On Sunset
A Memoir
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
On Sunset
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
-
Narrated by:
-
Rebecca Lowman
-
By:
-
Kathryn Harrison
About this listen
Born in Los Angeles at the dawn of the 1960s to parents who quickly departed, Kathryn Harrison was received by her maternal grandparents as a late-life child. Harry Jacobs and Margaret Sassoon, true wandering Jews, had emigrated to L.A. after leading whirlwind lives in Shanghai, London, Alaska, Russia, and beyond.
Harrison grew up in their fading Tudor mansion on Sunset Boulevard, a kingdom inhabited by gleaming memories from their extraordinary past. Their photos, letters, and souvenirs sparked endless family stories that spanned cultures, dynasties, and continents - until declining finances forced them to sell the house in 1971, and night fell fast.
Vivid and poignant, filled with the wisdom of retrospect and the wonder of childhood, On Sunset seeks to recover a foundational time in her life, affirming the power of storytelling and the endurance of memory.
©2018 Kathryn Harrison (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Fierce Attachments
- A Memoir
- By: Vivian Gornick
- Narrated by: Vivian Gornick
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Her voice
- By Amelia Saul on 10-31-24
By: Vivian Gornick
-
Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,255
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,926
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6,958
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Anything but middle.
- By Michael on 05-04-03
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,639
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,105
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,100
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
And the Mountains Echoed
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5,825
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 5,150
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 5,135
Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Does the End Justify the Means
- By FanB14 on 05-24-13
By: Khaled Hosseini
-
The Namesake
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,953
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,995
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,999
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
My favorite book - in print and audio
- By Diana - Audible on 04-16-12
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
Shanghai Girls
- A Novel
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,952
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,989
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,999
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Touching, sad, and enjoyable
- By Beach Biker on 07-15-09
By: Lisa See
-
Fierce Attachments
- A Memoir
- By: Vivian Gornick
- Narrated by: Vivian Gornick
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Her voice
- By Amelia Saul on 10-31-24
By: Vivian Gornick
-
Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,255
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,926
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6,958
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Anything but middle.
- By Michael on 05-04-03
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,639
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,105
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,100
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
And the Mountains Echoed
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 5,825
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 5,150
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 5,135
Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Does the End Justify the Means
- By FanB14 on 05-24-13
By: Khaled Hosseini
-
The Namesake
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,953
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,995
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,999
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
My favorite book - in print and audio
- By Diana - Audible on 04-16-12
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
Shanghai Girls
- A Novel
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,952
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,989
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,999
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Touching, sad, and enjoyable
- By Beach Biker on 07-15-09
By: Lisa See
-
Interpreter of Maladies
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Matilda Novak
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,743
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,349
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,352
With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
skip it
- By Sheri on 06-30-09
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
-
The Lacuna
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,713
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,093
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,100
Born in the United States, but reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers and, one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed muralist Diego Rivera. When he goes to work for Rivera, his wife, exotic artist Kahlo, and exiled leader Lev Trotsky, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Great Writers need Great Narrators
- By Gypsy Wife on 12-04-09
-
Moonglow
- A Novel
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,509
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,349
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,346
Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession, made to his grandson, of a man the narrator refers to only as "my grandfather". It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and desire and ordinary love, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact - and the creative power - of the keeping of secrets and the telling of lies.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful novel, terrible narrator
- By Joyce M. Bernheim on 12-30-16
By: Michael Chabon
-
Veronica's Grave
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Barbara Bracht Donsky
- Narrated by: Leslie S. Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
From beyond the grave came a cry for help she could not ignore. Reminiscent in style to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and to Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Veronica's Grave is the story of a young girl whose mother vanishes one night. No one tells her that her mother has died. She is left a confused child whose father is intent upon erasing any memory of the mother.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Thought it would be about Veronica...
- By Leah on 02-18-17
-
The Robber Bride
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 20 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 880
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 782
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 785
From the best-selling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments - one of Margaret Atwood’s most unforgettable characters lurks at the center of this intricate novel like a spider in a web. The glamorous, irresistible, unscrupulous Zenia is nothing less than a fairy-tale villain in the memories of her former friends. Roz, Charis, and Tony - university classmates decades ago - were reunited at Zenia’s funeral and have met monthly for lunch ever since, obsessively retracing the destructive swath she once cut through their lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
BORED with her own novel?
- By Darwin8u on 05-16-12
By: Margaret Atwood
-
The Refugees
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 900
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 787
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 790
With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good collection of short stories
- By Thomas More on 03-19-17
-
Unaccustomed Earth
- Stories
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury, Ajay Naidu
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 955
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 511
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 512
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand. In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he's harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he's keeping all to himself.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Simply Beautiful
- By Eileen on 11-21-08
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
The Lowland
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,308
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,131
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,147
Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan—charismatic and impulsive—finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
My least favorite of all her work.
- By SAK on 10-09-13
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
Glad Farm
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Marenghi
- Narrated by: Catherine Marenghi
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Raised in a primitive one-room farmhouse with no indoor plumbing, the fourth of five children, Catherine Marenghi begins her life in poverty and isolation. She leaves home at the age of 17. A decade later, she is a successful journalist with the means to buy her family their first decent house. But the past will not be put to rest so easily. Catherine unravels a web of long-buried family secrets, and a terrible betrayal that robbed her family of the home that was rightfully theirs. And she finally uncovers the story her parents never shared: the gladiolus farm that was once their dream.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A beautiful story of a real family!
- By Jacqueline Spiros on 11-28-23
-
The Latecomers
- By: Helen Klein Ross
- Narrated by: Polly Lee, Vanessa Johansson, Robert Petkoff, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 42
In 1908, 16-year-old Bridey runs away from her small town in Ireland with her same-age sweetheart, Thom. But when Thom dies suddenly of ship fever on their ocean crossing, Bridey finds herself alone and pregnant in a strange new world. Forced by circumstance to give up the baby for adoption, Bridey finds work as a maid for the Hollingworth family at a lavish, sprawling estate. She cares for the Hollingworth children as if they were her own, until a mysterious death changes Bridey and the household forever.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Just couldn't put this book down. Birdee was such
- By Anonymous User on 11-20-18
By: Helen Klein Ross
Critic reviews
"A touching and at times jaw-dropping portrait of the maternal grandparents who raised [Harrison]... On Sunset - richly illustrated with photographs and personal documents - adds up to more than just sepia-toned nostalgia for a world on which the sun set long ago… It's an evocative record of unusual lives and loves that - disrupted by war and anti-Semitism - spanned continents and left their mark on subsequent generations.” (Heller McAlpin, The Washington Post)
"I regard The Kiss as one of the bravest and finest memoirs ever written. So a memoir from Kathryn Harrison is a Big Deal and her new one, On Sunset, is stunning. Harrison never protects herself as a memoirist, and her vulnerability, intelligence, insight, curiosity, emotional honesty, and breathtaking talent as a writer are just some of the reasons On Sunset is as excellent as it is. This is Kathryn Harrison in top form." (Augusten Burroughs)
"[On Sunset] is not just memoir, not just family history, not just a meditation on culture and class, but a mystery, too… And this time [Harrison] has written a story - many stories, many characters, and a heroine, too (herself, that is) - to live alongside those by authors who made all of us want more: Dickens, Barrie, C. S. Lewis. And Lewis Carroll, too, who, in this account, is one of her favorites… On Sunset is more than one thing: not simply nostalgic, but tinged with anticipated sorrow and grief. Harrison’s touch is light (she’s a gorgeous writer)… As wise and all-seeing as it turns out to be, [On Sunset] is also a mostly happy story... It will, as with the best, make you laugh and cry. And it will make you remember how it was to be a child." (Dinah Lenney, Los Angeles Review of Books)
Related to this topic
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,098
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,406
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,399
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 55
These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,098
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,406
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,399
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 55
These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
Caramelo
- By: Sandra Cisneros
- Narrated by: Sandra Cisneros
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Love, family, history, and fantasy, Caramelo
- By Michele on 08-07-20
By: Sandra Cisneros
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
-
The Sheep Queen
- By: Tom Savage
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
Thomas Savage, a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN/Faulkner Award nominee, has long been a critically acclaimed author. The New Yorker calls him "a writer of the first order". This starkly elegant story details the lives of Emma Russell Sweringen and her family in the early 1900s. Emma’s daughter Beth secretly gave up a baby girl for adoption many years ago. Now, Beth’s secret life is being unraveled as her daughter comes looking for her long-lost family.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent in all respects
- By Marlene J. Gustafson on 05-11-19
By: Tom Savage
-
The Probable Future
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,024
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 870
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 863
Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window to the future - a future that she might not want to see.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Nice, gentle story for when you feel bad.
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-17
By: Alice Hoffman
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
Charms for the Easy Life
- By: Kaye Gibbons
- Narrated by: Kate Fleming
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 101
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 100
A family without men, the Birches live gloriously offbeat lives in the lush, green backwoods of North Carolina. Radiant, headstrong Sophia and her shy, brilliant daughter, Margaret, possess powerful charms to ward off loneliness, despair, and the human misery that often beats a path to their door. And they are protected by the eccentric wisdom and muscular love of the remarkable matriarch Charlie Kate, a solid, uncompromising, self-taught healer who treats everything from boils to broken bones to broken hearts.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
So Lovely!
- By Doodle slave on 01-04-17
By: Kaye Gibbons
-
Bitter in the Mouth
- By: Monique Truong
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 43
Growing up in the small town of Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the 70’s and 80’s, Linda believes that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. “What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two” are the cruel, mysterious last words that Linda’s grandmother ever says to her.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
"Tasting Words" made this hard to hear!
- By Kate Anderson on 11-06-11
By: Monique Truong
-
Up from Orchard Street
- By: Eleanor Widmer
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 460
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 227
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 226
Three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat. Long-widowed Manya is the family's head and its heart. But Manya is no soft touch, except, perhaps, where her granddaughter Elka is concerned. Precocious Elka is her closest companion and confidante. Through Elka's eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who move in and out of the Roths' lives.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Tenement Life From a Child's Point of View
- By Sara on 08-10-14
By: Eleanor Widmer
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 93
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Come to the Edge
- A Memoir
- By: Christina Haag
- Narrated by: Christina Haag
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 112
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 111
When Christina Haag was growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep-school friends. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University and were living in New York City, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Thoroughly enjoyed Come to the Edge
- By CapeCodLady on 11-15-19
By: Christina Haag
-
Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 371
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 332
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 332
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 81
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
Owls Do Cry
- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters.'
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
-
Magic Lessons
- A Prequel to Practical Magic
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Sutton Foster
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,555
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,138
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,121
Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Nameless Arts". Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Alice Hoffman Never Disappoints
- By Elle Estee on 10-07-20
By: Alice Hoffman