1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
The story of two lives, one nation, and a century of art under tyranny
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
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
Buy for $18.88
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
David Shih
-
By:
-
Ai Weiwei
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
A family story and the tale of a nation.
Ai Weiwei - one of the world's most famous artists and activists - weaves a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own life and that of his father, Ai Qing, the nation's most celebrated poet.
Here, through the sweeping lens of his own and his father's life, Ai Weiwei tells an epic tale of China over the last 100 years, from the Cultural Revolution to the modern-day Chinese Communist Party.
Here is the story of a childhood spent in desolate exile after his father, Ai Qing, once China's most celebrated poet, fell foul of the authorities. Here is his move to America as a young man and his return to China, his rise from unknown to art-world superstar and international rights activist. Here is his extraordinary account of how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime.
It's the story of a father and a son, of exceptional creativity and passionate belief, and of how two indomitable spirits enabled the world to understand their country.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Art Is Life
- Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art as few critics have.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
WRONG for audio program
- By Karen Lehrer on 11-07-22
By: Jerry Saltz
-
Elixir
- A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life
- By: Theresa Levitt
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
For centuries, scientists believed that living matter possessed a special quality—a spirit or essence—that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But by the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that the building blocks of one were identical to the building blocks of the other. Elixir tells the story of two young chemists who were not convinced, and how their work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Thrilling History of Organic Chemistry
- By Mark E. White on 06-13-23
By: Theresa Levitt
-
The Story of Art Without Men
- By: Katy Hessel
- Narrated by: Katy Hessel
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 31
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States, and the artist who really invented the "readymade." Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of postwar artists in Latin America, and the women defining art in the 2020s.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book, no pdf?
- By Amazon Customer on 08-11-24
By: Katy Hessel
-
Walk Through Walls
- A Memoir
- By: Marina Abramovic
- Narrated by: Marina Abramovic
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 517
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 464
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 461
In 2010 more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramović's MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly 50 years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramović is truly a force of nature.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating read
- By V. Ledovsky on 11-20-16
By: Marina Abramovic
-
The Food Explorer
- The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
- By: Daniel Stone
- Narrated by: Daniel Stone
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 643
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 576
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 575
In the 19th century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a young botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and experience the world, set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater. Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. But Fairchild's finds weren't just limited to food.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good book, but would like more detail.
- By Robert Brummett on 02-25-18
By: Daniel Stone
-
Through Two Doors at Once
- The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality
- By: Anil Ananthaswamy
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 205
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 203
The intellectual adventure story of the "double-slit" experiment, showing how a sunbeam split into two paths first challenged our understanding of light and then the nature of reality itself - and continues to almost 200 years later. Through Two Doors at Once celebrates the elegant simplicity of an iconic experiment and its profound reach. With his extraordinarily gifted eloquence, Anil Ananthaswamy travels around the world, through history and down to the smallest scales of physical reality we have yet fathomed. It is the most fantastic voyage you can take.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent exposition of the conundrum
- By GLYNN A on 08-14-18
-
Art Is Life
- Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art as few critics have.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
WRONG for audio program
- By Karen Lehrer on 11-07-22
By: Jerry Saltz
-
Elixir
- A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life
- By: Theresa Levitt
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
For centuries, scientists believed that living matter possessed a special quality—a spirit or essence—that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But by the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that the building blocks of one were identical to the building blocks of the other. Elixir tells the story of two young chemists who were not convinced, and how their work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Thrilling History of Organic Chemistry
- By Mark E. White on 06-13-23
By: Theresa Levitt
-
The Story of Art Without Men
- By: Katy Hessel
- Narrated by: Katy Hessel
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 31
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States, and the artist who really invented the "readymade." Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of postwar artists in Latin America, and the women defining art in the 2020s.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book, no pdf?
- By Amazon Customer on 08-11-24
By: Katy Hessel
-
Walk Through Walls
- A Memoir
- By: Marina Abramovic
- Narrated by: Marina Abramovic
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 517
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 464
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 461
In 2010 more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramović's MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly 50 years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramović is truly a force of nature.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating read
- By V. Ledovsky on 11-20-16
By: Marina Abramovic
-
The Food Explorer
- The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
- By: Daniel Stone
- Narrated by: Daniel Stone
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 643
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 576
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 575
In the 19th century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a young botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and experience the world, set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater. Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. But Fairchild's finds weren't just limited to food.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good book, but would like more detail.
- By Robert Brummett on 02-25-18
By: Daniel Stone
-
Through Two Doors at Once
- The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality
- By: Anil Ananthaswamy
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 205
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 203
The intellectual adventure story of the "double-slit" experiment, showing how a sunbeam split into two paths first challenged our understanding of light and then the nature of reality itself - and continues to almost 200 years later. Through Two Doors at Once celebrates the elegant simplicity of an iconic experiment and its profound reach. With his extraordinarily gifted eloquence, Anil Ananthaswamy travels around the world, through history and down to the smallest scales of physical reality we have yet fathomed. It is the most fantastic voyage you can take.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent exposition of the conundrum
- By GLYNN A on 08-14-18
-
Homer Box Set: Iliad & Odyssey
- By: Homer, W. H. D. Rouse - translator
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 25 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,004
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,716
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,709
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are unquestionably two of the greatest epic masterpieces in Western literature. Though more than 2,700 years old, their stories of brave heroics, capricious gods, and towering human emotions are vividly timeless. The Iliad can justly be called the world’s greatest war epic. The terrible and long-drawn-out siege of Troy remains one of the classic campaigns. The Odyssey chronicles the many trials and adventures Odysseus must pass through on his long journey home from the Trojan wars to his beloved wife.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Oddball Translation
- By Joel Jenkins on 05-11-17
By: Homer, and others
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,888
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,771
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,759
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
In Montparnasse
- The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dalí
- By: Sue Roe
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
In Montparnasse begins on the eve of the First World War and ends with the 1936 unveiling of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. As those extraordinary years unfolded, the Surrealists found ever more innovative ways of exploring the interior life, and asking new questions about how to define art. In Montparnasse recounts how this artistic revolution came to be amidst the salons and cafés of that vibrant neighborhood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Second of Two Books
- By Robert Keith on 10-26-19
By: Sue Roe
-
Picasso's War
- How Modern Art Came to America
- By: Hugh Eakin
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 137
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 136
In January 1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art. How did the controversial leader of the Paris avant-garde break through to the heart of American culture? The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Better Books on Picasso Available
- By john burke on 08-17-22
By: Hugh Eakin
-
Francis Bacon in Your Blood
- By: Michael Peppiatt
- Narrated by: Michael Peppiatt
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 150
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 138
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 136
Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine he was editing. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death 30 years later. Fascinated by the artist's brilliance and charisma, Peppiatt accompanied him on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club and casino, seeing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life' and meeting everybody around him.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely delicious!
- By Ari on 09-14-18
By: Michael Peppiatt
-
Scientist
- E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, Edward Osborne Wilson's field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiology, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently, Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A wonderful Biography, I feel like I know him.
- By Nebbie on 12-18-21
By: Richard Rhodes
-
I Am Dynamite!
- A Life of Nietzsche
- By: Sue Prideaux
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 338
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 295
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 293
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating; tragic
- By Cineaste21 on 12-30-18
By: Sue Prideaux
-
Ninth Street Women
- Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
- By: Mary Gabriel
- Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
- Length: 40 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 488
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 401
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 401
Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting - not as muses but as artists.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Painful pronunciation issues!
- By Curious Artist Librarian on 05-20-19
By: Mary Gabriel
-
Hold Still
- A Memoir with Photographs
- By: Sally Mann
- Narrated by: Sally Mann
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 373
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 326
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 327
In this groundbreaking audiobook, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant. But what's up with the PDF?
- By ARK on 06-27-15
By: Sally Mann
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 252
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
The Last Leonardo
- The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting
- By: Ben Lewis
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 178
In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early 16th century.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Definitely makes you think.
- By John Galt on 04-20-21
By: Ben Lewis
-
A Long Petal of the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Nick Caistor, Amanda Hopkinson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,661
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,123
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,100
In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Impressive
- By Jean on 05-24-20
By: Isabel Allende, and others
Critic reviews
"Engrossing...a remarkable story." (Sunday Times)
"A story of inherited resilience and self-determination." (Observer)
"A majestic and exquisitely serious masterpiece about his China... One of the great voices of our time." (Andrew Solomon)
Related to this topic
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 252
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 69
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
Light and Shadow
- Memoirs of a Spy's Son
- By: Mark Colvin
- Narrated by: Mark Colvin
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio’s leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he’s one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere. Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Probably of most interest to Australian readers
- By Robyn on 04-12-17
By: Mark Colvin
-
The Cubans
- Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- By: Anthony DePalma
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Anthony DePalma
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 44
Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The real Cuba
- By Tinkerbell on 10-11-20
By: Anthony DePalma
-
The Years
- By: Annie Ernaux
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 213
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Elin VanD on 05-10-20
By: Annie Ernaux
-
The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 252
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 69
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
Light and Shadow
- Memoirs of a Spy's Son
- By: Mark Colvin
- Narrated by: Mark Colvin
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio’s leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he’s one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere. Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Probably of most interest to Australian readers
- By Robyn on 04-12-17
By: Mark Colvin
-
The Cubans
- Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- By: Anthony DePalma
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Anthony DePalma
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 44
Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The real Cuba
- By Tinkerbell on 10-11-20
By: Anthony DePalma
-
The Years
- By: Annie Ernaux
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 213
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Elin VanD on 05-10-20
By: Annie Ernaux
-
The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
-
Known and Strange Things
- Essays
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
With this collection of more than 50 pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. Minute after minute, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Book that Teaches and Shares
- By Carolyn J. on 10-08-17
By: Teju Cole
-
Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,483
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,277
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,272
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
-
The People's Republic of Amnesia
- Tiananmen Revisited
- By: Louisa Lim
- Narrated by: Louisa Lim
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
In The People's Republic of Amnesia, NPR correspondent Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4 changed China, and how China changed the events of June 4 by rewriting its own history. Lim reveals new details about those fateful days, including how one of the country's most senior politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, as well as the inside story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
great book and recording
- By Robert Peters on 06-14-16
By: Louisa Lim
-
The Patient Assassin
- A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence
- By: Anita Anand
- Narrated by: Anita Anand
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
The “compelling [and] vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) true story of a man who claimed to be a survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, his elaborate 20-year plan for revenge, and the mix of truth and legend that made him a hero to hundreds of millions.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
more interesting history
- By Autodidact on 09-07-19
By: Anita Anand
-
The Shanghai Free Taxi
- Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China
- By: Frank Langfitt
- Narrated by: Frank Langfitt
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service - offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation - to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer", a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Too political
- By dah551 on 06-26-19
By: Frank Langfitt
-
The Art of Resistance
- My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
- By: Justus Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 131
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 118
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, 16-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Rosenberg, Please focus
- By Jess on 03-20-22
By: Justus Rosenberg
-
Balkan Ghosts
- A Journey Through History
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Anti religious/anti catholic hit piece
- By Daniel Calvert on 05-04-21
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
Lenin's Tomb
- The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
- By: David Remnick
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 29 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 383
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 327
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 330
In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The moral complexity of a comic book
- By Tot on 02-22-19
By: David Remnick
-
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
- The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
- By: Rebecca Donner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Donner
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 549
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 483
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 481
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Riveting narrative non fiction
- By Sarah Q on 10-22-21
By: Rebecca Donner
-
Between Two Fires
- Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia
- By: Joshua Yaffa
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
In this rich and novelistic tour of contemporary Russia, Joshua Yaffa introduces listeners to some of the country’s most remarkable figures - from politicians and entrepreneurs to artists and historians - who have built their careers and constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. Torn between their own ambitions and the omnipresent demands of the state, each walks an individual path of compromise.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Stimulating
- By Amazon Customer on 03-16-20
By: Joshua Yaffa
-
Eat the Buddha
- Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 168
A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the best-selling author of Nothing to Envy.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
TIBET
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 08-24-21
By: Barbara Demick
What listeners say about 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Juan
- 05-06-23
Amazing
Captivated by the story of Ai Weiwei and his father. I have learnt a lot about China through it as well. And I am touched by Ai Weiwei’s courage and in the fight for human rights.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!