Portrait
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.
Portrait
Buy for $2.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Elisabeth Rodgers
-
By:
-
Kathleen Hill
About this listen
Young and naive, Kathleen Hill moves to newly independent Nigeria with her husband to teach at Igbobi College. It is the early 1960s, and Hill is soon caught up in the swirl of the times: The legacy of colonialism, chaos back in America, and violence and racism across the globe that touch even the quiet school where she teaches English literature. As a way of steadying and finding herself in this new place, she begins reading Henry James's Portrait of a Lady, and there discovers disturbing resonances with her own life. Dedicated to Chinua Achebe, "Portrait" is an essay that pays homage to a vanished world and to the striking power of a novel, read at a particular moment, to illuminate the life of a reader.
Ploughshares, the literary magazine of Emerson College.
©2014 Emerson College (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Love in the Time of Cholera
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,566
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,091
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,107
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral....
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
When love is sick
- By Vira on 09-02-13
-
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
- A Novel
- By: Jan-Philipp Sendker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,304
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,013
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,027
When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be - until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the listener’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Basic Story Interesting, But...
- By Monica on 06-04-13
-
Field Notes
- The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren
- By: Barry Lopez
- Narrated by: Barry Lopez
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Field Notes completes Barry Lopez's trilogy that includes Desert Notes and River Notes. In these fictional stories, Lopez's characters must rediscover the wisdom and spiritual strength found in nature. Many of Lopez's vignettes are mystical and magical - a reckless desert sojourner is saved by birds; a botanist is led back to his family by wildflowers; a hunter is given a trapping lesson by wolverines.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Good Descriptive Writing
- By Tyler Tanner on 06-28-16
By: Barry Lopez
-
Warlight
- A Novel
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,925
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,729
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,726
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It both entertains and teaches.
- By Kelly on 07-28-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
The Last Jews of Kerala
- The Two Thousand Year History of India’s Forgotten Jewish Community
- By: Edna Fernandes
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
When a people die out, can their story survive?Two thousand years ago, trade routes and the fall of Jerusalem took Jewish settlers seeking sanctuary across Europe and Asia. One little-known group settled in Kerala, in tropical southwestern India. Eventually numbering in the thousands, with eight synagogues, they prospered. Some came to possess vast estates and plantations, and many enjoyed economic privilege and political influence.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting topic, unethical author, uninformed reader
- By Cameron Crane on 03-08-18
By: Edna Fernandes
-
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 503
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 434
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 427
Maya Angelou, one of the best-loved authors of our time, shares the wisdom of a remarkable life in this best-selling spiritual classic. This is Maya Angelou talking from the heart, down to earth and real, but also inspiring. This is a book to be treasured, a book about being in all ways a woman, about living well, about the power of the word, and about the power of spirituality to move and shape your life. Passionate, lively, and lyrical, Maya Angelou’s latest unforgettable work offers a gem of truth in every minute.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Post election tonic for the soul
- By LynneKLR on 11-11-16
By: Maya Angelou
-
Love in the Time of Cholera
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,566
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,091
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,107
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral....
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
When love is sick
- By Vira on 09-02-13
-
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
- A Novel
- By: Jan-Philipp Sendker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,304
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,013
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,027
When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be - until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the listener’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Basic Story Interesting, But...
- By Monica on 06-04-13
-
Field Notes
- The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren
- By: Barry Lopez
- Narrated by: Barry Lopez
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Field Notes completes Barry Lopez's trilogy that includes Desert Notes and River Notes. In these fictional stories, Lopez's characters must rediscover the wisdom and spiritual strength found in nature. Many of Lopez's vignettes are mystical and magical - a reckless desert sojourner is saved by birds; a botanist is led back to his family by wildflowers; a hunter is given a trapping lesson by wolverines.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Good Descriptive Writing
- By Tyler Tanner on 06-28-16
By: Barry Lopez
-
Warlight
- A Novel
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,925
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,729
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,726
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It both entertains and teaches.
- By Kelly on 07-28-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
The Last Jews of Kerala
- The Two Thousand Year History of India’s Forgotten Jewish Community
- By: Edna Fernandes
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
When a people die out, can their story survive?Two thousand years ago, trade routes and the fall of Jerusalem took Jewish settlers seeking sanctuary across Europe and Asia. One little-known group settled in Kerala, in tropical southwestern India. Eventually numbering in the thousands, with eight synagogues, they prospered. Some came to possess vast estates and plantations, and many enjoyed economic privilege and political influence.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting topic, unethical author, uninformed reader
- By Cameron Crane on 03-08-18
By: Edna Fernandes
-
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 503
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 434
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 427
Maya Angelou, one of the best-loved authors of our time, shares the wisdom of a remarkable life in this best-selling spiritual classic. This is Maya Angelou talking from the heart, down to earth and real, but also inspiring. This is a book to be treasured, a book about being in all ways a woman, about living well, about the power of the word, and about the power of spirituality to move and shape your life. Passionate, lively, and lyrical, Maya Angelou’s latest unforgettable work offers a gem of truth in every minute.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Post election tonic for the soul
- By LynneKLR on 11-11-16
By: Maya Angelou
-
The Art of the Wasted Day
- By: Patricia Hampl
- Narrated by: Patricia Hampl
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
The Art of the Wasted Day is a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. She begins with two celebrated 18th-century Irish ladies who ran off to live a life of "retirement" in rural Wales. Her search then leads to Moravia to consider the monk-geneticist, Gregor Mendel, and finally to Bordeaux for Michel Montaigne who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Perfect Flow of Consciousness Piece
- By Richard on 04-30-18
By: Patricia Hampl
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 671
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 587
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 581
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Road from Coorain
- By: Jill Ker Conway
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 167
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 144
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 143
In the 1930s, Jill Ker's parents bought a sheep farm on the western plains of New South Wales. In 1944, they lost nearly everything when a drought hit. Forced to leave Coorain, 11-year-old Jill and her mother settled in Sydney where Jill struggled to find a place for herself among Sydney's elite. Her story, both a chronicle of life in the Australian outback and the odyssey of a brilliant woman fighting the constraints of her time, offers a loving view of Australia.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
So glad I (finally) listened to my aunt
- By T. on 07-12-13
By: Jill Ker Conway
-
The Lowland
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,308
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,132
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,148
Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan—charismatic and impulsive—finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
My least favorite of all her work.
- By SAK on 10-09-13
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
Foreign Correspondence
- A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Geraldine Brooks
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
As a young girl in a working-class neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Twenty years later, Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
the review synopsis does not reflect the book
- By BT on 04-05-21
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
By Night in Chile
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translation
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 176
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 156
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 156
A deathbed confession revolving around Opus Dei and Pinochet, By Night in Chile pours out the self-justifying dark memories of the Jesuit priest Father Urrutia. By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of church and state in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel - Roberto Bolaño's first work available in English - recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest and conservative literary critic, a sort of lapdog to the rich and powerful cultural elite.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Dreamscape by a Talented Chilean Writer
- By Tom on 03-01-19
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
-
Ashton Hall
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Belfer
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh, Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 47
When a close relative falls ill, Hannah Larson and her young son, Nicky, join him for the summer at Ashton Hall, a historic manor house outside Cambridge, England. A frustrated academic whose ambitions have been subsumed by the challenges of raising her beloved child, Hannah longs to escape her life in New York City, where her marriage has been upended by a recently discovered and devastating betrayal.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
This is a difficult book to review
- By lil tate on 07-17-22
By: Lauren Belfer
-
Tibetan Peach Pie
- A True Account of an Imaginative Life
- By: Tom Robbins
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 814
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 711
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 706
Internationally best-selling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins delivers the long-awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become over the course of half a century a poet-interruptus, an air force weatherman, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counter-culture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This isn't a book, it's a complete experience
- By David Shear on 05-31-14
By: Tom Robbins
-
The Emigrants
- By: W. G. Sebald
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
The four long narratives in The Emigrants appear at first to be the straightforward biographies of four Germans in exile. Sebald reconstructs the lives of a painter, a doctor, an elementary-school teacher, and Great Uncle Ambrose. Following (literally) in their footsteps, the narrator retraces routes of exile which lead from Lithuania to London, from Munich to Manchester, from the South German provinces to Switzerland, France, New York, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Masterpiece
- By B. Dowdy on 04-02-18
By: W. G. Sebald
-
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
- Complete Collection
- By: Lydia Davis
- Narrated by: Mia Barron, Thérèse Plummer, Jonathan Davis
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 43
Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" ( Salon.com ) and "one of the quiet giants... of American fiction" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed "Break It Down" (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee "Varieties of Disturbance".
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Intro & Outro’s Ruin It
- By Amazon Customer on 09-06-20
By: Lydia Davis
-
Once We Were Sisters
- A Memoir
- By: Sheila Kohler
- Narrated by: Sheila Kohler
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 325
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 288
When Sheila Kohler was 37, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood - one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An engrossing story
- By Mark P on 11-03-18
By: Sheila Kohler
-
Tipperary
- A Novel of Ireland
- By: Frank Delaney
- Narrated by: Frank Delaney
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 402
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 311
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 314
Born into a respected Irish-Anglo family in 1860, Charles loves his native land and its long-suffering but irrepressible people. As a healer, he travels the countryside dispensing traditional cures while soaking up stories and legends of bygone times - and witnessing the painful, often violent birth of land-reform measures destined to lead to Irish independence. At the age of 40, summoned to Paris to treat his dying countryman - the infamous Oscar Wilde - Charles experiences the fateful moment of his life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Delightful
- By Kathy on 12-08-07
By: Frank Delaney