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When the Emperor Was Divine
- Narrated by: Elaina Erika Davis
- Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
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Publisher's summary
In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells their story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism.
When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today's headlines.
Critic reviews
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"Exceptional...Otsuka skillfully dramatizes a world suddenly foreign...[Her] incantatory, unsentimental prose is the book's greatest strength." (The New Yorker)
"The novel's honesty and matter-of-fact tone in the face of inconceivable injustice are the source of its power." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mesmerizing." (The New York Times)
Featured Article: 10 Audiobooks to Listen to on the Day of Remembrance
In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, mandating the removal of Japanese Americans from their homes. Nearly 120,000 Japanese immigrants and native born Japanese Americans were imprisoned in concentration camps for the duration of World War II. We need to bear witness to the atrocities committed by the United States government and the pain our leadership caused innocent men, women, and children of Japanese heritage.
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The four Melendy children live with their father and Cuffy, their beloved housekeeper, in a worn but comfortable brownstone in New York City. There's thirteen-year-old Mona, who has decided to become an actress; twelve-year-old mischievous Rush; ten-year-old Randy who loves to dance and paint; and thoughtful Oliver, who is just six-years-old.
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Excellent for children and adults
- By Dale on 05-15-04
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Breakfast at Tiffany's
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Michael C. Hall
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Golden Globe-winning actor Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) performs Truman Capote's masterstroke about a young writer's charmed fascination with his unorthodox neighbor, the "American geisha" Holly Golightly. Holly - a World War II-era society girl in her late teens - survives via socialization, attending parties and restaurants with men from the wealthy upper class who also provide her with money and expensive gifts. Over the course of the novella, the seemingly shallow Holly slowly opens up to the curious protagonist.
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"Better to look at the sky than live there"
- By W Perry Hall on 02-12-14
By: Truman Capote
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A Golden Age
- A Novel
- By: Tahmima Anam
- Narrated by: Madhur Jaffrey
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Today she will throw a party for her son and daughter. In the garden of the house she has built, her roses are blooming, her children are almost grown, and beyond their doorstep, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air.
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sad, poignant, thought-provoking, beautiful
- By Rio Delta Wild on 06-04-08
By: Tahmima Anam
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The Promise
- By: Ann Weisgarber
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him, but when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston Island, Texas—a thousand miles from home—she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her.
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Beautifully written and read
- By RueRue on 04-21-14
By: Ann Weisgarber
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The Shadow Year
- A Novel
- By: Jeffrey Ford
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On New York's Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy spends much of his free time in the basement of his family's modest home, where he and his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a detailed cardboard replica of their community, complete with figurines representing friends and neighbors. Their little sister, Mary, smokes cigarettes, speaks in other voices, inhabits alternate personas... and, unbeknownst to her siblings, moves around the inanimate clay residents.
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Couldn't stop listening!!!
- By Marjory on 12-12-10
By: Jeffrey Ford
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Pennies for Hitler
- By: Jackie French
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils' heads to see which of them have the most 'Aryan'- shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy seas to Australia where he must forget his past and who he is in order to survive. Hatred is contagious, but Georg finds that kindness can be, too.
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This could be a Bryce Courtenay novel
- By K Cornwinkle on 07-02-14
By: Jackie French
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Fruit of the Drunken Tree
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- By: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez, Almarie Guerra, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.
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Maybe better to read this book than listen???
- By Amazon Customer on 12-12-18
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Habibi
- By: Naomi Shihab Nye
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, life in St. Louis, Missouri is perfect. She loves shopping in the nearby stores and walking down streets where she knows everyone. Even better, she has just had her first kiss. But her father is moving the family to Jerusalem - the land where he was born. Suddenly Liyana finds herself a stranger in a threatening world.
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Very good Performance
- By Muhammad on 04-07-15
By: Naomi Shihab Nye
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Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
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Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
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The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
- By: Leslye Walton
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender.
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Beautiful and Haunting Fairytale
- By FanB14 on 07-24-15
By: Leslye Walton
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Hilariously Vicious; Touchingly Empathetic
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not a novel, but a collection of short stories
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Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.
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Highly recommend.
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Fascinating topic, irritating writing style
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not a novel, but a collection of short stories
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Important subject and plot, pedestrian execution
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perfection
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The Book of Re-Opening my Heart
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An Antidote for Shantaram
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Heavy in My Heart
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Narration
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On Juneteenth
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Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.
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A short but compelling combination of history and
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Sula
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Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
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Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
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How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
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How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents captures the vivid lives of the Garcia sisters, four privileged and rebellious Dominican girls adapting to their new lives in America. In the 1960s, political tension forces the Garcia family away from Santo Domingo and toward the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice.
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I'm Latina and even I didn't like it
- By Anonymous User on 07-28-19
By: Julia Alvarez
What listeners say about When the Emperor Was Divine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Snapper
- 05-02-24
Unspoken history that is relevant today
Well written emotional and sad - a shameful part of American history- that needs retelling over and over lest we forget who we were are are
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- Marian Reven
- 04-25-18
Human nature is to stereotype
Hard to resist the leap to compare this to the more recent horror of 9/11. How it must feel to be of Middle Eastern decent today. How it must have felt to be Japanese back then.
I do not say this to offend anyone, it could be said of any of us that someone of our race or country has done unthinkable things.
I think high school students would benefit from reading this book. Thank you
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3 people found this helpful
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- melanie stoddard
- 07-23-22
Moving
It is a shame that some schools are banning this book in the United States. We need to learn our history, all of it , or we will repeat it.
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Overall
- Gillian
- 02-27-07
Excellent
Fascinating book, couldn't wait to drive home to turn on the ipod and listen.
A classic
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5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-27-18
Great audio. Word for word from book. Sad story.
I was confused initially about the dog being killed. But it later made sense. Book is boring. Audio flows much better.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ajay
- 06-26-17
Amazing 😉 wow 😳
Must read for diversity. Trauma and a different perspective of another culture for stereotypes and biases that are so commonly accepted. Now seen from a wonderfully told story of the another story less heard and shared in common society
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jonathan Hainey
- 01-20-23
Sad but Good
No complaints on the book. Read it for school. Great narration and very interesting story.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lynn
- 11-24-22
Great book
Loved the history lesson of the internment camps for the Japanese. Very interesting and sad.
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- Michelle
- 10-24-17
Executive Order 9066- Japanese Internment
Julie Otsuka's book takes the reader into the lives of a small Japanese American family as they are 'evacuated' and interned in a camp throughout World War two and then on to their return to civilization after the war. The story with bring tears, anger, questions, and greater vision to the reader. The author dealt with this delicate subject with great dignity and grace. The journey taken was enlightening and the imagery used throughout was insightful and memorable. Best book club read of the year.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Judith Ann Thomas
- 05-21-23
Not at all what I expected.
I thought this would be a book about the evil things done to the Japanese daily during Japanese internment. Fast moving. Keeping me on the edge of my seat. No, not so. It is a long story beginning with simply planning a trip into the unknown. It slowly lets you live their journey. It could not be quickly told or it would have lost its impact. And yes, it was about the evil things done. Just not the way I thought. Let yourself live in their shoes for a view hours. You will definitely have strong, sad feelings,
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