Beautiful Ruins

By: Jess Walter

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Fiction and Best Solo Narration, 2013

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning 50 years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist, and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion - along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

©2012 Jess Walter (P)2012 HarperCollins Publisher

Excellent story & performance

This book is so thought provoking and beautifully written. It made me reflect on my life & how the choices I've made (or not made) along the way have shaped my own story. I loved the way the author went from the 1960's to present day and back again. It was done so well that it never seemed confusing.

I've listened to many, many audiobooks and Edoardo Ballerini is one of the most talented narrators I've ever experienced. His performance of this engaging story made everything really come to life.

This book touched me deeply and I will not soon forget it.

Wonderful story, truly great narrator

I found the story to be intriguing and moving and, as often the case with books I find compelling, was really sorry to see it conclude. But the noteworthy joy was the extraordinary skill of the narrator Edoardo Ballerini. I've listened to many dozens of books and my observation is that most readers are good and thus mostly unnoticealbe. A few, however, stand out by having exceptional skill or the lack of it. This narration is the best that I have experienced.

Lovely story, narrarated beautifully.

Edoardo Ballerini has a unique voice for each character (and there are tons of characters in this novel). His accents are beautiful! Jess Walter transports you not only back and forth through different countries (which seem like different planets) but also to different decades and time periods. Loved the wrap up at the end of the novel too. With so many functioning characters and stories it was nice to hear and get good closure.

Most of the characters are miserable.

I kept waiting for the story to improve. The characters, for the most part, are unhappy, miserable people. They are crass, negative people. Pasquale is the only reason I hung on to the end. His character is sweet and noble. I kept hoping things would improve. I will say that in the last few chapters the story did tie everything up but frankly, I'm not sure it was worth finishing.

Hoopla doesn't help

I'm convinced I am the only person who has read or listened to this book and didn't just love it. Given that belief, I hold myself solely responsible for not being able to connect with the style, characters, plot and general premise. I kept asking myself, " What am I missing?" Try as I might, I could not discern what was what, who was whom and what was happening. Bad writing? No, probably a classic case of 'reader error.'

This book was an Audible editor's pick, so smarter people than I think it is a terrific novel. I found it difficult to get into and even more challenging to finish. The 'skipping around' was distracting to me (and I am a great fan of time travel in books, so it is not that I need events to be linear).

I am genuinely interested in why I didn't embrace 'Beautiful Ruins.' I am on a quest to figure this out. My suggestion: read many reviews of this book before purchasing it. Despite its popularity, it is not going to be everyone's cuppa. Let the prospective reader beware.

Ingeniously interwoven plots.

If you could sum up Beautiful Ruins in three words, what would they be?

facts and fiction

What other book might you compare Beautiful Ruins to and why?

That is a tricky one. nothing really comes to mind offhand.

What does Edoardo Ballerini bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

One of my favorite readers. He manages to read the female characters without sounding too drag. He totally brought the book to life.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, couldn't stop listening.

Any additional comments?

Very clever plot that links characters across time and distant places. I enjoyed the combination of nonfiction and fiction. Made the whole thing real to me.

Beautifully Done

Would you consider the audio edition of Beautiful Ruins to be better than the print version?

I found the reader, Edoardo Ballerini to be exceptional. The reader can make or break a story and he greatly enhanced the experience.

Any additional comments?

As a listener who can remember the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton drama from her younger days, the story held particular appeal. The writer used many characters to provide depth and perspective, and each character added value. He nicely tied up all the loose ends in the last chapter, in some cases reviving characters that I had forgotten about along the way. I have no problem recommending this book.

oddball book, but good in its own way

the characters and plot of this book are simply odd. still, it was a fun read, and worth the listen.

Rubic's Cube with tender corners...

If you could sum up Beautiful Ruins in three words, what would they be?

Roman-tic, Touching, Witty-Wise

What other book might you compare Beautiful Ruins to and why?

In my 7 decades reading novels, I have never read anything so completely "Adequate" to quote the author. A beautiful story, so well told, it humbles me to think I once aspired to writing "The Great American Novel". Ha,ha,ha---me and D.D'Moore.

Have you listened to any of Edoardo Ballerini’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

His performance captured every nuance, tragedy and LOL moment with every word spoken, every pause taken, and every surprise the author wrote to keep the reader (listener) turning the pages to see what happens next.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

A Roman Reverie

Any additional comments?

This is a MUST read for anyone with dreams, a sense of personal history's influence on the present (and perhaps the future) and a sense of humor. As a veteran of the "Industry" I admire the author's keen eye, dry point of view and truth about a rude, loud, laughable business where you are only as good as....you think you are.

Italy in our hearts

A really good story - well written, well told and well narrated about something that might have happened once in Italy (or didn't you read somewhere it did actually happen?) Anyway, this story of a group of unlikely friends and acquaintances, what they went through in Italy and then in Hollywood is very, very charming. It sort of blurs the lines between what-you-know-reality and might-have-happened-reality. Delightful is the best word I can think of describing it in only one word.