The Possibility of Everything

A Memoir

By: Hope Edelman

Narrated by: Hope Edelman

In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her marriage, her profession, and her place in the larger world. Into her stagnant routine dropped Dodo, her three-year-old daughter Maya's curiously disruptive imaginary friend. Worried about how to handle Dodo's apparent hold on their daughter, she and her husband made the unlikely choice to take Maya to healers in Belize, hoping that a shaman might help them banish Dodo, and all he represented, from their lives.

The Possibility of Everything chronicles the family's journey to an exotic place and a new state of mind. That magical week in Central America would transform Edelman from a person whose past had led her to believe only in the visible and the "proven" to one capable of faith in unseen forces and the mystery of healing.

©2009 Hope Edelman (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[A] charming memoir full of self-deprecating honesty....gripping and vividly detailed.... a highly readable, insight-laden narrative." ( Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Incredible Book

This is a beautiful book about motherhood, marriage, faith, and travel. The book is read by the author, so her touch of East Coast Jewish upbringing shows up in some of her words, making the narrative come to life in its most authentic possible way.

The writing and research are gorgeous and woven together wonderfully, and I will listen to this book again and again, just as I’ve read my paperback copy again and again.

Seemed promissing, but fell flat in the end

Thay say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder...so I hate to do this, but I must provide my opinion on the quality of this book which, to say the least, was very superficial in many ways. Not only was the author's reading of it quite monotonous, but the story otself was a mish-mash of travel memoir (for a ONE-week trip...wow!), parenting-struggle commentary, and spiritual journey. This in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but while the book had SO much potential, especially in terms of opening our eyes to the traditions of the shamanic healing practices of Central America...I kept waiting for the author to clamp on to one central theme and delve deeply into it, but she just kept skimming the surface of ALL of the themes and topics she tried to cover in the book. Parts of it were interesting, but when I compare the quality of the writing and depth of the introspection in this book to that in "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert (one of the absolute BEST books I have ever read), another travel memoir cum spiritual journey, it's like comparing apples and oranges. My advice would be to save your credit, or, better yet...use it on either of Gilbert's books. You won't regret that choice!

a boring listen

Unless you have been to Belize, this book is terribly boring. In addition, the narrator has very little tonal inflection and sounds more like a robot than a human.