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

The narrator makes all the difference

What did you love best about Beautiful Ruins?

The narrator's telling of the story - his voice, his pace, the way the emotions came through. I am normally an avid book reader. But after listening to this excellent audible book, I want to find find other high quality narrators, well matched to the text. With that, I will be listening to far more audible books.

Slow start, then a lovely read

The back and forth between timeframes is sometimes hard to follow, if it were a print edition I would have been flipping back and forth to revisit earlier sections.

The story finally starts to unfold and once it does, it is captivating.

Perfect book for travel, such well developed and real characters quickly drawing me back into the story and staying with me well after the book was finished.

To Italy and back

What made the experience of listening to Beautiful Ruins the most enjoyable?

The characters. Each were funny in their own way and very likable. I attribute that review to the writing and the performance. Both were well done

What was one of the most memorable moments of Beautiful Ruins?

the actress's evaluation of the tennis court, the conversations between the italian men of the village and the honest love and appreciation the characters had for each other.

If you could take any character from Beautiful Ruins out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Perhaps but what I'd rather do is hang out in the Italian village with the people that lived there at that time.

Touching, insightful, cleverly plotted

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

No, but this adds immeasurably to my understanding of the book, its' characters and plot

unexpectedly brilliant!

This audiobook and story was far more poignant, deep and intertwined in the character play and scenery than I had imagined when I purchased it as one of the daily deals from Audible. The start is a bit slow, and a quiet place (rather than the car where I do my usual listening) is a much better setting to begin the book. Like life itself, the characters and storylines develop sometimes gradually and sometimes quickly, and sometimes not to the extent or even more than one might expect. The visual imagery is stunning, and the personalities, while diverse and seemingly clashing, evolve to be very human and real. Not perfect, cookie-cutter or entirely cliché, but real - like people we know and are each a bit of. The manner in which the author melds a sleepy near-deserted Italian coastal village and European aftermath of WWII with 1960s hey-day of Hollywood movie-making, and then takes the listener to more contemporary times with the same and some new characters, is unique and gripping, but not constricting or even terribly predictable. In fact, the book has several surprises I did not see coming, which made listening all the more enjoyable. The narrator, while a bit monotone and perhaps intentionally, did a fabulous job of bringing the author's story to life in a way that allows the listener to feel the various locations, pick up the tone of different eras, and see depth in all elements of the plot. While a delicately twisted and raw yet refined story, similar to our individual and collective lives, this is not a feel-good book in the classic sense. I did however finish it feeling more serene in the turbulence of our times, and compassionate towards those with different agendas and angles. The title is perfect. If we only look, we can all see our own beautiful ruins in this tale of ages. Thank you, Jess Walter.

Just an enjoyable read

Any additional comments?

Loved being inside the characters of so many different voices and life outlooks. Just really good reading with a perfect flow, never a lull and an ending that left you feeling good about life.

Really enjoyed this book

What did you love best about Beautiful Ruins?

It kept my interest through the whole book.

What did you like best about this story?

Finding out how both lives lived for 50 years apart.

Which scene was your favorite?

When her son came back to her!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

It was just good all around

Any additional comments?

No

Wow!

This is the best book I've listened to in some time. Jess Walter is such a talented aurthor! I've not read or listened to any of his other books but I certainly will soon. The way he brings the character's lives together and the way they are intertwined is quite intriguing. This is a very well written story. The narrator is exceptional as well. If you're debating about listening to this book - I say stop debating and just do it!

best Audible book so far

beautifully narrated, wonderful range of characters, lovely story. this was my favorite Audible book yet.

Magical Listening

What made the experience of listening to Beautiful Ruins the most enjoyable?

When I finished listening to Beautiful Ruins, my eyes filled with tears, not as much for the story, which did have wonderfully sad as well as bucolic moments, but because I finished it. It was over and I was deeply moved by the story, loved the characters, the Italian and the reader's wonderful melodic voice. It was simply the best book I listened to and probably read in 2012.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Pasqual because he is a wonderful romantic

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

His fabulous accent and impeccable Italian.

If you could take any character from Beautiful Ruins out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Michael Dean: I want to see his face. :)