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 ending makes it

beautiful summation. the entire time I had little taste for the Era described but at the end this book has become. a favorite statement to human transition

a must listen

I have read this book in the past but it is so much better when it is being read to you with the Italian accents and language. Great story. Worth the $.

A fascinating and complex journey

This book is beautifully written, particularly sequences like his passage describing early morning in Los Angeles. I truly enjoyed the way these stories within stories where interwoven into what eventually became a very satisfying conclusion that tied everything together.

Eduardo Ballerini did a magnificent job performing this book.

Marvelous

Would you try another book from Jess Walter and/or Edoardo Ballerini?

Definitely would try another by this combo.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I am listening to The Mark of the Assasin by Daniel Silva now I like to change genres when I start a new book. i also just listened to The Tiger's Wife and The Cove. Next up The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

What didn’t you like about Edoardo Ballerini’s performance?

nothing

Any additional comments?

The narrator was really ideal for this book. The characters were human and well defined.There were parts I listened to again, just to hear the words again. I did the same thing with Summer in Provenace,

Great history, amazing performance

I love the way the writer submerges you on all this different places and times with very well thought characters and scenarios.

Book, like hotel depicted, "adequate", no charm

Lots of characters and tangled plotlines, well-performed by the narrator, but a story without charm. Also a little unbelievable that Richard Burton would not have investigated just what happened to the woman pregnant with his child. And that the woman would not tell the child of his heritage when he was such a loser and might have benefited with some "self-esteem" from having a famous father. While I read it to the end, to see how it turned out, it felt flat. The author says he fell in love with the Cinqueterre, but this version of the area feels impoverished and less ravishingly beautiful than that place is today. Surely even tho' the era depicted was the war and the 60's, the place still is smashingly gorgeous, and that gets downplayed. The "Hotel Adequate View" that is the scene of much of the action kind of says it all about this book: adequate, but limited view, and I did not like any of the characters very much. Some wise and lyrical passages here and there. Narrator did the Italian accents very well.

Interesting Characters

The story is developed in an interesting and intricate manner. The characters are all somewhat caricatures but taken together they make a fun story.

Enchanting Italy/Hollow Hollywood

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Lovely story "braiding" years, characters and coasts. The story never got dull!

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

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

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

He captured the characters perfectly.

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

The ending was very touching and sweet.

Beautiful language. Fantastic Narrator

This book is about the old movie world trying to make sense and survive in a reality tv, fast food, bite sized, attention deficit, popup add world. It's not the most original story in the world (a complex love story pushing in and out of movies) but my god is the language beautiful. The narration only multiplies this making this audio version a sort of work of art apart from the story. Highly worth checking out.

A wonderful yarn

I really enjoyed how this weaved different characters’ stories over decades, as the narrative gradually revealed itself.