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The Cost of Living
- Living Autobiography 2
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy.Â
'Life falls apart. We try to get a grip. We try to hold it together. And then we realize that we don't want to hold it together...'Â
Picking up where Things I Don't Want to Know left off, this short, exhilarating memoir shows a writer in radical flux, facing separation and bereavement and emerging renewed from the ashes of a former life. Faced with the restrictions of conventional living, she dismantles her life, expands it and puts it back together in a new shape. Writing as brilliantly as ever about mothers and daughters, about social pressures and the female experience, Deborah Levy confronts a world not designed to accommodate difficult women and ultimately remakes herself in her own image.
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What listeners say about The Cost of Living
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Julia Szyndzielorz
- 12-13-21
Excellent writing a writer gets to through introspection
I couldn’t stop listening to this audiobook. Deborah Levy reminds me of Karl Ove Knausgaard in her beautiful prose about her life experiences. I loved it.
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- HeyDon't.
- 05-06-19
wonderful
I loved this. It is beautifully read, so superior to many audio book readings. If you have ever separated from a long term love then this is for you.
2 people found this helpful
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- Bee
- 04-14-18
Long Poem?
This book is not the sort of memoir that deals in dates, it doesn't for example dish the dirt on what exactly wwnt wrong in the author's marriage. It is a series of memories that cleverly conjure up a feeling.
1 person found this helpful
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- Annoymous User
- 07-26-22
she is my hero
I am obsessed with how Deborah Levy writes and I will buy anything that Juliet Stevenson narrates. For me this was a dream combination.
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- Liam Lynch
- 05-09-21
The tedious ramblings of a white middle class woman
Yeh, pretty much covers it. Was recommended this and found it hugely self-involved and dull. Sorry. Love Juliet Stevenson, but the book itself is a waste of my life.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-01-21
the best autobiographical writing I've read
a beautiful telling about a difficult time in Levy's life. genuine, real like blood, life
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- G
- 04-01-20
An excellent part two
This is an excellent part two of Deborah Levy's autobiography. the writing is outstanding and atmospheric and it is read wonderfully.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-21-23
Highly recommended
“It requires skill, time, dedication and empathy to create a home that everyone enjoys and that functions well. Above all else, it is an act of immense generosity to be the architect of everyone else's well-being.”
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- Anonymous User
- 04-18-22
Such a short book, so much to discover
Plan to listen to again very soon, as there is so much in this book to take in.
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Story
At nineteen, Annie Black abandons California for a London winter of drinking to oblivion and looking for love in the wrong places. Twenty years later, she is a happily married mother of three living in San Francisco. Then one morning, a photograph arrives in her mailbox, and an old obsession is awakened. After a return trip to London, Annie’s marriage falters, her store floods, and her son, Robbie, takes a night-time ride that nearly costs him his life. Now Annie must fight to save her family by untangling the mysteries of that reckless winter in Europe that drew an invisible map of his future.
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Well.....
- By Tammy on 02-21-15
By: Jan Ellison
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The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
- A Novel
- By: Cherise Wolas
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Michael Dickes
- Length: 19 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Joan finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is stunned by Martin's delight, his instant betrayal of their pact. She makes a fateful, selfless decision then, to embrace her unintentional family. Challenged by raising two precocious sons, it is decades before she finally completes her masterpiece novel. Poised to reclaim the spotlight, to resume the intended life she gave up for love, a betrayal of Shakespearean proportion forces her to question every choice she has made.
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A bit too long - but a great piece overall
- By Jennifer R. on 10-04-17
By: Cherise Wolas
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Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
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It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
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They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Broadbent
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack is a letter addressed to Harold from a woman he hasn't seen or heard from in 20 years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person.
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Wonderful Walkabout
- By FanB14 on 07-01-13
By: Rachel Joyce
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Girl in the Dark
- A Memoir
- By: Anna Lyndsey
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Anna was living a normal life. She was ambitious and worked hard; she had just bought an apartment; she was falling in love. But then she started to develop worrying symptoms: her face felt like it was burning whenever she was in front of the computer. Soon this progressed to an intolerance of fluorescent light, then of sunlight itself. The reaction soon spread to her entire body.
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This is a great book
- By Karen K on 05-14-15
By: Anna Lyndsey
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Women in Sunlight
- A Novel
- By: Frances Mayes
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kit’s own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three women - Julia, Camille, and Susan - all of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives. Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement by taking a lease on a big, beautiful house in Tuscany.
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Enchanting
- By Jan Harris on 04-14-18
By: Frances Mayes
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Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
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Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter