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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.
Lily is haunted by memories of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness.
In 19th-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames", in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.
With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.
Critic reviews
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Story
In the depths of a Beijing winter, during the waning days of Deng Xiaoping's reign, the US ambassador's son is found dead - his body entombed in a frozen lake. Almost simultaneously, American officials find a ship adrift in the storm-churned waters off California. No one is surprised to find the fetid hold crammed with hundreds of undocumented Chinese immigrants - the latest cargo in the Chinese mafia's smuggling trade. What does surprise Assistant US Attorney David Stark is that among the hapless refugees lies the corpse of a Red Prince, a scion of China's political elite.
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terrible reader , not very coherent book
- By JB on 03-09-06
By: Lisa See
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The Interior
- A Red Princess Mystery
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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While David Stark is asked to open a law office in Beijing, his lover, detective Liu Hulan, receives an urgent message from an old friend imploring her to investigate the suspicious death of her daughter, who worked for a toy company about to be sold to David’s new client, Tartan Enterprises.
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Narration is terrible
- By Veronica (OhYesItsV) on 08-15-17
By: Lisa See
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On Gold Mountain
- The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Out of the stories heard in her childhood in Los Angeles's Chinatown and years of research, See has constructed this sweeping chronicle of her Chinese-American family, a work that takes in stories of racism and romance, entrepreneurial genius and domestic heartache, secret marriages and sibling rivalries, in a powerful history of two cultures meeting in a new world.
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Great story...awful narration
- By Solbakken on 06-02-17
By: Lisa See
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Memoirs of a Geisha
- By: Arthur Golden
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In a voice both haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri describes her life as a geisha. Taken from her home at the age of nine, she is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Witness her transformation as you enter a world where appearances are paramount, virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, women beguile powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.
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Perfect ---- in every way
- By Amanda on 02-08-06
By: Arthur Golden
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The Woman in the White Kimono
- A Novel
- By: Ana Johns
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage to the son of her father’s business associate would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man - an American sailor, a gaijin - and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.
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DO NOT LISTEN! Decent story, HORRIBLE narration!!!
- By David Meier on 05-07-20
By: Ana Johns
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The Elephant Chaser's Daughter
- By: Shilpa Raj
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Saved by her grandmother from being killed at birth for being a female, and abandoned by her mother at a young age, Shilpa faces the formidable constraints placed on her by her family and the village elders. The values with which she is being brought up in a school for poor children started by a philanthropist come in conflict with those of her family, tearing each other apart. Just when all seems settled, an unforeseen death under mysterious circumstances shatters whatever stability remains in her life.
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Beautifully written!
- By Big on 01-20-20
By: Shilpa Raj
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The Bonesetter's Daughter
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan, Joan Chen
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".
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Exceptionally good
- By Eileen Finn on 03-25-03
By: Amy Tan
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The Hundred Secret Senses
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.
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BUY THIS VERSION (Release Date 01–03-22)
- By Jessica B Hunter on 10-04-22
By: Amy Tan
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When the Elephants Dance
- A Novel
- By: Tess Uriza Holthe
- Narrated by: Irene Adlaw
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine.
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Missing pieces and mispronunciations
- By Tonichi on 07-10-24
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Once Upon a River
- By: Bonnie Jo Campbell
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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A finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Bonnie Jo Campbell is a rising star in contemporary fiction. Hailed by Booklist as a female Huckleberry Finn, Campbell’s heroine is 16yearold Margo Crane. Complicit in her father’s death, Margo flees home for the Stark River. And as she follows the current, she learns the ways of the world from the eccentric characters she meets.
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Great Narrator - Horrific story
- By J. Kromrie on 11-04-20
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The Kitchen God's Wife
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Yeo
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than 50 years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose all that has been concealed, when she decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths - her own and Winnie's, as well as the dreadful news that Winnie's daughter, Pearl, has been keeping from her mother.
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Holds your attention through out
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 06-08-17
By: Amy Tan
What listeners say about Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ann A
- 07-23-12
Wonderful!!
This was a beautiful story about a friendship of two young girls from different backgrounds and all the things they went through growing up. I enjoyed this book so much it was well written. This is the third book I have read from this author and I must say she has become one of my favorites!! A great book!!!!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Kevin
- 08-11-11
It`s okaaaay
It really is just a story about friendship. I really enjoyed the glimpse into historical Chinese culture, and the graphic description of foot binding was chilling. But I wanted more to happen with the plot between the two women. It definitely wasn`t near as good as Memoirs of a Geisha.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Vanda F. Wadsworth
- 05-12-10
Good, but somewhat dissapointing
Lisa See's memoir was interesting but with too many verbose, repetitious, boring stretches. Books about Chinese culture have always interested me but I had never heard of the lautong (sp) relationship between girls. It bothered me because it seemed to encourage lesbianism. I also didn't care for the narrator. The way she clipped words was unnatural and she made everything sound too melodramatic. If you want a good book about Chinese life, I would recommend one written by Pearl Buck.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Elizabeth
- 01-29-20
Spotty recording
It jumps at the end of two different chapters so far in the recording. I’ve tried rewinding multiple times. Very frustrating to be missing chunks of the story.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Jessica
- 11-24-06
Excellent in all aspects
I enjoyed listening to this book and have recommended it to many people. It was a good book to begin with and the narrorator made it even better. Not only is the story intriguing but the historical context is interesting and lends itself well to the plot. 5 stars!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- CFH
- 01-31-07
Great foot-binding documentary; so-so story
This book conveys a most convincing portrait of the cultural roles of Chinese women of the era. The description of the foot-binding process itself is excruciatingly detailed and the social and cultural ramifications of bound feet illuminating. The emphasis on bearing sons, the various hierarchies of obedience and duty, and the overarching "otherness" of the culture are very well represented. I was particularly struck by the some of the expectations of the after-life of which I was unaware.
Fortunately, all of the above was more than enough to maintain my interest throughout the book. To me, the story itself was disappointing. Possibly this was due to my own inability to sifficently leave behind my own notions of common sense and human decency and let myself float into a world view that so thoroughly debased women, independent thought, and, all too often, any notion of kindness.
The narration was probably very much in keeping with the tone of the book but I couldn't help being reminded of the lyrics of the song "Don't cry for me, Argentina." This narration could be heard as the antithesis of that sentiment. The narrator's tone of voice is one of almost totally unrelieved misery.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Joyce
- 01-07-07
a love story
I enjoyed this book very much. It is a story of a very special relationship that begins between two young chinese girls when they are seven years old. This relationship continues throughout their lives and is documented by words written on a fan. The story is a good one and is set in the historical context of 19th century china, a time when a young girl's feet are bound at age six, and she must forever walk on feet no larger than a thumb. Crippled, she rarely leaves her home, spending most of her life in an upstairs room shared with other women in her family. She grows up understanding that her only value is in her ability to bear sons for her husband's family. The story follows the lives of both women whose lives take different paths. A good listen, beautifully narrated.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joe
- 08-26-20
friendship
a story of the enduring love between 2 women and how powerful and essential that relationship is for all women
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- MEC
- 02-09-19
great story teller
I really liked the book, have become a big fan of Lisa See. her books are captivating, and she really paints the picture for you, and I have learned alot about Chinese culture . this is the 3rd book I've read by her...would recommend them all.
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- aaron whitesel
- 05-13-22
Beautifully Written and Narrated
Was immediately gripped by this book and could not stop listening. The characters really came to life . The most memorable part for me was when beautiful moon died from the bee sting. The entire book had me hanging on every detail and event. really enjoyed listening instead of reading.
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