bringley
- Narrated by: Patrick Bringley
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.
-
-
Gallery 771
- By Jonathan Hurst on 06-10-23
By: Patrick Bringley
-
Walk the Blue Fields
- Stories
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly, Aoife McMahon, Aidan Quinn
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.
-
-
Just Superb.
- By Deborah on 12-09-22
By: Claire Keegan
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
History of the Rain
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Jennifer McGrath
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces, and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to her father.
-
-
The language is astoundingly beautiful.
- By Kindle Customer on 05-30-17
By: Niall Williams
-
Time of the Child
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.
-
-
A slower start than This Is Happiness but then….wonderful.
- By Georgia Burns on 12-01-24
By: Niall Williams
-
John
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the years following the death of Jesus Christ, John the Apostle, now a frail, blind old man, lives in forced exile on the desolate island of Patmos with a small group of his disciples. It is against this turbulent background and inspired by Jesus's radical message of love and forgiveness that John comes to dictate his Gospel.
-
-
A fascinating study of the power of faith, but...
- By Andrew on 08-24-17
By: Niall Williams
-
Four Letters of Love
- A Novel
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Niall Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicholas Coughlan is twelve years old when his father, an Irish civil servant, announces that God has commanded him to become a painter. He abandons the family and a wife who is driven to despair. Years later, Nicholas’s own civil-service career is disrupted by tragic news: his father has burned down the house, with all his paintings and himself in it. Isabel Gore is the daughter of a poet. She’s a passionate girl, but her brother is the real prodigy, a musician. And yet this family, too, is struck by tragedy: a seizure leaves the boy mute and unable to play.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Cat Lover on 09-29-24
By: Niall Williams
-
In Kiltumper
- A Year in an Irish Garden
- By: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
- Narrated by: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-five years ago, when they were in their 20s, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth.
-
-
An intimate, beautifully written memoir
- By Anonymous User on 12-10-23
By: Niall Williams, and others
-
This Must Be the Place
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California; a father he loathes in Brooklyn; and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway. He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with 20 years ago, and this discovery will send him off course, far away from wife and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?
-
-
A good story spoiled
- By White rose on 03-24-17
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
History of the Rain
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Jennifer McGrath
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces, and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to her father.
-
-
The language is astoundingly beautiful.
- By Kindle Customer on 05-30-17
By: Niall Williams
-
Time of the Child
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.
-
-
A slower start than This Is Happiness but then….wonderful.
- By Georgia Burns on 12-01-24
By: Niall Williams
-
John
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the years following the death of Jesus Christ, John the Apostle, now a frail, blind old man, lives in forced exile on the desolate island of Patmos with a small group of his disciples. It is against this turbulent background and inspired by Jesus's radical message of love and forgiveness that John comes to dictate his Gospel.
-
-
A fascinating study of the power of faith, but...
- By Andrew on 08-24-17
By: Niall Williams
-
Four Letters of Love
- A Novel
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Niall Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicholas Coughlan is twelve years old when his father, an Irish civil servant, announces that God has commanded him to become a painter. He abandons the family and a wife who is driven to despair. Years later, Nicholas’s own civil-service career is disrupted by tragic news: his father has burned down the house, with all his paintings and himself in it. Isabel Gore is the daughter of a poet. She’s a passionate girl, but her brother is the real prodigy, a musician. And yet this family, too, is struck by tragedy: a seizure leaves the boy mute and unable to play.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Cat Lover on 09-29-24
By: Niall Williams
-
In Kiltumper
- A Year in an Irish Garden
- By: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
- Narrated by: Niall Williams, Christine Breen
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-five years ago, when they were in their 20s, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth.
-
-
An intimate, beautifully written memoir
- By Anonymous User on 12-10-23
By: Niall Williams, and others
-
This Must Be the Place
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California; a father he loathes in Brooklyn; and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway. He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with 20 years ago, and this discovery will send him off course, far away from wife and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?
-
-
A good story spoiled
- By White rose on 03-24-17
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
Foster
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.
-
-
A story that will stay with me a long time
- By CTKG on 11-01-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
Small Things Like These
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
-
-
Charming and Inspiring
- By David P on 09-05-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
Last Bus to Wisdom
- A Novel
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The final novel from a great American storyteller. Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an 11-year-old's imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for "female trouble" in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
-
-
Such a lovely final book.
- By B.J. on 02-26-16
By: Ivan Doig
-
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
- A Novel
- By: Bryn Greenwood
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house until one night her stargazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.
-
-
So many 'hard to listen to' moments
- By jksullycats on 12-27-16
By: Bryn Greenwood
-
You, Happier
- The 7 Neuroscience Secrets of Feeling Good Based on Your Brain Type
- By: Daniel Amen
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Happiness is a brain function. With a healthier brain always comes a happier life. After studying more than 200,000 brain scans of people from 155 countries, Dr. Amen has discovered five primary brain types and seven neuroscience secrets that influence happiness. In You, Happier, he explains them and offers practical science-based strategies for optimizing your happiness.
-
-
No PDF's 🤔?
- By DBB on 03-31-22
By: Daniel Amen
-
The All of It
- A Novel
- By: Jeannette Haien
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon, Ann Patchett
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While fishing in an Irish salmon stream one rainy morning, Father Declan de Loughry ponders the recent deathbed confession of his parishioner Kevin Dennehy. It seems Dennehy and his wife, Enda, had been quietly living a lie for fifty years. Yet the gravity of their deception doesn’t become clear to the good father until Enda shares the full tale of her suffering, finally confiding “the all of it.”
By: Jeannette Haien
-
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
-
-
Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
The Didomenico Fragment
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: John Lithgow
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
enchanting
- By Utah Cowgirl on 04-03-21
By: Amor Towles
-
Pearl
- By: Siân Hughes
- Narrated by: Laura Brydon
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her.
-
-
a meditation of memory, grief, and motherhood.
- By Barbara S on 10-08-23
By: Siân Hughes
-
Crossing to Safety
- By: Wallace Stegner
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the finest American authors of the 20th century, Wallace Stegner compiled an impressive collection of accolades during his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a National Book Award, and three O. Henry Awards. His final novel, Crossing to Safety is the quiet yet stirring tale of two couples that meet during the Great Depression and form a lifelong bond.
-
-
Amazing Stegner and his beautiful last book
- By Rebecca on 11-16-13
By: Wallace Stegner
-
The Clock Winder
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Suzanne Pirret
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mrs. Emerson, widowed with seven adult children, lives alone in crumbling Victorian mansion outside Baltimore with only a collection of antique clocks to keep her company. Elizabeth Abbott - 23 years old, aimless, bohemian, and beautiful - leads a vagabond lifestyle until she happens upon Mrs. Emerson's home and convinces the older woman to hire her as a handyman. When three of the strange, idiosyncratic Emerson children return to their childhood home for a visit, they are irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth.
-
-
Too many words
- By Steven M. on 04-30-25
By: Anne Tyler
What listeners say about This Is Happiness
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Shirsten L.
- 08-22-21
I love this book so much.
I ended up reading this book twice on Audible this past year. The story often made me laugh out loud, and also brought tears to my eyes. Really touched my heart. The reader is wonderful. For anyone who is in the latter half of their life, the reflections and wisdom expressed in these pages really hit home. I recommend this book to anyone. The way that Niall Williams describes things is so well crafted that I want to also purchase a written copy. Though the story teller is reflecting on an earlier time in history, his understanding of the human condition is timeless.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rachel A. Toll
- 10-25-21
Absolutely wonderful❤️❤️❤️
What a beautiful testament to the old days and ways of an Irish village. I had a smile on my face or my hand on my heart throughout the entire book. And, oh my gosh, the narrator, Dermot Crowley is absolutely wonderful! I wish I could hug him I have so fallen in love with this dear man ❤️❤️❤️
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Justine A. Malinski
- 02-07-21
Wonderful!
Many words, each carefully chosen. A great story that was very, very hard to leave.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- debra
- 10-01-20
Beyond words..spectacular
This is my first review as I am so taken by this book I had to tell the world. What an incredible story. Every word is carefully chosen. The author captures a space and time of pure humanity, love, hope, humor, all of it spoken with passion and authenticity by this wonderful narrator. At moments moving me to tears with the sheer joy of it, at moments making me laugh out loud. I found I had a perpetual smile on my face with every listen. This book is a wonder.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mahala B.
- 03-22-21
Really Different
This novel has beautiful writing, is lush and slow. The ending was a bit drawn out, but otherwise I'd say this is a rare find. An unusual and tender book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kieran
- 01-02-21
Absolutely brilliant!
If you have ever been to Ireland, or would like a peek into the Irish culture, this beautifully written book is a must read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Dillon
- 03-30-21
One of the best things I've ever listened to
Almost unbearably beautiful. The prose are stunning and utterly charming. The narration is flawless (I actually went and looked for books read by this guy). The story, unlike most Irish books, is happy mostly and sometimes wistful.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JG/ABQ
- 05-01-21
Superb performance of beautiful writing!
Beautifully written. Often seemed as if i was listening to poetry, rather than prose.
Performance - superb!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melanianikita
- 02-10-20
This book! This narration!!
I laughed and cried my way through this book. A thousand quotables and a thousand gasps, I simply can’t begin to describe the charm and brilliance and love that dwells in the village of Faha and in this book. Warm and nostalgic and immediate.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kevin Crumpton
- 12-19-22
Beautiful story and wonderful performance
I laughed out loud so many times. Picking this for next book club. A rare treat!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!