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The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's summary
For fans of A Man Called Ove comes a funny, big-hearted tale about an old man who is young at heart.
Hendrik Groen may be old, but he is far from dead and isn't planning to be buried any time soon. Granted, his daily strolls are getting shorter because his legs are no longer willing, and he has to visit his doctor more than he'd like. Technically speaking he is...elderly. But surely there is more to life at his age than weak tea and potted geraniums?
Hendrik sets out to write an exposé: a year in the life of his care home in Amsterdam, revealing all its ups and downs—not least his new endeavor, the anarchic Old-but-Not-Dead Club. And when Eefje moves in—the woman Hendrik has always longed for—he polishes his shoes (and his teeth), grooms what's left of his hair, and attempts to make something of the life he has left, with hilarious, tender, and devastating consequences.
The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen will not only delight older listeners with its wit and relevance but charm and inspire those who have years to go before their own expiry dates.
Critic reviews
"Amusing [and] wickedly accurate...Reading The Secret Diary, I was constantly put in mind of Ken Kesey's madhouse tale One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, another comi-tragedy concerning the tyranny of institutions of the unwanted. Enjoy Groen's light touch but do not be fooled by it....The Secret Diary is a handbook of resistance for our time."—The Express (UK)
"Funny and frank—a story with a great deal of heart."—Graeme Simsion, New York Times bestselling author of The Rosie Project
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Story
Three years after Daniel was killed by a senseless act of violence, all his sisters have left of him are their memories - and responsibility for Daniel's mischievous dachshund John Thomas. Daniel donated his organs, his death facilitating life-saving miracles for other families, while his own loved ones struggle to come to terms with their devastating loss, each at a crossroads of her own.
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Family
- By Becky on 11-07-23
By: Kylie Ladd
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Skylight
- By: José Saramago, Margaret Jull Costa - translator
- Narrated by: Diogo Martins
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Lisbon, late 1940s. The inhabitants of a faded apartment building are struggling to make ends meet: Silvestre the cobbler and his wife take in a disaffected young lodger; Dona Ldia, who used to work the streets, is now kept by a businessman with a roving eye. The cultivated family of Dona Cndida, come down in the world, keep to themselves with their books and music.
By: José Saramago, and others
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Bone Rattler
- A Mystery of Colonial America
- By: Eliot Pattison
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Unfairly convicted and force into indentured servitude, young Highland Scot Duncan McCallum finds himself aboard a prisoner ship bound for the New World. A series of mysterious deaths plagues the passengers and claims the life of Duncan’s dear friend Adam Munroe. Enlisted by his captors to investigate, a strange trail of clues leads Duncan into the New World and eventually thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War.
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Thoroughly enjoyable
- By Anonymous User on 08-05-21
By: Eliot Pattison
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The Love Talker
- By: Elizabeth Peters
- Narrated by: Grace Conlin
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Surely Aunt Ida couldn't really have meant it what she said: "I only hope I will be taken before my mind fails. Fairies in the woods, indeed!" But when Laurie and her brother Doug visit her at Idlewood, they discover that Aunt Ida may indeed have something to fear in the woods.
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WARNING...PAGES MISSING
- By S on 08-21-10
By: Elizabeth Peters
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Long Bright River
- A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
- By: Liz Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit - and her sister - before it's too late.
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Narration was good
- By Kelli avid listener on 01-14-20
By: Liz Moore
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A Thousand Acres
- By: Jane Smiley
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach.
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good book bad reader
- By C. Carlson on 08-07-08
By: Jane Smiley
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The Yacht
- By: Sarah Goodwin
- Narrated by: Beth Eyre
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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New Year’s Eve, 2023. When Hannah and her friends rent a luxury yacht in an Italian marina, they party in style under the stars until they pass out. The next morning, they are horrified to find they have been cut adrift into the open ocean, with no sight of land and no fuel in the engine. And that’s when the first person goes missing.
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Good, but not my fav from her
- By Michelle Harder on 01-15-24
By: Sarah Goodwin
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Britt-Marie Was Here
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Britt-Marie can't stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It's just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis.
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A Gem
- By Sara on 05-12-16
By: Fredrik Backman
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A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
- A Novel
- By: C. A. Fletcher
- Narrated by: C. A. Fletcher
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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My name's Griz. I've never been to school, I've never had friends, and in my whole life I've not met enough people to play a game of football. My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, before all the people went away. But we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other and our dogs. Then the thief came.
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Ah, NOT for animal lovers!
- By Evert on 10-19-19
By: C. A. Fletcher
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The Long Walk
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In the near future, when America has become a police state, 100 boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is 16-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules - keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you're out - permanently.
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ONLY,---- WHAT A STUPID WORD!
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-29-16
By: Stephen King
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The Women in the Castle
- By: Jessica Shattuck
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
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Skating On The Thin Ice Of Life
- By Sara on 04-29-17
By: Jessica Shattuck
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A Man Called Ove
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: J. K. Simmons
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. But behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul.
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By Far the Best Narrator of a Book I've Had
- By WanderLaw on 04-05-20
By: Fredrik Backman
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The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
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Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
What listeners say about The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- David
- 04-10-19
Audio level problems
I enjoyed the book well enough but there were serious problems with the audio levels throughout the book. Every 2-3 lines the reader sinks into a barely audible whisper, and you have to turn it up to hear it, and then the very next line is a shout that nearly blows your ears off. The entire book I had to adjust the volume up and down, up and down. Very frustrating. I’ve never had this happen with an audio book before.
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142 people found this helpful
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- Gotta Tellya
- 12-31-18
Great story, uneven volume somewhat detracting.
I read a few reviews commenting that this book is not as good as A Man Called Ove. The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is nothing like the first book, so comparisons are unfair. The Ove book is related in the third person, as by an outside narrator. The Secret Diary is told in first person, in (obviously) diary form, and is equally excellent. In Ove, we watch the personal evolution of a sad old man, set in his ways and solitary by nature, into a community minded, open hearted and more open minded man—happier, with new purpose. In The Secret Diary, Hendrik is already open minded and kind. His personal progress is of a different sort but is valuable and interesting nonetheless. I liked both books very much. But with The Secret Diary’s Audible version, there is one problem. I love Derek Jacobi as an actor. His narration was one of the draws that prompted me to buy the audio version. Unfortunately, though Jacobi’s interpretation of Hendrik is perfect, charming and fun, his lack of volume control hurt my ears. Jacobi must have at times had his mouth right up against the microphone, and at other times must have leaned far away from it. Or else he was prone to let his voice drift into quiet mode and then suddenly ramp it up by a hundred decibles. I wonder if the sound engineer was paying attention during this recording. The wide variations in volume aren’t so hard to take if the story is being listened to over speakers in a room. But over earbuds (which I use while walking outdoors) the sudden surges in volume were painful. I needed to manually adjust the volume control of my earbuds far too frequently. I gave the story itself five stars, but had to cut a star off the narration and the overall rating, only because of the volume fluctuations. I still highly recommend this book, with the caveat that buyers with sensitive ears should be prepared for the sharp and sudden changes in the narrator’s volume.
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121 people found this helpful
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- L. Wroten
- 04-05-19
Derek Jacobi is brilliant
This book had me laughing so hard I had to dig out my asthma inhaler. Derek Jacobi is perfect in the role of razor-tongued octogenarian Hendrick Groen, in a tale that will offer some much needed catharsis for anyone who’s either acquainted with a curmudgeonly elder....or are themselves grappling with the challenges of aging. The black humor is spot on, without a trace of cutseyness or treacley sentiment. The writer is from Holland and the story is set in a Dutch assisted living facility, but the indignities of growing old, alas, are universal.
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43 people found this helpful
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- Art Guzman
- 11-25-18
Not “A Man Called Ove”
Nice book. I enjoyed listening to it as I got an insight of what many elderly go through. Sad and funny at times. A relaxing read, but did not stir me like “A Man Called Ove.”
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37 people found this helpful
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- Ggb
- 08-18-18
One of the most poignant listens ever
As one whose own father is living out his days in a “rest home”, this book struck many chords with me. When I first started listening I wondered how a book with this story line could possible be stretched into as many hours as was listed. Was I ever in for a surprise! I found myself wishing the protagonist had not limited himself to a year’s worth of diary writing! I was drawn in, waiting for the next developments, cheering the club on. The performance was excellent, one of the best I have ever listened to. I would highly recommend this book, particularly in audio form.
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31 people found this helpful
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- Beverly S
- 05-09-18
Oddly Uplifting
A diary written by an old man living in a nursing home hardly sounds enticing but you will miss a very good book if you follow that line of thought. It is at times so funny and yes, sometimes a little sad but delightful all the way through. Hendrik Groen is my hero.
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29 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 10-24-17
narration an a+
the narration of this book realky brings it to life. i think the readable version wouldnt have been as enjoyable. excellent!
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28 people found this helpful
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- Mliz
- 08-20-18
Hendrik hits the nail on the head!
This audio book made me laugh (the most), sigh (it's poignant), shed a tear (life is sad too) and smile to myself a lot!
It's about being old, lonely, scared, brave and determined. The characters are real!! If you are familiar with old folks, retirement homes and hoping you never need one, this book is a guide for it all. It tells the gritty tough stuff and the lovely stuff and it's put together in a way that makes one realize life is about all of it and it's not all one or the other. Wonderful!!
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19 people found this helpful
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- Wayne
- 09-23-19
Life and fun in a geriatric warehouse in Holland
To compare this book to A Man Called Ove is an insult to one of the best novels of the last 10 years (A Man Called Ove). Make no mistake The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is a pretty good book, but it's not even as good as The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. The humor is sometimes funny, but it more often falls flat. The last 5 hours of this book is much better than the first 7 hours.
A Man Called Ove is no longer available in audio book format at Audible. For those who have not listened to it should get the Kindle ebook version or the paperback. Or ask that Audible make it available again. It is available at Audible UK. With almost 67,000 ratings at Audible (US) the book was very popular.
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18 people found this helpful
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- Debbie
- 02-12-19
Lackluster Ramblings of Old Man
Though I may seem heartless in my review, I'm not. I loved A Man Called Ove, and was prepared to love this book, too. But the story took no shape, didn't endear the listener to Hendrik Groen, or the other characters. No way could I listen for nearly twelve hours.
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13 people found this helpful