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The Valley of Amazement
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
New York Times best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan brings us her latest novel: a sweeping, evocative epic of two women's intertwined fates and their search for identity - from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
Back in 1897 San Francisco, Violet's mother, Lucia, chooses a disastrous course as a sixteen-year-old, when her infatuation with a Chinese painter compels her to leave her home for Shanghai. Shocked by her lover's adherence to Chinese traditions, she is unable to change him, despite her unending American ingenuity.
Fueled by betrayals, both women refuse to submit to fate and societal expectations, persisting in their quests to recover what was taken from them: respect; a secure future; and, most poignantly, love from their parents, lovers, and children. To reclaim their lives, they take separate journeys - to a backwater hamlet in China, the wealthy environs of the Hudson River Valley, and, ultimately, the unknown areas of their hearts, where they discover what remains after their many failings to love and be loved. Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement transports listeners from the collapse of China's last imperial dynasty to the beginning of the Republic and recaptures the lost world of old Shanghai through the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreigners living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. A deeply evocative narrative of the profound connections between mothers and daughters, imbued with Tan's characteristic insight and humor, The Valley of Amazement conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and obstinacy of love.
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Story
Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than 50 years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose all that has been concealed, when she decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths - her own and Winnie's, as well as the dreadful news that Winnie's daughter, Pearl, has been keeping from her mother.
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Holds your attention through out
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 06-08-17
By: Amy Tan
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The Moor's Last Sigh
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreally imagined and sometimes blasphemous chronicle of modern India and flavors the mixture with peppery soliloquies on art, ethnicity, religious fanaticism, and the terrifying power of love. Moraes "Moor" Zogoiby, the last surviving scion of a dynasty of Cochinese spice merchants and crime lords, is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile.
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The performance is enchanting.
- By Kelly on 05-04-18
By: Salman Rushdie
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Silver Wattle
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In fear for their lives after the sudden death of their mother, Adéla and Klára must flee Prague to find refuge with their uncle in Australia. Later, Adéla becomes a film director at a time when the local industry is starting to feel the competition from Hollywood. But even while success is imminent, the issues of family and an impossible love are never far away.
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Groan, Snore and Wince!
- By OrangeWisteria on 02-12-12
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The Girl in the Castle
- A Novel
- By: Santa Montefiore
- Narrated by: Genevieve Swallow
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Born on the ninth day of the ninth month in the year 1900, Kitty Deverill grows up in Castle Deverill, on the sunning green hills of West Cork, Ireland - the same place her ancestors have always dwelt. She isn't fully Irish, as the son of the local veterinarian likes to tease her; but this doesn't stop Kitty and Jack O'Leary from falling in love....
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Explicitness
- By Billie on 04-28-17
By: Santa Montefiore
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The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
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one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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And Only to Deceive
- Lady Emily, Book 1
- By: Tasha Alexander
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly.
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Tiresome
- By nkevinsc on 03-05-15
By: Tasha Alexander
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My Beautiful Enemy
- By: Sherry Thomas
- Narrated by: Charlotte Anne Dore
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Catherine Blade's uncommon beauty and daring have taken her far in the world, but she still doesn't have the freedom to live life as she chooses. Finally given the chance to earn her independence, who should be standing in her way but the only man she's ever loved - the only person to ever betray her. Despite the scars Catherine left him, Captain Leighton Atwood has never been able to forget the mysterious girl who once so thoroughly captivated him.
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my least favorite from this author, and still good
- By Christina on 09-04-14
By: Sherry Thomas
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The Queen of the Night
- By: Alexander Chee
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singer's chance at immortality. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her, one wants to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all.
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Not my typical choice
- By fadedcharacter on 02-15-16
By: Alexander Chee
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Push Not the River
- By: James Conroyd Martin
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 19 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Push Not the River is the rich story of Poland in the late 1700's - a time of heartache and turmoil as the country's once peaceful people are torn apart by neighboring countries and divided loyalties. It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, that Lady Anna Maria Berezowska loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known.
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Save your time; buy something else.
- By AMS on 10-22-15
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Palace of Tears
- By: Julian Leatherdale
- Narrated by: Ming-Zhu Hii
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
The dazzling story of family, passion, secrets and vengeance, woven through the hardships of both World Wars and revealing the intriguing history of the Palace, the opulent Blue Mountains hotel famed for its luxury and mysterious owner. A sweltering summer's day, January 1914: the charismatic and ruthless Adam Fox throws a lavish birthday party for his son and heir at his elegant clifftop hotel in the Blue Mountains. Everyone is invited except Angie, the girl from the cottage next door.
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Distractingly bad acting by narrator!
- By Bunny on 01-30-16
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The Scottish Duke
- By: Karen Ranney
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Though raised as a gentleman's daughter, Lorna Gordon is obliged to take a position as an upstairs maid at Blackhall Castle when her father dies. Alex Russell, the Duke of Kinross, is the most tempting man she's ever seen - and completely unattainable until, at a fancy dress ball, Lorna disguises herself as Marie Antoinette and pursues an illicit tryst, with scandalous consequences.
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Excellent!
- By Lady M on 12-16-16
By: Karen Ranney
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Saving Fish from Drowning
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Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers.
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Great book, shame about the narrator
- By Karen Campbell on 07-21-08
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The Bonesetter's Daughter
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Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".
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Exceptionally good
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The Kitchen God's Wife
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Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than 50 years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose all that has been concealed, when she decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths - her own and Winnie's, as well as the dreadful news that Winnie's daughter, Pearl, has been keeping from her mother.
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Holds your attention through out
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 06-08-17
By: Amy Tan
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Rules for Virgins
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Amy Tan takes us deep into the illicit world of 1912 Shanghai, where beautiful courtesans mercilessly compete for the patronage of wealthy gentlemen. For the women, the contest is deadly serious, a perilous game of economic survival that, if played well, can set them up for life as mistresses of the rich and prominent. There is no room for error, however: Erotic power is hard to achieve and harder to maintain, especially in the loftiest social circles. Enter veteran seducer, Magic Gourd, formerly one of Shanghai’s “Top Ten Beauties” and now the advisor and attendant of Violet, an aspiring but inexperienced courtesan.
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Loved it - oh so briefly!
- By Quiltrobin on 11-14-13
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The Hundred Secret Senses
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Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.
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BUY THIS VERSION (Release Date 01–03-22)
- By Jessica B Hunter on 10-04-22
By: Amy Tan
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The Kitchen God's Wife
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Yeo
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades — in China and in San Francisco — Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have kept each other's confidences, but those secrets are about to be revealed. Convinced that she is dying, Helen decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of hidden truths — not only hers, but those of Winnie and of Winnie's daughter, Pearl.
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Fantastic, as always
- By Vadims Bikovskis on 12-06-23
By: Amy Tan
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Saving Fish from Drowning
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Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers.
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Great book, shame about the narrator
- By Karen Campbell on 07-21-08
By: Amy Tan
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Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".
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Exceptionally good
- By Eileen Finn on 03-25-03
By: Amy Tan
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The Kitchen God's Wife
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Yeo
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
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Overall
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Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than 50 years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose all that has been concealed, when she decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths - her own and Winnie's, as well as the dreadful news that Winnie's daughter, Pearl, has been keeping from her mother.
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Holds your attention through out
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 06-08-17
By: Amy Tan
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Amy Tan takes us deep into the illicit world of 1912 Shanghai, where beautiful courtesans mercilessly compete for the patronage of wealthy gentlemen. For the women, the contest is deadly serious, a perilous game of economic survival that, if played well, can set them up for life as mistresses of the rich and prominent. There is no room for error, however: Erotic power is hard to achieve and harder to maintain, especially in the loftiest social circles. Enter veteran seducer, Magic Gourd, formerly one of Shanghai’s “Top Ten Beauties” and now the advisor and attendant of Violet, an aspiring but inexperienced courtesan.
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Loved it - oh so briefly!
- By Quiltrobin on 11-14-13
By: Amy Tan
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The Hundred Secret Senses
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.
-
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BUY THIS VERSION (Release Date 01–03-22)
- By Jessica B Hunter on 10-04-22
By: Amy Tan
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The Kitchen God's Wife
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Yeo
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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For decades — in China and in San Francisco — Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have kept each other's confidences, but those secrets are about to be revealed. Convinced that she is dying, Helen decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of hidden truths — not only hers, but those of Winnie and of Winnie's daughter, Pearl.
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Fantastic, as always
- By Vadims Bikovskis on 12-06-23
By: Amy Tan
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The Opposite of Fate
- Memories of a Writing Life
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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Performance
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Amy Tan has touched millions of people with haunting and sympathetic novels of cultural complexity and profound empathy. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own life and how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own. She takes us on a journey from her childhood of tragedy and comedy to the present day and her arrival as one of the world's best-loved novelists.
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My first Tan Book
- By JRT on 03-16-16
By: Amy Tan
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
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Story
Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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The Backyard Bird Chronicles
- By: Amy Tan, David Allen Sibley - foreword
- Narrated by: Amy Tan, Evan Sibley
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
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Story
In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.
By: Amy Tan, and others
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The Moon Lady
- By: Amy Tan
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Three sisters listen to their grandmother recount a mesmerizing childhood memory on a rainy afternoon. The long complex story, filled with danger and excitement, relates what happened when Ying-ying was seven and celebrating the Moon Festival in China. On that long-ago night of the Moon Festival, she encountered the Moon Lady, who grants the secret wishes of those who ask.
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This is a short story, not a novel
- By M. C. Thomas on 08-14-10
By: Amy Tan
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The Joy Luck Club
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Yeo
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Four Chinese women, drawn together by the shadow of their past, meet in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and to "say" stories to each other. Nearly 40 years later, one of the women has died, and her daughter arrives to take her place. However, the daughter never expected to learn of her mother's secret lifelong wish - and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation creates among the women an urgent need to remember the past.
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Joy Luck - abridged
- By Leslie Teicholz on 03-16-04
By: Amy Tan
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China Dolls
- A Novel
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Jodi Long
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
San Francisco, 1938: A world’s fair is preparing to open on Treasure Island, a war is brewing overseas, and the city is alive with possibilities. Talented Grace, traditional Helen, and defiant Ruby, three young women from very different backgrounds, meet by chance at the exclusive and glamorous Forbidden City nightclub.
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Narrator Spoiled It For Me
- By woodbridge98 on 06-09-14
By: Lisa See
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Shanghai Girls
- A Novel
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, 21-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different, but both are beautiful, modern, and carefree...until the day their father tells them he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts, he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.
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Touching, sad, and enjoyable
- By Beach Biker on 07-15-09
By: Lisa See
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Peony in Love
- A Novel
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage.
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Eloquently written and read
- By D on 07-21-07
By: Lisa See
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Lady Tan's Circle of Women
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Jennifer Lim, Justin Chien
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.
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Another Beautiful Novel from Lisa See!
- By TuxedoedCorgi95 on 06-06-23
By: Lisa See
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On Gold Mountain
- The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Out of the stories heard in her childhood in Los Angeles's Chinatown and years of research, See has constructed this sweeping chronicle of her Chinese-American family, a work that takes in stories of racism and romance, entrepreneurial genius and domestic heartache, secret marriages and sibling rivalries, in a powerful history of two cultures meeting in a new world.
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Great story...awful narration
- By Solbakken on 06-02-17
By: Lisa See
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The Chinese Siamese Cat
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Amy Tan's light, airy voice engages the listener as if sharing a bedtime story. The naughty white kitten, Sagwa, comes from a long line of royal Chinese cats. Her mischief changes the spirit of the cruel magistrate and future for her ancestors. A beautifully written story about why Siamese cats are really Chinese and why their faces, ears, paws and tails turn darker as they grow up.
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Only 19 minutes
- By Linda on 04-11-15
By: Amy Tan
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Pearl of China
- By: Anchee Min
- Narrated by: Angela Lin
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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An internationally best-selling author, Anchee Min draws upon her Chinese heritage to pen lush historical epics. Here she transports listeners to the Far East for a fictionalized account of acclaimed author Pearl Buck’s youth. Arriving in late 19th-century China with her missionary parents, Buck is soon fascinated by her new home and strikes up a friendship with a young Chinese girl named Willow. The two become inseparable, even as civil war, failed relationships, and world conflicts threaten all they hold dear.
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Utterly Fascinating
- By Lesley on 08-15-10
By: Anchee Min
What listeners say about The Valley of Amazement
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Cynthia Franks
- 01-28-15
Once you start it, it is hard to stop.
Pulls you into a different experience of the world; yet tells a story that any son, daughter, mother, father will feel.
From the first word, you find yourself in the rich, exotic world of Chinese courtesan houses in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Shanghai. It follows the story of half-American, half-Chinese Violet Minturn from age seven into her forties as she lives and loves in Shanghai. It is a tremendous tale of three women; mother, daughter, and granddaughter; who live different lives but the bond between them is unbroken despite separations of distance and time. It taps something I have come to realize the last few years, my mother lives in me.
For the writers, much craft can be gleaned from this book. Ask yourself why Amy Tan chose to tell Lucia’s story so late in the book? It is an inspired piece of storytelling from a master. A great example of how sex scenes should written and can be a pivotal part of a story and not set decoration.
The audio performances by Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean and Amy Tan bring the characters to life. However, this is not a good bedtime listen, it is too interesting and may keep you awake. Listen on the weekends. Once you start it, it is hard to stop.
I want my own Magic Gourd!
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Casandra
- 12-10-13
Loved this book!
What made the experience of listening to The Valley of Amazement the most enjoyable?
The story was wonderful. I was sucked into the storyline almost instantly. I love the relationships between the characters, they were so intricate and not connected in a typical way. I loved that I was on the edge of my seat and could really feel for the characters.
Who was your favorite character and why?
I don't have a particular favorite character, I loved them all. Although when the book switches to the different perspectives of the characters, it really gives you a better sense of how the character is feeling and why they are making certain decisions.
Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have listened to all of the other available books by Amy Tan and I've liked them all, when she does the narrating herself, it does seem a little flat, but the story makes up for it. Plus, I like that I get to hear the author tell the story with her own voice in parts, knowing that she wrote the story.
Any additional comments?
This book has gotten some really unfair reviews, and I couldn't disagree more. This is my far my favorite Amy Tan book so far. I'm hoping that she does another book that is a sequel or something similar.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Christina Roark
- 05-10-19
Phenomenal!
I travel a lot so the length of this book is ideal! It does not drag on. It keeps you hooked from beginning to end. Masterfully written! Accurate historical references. Just the right amount of tragedy mixed with happy resolves. If I didn’t know this was fiction I’d think this story was true. It doesn’t have comfortable stories only. It has stories of real things that people endured during the time this book takes place in.
SUCH A GOOD BOOK! SUCH A WELL WRITTEN STORY. I am half Asian. It appeals to me and makes me reminisce of the behaviors or experiences from my Asian family. Traditions/behaviors/superstitions in Asian cultures still have not changed to this day. Every culture should read this book to shed light on historical times and cultural differences!
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Overall
- Laurness
- 06-09-16
Journey with a Chinese woman of strength
Amy Tan once again takes us to a place we've never seen but will not be forgotten.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Travis
- 01-21-15
Have a costco pack of Kleenex at hand.
A beautiful story ready to send readers into misty eyed looks of disbelief. A well written multigenerational tale of loneliness, love, and love lost. Oh, and of lass of all kinds too. Lots of loss and cruelty. This tale chronicled the lives of women (and their corresponding men) who try to fill the void in the best way they know how, often with disastrous consequences. Not recommended for the clinically depressed or suffering from suicidal thoughts.
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Story
- alice edwards
- 02-08-16
a nice, looong story set mainly in China
Would you consider the audio edition of The Valley of Amazement to be better than the print version?
did not read the print version.
What did you like best about this story?
the exotic setting and learning about the lives of courtesans.
What about the narrators’s performance did you like?
while executed somewhat less than perfectly, i like the attempts of the female narrators to switch to male-sounding voices for male dialog.
Any additional comments?
not only was i entertained, i wasn't bored in the least. In fact, I listened to most of the book two times, something I rarely do. I could listen again if i didn't have other interesting books awaiting me.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- H. Shalit
- 07-09-14
Good but too long
What did you love best about The Valley of Amazement?
Overall, Amy Tan's fiction is wonderful and this book fits that description.
What did you like best about this story?
I liked the vivid descriptions of people and places. I especially liked the descriptions of Shanghai because I have been to most of the neighborhoods that she describes.
Any additional comments?
The book needs to be edited down a little. There are too many repetitive stories within the story. Also, it is sexually explicit, not for young adult listeners .
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Performance
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- Andrea
- 08-17-16
Amy Tan doesn't disappoint
I loved it. I felt like I really knew all of the characters. The narration was fitting. A multi-generation story that comes full circle. I truly didn't want the story to end.
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- Kamna
- 06-21-15
Not a happy story, but a real one.
For me, it was a good book. It's intense, it's ugly and it's very raw. However, if you can handle it enough to see beneath the surface, it's quite profound. It's about fate, and how the very awful things that happen to us pave the way for things that are better. As for the not so pretty chronicles of courtesan life, put your ego and modern morals aside and ask yourself how much we've truly evolved - women are still playing the same games to get men and at risk of suffering the same exploitation or abuse. I think this is why so many readers had such a strong negative reaction to the book. It's worth a read and worth the time.
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- AmaChar
- 09-24-15
I love this book!
I really enjoyed this book. I couldn't put it down or stop the audio book.
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