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The Blue Flower
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
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The Blue Flower
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Publisher's Summary
The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe, in the small towns and great universities of late 18th-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his father's permission to wed his "heart's heart," his "spirit's guide" - a plain, simple child named Sophievon Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends. Their brilliant young Fritz, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard? How can this be?
Their rationality of love, the transfiguration of the commonplace, the clarity of purpose that comes with knowing one's own fate - these are the themes of this beguiling novel, themes treated with a mix of wit, grace, and mischievous humor.
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What listeners say about The Blue Flower
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story3 out of 5 stars
- Christine Taddeo
- 01-21-21
Interesting Characters
I might have better enjoyed reading rather than listening. The narrator was terrific. But the constant barrage of complicated names distracted me. I couldn’t easily remember the names of some of the less frequent characters. I’d lose my focus of the story.
4 people found this helpful
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 205
In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important but natural and even supernatural forces, too. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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On my to read list for a long time
- By theenglishmajor on 02-23-18
By: Penelope Fitzgerald, and others
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Train Dreams
- A Novella
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 261
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 223
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 220
Robert Grainer is a day laborer in the American West at the start of the 20th century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime.
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4 out of 5 stars
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2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist
- By Louis on 06-20-12
By: Denis Johnson
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The Gate of Angels
- By: Penelope Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
It is 1912, and at Cambridge University the modern age is knocking at the gate. In lecture halls and laboratories, the model of a universe governed by the Mind of God is at last giving way to something wholly rational, a universe governed by the Laws of Physics. To Fred Fairly, a junior fellow at the College of St. Angelicus, this comes as a great comfort. Science, he is certain, will soon explain everything.
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5 out of 5 stars
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quiet brilliance
- By Will on 04-18-06
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Winter in the Blood
- By: James Welch, Joy Harjo - foreword, Louise Erdrich - introduction
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis, Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good version of text
- By Reader_CEM on 06-15-21
By: James Welch, and others
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The Shadow-Line
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Fred Williams
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4 out of 5 stars 93
Written at the start of the Great War, when his son Borys was at the Western Front, The Shadow-Line is Conrad's supreme effort to open man's eyes to the meaning of war through the stimulus of art. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, this masterpiece of his final period relates the story of a young and inexperienced sea captain whose first command finds him with a ship becalmed in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Reflexion on Maturity
- By Darwin8u on 01-05-17
By: Joseph Conrad
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The Death of the Heart
- By: Elizabeth Bowen
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 19
In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the 30s, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superbly listenable classic
- By R. Decker on 10-18-22
By: Elizabeth Bowen
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Tree of Smoke
- A Novel
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 767
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 464
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Story4 out of 5 stars 471
This is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong, and the disasters that befall him. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert and into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, this is a story like nothing in our literature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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tree of smoke
- By ed spilka on 12-13-07
By: Denis Johnson
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First Love
- By: Ivan Turgenev
- Narrated by: David Troughton
- Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 672
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 591
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 587
At the end of a dinner party, the remaining guests drink wine and tell stories of their first love. For one of them, it will be a dark journey into his past, reawakening unbearable memories of his obsession with the beautiful Zinaida.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Turgenev's Famous Novel...
- By Douglas on 01-16-14
By: Ivan Turgenev
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Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,426
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,245
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,234
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
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Waiting for the Barbarians
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4 out of 5 stars 119
For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Interesting Read For The Current Times
- By Jen on 04-05-20
By: J. M. Coetzee
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The Beatryce Prophecy
- By: Kate DiCamillo
- Narrated by: Finty Williams
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 251
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 208
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 208
And so it is that a girl with a head full of stories - powerful tales-within-the-tale of queens and kings, mermaids and wolves - ventures into a dark wood in search of the castle of one who wishes her dead. With its timeless themes, unforgettable cast, and magical medieval setting, Kate DiCamillo’s lyrical tale is one for all ages.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Masterful storytelling
- By tgcatmr on 10-01-21
By: Kate DiCamillo
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Sula
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,815
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,485
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,482
Two girls who grow up to become women...two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
- By Karen on 04-11-11
By: Toni Morrison
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Gilead (Oprah's Book Club)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Tim Jerome
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,866
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,114
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,109
In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War", then, at age 50, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A book for dreaming over
- By Penelope Wisner on 04-18-05
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 600
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 543
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 541
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 785
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 666
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Story4 out of 5 stars 657
To the Lighthouse is a landmark work of English fiction. Virginia Woolf explores perception and meaning in some of the most beautiful prose ever written, minutely detailing the characters thoughts and impressions. This unabridged version is read by Juliet Stevenson.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Stark Tower on a Bare Rock, or a Hanging Garden?
- By Jefferson on 03-17-13
By: Virginia Woolf
Related to this topic
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Oblomov
- By: Ivan Goncharov
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
A member of the landed gentry, with a seemingly guaranteed income from his estate in the country, Oblomov lives in Petersburg, uninterested in the business that provides his living and barely aware that the revenue is diminishing. Not that he leads a dissolute life of extravagance, balls and entertainment. Instead he is a dreamer, a sybarite, content above all to spend most of the day supine, in bed. The novel opens with Oblomov thus ensconced, attended only by his dirty, grumbling, indolent servant Zahar, who has looked after him since childhood, catering to his every need.
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5 out of 5 stars