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Brother Fish
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 31 hrs and 47 mins
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My darling little boy Albie adores playing at our new neighbours’ house. And after the terrible year we’ve had, I feel so lucky that we can start over in this perfect place, with new friends who treat Albie like the son they never had. He can’t stop talking about the tree house they’re building him, and the cookies they bake together. But as time passes, something starts to feel wrong. Why don’t they ever open the front door more than a crack? They told me they had no children so who does the small pink tricycle I saw in their hall belong to?
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Miss Lucy-price Lewis
- By Angie on 06-07-23
By: K. L. Slater
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The Jane Austen Collection
- An Audible Original Drama
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Claire Foy, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Billie Piper, and others
- Length: 45 hrs
- Unabridged
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Renowned as much for her wit and satirical social commentary as for her stories of love and romance, Jane Austen remains unfailingly relevant and one of Britain’s best loved authors. In this Audible Original collection, an all-star list of narrators (Billie Piper, Claire Foy, Emma Thompson, Florence Pugh and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) capture Austen’s pin-sharp humour and tone in these dramatisations of her six beloved novels accompanied by a full cast.
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Not a faithful rendition
- By Anne McClain on 12-13-20
By: Jane Austen
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Fingerprints of the Gods
- The Quest Continues
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Fingerprints of the Gods is the revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of listeners throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the history behind modern society. An intellectual detective story, this unique history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.
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Classic in Historical Mysteries
- By Kelly on 09-05-19
By: Graham Hancock
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David Copperfield
- By: Charles Dickens, Sam Mendes, Marty Ross - adaptation
- Narrated by: Ncuti Gatwa, Helena Bonham Carter, Theo James, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
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Join David as he encounters his eccentric Aunt Betsey, faithful Peggotty and the villainous Uriah Heep, and as he falls in love with Little Em'ly, Dora and Agnes. And then there is old school friend James Steerforth: dashing, daring and seductive. This dramatisation explores the complexities and intimacies of that relationship beyond anything possible in Dickens' day, in an adaptation giving fresh life and vividness to this beloved tale.
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Fan fiction
- By Bethany Piskorski on 12-12-23
By: Charles Dickens, and others
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An excellent sequel
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a departure for Bryce
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This is A Love Story
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Smoky Joe's Cafe
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Thommo returns from Vietnam to an Australia that regards him as a mercenary guilty of war crimes. He begins to develop all kinds of physical and mental problems, and thinks it must only be him until he finds he is not alone. Ten mates, all who remain of his platoon who fought and died in the Battle of Long Tan, are affected the same way.
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Australian Vietnam vet with Agent Orange
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The story of a drunk, a boy, and a cat. Billy O'Shannessy, once a prominent barrister, is now on the street where he sleeps on a bench outside the State Library. Above him on the window sill rests a bronze statue of Matthew Flinders' cat, Trim. Ryan is a 10-year-old, a near-street kid heading for the usual trouble. The two form an unlikely bond.
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Extraordinary Story
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You need a refresh Mr Bower and Mr Courtenay
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Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, little six-year-old Peekay learns that small can beat big. Armed with this knowledge, he resolves to take on the injustices of his country, and sets his heart on becoming the welterweight champion of the world. Peekay starts to take boxing lessons, makes new friends, collects cacti, and plays the piano. Above all, he learns to think with his head and then with his heart. Peekay discovers that nothing can defeat the determination to be true to yourself: This is the power of one.
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Distracted by poor rendition of the South African accent
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A Fine Balance
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The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers—a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village—will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
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Read this book if your heart is made of steal
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Shantaram
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An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
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Probably the best performance I've listened to.
- By Mickey on 04-15-14
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Eye of the Needle
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Story
His code name was “The Needle.” He was a German aristocrat of extraordinary intelligence - a master spy with a legacy of violence in his blood, and the object of the most desperate manhunt in history.... But his fate lay in the hands of a young and vulnerable English woman, whose loyalty, if swayed, would assure his freedom - and win the war for the Nazis....
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All-time great thriller, great reader, great idea
- By Glenn Hopp on 03-14-21
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What listeners say about Brother Fish
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Rebecarol
- 07-07-08
Not Just Another Fish Story - something special
I'm ashamed to confess, but I selected this book because it was Looooong and I figured I'd get my money's worth in using a book credit on it. Well, I did get that, in spades!
"Brother Fish" is a superb read -- the characters are memorable, the dialogue superb, the atmosphere excellent and the reader gets an education in everything from the Korean War to crayfishing, Chinese Warlords, and Russian expatriates. The storytelling is terrific, though the book is long it never falters, the author maintains a pace that keeps the reader engaged for well over thirty hours.
The writer also does two things that I don't see writers of any caliber achieve with frequency-- the first is that he is able to depict memorable, likable humans without a counterpoint of extreme villainy. The unsavory characters who people this book are, much of the time, given redemptive interactions. I believe it is much harder to create fully realized, truthful characters and keep them interesting without seeding the novel with intriguing villains as counterbalance. What this author has done is seed the novel with intriguing heroic characters. I think he forsook the cheap but heady thrills a great villain can bring to the table for a larger, more truthful look at the human experience and this only heightens the book's success.
Also, the writer creates interesting and authentic male and female characters -- major and minor, and the main female character is no less compelling or heroic than the males, also a treat!
I have one minor quibble with the wrap up of a romance in the end -- but I hate to even mention it because it is only that, a quibble. "Brother Fish" is an extraordinary read, Bravo to the author for gifting us with this novel!
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97 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Mimi Routh
- 02-13-09
And a Cast of Thousands!
First of all, the narrator is a real artist, replicating all the voices and singing several songs. He can sound like Paul Robeson, a Russian countess, ordinary Australian blokes, ordinary Americans, Orientals of both sexes and every class from royalty to gangsters, and on and on. For long periods, he doesn't forget that he is one of the secondary characters telling a story. This performance is transparent and seamless.
The events of the book will take you from an island off Australia, to the Korean War, all over the Far East, and to rougher parts of the United States. Courtenay's outlook is global. If you can get through all the mud and blood of the Korean War, including serious wounds and a long time of miserable imprisonment, you will be rewarded with exotic locales and ultimate love and fulfilment. There's never a dull moment. Courtenay knows about race relations. In this story, a white Aussie soldier and a black American soldier become fast friends. They go into business together along with a most mysterious and wonderful older woman. While there are bad characters and bad things do happen, Courtenay is essentially optimistic. Even in prisoner of war camp, there are angels. The book is about brotherly love, excellence, intelligence, business sense. I feel like I know these people; if I could just buy the plane ticket, I could go see them. As my own immediate previous life was as a banker's daughter in China in the early 1900's, I could see, feel and smell the Shanghai and Hong Kong scenarios. The banker's daughter had to support younger siblings however she could. . . . Excellence is sexy; fluency in several languages is sexy; silk cheongsams and exotic cooking are very sexy. Ditto working hard and making lots of money, helping others, improving government policy, loving one another. Courtenay's book is inspiring and entertaining. It has a good balance of colorful description and fast action. It ties up all the tag ends of plot and ends well.
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75 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Thomas Andrews
- 05-17-06
Rave Review
Having read Power of One a couple of years ago I was already a fan of Courtenay. I was impressed with the reviews for this narrator. Now, having listened to the whole thing, I am an even bigger fan of Courtenay, and a huge fan of Humphrey. After something in the vicinity of 300 hours of listening to audible books his narration was the best I have heard, bar none. That is saying something because I think Frederick Davidson (Dickens & Tolstoy) is terrific. But no one has shown the capacity to get into different national characters and dialects as has Humphrey. As for the novel itself, I appreciated the history and the insights into the Korean War, Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia of the period. I think that Courtenay is a great story teller. I did not find the characters shallow nor the book tedious. Quite the contrary. The book made me go on to other Courtenay/Humphrey collaborations. See Tandia.
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40 people found this helpful
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- AudioAddict
- 01-27-16
Good but PAINFULLY long
STORY (fiction) - Brother Fish is almost 32 hours long. I would have rated it five stars had it been perhaps 12 hours. Maybe it's just me, but I find very few books worth a 32-hour investment. This book is character-driven and very well done. There are three main characters. Each one is likeable, richly portrayed and tells a detailed story of his/her difficult past. Jimmy is from the streets of New York. Jack is a poor fisherman's son, who grew up on a small Australian island. Nicole was born in Russia, then forced into surviving the dangerous streets of Shanghai. The characters' lives are partially intertwined because Nicole teaches Jack in school, then years later Jack meets Jimmy in a prisoner-of-war camp. Finally, the three work together as partners in a fish exporting business.
The book jumps between flashbacks and present day experiences and blends together well. A very large portion of the first part of the book is about Jimmy and Jack in the war and prison camps. There is lots of battles and suffering, with bits of Australian history and facts about the war with Korea. Then the book moves to Jimmy's early life as a gang member in New York and on a German tomato farm. Finally Nicole tells her story about her life as a young girl living in the Chinese underworld. Hers was by far my favorite. Wow, I would LOVE a book just about her! Throughout the book there were parts I enjoyed immensely, then other parts where I sped the listening speed to 2X just to get through. Much of the story is from Jack's perspective, so the narrator mainly speaks with an Australian accent and uses lots of Australian slang. As a listener from Texas (USA), I was able to understand the story completely, but there were many phrases which were unfamiliar to me.
PERFORMANCE - ABSOUTELY AWESOME! Performances like this make me wonder why I ever give five stars to others. Mr. Bower not only gives the characters their own distinct accent, but they have their own voice as well. There's Australian, German, Negro, Chinese, Irish, males, females, even singing. Just WOW!
OVERALL - This book is good, but I'd recommend only for people who are patient and willing to wait for a story to develop. I am NOT that patient. While this book is good, I was often frustrated and thought about giving up. I'm glad I didn't because the last ten hours were my favorite. While the F-word occurs occasionally, there is no actual sex during the book. There is quite a bit of violence, so I wouldn't recommend for younger listeners.
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25 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Stephanie
- 12-03-08
Brother Fish
This is by far THE BEST audio book I have experienced. I adore Bryce Courtney and the person who narrates is magnificent in all of his narrations I have listend to so far. I laughed, I cried and I want to listen to it all again. You can not go wrong with this one.
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20 people found this helpful
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Overall
- David
- 01-19-06
Good story, but a little slow
I enjoyed this book, The story is interesting and the narrator (the first I have ever listened to with an Australian accent) Was perfect. The constant discussion of other peoples 'Prejudice' while having characters that represent every Stereotype imaginable got a little old. But on the whole I enjoyed this book.
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17 people found this helpful
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Story
- aaron
- 04-28-13
Why The Songs??!!
I'm leaving this review because I did not read anywhere that there would be songs in this "audiobook". I don't mean the author wrote a line or two of a song, as I've seen done in many audiobooks in the past. I mean, this guy wrote out the ENTIRE song into the story, and the poor narrator had to sing it in its entirety! The narrator is GREAT, by the way, but I didn't get this book to have songs sung to me... especially songs I don't like. It's an audio-BOOK, NOT an album of gospel music!!
To add salt to the wound, this book is VERY VERY VERY slow, after about a third of the way through it. Seriously, do we need to know about every little thing these characters do on a daily basis?? I half expected this author to go into detail about the breathing and sleeping habits of the main character at any time, describing and counting each breath, up to a million.
Yes, it is JUST THAT BORING. I'm not kidding.
I read "The Power Of One" and I thought it was fantastic. I have absolutely no idea how this book is rated as highly as it is, because it is a far cry from that one. It's as if the author literally was sleep walking through this one. It is so painfully boring.
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16 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Orwell
- 12-30-09
HATE Christians? Courtenay is the author for you!
During the hours I listened to "The Power of One", I was increasingly dismayed by the repeated castigation of persons of the Christian faith. Many hours were dedicated to taunting the evils of Christians. Now years later, I decided to try this author again hoping that perhaps the previous boook was the exception. Well I was wrong...Big Time. So, if you enjoy reading how Christians lock kids in closets for not repeating Bible verses correctly, then go on and read this story. This author definately has issues with people of the Christian faith. I have listened to over 700 books on audio depecting a wide breadth of isues and this is my first written review...I could not fail to alert readers who might find the author's EXTREME views offensive.
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Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 03-23-06
Can cause diabetes
The narrator, Humphrey Bower, is absolutely fantastic. If not for him, I would give it one star. He is able to raise it to two stars with his narration. Unfortunately the book does not live up to him. The three main characters are complete "boy scouts" (Honest, kind, trustworthy, brave, etc., etc. and oh so modest). They triumph over every adversity, never give up in the face of incredible odds and continually say: "Someone else is the real hero, not me" after every super heroic act they accomplish.
I did listen to the end and there were no signficant surprises. The author telegraphs virtually everything.
I read a few of the other reviews and I think maybe I must have read another book. The sections on the Korean war do have merit, but the rest is just treacle.
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Overall
- John
- 01-29-08
ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING
This was BC at his best. I never wanted this book to end. It was an incredible story rich with Korean War detail.
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