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Product Details

Sample
Beloved
Unabridged
Narrated by
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Program Type
Audiobook (Fiction)
Publisher
Length
12 hrs and 6 mins
Audible Release Date
05-22-06
Audio Formats About Formats
2 3 4 Audible Enhanced Audio
Customer Rating

3.88 based on 117 ratings
 

Publisher's Summary

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but 18 years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

Toni Morrison is the Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She lives in Rockland County, New York, and Princeton, New Jersey.

©1987 Toni Morrison; (P)1998 Random House, Inc.

What the Critics Say

"Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature." (New York Review of Books)
"A masterwork....Wonderful....I can't imagine American literature without it." (Los Angeles Times)

From AudioFile

Easily she stepped into the told story that lay before her. Toni Morrison's reading of Beloved is a stirring experience. She transports you to the dooryard, to Sweet Home plantation, to 124 Bluestone Road as she weaves in and out of the story of Sethe, a runaway slave, and her daughters. Morrison is there with you, speaking slowly, making each image live in your imagination. She speaks of colors--a pink tongue, a blue handkerchief, yellow flowers--each hue becomes so vivid against a background of browns, blacks and gray. She tells of unimaginable hardship and tragedy, and makes the power of the words get you through it. Morrison handles the dialogue among characters with impressive skill, not for characterization, but for the pacing and rhythm that is so essential to her literature. Banter is, at times, very contemporary, while other conversations have a highly stylized and mystical tone. Anyone who has read Beloved in the written form will be stunned by how much more Morrison has to share in the oral form. Don't miss this treasured author and storyteller at her magnificent work. (c)AudioFile

About AudioFile

Customer Reviews

Showing: 1-5 of 15
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Rating 3.0Rating 3.0Rating 3.0Rating 3.0Rating 3.0 "Beloved"
By: Michael (Santa Barbara, CA, USA)
December 12, 2009
I can understand that Ms. Morrison should read her book, as a historical document. Her enormous talent is writing, definitely not reading.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful:
Rating 4.0Rating 4.0Rating 4.0Rating 4.0Rating 4.0 "Mesmerizing"
By: Di (Tulsa, OK, USA)
July 12, 2009
I loved hearing Toni Morrison read "Beloved". It was very difficult to read the book because it is so intense, but when Toni Morrison started reading the audio book, I was hynotized. Hearing the author read gave the book the proper cadence.
This is a great book for discussion, but be warned, it isn't light reading.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful:
Rating 2.0Rating 2.0Rating 2.0Rating 2.0Rating 2.0 "OK book, terrible narration"
By: Ann (Moreland Hills, OH, USA)
July 12, 2009
The book concerns a family of African Americans who grew up in slavery in the south and escaped to Cincinatti, Ohio where they lived, free in principle but still enslaved by their terrible past experiences.

As a book of that genre I suppose it was ok. It is hard to tell. The narrator, who is the author, has such an obnoxiously affected style of reading it was very hard to get past that and focus on the story. My advice is simple. If you want to read the book, read it, don't listen to this narration of it! I say this having listened to many books (probably close to 100 over the past 10 years) and I am absoultely addicted to listening to books. With few exceptions, the narrator has been transparent and the novel spoke for itself. This was a painfully notable exception.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful:
Rating 5.0Rating 5.0Rating 5.0Rating 5.0Rating 5.0 "Mislead"
By: Sarah (Danville, CA, USA)
July 06, 2009
I purchased this audiobook despite the reviews here and the fact that some of my least favorite audiobooks have been read by their authors. Two words describe the author's voice in this reading: authentic and beautiful. Thank goodness I trusted my sneaking hunch and gave it a try.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful:
Rating 2.0Rating 2.0Rating 2.0Rating 2.0Rating 2.0 "Listen to sample before purchase"
By: Donna (grants pass, OR, USA)
March 07, 2009
I have read several of Toni Morrison's books and loved her writing. I purchased Sula and Beloved and put Tar Baby on my wish list. I will never purchase a book again without listening to a sample. Toni Morrison is a terrible reader; slow with frequent pauses, and at times difficult to hear what was being read. I suffered through Sula and after 20 minutes gave up on Beloved. I have never made any comments on books purchased, but this was so bad I felt compelled to warn others.
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