The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah
Fear and Love in the Modern Middle East
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The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah
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Narrated by:
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Vikas Adam
About this listen
Armed only with college Arabic and restless curiosity, Adam Valen Levinson set out to "learn about the world 9/11 made us fear." From a base in globalized and sterilized Abu Dhabi, he sets out to lunch in Taliban territory in Afghanistan, travels under the watchful eye of Aleppo's secret police, risks shipwreck en route to Somalia, investigates Yazidi beliefs in a sacred cave, cliff-dives in Oman, celebrates New Year's Eve in Tahrir Square, and, at every turn, discovers a place that matches not at all with its reputation.
While politicians and media eagerly stoke the flames of Islamophobia, Valen Levinson crosses borders with abundant humor and humanity. Seeking common ground everywhere, he finds that people who pray differently often laugh the same. And as a young man bar mitzvahed at 21 (instead of the usual 13), he slowly learns how childish it is to live by decisions and distinctions born of fear.
©2018 Adam Valen Levinson (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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3 out of 5 stars
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I love Troost but...
- By Abigail on 02-25-09
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Love, Africa
- A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
- By: Jeffrey Gettleman
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 195
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 171
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 173
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this book!!!
- By Benjamin on 05-26-17
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Midnight in Siberia
- A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia
- By: David Greene
- Narrated by: David Greene
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 176
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
Through the stories of fellow travelers, Greene explores the challenges and opportunities facing the new Russia: a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity yet still continues to endure oppression, corruption, and stark inequality. Set against the wintery landscape of Siberia, Greene’s lively travel narrative offers a glimpse into the soul of 20th century Russia: how its people remember their history and look forward to the future.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Long String of NPR Short Reports
- By Sara on 04-13-15
By: David Greene
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Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn
- A Hitchhiker's Adventures in the New Iran
- By: Jamie Maslin
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
When Jamie Maslin decides to hitchhike the entire length of the Silk Road, he decides to travel first and plan later. Then, unexpectedly stranded in Iran - a country he's only read about in newspapers - he wonders whether he'll make it out alive. After crossing the border on foot from Turkey, Maslin finds himself suddenly plunged into the subversive, contradictory world of Iranian subculture, where he is embraced by locals who are happy to show him the true Iran as they see it....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining & Informative
- By Bella Bates on 04-18-14
By: Jamie Maslin
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The Monk of Mokha
- By: Dave Eggers
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 944
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 851
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 852
Mokhtar Alkhanshali grew up in San Francisco, one of seven siblings raised by Yemeni immigrants in a tiny apartment. At age 24, unable to pay for college, he works as a doorman. Until: a statue of an Arab raising a cup of coffee awakens something in him. He sets out to learn the rich history of coffee in Yemen and the complex art of tasting and identifying varietals. He travels to Yemen, collects samples of beans, eager to bring improved cultivation methods to the farmers. And he is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs Yemen in 2015 and he is trapped in Sana'a.
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5 out of 5 stars
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MOVING THE NEEDLE
- By Dog Fish on 02-20-18
By: Dave Eggers
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Three Cups of Tea
- One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations
- By: Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,740
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 913
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Story4 out of 5 stars 940
In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A Fraud
- By Sara on 02-23-16
By: Greg Mortenson, and others
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The Masked Rider
- Cycling in West Africa
- By: Neil Peart
- Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 499
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 439
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 439
The prolific drummer for the rock band Rush travels through African villages, both large and small, and relates his story through journal entries and tales of adventure, while simultaneously addressing issues such as differences in culture, psychology, and labels. Literary and artistic sidekicks such as Aristotle, Dante, and Van Gogh join Peart and his cycling companions, reminding the listener that this is not just another travel book - it is a story of both external and introspective discovery and adventure.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Trip Across Cameroon
- By Diann Sedam on 11-26-19
By: Neil Peart
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Brothers of the Gun
- A Memoir of the Syrian War
- By: Marwan Hisham, Molly Crabapple
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends - fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq - joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm in arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another’s eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect with Peter Ganim
- By Anonymous User on 06-14-24
By: Marwan Hisham, and others
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Dreaming of Jupiter
- By: Ted Simon
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
When Ted Simon rode 64,000 miles round the world on his 500c Triumph Tiger, he inspired thousands of motorcyclists to begin their own adventures, including Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, who chronicled their travels in Long Way Round. Nearly 30 years later, Ted Simon took to the road again to retrace the epic journey he made in his 40s. He meets up with old friends and acquaintances, revisits old landmarks and locations, and rediscovers himself, as well as the world, along the way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing book, Amazing Man
- By Roxanna on 08-16-18
By: Ted Simon
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A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir
- By: Lev Golinkin
- Narrated by: Daniel Gamburg
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Lev Golinkin's memoir is the vivid, darkly comic, and poignant story of a young boy in the confusing and often chilling final decade of the Soviet Union. It's also the story of Lev Golinkin, the American man who finally confronts his buried past by returning to Austria and Eastern Europe to track down the strangers who made his escape possible…. and thank them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Touching, moving Memoir
- By Daryl on 04-13-15
By: Lev Golinkin
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China Road
- A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
- By: Rob Gifford
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 603
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 332
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 329
National Public Radio's Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford recounts his travels along Route 312, the Chinese Mother Road, the longest route in the world's most populous nation. Based on his successful NPR radio series, China Road draws on Gifford's 20 years of observing first-hand this rapidly transforming country, as he travels east to west, from Shanghai to China's border with Kazakhstan. As he takes listeners on this journey, he also takes them through China's past and present while he tries to make sense of this complex nation's potential future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Outstanding Book on China
- By Sarda on 08-13-07
By: Rob Gifford
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To Shake the Sleeping Self
- A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
- By: Jedidiah Jenkins
- Narrated by: Jedidiah Jenkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,145
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,892
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,882
On the eve of turning 30, terrified of being funneled into a life he didn’t choose, Jedidiah Jenkins quit his dream job and spent 16 months cycling from Oregon to Patagonia. He chronicled the trip on Instagram, where his photos and reflections drew hundreds of thousands of followers, all gathered around the question: What makes a life worth living? In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Jed narrates his adventure - the people and places he encountered on his way to the bottom of the world - as well as the internal journey that started it all.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Different that I expected
- By Sabrina on 02-21-20
By: Jedidiah Jenkins
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Love and Other Ways of Dying
- Essays
- By: Michael Paterniti
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 62
In the 17 wide-ranging essays collected for the first time in Love and Other Ways of Dying, he brings his full literary powers to bear, pondering happiness and grief, memory and the redemptive power of human connection. In the remote Ukranian countryside, Paterniti picks apples (and faces mortality) with a real-life giant; in Nanjing, China, he confronts a distraught jumper on a suicide bridge.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredibly intimate voice for humanity
- By Ed Hodges on 01-02-16
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Street Without a Name
- Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
- By: Kapka Kassabova
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and grew up under the drab, muddy, gray mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good start, but ended up not liking the author
- By Giselle on 11-02-21
By: Kapka Kassabova
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Where the West Ends
- Stories from the Middle East, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus
- By: Michael J. Totten
- Narrated by: Steven Roy Grimsley
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4 out of 5 stars 119
Prize-winning author Michael J. Totten returns with a masterpiece of travel writing and history in this journey through 13 nations - all but two formerly communist - just beyond the edge of the West where few casual travelers venture. His work as an independent foreign correspondent takes him deep into the field beyond the sensational headlines, from his hilariously miserable road trip with his best friend to Iraq to the Wild West of Albania, the most bizarre country in Europe; from the killing fields in Bosnia and Kosovo to a Romania haunted by the ghosts of its communist past.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not a right wing fanatic
- By Love on 12-11-13
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Sovietistan
- Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan
- By: Erika Fatland
- Narrated by: Jill Rolls
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story5 out of 5 stars 59
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan became free of the Soviet Union in 1991. But though they are new to modern statehood, this is a region rich in ancient history, culture, and landscapes unlike anywhere else in the world. Traveling alone, Erika Fatland is a true adventurer in every sense. In Sovietistan, she takes the listener on a compassionate and insightful journey to explore how their Soviet heritage has influenced these countries, with governments experimenting with both democracy and dictatorships.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding book
- By George MP on 04-24-22
By: Erika Fatland
What listeners say about The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Rishi Tiwari
- 12-12-17
Interesting journey
As I am perhaps the 1st buyer on Audible of this book I suppose I have an obligation to inform others. The book is a travelogue coupled with some very nice monologues and some not so entertaining ones of the author who clearly writes really well for a 23 years old.
Since it talks about Abu Dhabi it piqued my interest and the books did that justice. The author’s wanderings are amusing and his thoughts honestly presented in the book. It won’t come as a surprise that the author feels deeply and communicates well.
The book is like listening to a friend (an emotional friend) about his journeys. Poignant and pointless.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-03-18
Captivating!
This book was seem to capture many of the thoughts and ideas that I have about travel. It is a perfect reflection of my own restlessness and desire to understand part of the world that seems so off-limits to many people
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