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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 24
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As he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's enigmatic wife allow her to remain? A subversively brilliant study of love, Swimming Home reveals how the most devastating secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting and different
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At school, Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful, compelling
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Conversations with Friends
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Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend and comrade-in-arms is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and Bobbi catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa's world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
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Lanny
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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There’s a village an hour from London. It’s no different from many others today: one pub, one church, redbrick cottages, some public housing, and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it, to the land and to the land’s past. It also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a mythical figure local schoolchildren used to draw as green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth, who awakens after a glorious nap.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So Glad I've Discovered Max Porter !
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Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of Northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counterculture world. Isolated at home and an outlander at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Lost Children Archive
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A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home. Why Apaches? asks the 10-year-old son. Because they were the last of something,answers his father. In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the Southwestern border into the US but getting detained - or lost in the desert along the way.
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3 out of 5 stars
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ECHO...O...O...
- By Ray Stewart on 03-04-19
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Swimming Home
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Levy, Tom McCarthy (introduction)
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 24
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 24
As he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's enigmatic wife allow her to remain? A subversively brilliant study of love, Swimming Home reveals how the most devastating secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting and different
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,233
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,134
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,134
At school, Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful, compelling
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Conversations with Friends
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- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 628
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 573
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Story4 out of 5 stars 571
Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend and comrade-in-arms is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and Bobbi catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa's world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting point of view; glad I listened!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-23-17
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Lanny
- By: Max Porter
- Narrated by: Annie Aldington, Clare Corbett
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 44
There’s a village an hour from London. It’s no different from many others today: one pub, one church, redbrick cottages, some public housing, and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it, to the land and to the land’s past. It also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a mythical figure local schoolchildren used to draw as green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth, who awakens after a glorious nap.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So Glad I've Discovered Max Porter !
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Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of Northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counterculture world. Isolated at home and an outlander at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Baffled
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home. Why Apaches? asks the 10-year-old son. Because they were the last of something,answers his father. In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the Southwestern border into the US but getting detained - or lost in the desert along the way.
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3 out of 5 stars
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ECHO...O...O...
- By Ray Stewart on 03-04-19
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Asymmetry
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 653
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 586
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 585
Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly", tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War.
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3 out of 5 stars
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This is not a fair review. Doesn’t work in audio format.
- By Elizabeth on 02-16-18
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Washington Black
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,645
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,538
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,524
George Washington Black, or "Wash", an 11-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning - and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Now what do I do?
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Everything Under
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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The dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a private language of their own invention. Her mother disappeared when Gretel was a teen, abandoning her to foster care, and Gretel has tried to move on, spending her days updating dictionary entries. One phone call from her mother is all it takes for the past to come rushing back. To find her, Gretel will have to recover buried memories of her final, fateful winter on the canals.
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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 461
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 433
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 431
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Hmmmm.....
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Chances Are...
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 434
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One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the 60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved - Jacy Calloway.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What can I say? It's Richard Russo
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Warlight
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,403
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,293
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,293
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war.
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4 out of 5 stars
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It both entertains and teaches.
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The Most Fun We Ever Had
- A Novel
- By: Claire Lombardo
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 954
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 872
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 866
When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. By 2016, their four daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and doubt; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents'.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful book
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The Mars Room
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 819
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 750
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Story4 out of 5 stars 746
Featuring original music by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon! It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing novel !
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4 3 2 1
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 571
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 524
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Story4 out of 5 stars 527
Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Too much detail.
- By Jax on 03-03-17
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My Sister, the Serial Killer
- A Novel
- By: Oyinkan Braithwaite
- Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,593
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,464
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,458
Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A unique and enjoyable listen!
- By Dee on 11-24-18
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Less
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,957
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,580
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4,567
You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: Your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Endearing, funny, but sometimes overly clever
- By Lili on 07-30-17
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The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,081
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,861
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,853
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant book, fantastic narrator!
- By Bonnie B. on 07-27-15
Publisher's Summary
Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, read by Romola Garai.
Two strangers arrive in a small Spanish fishing village. The older woman is suffering from mysterious paralysis, driven to seek a cure beyond the bounds of conventional medicine. Her daughter, Sofia, has spent years playing the reluctant detective in this mystery, struggling to understand her mother's illness.
Surrounded by the oppressive desert heat, searching for a cure to a defiant and quite possibly imagined disease, Sofia is forced to confront her difficult relationship with her mother. Examining female rage and sexuality, Deborah Levy explores the strange and monstrous nature of motherhood, testing the bonds of parent and child to a breaking point.
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What members say
Average Customer Ratings
Overall
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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5 Stars3
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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3.5 out of 5 stars
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5 Stars2
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A Person
- 12-07-16
Dreamlike and fascinating
This is an engaging story told in an impressionistic way with elements of magical realism. Cinematic in style, it reminded me a little of Almodovar's films. The narration was superb, a very committed performance and beautiful voice.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Deborah
- 02-10-17
Very strange story
Certainly wouldn't recommend this rather nasty story. Romola Garai attempted too many strange accents and it was a very unsatisfactory plot.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A. E. Ward
- 10-07-16
Perfect pairing
Romola Garai's voice is so beautiful, I can't wait for her to narrate some more books. The story has been described as hypnotic and her voice is absolutely perfect for it. Loved it.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Suswati
- 01-09-17
Well read and written but too long and fluffy
Deborah Levy is a wonderful writer and is able to explore characters in a detailed way.
Unfortunately the storyline is a little too convoluted, rather emotional with little substance about an adult daughter's relationship with both her parents. It could be cut down to half the length and even then it may be too long. This may appeal to drama lovers but be warned - the story can be summed up in a sentence.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- susan lowes
- 01-05-17
fascinating
Great book. Witty and insightful. Spoilt by terribke monotone reader wish I'd read it myself
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Miss S T Chapman
- 07-03-17
Lyrical
I really enjoyed the language of this book and the metaphors. It was a really relaxing listen too. Great job by the narrator. Only scored low because I think the actual story could have been stronger.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- S. Hoover
- 02-12-17
Challengingly complex characters.
Very well written, with prose that often merges into poetry. The author uses circular layers to make this a beautiful and evocative work. However, as usually with complex characters, the emotional connection with them was not there in the main. Although it is a story of self discovery and vanquishing personal demons, I found myself rooting for no one until the very end.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Becky Peckham
- 12-20-18
Dull!!
Couldn't finish it. Maybe noty taste but this was just boring. Flimsy characters and a dull plot.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- G
- 10-29-18
A great character novel
I really enjoyed this, it is a great character novel and the performance is fantastic, particularly the voice of the mother.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Louisa
- 09-03-18
Worth sticking with
About half way thought this book I nearly gave up - I really couldn't see where it was going. However, having decided to listen for a long stretch, I realised it was a book that needed to be "read" almost in one go. The reader was excellent and pushed the narrative along and one gradually got the point of the story. I would definitely recommend listening to it if you have time to stick with it and then gradually you get a sense of the flow of the book. But I feel it's not a book to be listened to in small snippets.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rochelle
- 08-17-16
Strange, seductive and powerfully sensual
Oh my gosh what an exciting novel Hot Milk is. I was a bit worried by the title that I was about to read some sort of weird MILF erotica. Just to be clear, it isn't MILF erotica (or any other kind of erotica). It is a very sexy novel, but not in the way you’re thinking.
It’s the story of Sofia and her mother, Rose. They are in Spain seeking treatment for an ailment that has stumped Rose’s doctors in England.
Sofia at 24, is an example of “failure to launch.” She has quit her PhD in anthropology to care for her mother. She works in a coffee shop. She has no romantic relationships, no home of her own. She failed her drivers licence four times. Seriously - four times! I'm in no place to criticise here, but she didn't even pass the theory!
The relationship between Sofia and Rose crackles with tension and hums with rage. Between them they are stuck. But as the epigraph of the novel instructs: "It's up to you to break the old circuits.” And it is up to Sofia and Rose to narrate their own new legends.
In Spain Sofia turns her anthropological eye upon herself. It's the beginning of her discovery of her sexuality, her seductiveness and her inner monster.
Levy's prose is itself powerfully seductive. It as warm as the air of southern Spain. It's smooth and divine and devilishly funny. It's also terribly sensual. The story has an ethereal quality that makes it feel hard to pin down at first, but the golden thread of Levy's metaphors lead us to see both the divine and the mortal in Sofia.
Romola Garai's velvety narration brings divinity to the seductiveness of Levy's prose. It's a perfect match of book and narrator. Garai's voicing, timing, characterisation - it's all perfect. I hope she'll find time in her busy schedule to narrated other audiobooks. Bravo Ms Garai, and bravo Ms Levy. A beautiful combination.
I'm not a classicist so I keep the internet handy when I'm reading. I get really excited by references that help me understand the book I'm reading better. In this instance I hunted down "milk as metaphor" ("hot milk" is semen for those interested. I wonder who else was visiting Juan in the injury hut! Otherwise "milk" can refer to spiritual immaturity, which I liked as a metaphor in this instance, or "mother's milk"). I also read about the myth of the Medusa, the beautiful, strong maiden who is turned into a powerful monster, later beheaded at the command of Athena. Also The Laugh of the Medusa, the essay from which Hot Milk takes its epigraph. Keep an ear out for David Bowie lyrics too!
Did I mention I loved this book? I loved this book. Seriously, loved it. It's long listed for the Man Booker Prize 2016 and is a very worthy contender.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Joy
- 01-12-17
Boring!
Kept hoping the story would improve. The narration was soooo monotone! I think she was bored also!
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Trish
- 01-07-17
Hated it.
Has to be the most airy-fairy load of nonsense Ive read. waste of money.
up to Chapter 10 & cant stand the agony of finishing. No story line per se. Characters are wishy-washy. If you like a good read, miss this one. Narrator did her best.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful