-
Morningside Heights
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Shane Baker
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Book • When Ohio-born Pru Steiner arrives in New York in 1976, she follows in a long tradition of young people determined to take the city by storm. But when she falls in love with and marries Spence Robin, her hotshot young Shakespeare professor, her life takes a turn she couldn’t have anticipated.
Thirty years later, something is wrong with Spence. The Great Man can’t concentrate; he falls asleep reading The New York Review of Books. With their daughter, Sarah, away at medical school, Pru must struggle on her own to care for him. One day, feeling especially isolated, Pru meets a man, and the possibility of new romance blooms. Meanwhile, Spence’s estranged son from his first marriage has come back into their lives. Arlo, a wealthy entrepreneur who invests in biotech, may be his father’s last, best hope.
Morningside Heights is a sweeping and compassionate novel about a marriage surviving hardship. It’s about the love between women and men, and children and parents; about the things we give up in the face of adversity; and about how to survive when life turns out differently from what we thought we signed up for.
Critic reviews
New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Book
Best Fiction of the Year - Chicago Tribune
One of Newsweek's Most Highly Anticipated New Books
38 Novels You Need to Read this Summer - Lit Hub
One of Good Morning America's 27 Books for June
The Millions Most Anticipated
Best Book of the Year - Bookmarks Magazine
Top Jewish Pop Cultural Stories - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
One of Alma’s Favorite Books for Summer
“Henkin has explored the exigencies of marriage and families (especially recombined families) through unflinching yet kind depictions of the ways we live now.... His thoughtful new novel, Morningside Heights, proves no exception.... Notably and satisfyingly, much of Morningside takes place against a New York City that is clearly beloved to its author. Henkin tours a wealth of landmarks and neighborhoods with authority and affection.... Quietly told, the story nonetheless pulses with insistence: Attention must be paid. This subtle urgency opens our own awareness, lens-like, upon the implied human task, larger than any single calamity - that of attending to relentless change, loss, finitude.” (Joan Frank, The Washington Post)
“[Morningside Heights] is generous, wise, and wry enough to avoid sentimentality.... Astonishingly, Henkin transforms what could be a mighty grim work of fiction into a melancholy and tender one enriched by the viewpoints of a constellation of characters.” (Elizabeth Taylor, The National Book Review)
“[Henkin's] story of a brilliant Shakespearean and his wife - once his student - radiates a tenderness for the city that we, his intended readers, can best appreciate - perhaps now most of all, as we ask our city to return to us.... Henkin is a fine writer with a wry fondness for his characters, but like any New Yorker he knows how to keep a safe distance. The specific letting-go that all New Yorkers must master if we don’t wish to be crippled by nostalgia - especially now, if we do hope to see our city’s resurgence - is particularly nuanced when a city neighborhood is also a college town, but Henkin more than meets this challenge.” (Jean Hanff Korelitz, The New York Times Book Review)
Featured Article: 15 Essential Jewish Authors to Hear in Audio
The Jewish diaspora is vast, diverse, and full of stories. In recent years, Jewish authors have published books about everything from love, identity, and history to crime, romance, and what it means to come of age in the modern world. While this list is by no means complete, these 15 Jewish authors have written some of the most fascinating Jewish literature, and they represent a deep catalog of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in a range of genres.
More from the same
Author
Narrator
Related to this topic
-
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
- By: Danielle Evans
- Narrated by: Daniel Deadwyler, Jeanette Illidge, Je Nie Fleming, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
-
-
things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
-
The Stuff that Never Happened
- A Novel
- By: Maddie Dawson
- Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children and thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.
-
-
Don’t pass this one up.
- By Lauren on 03-10-20
By: Maddie Dawson
-
The Natural Mother of the Child
- A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood
- By: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Narrated by: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as "the natural mother of the child." The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family.
-
-
Excellent
- By Kathryn Bradley on 03-04-23
-
The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
-
-
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Joy in the Morning
- A Novel
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet and fall in love. Though only 18, Annie travels alone halfway across the country to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law - and there they marry. But Carl and Annie’s first year together is much more difficult than they anticipated as they find themselves in a faraway place with little money and few friends. With hardship and poverty weighing heavily upon them, they come to realize that their greatest sources of strength, loyalty, and love will help them make it through.
-
-
Another Wonderful Betty Smith Audio Book
- By 20eagle16 on 01-25-21
By: Betty Smith
-
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
- By: Danielle Evans
- Narrated by: Daniel Deadwyler, Jeanette Illidge, Je Nie Fleming, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.
-
-
things we do to oursekves
- By Jamintel on 02-06-23
By: Danielle Evans
-
The Stuff that Never Happened
- A Novel
- By: Maddie Dawson
- Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children and thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.
-
-
Don’t pass this one up.
- By Lauren on 03-10-20
By: Maddie Dawson
-
The Natural Mother of the Child
- A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood
- By: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Narrated by: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as "the natural mother of the child." The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family.
-
-
Excellent
- By Kathryn Bradley on 03-04-23
-
The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
-
-
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Joy in the Morning
- A Novel
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet and fall in love. Though only 18, Annie travels alone halfway across the country to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law - and there they marry. But Carl and Annie’s first year together is much more difficult than they anticipated as they find themselves in a faraway place with little money and few friends. With hardship and poverty weighing heavily upon them, they come to realize that their greatest sources of strength, loyalty, and love will help them make it through.
-
-
Another Wonderful Betty Smith Audio Book
- By 20eagle16 on 01-25-21
By: Betty Smith
What listeners say about Morningside Heights
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Y. Epstein
- 07-17-21
Wonderful, moving, touching
For me, this was a powerful emotional experience. I connected with so many aspects of the story. I knew author Joshua Henkin’s father from my time at Penn when I was an undergrad and Professor Henkin taught at Penn Law School. I knew author Henkin’s brother who was the Music director at a day camp my children attended and the choir director at a high school they attended. But most of all I was able to reminisce about Morningside Heights where I lived as a Columbia Graduate Student and where I now live as a Retired professor. Like Spence and Pru in the novel I too had an apartment on Claremont Avenue and snacked in the Chock full of Nuts that no longer can be found on the corner of 116th and Broadway. I agree that Chock full’s coffee was awful (but they served tasty cream cheese on date nut bread sandwiches). But what made this such a special book was the touching and heartbreaking struggles that family members had to grapple with. Coping with the decline in intellectual and physical abilities of a loved one having Alzheimer’s. Dealing with guilt feelings of an overburdened caregiver. Struggling with a strained father-son relationship and that same son contending with a self-centered guilt-tripping mother. This book had everything. It is a powerful and gripping novel. Do yourself a favor and read it or listen to the audiobook.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 02-11-22
A sensitive story, poignantly told
Joshua Henkin constructed a small screen slowly evolving medical tragedy on the frame of a love relationship surviving almost unscathed to the end. He gets the medical details, sadly, spot on, and the academia and the Upper West Side elements believable and not overplayed. Pru Steiner, the heroine, is a heroine, an Aysheis Chai’el of the old school regardless of her 21st C UMC trappings.
And compliments to the narrator, K Mazur, for her command of the intent and intonation of the passages in Hebrew.
High marks to all involved in Morningside Heights creation and this production.
Wm R Greenfield MD
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barbara S
- 07-06-21
5 glowing stars!!
“Morningside Heights” blew me away as one of the best stories of a contemporary marriage grappling with the devastating damages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Author Joshua Henkin expertly pens a story following the marriage of Pru and Spence Robin’s courtship and marriage which begins in the 1970’s. Prudence Steiner is pursuing her Ph.D. when she becomes involved with the youngest Professor at Columbia who teaches Shakespeare. He’s a noted genius and charming to boot. After marriage, Spencer achieves two Guggenheims, a Mellon, and a MacArthur, and pens a notable book about Shakespeare that attains the NYTimes best seller list.
At age 57, Spence starts notably to decline. Pru is 51. In her early 50’s she struggles with being a caretaker to her once highly intelligent, physically able spouse. For me, the moving part of this story is the marriage, the impact on the marriage. My heart broke for Pru.
There’s more to the story than dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. The Robin’s marriage has it’s complications, as all do. Spence had a brief marriage to a bohemian woman with whom he has a son, Arlo. Arlo holds grudges based on his mother’s biased information about his father. As so happens in many divorces, one parent poison’s the child’s views which doesn’t help the child or the non-custodian parent. Henkin’s writes the relationship with insider nuance. Pru and Spencer work diligently to bring his son, Arlo, into their family fold.
I absolutely love this story, although heart wrenching and sad. My husband does not have this disease, but while reading this, I felt like I was Pru or at least her best friend. I did identify with the destructive ex-spouse and working with the angry step-child. I was immersed in the story, struggled while they struggled, got frustrated when they were frustrated.
I listened to the audio narrated by Kathe Mazur. I looked forward to my audio time, even when it brought tears to my eyes. When I can get my hands on a hard copy, I will read it. I think I would have adored it more if I read it. This is literature at it’s best, and reading literature, for me, is more fulfilling.
5+ glowing stars!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Minneapolis listener
- 08-02-21
A very fine book
Readable and believable. A strong sense of character and and even stronger sense of place. Well worth the time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Heather Zimmerman
- 06-21-21
Okay
Fine audio. Wanted to love this story but just didn't fully connect with any of the characters at a heart level. Maybe I'm simply not a modern fiction person and should stick with the classics... I can see how it would be meaningful for a New Yorker.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michelle Novoa
- 07-29-21
shallow emotionally stunted characters
Maybe it's the culture of the characters, I am not sure but typically when I read or listen to a book it's to escape to another person's life where I come away feeling inspired and that I am not living enough! listening to this very blasé book about the super boring people and their everyday boring lives was mind numbing. and for the life of me I cannot figure out why the son felt his father was a poor father when all he did was try to get close to him only to be shoved away. Very bizarre perspective on that one. There are far more other books about atrocious parenting then what was here and I felt it did not call for rejection of his father, that one is on that kid, who was quite odd, and not in an interesting way.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marcia
- 08-22-21
“Meh”
Really wanted to like this book — New York, family saga, academic setting … kept hoping it would improve, but found it poorly paced, self-indulgent, shallow and boring. Made it all the way through, and don’t feel that it was a good investment of time. The narrator did a good job.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- LisaG
- 08-17-21
Morning side heights.
It kept resetting to first chapter all the time. Not enjoyable. It would go back to chapters I had already read.
Story excellent l. I have I’ll
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amber
- 09-27-21
Beautiful story, great narrator.
Equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking. Amazing use of language and great details. 5/5. Read for a Jewish themed book club, would recommend to anyone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RueRue
- 07-08-22
Great narration
A wonderful narrator ! Audible should use her more often !
The book itself, well, there are positives: well written prose, an interesting character arc, and heartrending descriptions of the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease ( hard to read because my mother had this, and the descriptions are indeed quite accurate).
Favorite character in the story is the caregiver, Ginny.
The negatives: apart from Ginny, none of the characters really touched me emotionally, in spite of the sad fate of Spence. Several characters were under developed, and seemed unnecessary.
Overall, good book, but a tighter focus on the primary characters would have made it better.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!