
We All Want Impossible Things
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jane Oppenheimer
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By:
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Catherine Newman
About this listen
Look for Wreck, the new novel by Catherine Newman—a deeply moving story of laughter and heart, about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn’t go as planned—Coming October 2025.
“Catherine Newman sees the heartbreak and comedy of life with wisdom and unflinching compassion. The way she finds the extraordinary in the everyday is nothing short of poetry. She’s a writer’s writer—and a human’s human.”—New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center
“A riotously funny and fiercely loyal love letter to female friendship. The story of Edi and Ash proves that a best friend is a gift from the gods. Newman turns her prodigious talents toward finding joy even in the friendship’s final days. I laughed while crying, and was left revived. Newman is a comic masterhand and a dazzling philosopher of the day-to-day.”—Amity Gaige, author of Sea Wife
“The funniest, most joyful book about dying—and living—that I have ever read.”—KJ Dell'Antonia, author of the New York Times bestselling The Chicken Sisters
For lovers of Meg Wolitzer, Maria Semple, and Jenny Offill comes this raucous, poignant celebration of life, love, and friendship at its imperfect and radiant best.
Edith and Ashley have been best friends for over forty-two years. They’ve shared the mundane and the momentous together: trick or treating and binge drinking; Gilligan’s Island reruns and REM concerts; hickeys and heartbreak; surprise Scottish wakes; marriages, infertility, and children. As Ash says, “Edi’s memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.”
But now the unthinkable has happened. Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or two), and a rotating cast of beautifully, fleetingly human hospice characters.
As The Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack blasts all day long from the room next door, Edi and Ash reminisce, hold on, and try to let go. Meanwhile, Ash struggles with being an imperfect friend, wife, and parent—with life, in other words, distilled to its heartbreaking, joyful, and comedic essence.
For anyone who’s ever lost a friend or had one. Get ready to laugh through your tears.
©2022 Catherine Newman (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
At the age of 90-something, Beryl Dusinbery is forgetting everything - including her own children. Her tongue, meanwhile, remains as sharp as ever. She spends her days stitching macabre messages into her needlework and tormenting her two long-suffering carers with tangled stories of her love affairs. Shimi Carmelli can do up his own buttons, walk without the aid of a frame, and speak without spitting. Among the widows of North London, he’s whispered about as the last of the eligible bachelors. Unlike Beryl, he forgets nothing - especially not the shame of a childhood incident.
By: Howard Jacobson
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Talk to Me
- By: John Kenney
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a story that Ted Grayson has reported time and time again in his job as a network TV anchor: the public downfall of those at the top. He just never imagined that it would happen to him. After his profanity-laced tirade is caught on camera, his reputation and career are destroyed, leaving him without a script for the first time in years.
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Complex and Fascinating
- By D on 07-12-23
By: John Kenney
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Big Time
- Stories
- By: Jen Spyra, Stephen Colbert - foreword
- Narrated by: Jen Spyra, Stephen Colbert, Dan Stevens, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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A bride so desperate to get in shape for her wedding that she enrolls in a new kind of workout program that promises the moon but costs more than she bargained for. A snowman who, on the wish of a child, comes to life in a decidedly less savory way than in the childhood classic. And in the title story, a time-hopping 1940s starlet tries to claw her way to the top in modern-day Hollywood, despite being ridiculously unwoke.
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Old white dudes might think this is funny?
- By Anonymous User on 05-27-22
By: Jen Spyra, and others
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What Comes After
- A Novel
- By: JoAnne Tompkins
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins, Kristen DiMercurio, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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In misty, coastal Washington State, Isaac lives alone with his dog, grieving the recent death of his teenage son, Daniel. Next door, Lorrie, a working single mother, struggles with a heinous act committed by her own teenage son. Separated by only a silvery stretch of trees, the two parents are emotionally stranded, isolated by their great losses - until an unfamiliar 16-year-old girl shows up, bridges the gap, and changes everything.
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Thin story line, too long.
- By Sandra Crews on 11-04-21
By: JoAnne Tompkins
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Sandwich
- A Novel
- By: Catherine Newman
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds. This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.
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Stoppppppp Already!
- By Tara L. Darbyshire on 06-22-24
By: Catherine Newman
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The Rachel Incident
- A Novel
- By: Caroline O'Donoghue
- Narrated by: Tara Flynn
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.
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Best narration
- By LG on 01-12-24
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My Year Abroad
- A Novel
- By: Chang-rae Lee
- Narrated by: Lawrence Kao
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
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Worst narration ever
- By Unhappy Sirius Camper on 02-07-21
By: Chang-rae Lee
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Tomorrow Will Be Better
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life.
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Heartfelt and Heart-wrenchingly Real!
- By M. Ryder on 02-16-22
By: Betty Smith
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Greenland
- A Novel
- By: David Santos Donaldson
- Narrated by: Theo Solomon
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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In 1919, Mohammed el Adl, the young Egyptian lover of British author E. M. Forster, spent six months in a jail cell. A century later, Kip Starling has locked himself in his Brooklyn basement study with a pistol and twenty-one gallons of Poland Spring to write Mohammed’s story. Kip has only three weeks until his publisher’s deadline to immerse himself in the mind of Mohammed who, like Kip, is Black, queer, an Other. The similarities don't end there.
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Unexpected story with literary depth
- By Hannah Aron on 06-01-24
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How Lucky
- A Novel
- By: Will Leitch
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel leads a rich life and considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy - despite the fact that he’s suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair. Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he’s not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he’s almost sure he sees her being kidnapped.
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No need for Political Jabs
- By Melissa on 08-12-21
By: Will Leitch
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Last Summer on State Street
- By: Toya Wolfe
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes. It’s the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence.
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This book was depressing and a slow burn
- By mel on 08-18-22
By: Toya Wolfe
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Lights All Night Long
- A Novel
- By: Lydia Fitzpatrick
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: He's consumed by the fate of his older brother, Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence.
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Couldn't Stop Listening
- By Randi M. on 04-16-19
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The Great Mistake
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Lee
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrew Haswell Green is dead, shot at the venerable age of eighty-three, when he thought life could hold no more surprises. The killing - on Park Avenue in broad daylight, on Friday the 13th - shook the city. Born to a struggling farmer, Green was a self-made man without whom there would be no Central Park, no Metropolitan Museum of Art, no Museum of Natural History, no New York Public Library. But Green had a secret, a life locked within him that now, in the hour of his death, may finally break free.
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Complete misfire of a biography.
- By Smith's Rock on 06-20-21
By: Jonathan Lee
What listeners say about We All Want Impossible Things
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-13-24
How does she write exactly what’s been experienced and so completely?
It’s just such a beautiful and real story about the all-consuming effort of love. What stood out is; first love then loss and then grief. The entire journey of dying is, highlighting living. Catherine Newman is becoming my favorite writer. She and I are mental-mates. I’d love to have coffee with her or, a margarita.
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- GF
- 11-15-22
Beautiful heartbreak
Incredible and utterly heartbreaking. I adore the way Catherine writes about her love, it's so often what I feel but cannot put into words.
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- Zella L. Mansson
- 11-13-22
Beautifully written story
A sad but realistic tale. This book is beautifully written, both poignant and humorous. The author is very talented and I appreciated the realistic characters.
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- Laurali
- 11-22-22
Emotional read
I enjoyed this book about best friends, loss, and all the things that make us human. The main character, Ash, is self-deprecating and charming, although she’s a bit of a hot mess.
She’s going through a divorce, losing her best friend, and she’s also a loving and kind person who sometimes is too self- absorbed.
As a nurse, I sometimes found the descriptions of the Hospice and medical staff cringey, but I mostly tried to ignore it.
The narrator’s voice captured all of Ash’s emotions perfectly.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-18-23
Great story Be ready for laughter and a good cry
Very emotional but a good listen I enjoyed this book of it’s entirety. Good narration
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- Lydia
- 01-14-23
I wish I could give it 6 stars!
What a book!!!! I would give it 6 stars if I could. It encapsulates all the wonders of our lives—friendship, love, illness and death. The author draws on their complexities but in a raw and beautiful manner. I love her analogies and metaphors for something as simple as the receipts in her coat pocket. I especially loved the elaborate description of their meals and the beauty of food and it’s way of uniting everyone—“her people.”
Do not be steered by thinking this book is about death. It is truly about LIFE. A must read.
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- Hawaiian 54
- 01-18-25
Overwhelmingly Adverbial
The main character’s narcissism and « all about me » storytelling style was distracting.
Author had some beautiful turns of phrase and descriptions of food and weather but seemed to describe her own emotions only by tear brimmed eyes or crying. Given that the novel is about the death of her best friend, tears are in order, but felt flat-as did her
constant complaint of feeling tired.
Death as a theme needs more finesse.
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- Carole M.
- 11-24-23
A beautiful story about friendship, love, and loss.
I initially was reluctant to continue listening to this story. I told myself I wasn’t in the mood for anything teary and heartbreaking. But, I could not stop listening! The story is beautifully written about friendship, love, loss, mourning, and recognizing and appreciating our lives.
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- Barbara
- 09-17-23
Joyfully heart-wrenching
Newman is the cleverest, funniest, feeling-est friend you never met. I was crying and laughing most of the time.
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- Diane Morgan
- 12-28-24
Such a good listen and book. Excellent performance.
No dislikes whatsoever. Enjoyed the story and especially the audible version. Such a great performance. Highly recommend.
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