-
The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $31.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Flights
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Curious and beautifully written
- By Alejandra on 10-24-18
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....
-
-
Narrator - Authentic as it can get!
- By Chris on 09-03-19
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
The Wolves of Eternity
- A Novel
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Martin Aitken - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Vas Eli, Gilli Messer, and others
- Length: 27 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, twenty-year-old Syvert Løyning returns from the military to his mother’s home in southern Norway. One evening, his dead father comes to him in a dream. Realizing that he doesn’t really know who his father was, Syvert begins to investigate his life and finds clues pointing to the Soviet Union. What he learns changes his past and undermines the entire notion of who he is. But when his mother becomes ill, and he must care for his little brother, Joar, on his own, he no longer has time or space for lofty speculations.
-
-
Writing style was superb.
- By Gary on 01-22-24
By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, and others
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Solenoid
- By: Mircea Cărtărescu, Sean Cotter - translator
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 34 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on Cartarescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel's investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.
-
-
Believe the hype
- By gabe on 04-01-23
By: Mircea Cărtărescu, and others
-
Flights
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Curious and beautifully written
- By Alejandra on 10-24-18
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....
-
-
Narrator - Authentic as it can get!
- By Chris on 09-03-19
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
The Wolves of Eternity
- A Novel
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Martin Aitken - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Vas Eli, Gilli Messer, and others
- Length: 27 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, twenty-year-old Syvert Løyning returns from the military to his mother’s home in southern Norway. One evening, his dead father comes to him in a dream. Realizing that he doesn’t really know who his father was, Syvert begins to investigate his life and finds clues pointing to the Soviet Union. What he learns changes his past and undermines the entire notion of who he is. But when his mother becomes ill, and he must care for his little brother, Joar, on his own, he no longer has time or space for lofty speculations.
-
-
Writing style was superb.
- By Gary on 01-22-24
By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, and others
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Solenoid
- By: Mircea Cărtărescu, Sean Cotter - translator
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 34 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on Cartarescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel's investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.
-
-
Believe the hype
- By gabe on 04-01-23
By: Mircea Cărtărescu, and others
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Afterlives
- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of East Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza, too, returns home from the war, scarred in body and soul and with nothing but the clothes on his back—until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya.
-
-
A Compelling book in every way
- By Edward Hower on 11-03-22
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
2666
- By: Roberto Bolaño
- Narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, and others
- Length: 39 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa - a fictional Juárez - on the U.S.-Mexico border.
-
-
The Best Book I Read or Listened to in 2009
- By William on 01-05-10
By: Roberto Bolaño
-
Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
-
-
The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
-
-
Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
By: Joshua Cohen
-
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
- By: Shehan Karunatilaka
- Narrated by: Shivantha Wijesinha
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali.
-
-
Absolutely Splendid...
- By Paul Frandano on 02-07-23
-
The Silmarillion
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Martin Shaw
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The complete unabridged audiobook of J.R.R Tolkien's The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part.
-
-
Finally!
- By Brian on 11-22-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
-
Pachinko
- By: Min Jin Lee
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year and National Book Award finalist, Pachinko is an "extraordinary epic" of four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family as they fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan (San Francisco Chronicle). In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant - and that her lover is married - she refuses to be bought.
-
-
wonderful book
- By erin on 12-11-17
By: Min Jin Lee
-
My Brilliant Friend
- The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila, who represent the story of a nation and the nature of friendship.
-
-
Parte Uno Dei Quattro--It's Worth it to Keep Goin'
- By W Perry Hall on 09-14-16
By: Elena Ferrante
-
The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
-
-
Narrators spoil it
- By Cookie on 09-27-16
By: Isabel Allende
Publisher's summary
A NEW YORKER “ESSENTIAL READ”
“Just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed.” – The Washington Post
“Olga Tokarczuk is one of our greatest living fiction writers. . . This could well be a decade-defining book akin to Bolaño’s 2666.” –AV Club
“Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TIME, THE NEW YORKER, AND NPR
The Nobel Prize–winner’s richest, most sweeping and ambitious novel yet follows the comet-like rise and fall of a mysterious, messianic religious leader as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe.
In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumors of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. The story of Frank—a real historical figure around whom mystery and controversy swirl to this day—is the perfect canvas for the genius and unparalleled reach of Olga Tokarczuk.
Narrated through the perspectives of his contemporaries—those who revere him, those who revile him, the friend who betrays him, the lone woman who sees him for what he is—The Books of Jacob captures a world on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence.
Critic reviews
“Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“Monumental . . . could help the Swedish Academy restore its rather tattered reputation as an arbiter of serious literature. …Tokarczuk is as comfortable rendering the world of the Jewish peasantry as that of the Polish royal court. . . . Incalculably rich in learning and driven by a faith in the numinous properties of knowledge.” —Wall Street Journal
“Yes, there’s a miracle in these pages. It’s not about the Virgin Mary or the false Messiah Jacob Frank, however, but the way Tokarczuk can make a period so distant from us in every way feel so completely alive.” —Los Angeles Times
Editor's Pick
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Birds Without Wings
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Birds Without Wings is the story of a small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the men and women (Armenians, Christians, and Muslims) whose lives are intertwined and rooted there: Iskander, the potter and local fount of wisdom; Philotei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherd, a great love that culminates in tragedy and madness; and many more.
-
-
Not for the faint of heart
- By a on 01-03-05
-
Russka
- The Novel of Russia
- By: Edward Rutherfurd
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 39 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russka is the story of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of Russia. From a single riverside village situated at one of the country’s geographic crossroads, Russia’s Slav peasant origins are influenced by the Greco-Iranian, Khazar, Jewish, and Mongol invasions. Unified by this one place, the many cultures blend to form a rich and varied tapestry. Rutherfurd’s grand saga is as multifaceted as Russia itself.
-
-
Wonderful Historical Novel
- By Angelyn S. Furst on 10-22-12
-
Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
-
-
Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
-
The Last Jew
- By: Noah Gordon
- Narrated by: Phillip Church
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the year 1492, the Inquisition has all of Spain in its grip. Yonah Toledano, the 15-year-old son of a celebrated Spanish silversmith, has seen his father and brother die during terrible days - victims whose murders go almost unnoticed in a time of mass upheaval. Trapped in Spain by circumstances, he is determined to honor the memory of his family by remaining a Jew. On a donkey named Moise, Yonah begins a meandering journey, a young fugitive zigzagging across the vastness of Spain.
-
-
Disappointing narration
- By karen inbal glickman on 04-09-19
By: Noah Gordon
-
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
- By: Sandra Gulland
- Narrated by: Kim Handysides
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true.
-
-
Performance...ugh
- By Lisa on 02-17-18
By: Sandra Gulland
-
A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
-
-
His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
-
Birds Without Wings
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Birds Without Wings is the story of a small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the men and women (Armenians, Christians, and Muslims) whose lives are intertwined and rooted there: Iskander, the potter and local fount of wisdom; Philotei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherd, a great love that culminates in tragedy and madness; and many more.
-
-
Not for the faint of heart
- By a on 01-03-05
-
Russka
- The Novel of Russia
- By: Edward Rutherfurd
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 39 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russka is the story of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of Russia. From a single riverside village situated at one of the country’s geographic crossroads, Russia’s Slav peasant origins are influenced by the Greco-Iranian, Khazar, Jewish, and Mongol invasions. Unified by this one place, the many cultures blend to form a rich and varied tapestry. Rutherfurd’s grand saga is as multifaceted as Russia itself.
-
-
Wonderful Historical Novel
- By Angelyn S. Furst on 10-22-12
-
Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
-
-
Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
-
The Last Jew
- By: Noah Gordon
- Narrated by: Phillip Church
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the year 1492, the Inquisition has all of Spain in its grip. Yonah Toledano, the 15-year-old son of a celebrated Spanish silversmith, has seen his father and brother die during terrible days - victims whose murders go almost unnoticed in a time of mass upheaval. Trapped in Spain by circumstances, he is determined to honor the memory of his family by remaining a Jew. On a donkey named Moise, Yonah begins a meandering journey, a young fugitive zigzagging across the vastness of Spain.
-
-
Disappointing narration
- By karen inbal glickman on 04-09-19
By: Noah Gordon
-
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
- By: Sandra Gulland
- Narrated by: Kim Handysides
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true.
-
-
Performance...ugh
- By Lisa on 02-17-18
By: Sandra Gulland
-
A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
-
-
His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
-
Les Misérables
- Penguin Classics
- By: Christine Donougher, Victor Hugo, Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: Adeel Akhtar, Natalie Simpson, Adrian Scarborough, and others
- Length: 65 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
-
-
Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
-
The Architect's Apprentice
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Piter Marek
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1540, 12-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan's menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan's beautiful daughter Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire's chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota's help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history.
-
-
I feel like I should like it more than I do
- By nyog on 04-19-17
By: Elif Shafak
-
My Name Is Red
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Erdag Goknar - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of 16th-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers.
-
-
Complex and interesting
- By Kathleen on 05-13-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
-
The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
-
-
Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Mosaic
- A Chronicle of Five Generations
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
-
-
Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
-
Shadows on the Rock
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1697, Quebec is an island of French civilization perched on a bare gray rock amid a wilderness of trackless forests. For many of its settlers, Quebec is a place of exile, so remote that an entire winter passes without a word from home. But to 12-year-old Cécile Auclair, the rock is home, where even the formidable Governor Frontenac entertains children in his palace and beavers lie beside the lambs in a Christmas créche.
-
-
wonderful
- By carol perez on 05-18-21
By: Willa Cather
-
Push Not the River
- By: James Conroyd Martin
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 19 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Push Not the River is the rich story of Poland in the late 1700's - a time of heartache and turmoil as the country's once peaceful people are torn apart by neighboring countries and divided loyalties. It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, that Lady Anna Maria Berezowska loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known.
-
-
Save your time; buy something else.
- By AMS on 10-22-15
-
Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
-
The Taker
- By: Alma Katsu
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting another quiet evening of frostbite and the occasional domestic dispute. But the minute Lanore McIlvrae—Lanny—walks into his ER, she changes his life forever. A mysterious woman with a past and plenty of dark secrets, Lanny is unlike anyone Luke has ever met. He is inexplicably drawn to her...despite the fact that she is a murder suspect with a police escort.
-
-
Too dark for my taste
- By Margaret on 05-04-14
By: Alma Katsu
-
Mirror Mirror
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: John McDonough, Kate Forbes, Barbara Rosenblat, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives at Montefiore, the farm of her father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up to the farm. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia, no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a quest, he leaves Bianca under the care of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but salvation can be found in the dark forest as well.
-
-
Interesting re-telling of the fairy tale.
- By Patricia on 03-04-10
By: Gregory Maguire
-
Narcissus and Goldmund
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a passionate yet uneasy friendship between two men of opposite character. Narcissus, an ascetic instructor at a cloister school, has devoted himself solely to scholarly and spiritual pursuits. One of his students is the sensual, restless Goldmund, who is immediately drawn to his teacher's fierce intellect and sense of discipline.
-
-
My favorite of Hesse's novels, wonderfully read.
- By David on 10-21-11
By: Hermann Hesse
-
In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
-
-
One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....
-
-
Narrator - Authentic as it can get!
- By Chris on 09-03-19
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Flights
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Curious and beautifully written
- By Alejandra on 10-24-18
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Even as We Breathe
- A Novel
- By: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing.
-
-
Worth every second of listening time and more
- By Maang on 05-04-24
-
Pearl
- By: Siân Hughes
- Narrated by: Laura Brydon
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother's love: the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother's disappearance and the secrets she's sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it.
-
-
a meditation of memory, grief, and motherhood.
- By Barbara S on 10-08-23
By: Siân Hughes
-
When We Cease to Understand the World
- By: Benjamin Labatut, Adrian West - translator
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger - these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.
-
-
the true heir w.g. sebald
- By Thomas on 12-23-21
By: Benjamin Labatut, and others
-
The Animators
- A Novel
- By: Kayla Rae Whitaker
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing.
-
-
Wow! What a wonderful surprise!
- By B.J. on 10-17-18
-
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....
-
-
Narrator - Authentic as it can get!
- By Chris on 09-03-19
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Flights
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Curious and beautifully written
- By Alejandra on 10-24-18
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Even as We Breathe
- A Novel
- By: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing.
-
-
Worth every second of listening time and more
- By Maang on 05-04-24
-
Pearl
- By: Siân Hughes
- Narrated by: Laura Brydon
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother's love: the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother's disappearance and the secrets she's sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it.
-
-
a meditation of memory, grief, and motherhood.
- By Barbara S on 10-08-23
By: Siân Hughes
-
When We Cease to Understand the World
- By: Benjamin Labatut, Adrian West - translator
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger - these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.
-
-
the true heir w.g. sebald
- By Thomas on 12-23-21
By: Benjamin Labatut, and others
-
The Animators
- A Novel
- By: Kayla Rae Whitaker
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing.
-
-
Wow! What a wonderful surprise!
- By B.J. on 10-17-18
-
The Empusium
- A Health Resort Horror Story
- By: Olga Tokarczuk
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world.
By: Olga Tokarczuk
-
Perma Red
- By: Debra Magpie Earling
- Narrated by: Katie Anvil Rich, Jason Grasl
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her family—but three persistent men have other plans.
-
-
The love story!
- By Jessica Morgan Hall on 12-03-23
-
Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle
- Boudica, Book 1
- By: Manda Scott
- Narrated by: Jerome Flynn, Liza Goddard, Philip Stevens
- Length: 23 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly 20 years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilisation and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire.
-
-
Someone give me a gun!
- By Wayne on 05-14-21
By: Manda Scott
-
Song of Solomon
- A Novel
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
-
-
Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
- By Student on 01-02-20
By: Toni Morrison
-
Rainbow Milk
- A Novel
- By: Paul Mendez
- Narrated by: Paul Mendez
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has immigrated to Britain with his wife and children to secure a brighter future. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient, but are all too aware that their family will need more than just hope to survive in their new country.
-
-
5 ✨
- By Anonymous User on 03-22-24
By: Paul Mendez
-
In the Upper Country
- A Novel
- By: Kai Thomas
- Narrated by: Milton Barnes, Tymika Tafari, Wesley French
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Lensinda Martin is a protégée of a crusading Black journalist in mid-18th century southwestern Ontario, finding a home in a community founded by refugees from the slave-owning states of the American south—whose agents do not always stay on their side of the border.One night, a neighboring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman, whose name is Cash, refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before Cash is condemned.
-
-
good story
- By Leo Garofalo on 04-14-24
By: Kai Thomas
-
Just an Ordinary Day
- Stories
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection.
-
-
Captures a Bygone Era
- By Anonymous User on 11-11-22
By: Shirley Jackson
-
Chain Gang All Stars
- A Novel
- By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Aaron Goodson, Michael Crouch, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
-
-
Can’t wait for more from this author!
- By Brian Sheldon on 06-04-23
-
Five-Carat Soul
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Nile Bullock, Prentice Onayemi, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in Five-Carat Soul - none of them ever published before - spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic - all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens.
-
-
Listen. Just listen.
- By Rebbe Don Justino on 12-26-17
By: James McBride
-
The Woman in the Dunes
- By: Kobo Abe
- Narrated by: Julian Cihi
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together, their fates become intertwined as they work side-by-side at this Sisyphean task.
-
-
Nihilistic horror
- By Mr. Sagan on 07-20-19
By: Kobo Abe
-
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
-
-
Beautifully written, but painful.
- By NB on 06-10-19
By: Ocean Vuong
-
A New World Begins
- The History of the French Revolution
- By: Jeremy D. Popkin
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Jeremy D. Popkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
-
-
Narration
- By Kindle Customer on 04-26-22
By: Jeremy D. Popkin
What listeners say about The Books of Jacob
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TWZ
- 10-04-23
Amazing book
The story based on historical events is full of richly developed characters. The narrators are unbelievably good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- other1
- 04-21-24
A sprawling and engrossing historical novel
I loved this book because of its vast scope and range. It centers on a mid-18th century time of political and religious upheaval in Eastern Europe, specifically around the messianic aspirations of one Polish Jewish man, Jacob Frank, and his followers. But that description does not do justice to the involvement of priests, princes, archbishops, generals, mystics and common people moving from what is now Germany east as far as the Muslim cities of the Ottoman empire and back again. With a couple of dozen or so main characters and a hundred or more secondary ones, extending over 3 or 4 generations in families, I found it useful to refer now and again to a reference list of characters I found online. But that small extra effort was worth it to read this Tolstoyan masterpiece and to go on this long, engrossing ride. Narrators both are excellent. Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Scentart
- 09-23-22
Sometimes tedious but well worth the effort
All cults are the same. In the 18th century, one sociopath led a multitude of Jewish followers through Eastern Europe. He trafficked women and girls, took money from his faithful and promised fulfilment through his own form of decadence. The history of Jacob Frank is told in the voices of his followers. Some of these members were brilliant and unndeserving of the abuse heaped upon them. I wanted to scream at them for masochistiically allowing Frank to destroy their individuality. But nobody twisted their arms. The biggest tragedy I felt was the destructon of his daughter.
Religion is a hoax and a way to hurt outsiders.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gary R Brown
- 07-20-23
A truly gorgeous noble
This is a magnificent work of art. A mix of history, culture, magic realism. The narration is superb highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary Blackburn
- 03-17-23
Worthy.
Full of thought. Fact and fiction blur. Eloquent words even in the chaos and confusion of the characters’ lives.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathleen G.
- 03-20-22
Maybe better for reading than listening
Obviously, this book is long. It’s a marathon. The story is interesting but the most difficult part is keeping track of the stories. The names are in Polish, and then at one point everyone’s name changes. I recommend listening to the book as close to straight through as possible because I really struggled with keeping track of the characters and their storylines. I do think that the translation is very well done and the story is full of interesting twists. This book is more like “literature” than what I normally pick for casual listening. All together I enjoyed the book, but all of these factors together make me feel like I would have enjoyed the whole process a lot more if I had read the physical book instead of listening to it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lynn Miller
- 01-29-24
Vivid detail
The author is a master storyteller. Even though I listened to the book she had drawn the main characters succinctly enough that I could recognize them again when they reappeared later. Crucial as there are many, many characters. Her knack for telling detail also extends to the multiple settings.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Frank Salomon
- 07-07-22
The Moby Dick of religious delusion
From Smyrna to Berlin, from orthodox stetl to the French revolution, Jacob Frank’s sect of heretical Judaism preached salvation through sin. The sins are lively reading, and the Chronicle of families that fell for his visions and frauds fill a panoramic thousand pages. I stayed interested. About 2/3 through, the Jews change their names to Polish names, and after that I found it hard to follow who’s who. if you are interested in the history of Judaism, as I am, you’ll probably like this giant novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason
- 05-04-22
With Moments of Genius, Still a Giant Slog!
This was tough, even with the text in front of me. There were absolutely moments of utter genius but I'm not sure it was worth the time it took.
Pacing was a Huge problem for me in this as it feels like it's never really moving, or at least as slowly as our own lives. There were no moments where pace picks up and audience can get excited or emotional & the character list I kept is longer then that of a Tolstoy book, yet some disappear while others pop up 600pgs later.
Also, book has many images, maps etc that will be missed if only listening to audio version. I like to think many of my issues would go away if read in its original Polish language but whose to know? Not me
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-05-22
Incredible
Tokarczuk masterfully weaves history, faith, and legend together into a vast and bitingly human narrative.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!