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The Half Known Life
- Finding Paradise in a Divided World
- Narrated by: Pico Iyer
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
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Publisher's summary
One of our most perceptive travel writers embarks on an exploration of the world's holiest sites and where we might find paradise on Earth.
It’s so easy, I thought, to place Paradise in the past or the future – anywhere but here.
After half a century of travel, from Ethiopia to Tibet, from Belfast to Jerusalem, Pico Iyer asks himself what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict. In a spectacular journey, both inward and outward, Iyer roams from crowded mosques in Iran to a film studio in North Korea, from a holy mountain in Japan to the sometimes spooky emptiness of the Australian outback.
At every stop, he makes connections with unexpected strangers – mystics and taxi drivers and fellow travellers – and draws on his own memories, of time spent in a Benedictine monastery high above the Pacific, of regular travels with the Dalai Lama, of hearing his late mother speak of sunlit moments in pre-Partition India.
By the end, he has upended many of our expectations and dared to suggest that we can find paradise right in the heart of our angry, confused and divided world.
Critic reviews
"Nothing less than a guided tour of the human soul. Filled with hope, wisdom, and extraordinary tenderness, this is a book not only for the ages, but for our very specific, very troubled age. A masterpiece." (Elizabeth Gilbert)
"To step into The Half Known Life feels both a privilege and a necessity... Iyer is more than a guide or a compatriot in an unfamiliar land: in the inward journey to lucidity he is a companion of our own searching minds." (Yiyun Li)
"In elegant and ecstatic prose, Pico Iyer uncovers our wonderful capacity for hope, wearing his erudition so lightly. I was revitalized by this book." (Katherine May)
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the 10th longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles, it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Simmering with the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on Earth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bleak
- By Amazon Customer on 11-03-21
By: Colin Thubron
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On the Plain of Snakes
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A 40-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A pedantic, poorly narrated, 20 hour lecture
- By Birdshot on 11-16-19
By: Paul Theroux
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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The Journey Home
- By: Radhanath Swami
- Narrated by: Radhanath Swami
- Length: 19 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 249
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 223
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Story5 out of 5 stars 223
Within this extraordinary memoir, Radhanath Swami weaves a colorful tapestry of adventure, mysticism, and love. Listeners follow Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide. The Journey Home is an intimate account of the steps to self-awareness and also a penetrating glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions and the challenges that all souls must face on the road to inner harmony and a union with the Divine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Julia on 01-28-21
By: Radhanath Swami
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One Blade of Grass
- Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir
- By: Henry Shukman
- Narrated by: Henry Shukman
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
This is the story of how a meditation practice gave Henry Shukman a context for integrating a sudden spiritual awakening into his life and how his depression and anxiety were gradually healed through this practice. In sharing how he grew into a Zen teacher, Shukman demystifies Zen training, casting its profound insights in simple, lucid language. Along the way, One Blade of Grass guides listeners on a journey of their own, into the hidden treasures that contemplative practice can reveal to any of us.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Boring
- By Joe on 09-10-20
By: Henry Shukman
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The Innocents Abroad
- Or, The New Pilgrim’s Progress
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,285
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,284
In June 1867, Mark Twain set out for Europe and the Holy Land on the paddle steamer Quaker City. His enduring, no-nonsense guide for the first-time traveler also served as an antidote to the insufferably romantic travel books of the period.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Twain's Hidden Gem
- By Cynthia Franks on 05-08-12
By: Mark Twain
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The Fracture Zone
- A Return to the Balkans
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4 out of 5 stars 109
Award-winning journalist and author Simon Winchester takes readers on a personal tour of the Balkans. Combining history and interviews with the people who live there, Winchester offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex issues at work in this chaotic region. Unrest in the Balkans has gone on for centuries. A seasoned reporter, Winchester visited the region twenty years ago. When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this-Great combo:Story and History Explained
- By Jeremy on 07-10-14
By: Simon Winchester
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The Seven Storey Mountain
- By: Thomas Merton
- Narrated by: Sidney Lanier
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,401
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,187
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,178
The Seven Storey Mountain is the extraordinary spiritual testament of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a man who experienced life to its fullest in the world before entering a Trappist monastery. By the end of his life, he had become one of the 20th century's best-known and beloved Christian voices. This autobiography deals...not with what happens to a man, but what happens inside his soul.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Letter to Audible
- By Victoria A. McCargar on 08-06-17
By: Thomas Merton
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My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story well told
- By B. Cohen on 11-23-23
By: Ariel Sabar
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Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
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China Road
- A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
- By: Rob Gifford
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 603
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 332
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 329
National Public Radio's Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford recounts his travels along Route 312, the Chinese Mother Road, the longest route in the world's most populous nation. Based on his successful NPR radio series, China Road draws on Gifford's 20 years of observing first-hand this rapidly transforming country, as he travels east to west, from Shanghai to China's border with Kazakhstan. As he takes listeners on this journey, he also takes them through China's past and present while he tries to make sense of this complex nation's potential future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Outstanding Book on China
- By Sarda on 08-13-07
By: Rob Gifford
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Shadow of the Silk Road
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 290
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 165
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Story4 out of 5 stars 170
Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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prose meets poetry
- By Paul on 11-05-07
By: Colin Thubron
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Tracking Bodhidharma
- A Journey to the Heart of Chinese Culture
- By: Andy Ferguson
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
The life of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, has, with the passing of time, been magnified to the scale of myth, turning history into the stuff of legend. Known as the First Patriarch, Bodhidharma brought Zen from South India into China in 500 CE, changing the country forever. In Tracking Bodhidharma, Andrew Ferguson recreates the path of Bodhidharma, traveling through China to the places where the First Patriarch lived and taught. This sacred trail takes Ferguson deep into ancient China.
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2 out of 5 stars
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a personal narrative of his trip through China
- By Craig Stepanek on 10-11-21
By: Andy Ferguson
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The Souls of China
- The Return of Religion After Mao
- By: Ian Johnson
- Narrated by: Ian Johnson
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
The Souls of China tells the story of one of the world's great spiritual revivals. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now filled with new temples, churches, and mosques - as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty - over what it means to be Chinese and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is searching for new guideposts.
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2 out of 5 stars
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expository but boring
- By Laurent V. on 05-07-18
By: Ian Johnson
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1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
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Kingdom by the Sea
- A Journey Around the Coast of Britian
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Ron Keith
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4 out of 5 stars 58
American-born Paul Theroux had lived in England for 11 years when he realized he'd explored dozens of exotic locations without discovering anything about his adopted home. So, with a knapsack on his back, he set out to explore by walking and by short train trips. The result is a witty, observant and often acerbic look at an ever eccentric assortments of Brits in all shapes and sizes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Casting creates utter confusion
- By Susan on 09-01-09
By: Paul Theroux
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Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms
- Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East
- By: Gerard Russell
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 85
In Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, former diplomat Gerard Russell ventures to the distant, nearly impassable regions where these mysterious religions still cling to survival. He lives alongside the Mandaeans and Ezidis of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, the Copts of Egypt, and others. He learns their histories, participates in their rituals, and comes to understand the threats to their communities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Increase your understanding of the Middle East
- By Shaun on 03-17-15
By: Gerard Russell