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The Swimmers
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
NATIONAL BEST SELLER • From the best-selling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine comes a novel about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool. This searing, intimate story of mothers and daughters—and the sorrows of implacable loss—is the most commanding and unforgettable work yet from a modern master.
The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief.
One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. For Alice, the pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia. Without the fellowship of other swimmers and the routine of her daily laps she is plunged into dislocation and chaos, swept into memories of her childhood and the Japanese American incarceration camp in which she spent the war. Alice's estranged daughter, reentering her mother's life too late, witnesses her stark and devastating decline.
Critic reviews
2023, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, Winner
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For years Maggie Sheets has been an invisible hand in the glittering homes of wealthy New York City clients, scrubbing, dusting, mopping, and doing all she can to keep her head above water as a single mother. Everything changes when a former employer dies, leaving Maggie a staggering inheritance - a house in Sag Harbor. The catch? It comes with an inhabitant: the deceased's 82-year old mother, Edith.
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Narrator is distracting.
- By Onelove on 05-13-20
By: Zoe Fishman
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The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
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Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
- By: Janelle Brown
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A smart, comic pause-resister about a Silicon Valley family in free fall over the course of one eventful summer from the author of Watch Me Disappear and Pretty Things. When Paul Miller’s pharmaceutical company goes public, making his family IPO millionaires, his wife, Janice, is sure this is the windfall she’s been waiting years for - until she learns, via messengered letter, that her husband is divorcing her (for her tennis partner!) and cutting her out of the new fortune.
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The Perfect Life Ain't So Perfect
- By Theresa on 12-28-08
By: Janelle Brown
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Leaving Home
- Short Pieces
- By: Jodi Picoult
- Narrated by: Jodi Picoult
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Leaving Home brings together three previously published short pieces, each dealing with a variation on the theme of leaving home. The first, "Weights and Measures", deals with the tragic loss of a child; the second is a non-fiction letter Picoult wrote to her eldest son as he left for college; and “Ritz” tells the story of a mother who takes the vacation all mothers need sometime.
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Get out the tissues (I'm not kidding)
- By Sterling Silver Magnolia on 07-22-12
By: Jodi Picoult
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Never Change
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A self-anointed spinster at 51, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.
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sweet story and lovely writing
- By LVG on 07-21-22
By: Elizabeth Berg
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This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance
- By: Jonathan Evison
- Narrated by: Susan Boyce
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
With her husband Bernard two years in the grave, seventy-nine-year-old Harriet Chance sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise only to discover through a series of revelations that she's been living the past sixty years of her life under entirely false pretenses. There, amid the buffets and lounge singers, between the imagined appearance of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter midway through the cruise, Harriet is forced to take a long look back, confronting the truth about pivotal events that changed the course of her life.
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Why I Didn't Like This Story
- By Kathy in CA on 10-02-15
By: Jonathan Evison
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Get Lucky
- By: Katherine Center
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Filled with wit and heart, Get Lucky by Katherine Center explores the deep bonds of sisterhood. Sarah Harper’s whole world revolved around her job at a New York advertising agency before an email snafu got her fired. Now she’s seeking refuge at her sister Mackie’s home in Houston. But Mackie, who’s unable to get pregnant, is also down-and-out these days. So Sarah decides to do something good and becomes a surrogate mother.
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Good story.
- By joan hammontree on 01-17-24
By: Katherine Center
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The Pull of the Moon
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In the middle of her life, Nan decides to leave her husband at home and begin an impromptu trek across the country, carrying with her a turquoise leather journal she intends to fill. The Pull of the Moon is a novel about a woman coming to terms with issues of importance to all women. In her journal, Nan addresses the thorniness - and the allure - of marriage, the sweet ties to children, and the gifts and lessons that come from random encounters.
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For women over 50
- By Laura on 07-07-15
By: Elizabeth Berg
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When It Happens to You
- A Novel in Stories
- By: Molly Ringwald
- Narrated by: Molly Ringwald
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time, but just weren't facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be. Molly Ringwald mines the complexities of modern relationships in this gripping and nuanced collection of interlinked stories. Writing with a deep compassion for human imperfection, Ringwald follows a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors while they negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life - revealing the deceptions, heartbreak, and vulnerability familiar to us all.
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Narrated by Molly!
- By JillHen on 03-01-13
By: Molly Ringwald
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Good except for the ending
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Powerful and Candid Story
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From the award-winning, best-selling author of When I Was Puerto Rican, a powerful novel of family, race, faith, sex, and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and the Bronx, revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them together.
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Accurate information
- By Julian on 09-23-23
What listeners say about The Swimmers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- L. S.
- 05-26-23
Life before and during dementia
Moving narrative, primarily in the form of a daughter’s checklist of perceptions, of a woman whose life as an avid swimmer changes due to the gradual onset of dementia. The story is related in a mechanical tone but is moving nevertheless and will ring familiar to those who have helped/witnessed a parent going through this hellish transition.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 01-30-23
Not the right title
I enjoyed the beginning of this book as it related to swimmers, but the end was rather depressing and it didn’t tie into the swimmers piece again.
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- Charles
- 02-21-23
It’s like swimming - takes a bit of effort and feel for it
A number of reviewers gig this book as being 2 or more stories. They’re missing the connection between the pool centered opening and the rest of the story. Look for it, it’s definitely there throughout, though more subtle than some may like.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Yolanda Alvarez
- 02-09-23
Well told.
The content is insightful and a story I can relate to. I enjoyed the book and will say it is really good
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- Anonymous User
- 05-21-23
Moving
Intriguing style and moving story. I was so touched by each chapter.l highly recommend this book and am interested to see what else Julie Otsuka has written.
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- Lisa M. Ide
- 07-23-23
Powerful metaphor, impactful story
This book was recommended to me with no explanation and I'm so glad I gave it a listen. As a member of a whole family of lap swimmers, I was laughing and nodding at the description of the characters in the first chapter and bemused by the focus on the cracks and exploration of everyone's reaction - the ending of that arc was sad and unexpected and left the "reader" and community hanging -- a powerful parallel to the second phase of the novel, the story of one of the swimmer's decline told from the perspective of her daughter. While the story of the pool was disappointing, the story of the swimmer and her family was sometimes beautiful and completely tragic. I'll be thinking about the metaphor and the devolution of a life for a long time to come.
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- tr
- 02-23-23
Stick it out
Just like a long swim work out the first few hundred yards can seem tedious. I’m so glad I stuck it out to the end. If you have a loved one suffering from memory loss this book is especially meaningful.
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- mahjmama
- 05-07-23
Two stories
I enjoyed the first part of the book about the swimmers and their community, but the second half of the book really was about a woman with dementia that really had little to do with the first half.
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- Andy Bivetto
- 04-18-24
The info about what to expect from dementia was helpful
Long intro in the beginning to set up the story line was tiring. It was very informative.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Lily E.
- 03-16-22
Meaningful Experience
Otsuka captures not only the ritual of a detached yet bonded community but also the heart-wrenching regret and despair of losing a loved one to dementia. The steady rhythm of her backloaded declarative and highly evocative and detailed sentences lends a mesmerizing captivation. I devoted my afternoon to listening and felt a frequent twinge of recognition.
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