Beloved

Pulitzer Prize Winner

By: Toni Morrison

Narrated by: Toni Morrison

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This "powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author.

“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

“Dazzling. . . . Magical. . . . An extraordinary work.” —The New York Times©1987 Toni Morrison; (P)1998 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A masterwork. . . . Wonderful. . . . I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

“A triumph.” —Margaret Atwood, The New York Times Book Review

“Toni Morrison’s finest work. . . . [It] sets her apart [and] displays her prodigious talent.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Dazzling. . . . Magical. . . . An extraordinary work.” —The New York Times

“A masterpiece. . . . Magnificent. . . . Astounding. . . . Overpowering.” —Newsweek

“Brilliant. . . . Resonates from past to present.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A brutally powerful, mesmerizing story. . . . Read it and tremble.” —People

“Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature.” —New York Review of Books

“A work of genuine force. . . . Beautifully written.” —The Washington Post

“There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you.” —The New Yorker

“A magnificent heroine . . . a glorious book.” —The Baltimore Sun

“Superb. . . . A profound and shattering story that carries the weight of history. . . . Exquisitely told.” —Cosmopolitan

“Magical . . . rich, provocative, extremely satisfying.” —Milwaukee Journal

“Beautifully written. . . . Powerful. . . . Toni Morrison has become one of America’s finest novelists.” —The Plain Dealer

“Stunning. . . A lasting achievement.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Written with a force rarely seen in contemporary fiction. . . . One feels deep admiration.” —USA Today

“Compelling . . . . Morrison shakes that brilliant kaleidoscope of hers again, and the story of pain, endurance, poetry and power she is born to tell comes right out.” —The Village Voice

“A book worth many rereadings.” —Glamour

“In her most probing novel, Toni Morrison has demonstrated once again the stunning powers that place her in the first ranks of our living novelists.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Heart-wrenching . . . mesmerizing.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Shattering emotional power and impact.” —New York Daily News

“A rich, mythical novel . . . a triumph.” —St. Petersburg Times

“Powerful . . . voluptuous.” —New York

Perfect voice for a great novel

It's sad to read the philistine criticisms in the reviews of Morrison's reading voice. Toni Morrison's voice is literally the perfect one for this extraordinary novel. Not just because she is the author, but because her poignant, world-weary expressiveness is the exact voice needed for this story. She avoids all histrionics and absurd vocal tricks, simply telling the story she was born to tell with a profound clarity and simplicity. All other readers sound inadequate after her.

Difficult to follow

This was difficult for me to follow as Ms. Morrison’s voice was monotone. I feel that I missed the storyline with Beloved’s presence. I did have great appreciation for how slavery impacted the mindset of the black community. The difficulty assimilating into a free society and the fact that they were still prisoners in their community and their own mind. It really was thought provoking.

Needs a professional narrator

I'm sure the book is outstanding but the writer has a monotone voice that's almost seductive in tone. Her voice, in itself, is beautiful but I couldn't make it past the first few chapters. It's too difficult and distracting to listen to and I had to back up several times to understand who was speaking or what was happening.

The most moving and evocative book about enslavement written.

Fascinating, painful and filled with the most dangerous thing of all, LOVE. The meaning of family and ties to what can become family examined carefully, brutally and tenderly.

Beloved

The book explains the movie a lot more in depth. It was amazing and I love Toni Morrison’s voice may she Rest In Peace happy she blessed up with her work

Truly amazing

Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing Truly amazing. The ways Toni Morrison reads it is amazing. I just finished it & I am bereft in the best way.

Those who complain about Morrison’s narration are missing it...

I had the pleasure of attending a live reading from Beloved when the novel first came out. Morrison spoke at San Jose State University where she read from her then-newest novel. Her voice, pitch, rhythm, pauses, inflections, and soul were pitch perfect in every regard. I was captivated. In response, I bought the book, Beloved, and couldn’t get through it. Despite my BA and MA in literature, I couldn’t get through it. This saddened and frustrated me because I was held spellbound by Morrison’s reading.

Now, 31 years later, I listened to Beloved on audible - read by Morrison. It all came back and I found I loved this book both (even as it simultaneously devastated me) for the amazing literary achievement as much as for Morrison’s beautiful reading of it.

True...there are plenty of authors who should not be reading their own works. Toni Morrison is not one of them. She is so good, in fact, even though I have read all of her other works in hard copy, I will be purchasing those read by her on Audible and allowing myself the utter luxury of being carried away by a beautiful story read by an amazing narrator.

wow

read by the author, lending it all the beautify, authentisity​, and delight you could desire from a narrator. the story is as deep and wide as an human could barely, and at some places more so. Toni Morrison has earned every acalade she has gotten and some.

Everything stood out

I like the book and the author help we understand in detail of what was the meaning of beloved and even the name

Pulls You Inside-Out

Toni Morrison --both as author and with her solemn, melodious voice--pulls you into the world of slavery and of the human heart -- with its joys, terrors and imaginative possibilities.

You will want to follow her on this journey, as I did, if you want to "live" something uniquely imagined, that includes deep pains and terrors, is part of the history of all Americans, and will pull you inside-out until your guts are exposed to the air.

"Not for everyone"? Well it's not a Great Escape, or what is commonly called "beach reading". But if you want the heavy stuff-- through the eyes and pen of an African American who is one of the most brilliant writers of our time, you could do worse tha trusting her own voice to lead you --through infernos and purgatories undreamed of by Dante.

And then, if you choose, you can go on to her novel "Paradise".