Zeitoun Audiobook By Dave Eggers cover art

Zeitoun

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Zeitoun

By: Dave Eggers
Narrated by: Firdous Bamji
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In his new nonfiction book Zeitoun, New York Times best-selling author Dave Eggers tells a Hurricane Katrina story unlike any written before.

When HurricaneKatrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun - a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four - chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the eerie days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and rescuing those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared.

Eggers's riveting work, three years in the making, follows Zeitoun back to his childhood in Syria and around the world during his years as a sailor. The book also traces the story of Zeitoun's wife Kathy - a boisterous Southerner who converted to Islam - and their wonderful, funny, devoted family. When Zeitoun vanishes, Kathy is left to make sense of the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible.

©2009 Dave Eggers (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC Americas Disaster Relief Environment Los Angeles Times Book Prize Natural Disasters Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Social Sciences State & Local United States New Orleans Nonfiction Funny Thought-Provoking Inspiring

Critic reviews

"Imagine Charles Dickens, his sentimentality in check but his journalistic eyes wide open, roaming New Orleans after it was buried by Hurricane Katrina ... Eggers's tone is pitch-perfect - suspense blended with just enough information to stoke reader outrage and what is likely to be a typical response: How could this happen in America?" (Timothy Egan, The New York Times)
Compelling Narrative • Powerful Storytelling • Eye-opening Account • Personal Perspective • Important Documentation

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Difficult to believe what happened here could actually happen in America. Nonetheless, Eggers tells a very descriptive story about how one man got caught in a vortex of bureaucratic incompetence in the weeks after Katrina.

terrific book about a stunning failure

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I just finished Zeitoun and I highly recommend it. I thought I had an idea of what their Katrina-related story was about -- I listened to an NPR program where he and his wife were the guest speakers and I listened to the NPR This American Life episode on the Katrina. aftermath...however prepared I thought I was -- and sort of dreaded listening, I did not know the extent of the Zeitoun's story. It is something else -- you can only say, "in America, this happened?" Out of context, one would think that the location was in a third world country...incredible, sad, but the Zeitoun’s have a story to tell and in the end, they are sanguine, still, about their future, about the United States. It is a family story, actually, and not that difficult to read -- it does pick up into the meatier more exciting material midway, but one needs to know about the family history to become connected -- sort of a must read, I think. I thought the narration was excellent, too.

Great Story is all I can say

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An amazing story where empathy and strong morals triumph and shine through darkness with the light of humanity.

amazing

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I wish I knew before reading it the subsequent crimes against his family that the protagonist committed.

Compelling but has not aged well

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The story is just as relevant today as it was the time of the events in which it occurred.

Couldn’t stop listening.

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