Dreams of Joy
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Dreams of Joy
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Narrated by:
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Janet Song
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By:
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Lisa See
About this listen
Reunite with Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s daughter Joy in the midst of China's Great Leap Forward. A continuation of the characters from her best seller Shanghai Girls.
Nineteen-year-old Joy Louie has run away from her home in 1950s America to start a new life in China. Idealistic and unafraid, she believes that Chairman Mao is on the side of the people, despite what her family keeps telling her.
Meanwhile, Pearl returns to China to bring Joy home - if she can. For Mao has launched his Great Leap Forward, and each passing season brings ever greater hardship. Pearl must use her contacts from her decadent childhood in 1930s Shanghai to find a way to safety - and a chance of joy for them both.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 212
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 196
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
Born in 1970s North Korea, Lucia Jang grew up in a typical household - her parents worked in the factories, and the family scraped by on rations. Nightly she bowed to her photo of Kim Il-Sung. It was the beginning of a chaotic period with a decade-long famine. Jang married an abusive man who sold their baby. She left him and went home to help her family by illegally crossing the river to China to trade goods. She was caught and imprisoned twice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic story. Well read.
- By Jfm on 02-20-16
By: Lucia Jang, and others
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Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
>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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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Grand Central
- Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion
- By: Melanie Benjamin, Amanda Hodgkinson, Pam Jenoff, and others
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
On any particular day, thousands upon thousands of people pass through New York City's Grand Central Terminal, through the whispering gallery, beneath the ceiling of stars, and past the information booth and its beckoning four-faced clock, to whatever destination is calling them. It is a place where people come to say hello and good-bye. And each person has a story to tell.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Grand Central: Memories
- By ZacharyKindle Customer on 05-03-17
By: Melanie Benjamin, and others
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Flame Tree Road
- By: Shona Patel
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
India, 1870s. In a tiny village where society is ruled by a caste system and women are defined solely by marriage, young Biren Roy dreams of forging a new destiny. When his mother suffers the fate of widowhood - shunned by her loved ones and forced to live in solitary penance - Biren devotes his life to effecting change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Riveting Love Story
- By Granny on 01-15-20
By: Shona Patel
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4 out of 5 stars 82
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
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Green City in the Sun
- By: Barbara Wood
- Narrated by: Edie Tusor
- Length: 27 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
In 1917 Dr. Grace Treverton arrives in Kenya determined to bring modern medicine to the African natives. Her brother, Sir Valentine Treverton, has his own dream for the British protectorate: to establish an agricultural empire to rival any in England. The aspirations of the wealthy Trevertons collide with those of the Mathenge tribe, an African family that has lived on the land for years. Grace soon finds a deadly rival in Mama Wachera, an African medicine woman who fights to maintain native traditions against the encroaching whites.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written
- By nancy wanty on 12-18-23
By: Barbara Wood
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When the Moon Is Low
- A Novel
- By: Nadia Hashimi
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Mahmoud’s passion for his wife, Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world implodes when their country is engulfed in war and the Taliban rises to power. Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good story. Poor ending
- By Janine on 01-14-22
By: Nadia Hashimi
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A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
- By: Brigid Pasulka
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 697
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 602
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Story4 out of 5 stars 592
The novel opens on the eve of World War II. In the mountain village of Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon, under the approving eyes of the entire village, courts the beautiful Anielica Hetmanska. But the war's arrival wreaks havoc in all their lives and delays their marriage for six long years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Old & New Worlds Converge & Transcend Time
- By Sara on 11-22-16
By: Brigid Pasulka
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Golden Earrings
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 533
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 487
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 483
Catalina, grand-daughter of Spanish refugees, is a disciplined student with the School of the Paris Opera Ballet. Little gets inthe way of her career until the visit of an otherworldly being, who leaves her a mysterious pair of golden earrings. Given a quest, Catalina realises she must explore her own Spanish heritage and makes the connection between the visitor and ‘La Rusa’, a young Andalusian flamenco star. La Rusa died in exile in Paris in 1952, her death ruled as suicide. But as Catalina begins to discover, there were those in the community, who had good reason for wanting La Rusa dead.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fabulous story
- By Paddington on 10-19-12
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Esperanza Rising
- By: Pam Munoz Ryan
- Narrated by: Trini Alvarado
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,708
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,113
Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl in Aguascalientes, Mexico could want. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. Pam Munoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GET THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW
- By Laura on 04-14-16
By: Pam Munoz Ryan
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Homeless Bird
- By: Gloria Whelan
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Like many girls her age in India, thirteen-year-old Koly faces her arranged marriage with hope and courage. But Koly's story takes a terrible turn when in the wake of the ceremony, she discovers she's been horribly misled—her life has been sold for a dowry. Can she forge her own future, even in the face of time-worn tradition? Perfect for schools and classrooms, this universally acclaimed, bestselling, and award-winning novel by master of historical fiction Gloria Whelan is a gripping tale of hope that will transport listeners of all ages.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful
- By Zrexsmom on 10-30-24
By: Gloria Whelan
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Half a Lifelong Romance
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after many years, can they start their relationship again? Or is it destined to be the romance of only half a lifetime?
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5 out of 5 stars
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super
- By Marcus Aurelius on 10-05-17
By: Eileen Chang
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All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
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Mao's Last Dancer
- Young Readers' Edition
- By: Li Cunxin
- Narrated by: Paul English
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
One day, not so very many years ago, a small peasant boy was chosen to study ballet at the Beijing Dance Academy. His mother urged him to take this chance of a lifetime. But Li was only eleven years old and he was scared and lonely, pushed away from all that he had ever known and loved. He hated the strict training routines and the strange place he had been brought to. All he wanted to do was go home - to his mother, father, and six brothers, to his own small village. But soon Li realised that his mother was right. He had the chance to do something special with his life - and he never turned back.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Happiness rising from the injustise
- By Natasha on 10-29-13
By: Li Cunxin
What listeners say about Dreams of Joy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anne
- 11-17-12
Hardship and sadness of the times of the times
Where does Dreams of Joy rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
In the top 10
Which character – as performed by Janet Song – was your favorite?
Pearl and Joy were both amazing.
Any additional comments?
A interesting look at the times ,lies and hardships faced by the chineese people during
the late 40s and early 50s
The novel shows the strength of bonds , love & ties over the decades.
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