The Cost of Living
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.
The Cost of Living
Buy for $21.60
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Juliet Stevenson
-
By:
-
Deborah Levy
About this listen
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018
Longlisted for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
From the twice-Booker-shortlisted author comes a witty and audacious examination of writing and womanhood
"Life falls apart. We try to get a grip. We try to hold it together. And then we realize that we don't want to hold it together."
Crystalline, witty, and audacious, The Cost of Living addresses itself to the dual experiences of writing and of womanhood, examining what is essential in each. Following the acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, which reflected deeply on the nature of gender politics and a life in letters, The Cost of Living returns to the same subject and to the same life, to find a writer in radical flux. If a woman dismantles her life, expands it and puts it back together in a new shape, how might she describe this new composition? "Words have to open the mind. When words close the mind you can be sure that someone has been reduced to nothingness."
In this elegiac second instalment of her "living autobiography", Deborah Levy considers what it means to live with value and meaning and pleasure. The Cost of Living is a vital and astonishing testimony, as distinctive, wide-ranging and original as Levy's acclaimed novels.
©2018 Bloomsbury Publishing (P)2021 Hamish HamiltonListeners also enjoyed...
-
August Blue
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Levy
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson—former child prodigy, now in her thirties—walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Unsure about this
- By Maryanne T. on 12-31-23
By: Deborah Levy
-
The Man Who Saw Everything
- By: Deborah Levy
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 73
It is 1988 and Saul Adler, a narcissistic young historian, has been invited to Communist East Berlin to do research; in exchange, he must publish a favorable essay about the German Democratic Republic. As a gift for his translator's sister, a Beatles fanatic who will be his host, Saul's girlfriend will shoot a photograph of him standing in the crosswalk on Abbey Road, an homage to the famous album cover. As he waits for her to arrive, he is grazed by an oncoming car, which changes the trajectory of his life.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Delicately written, but not holding together entirely
- By Lilly Marlène on 10-19-19
By: Deborah Levy
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,231
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,090
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,087
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Little Red Chairs
- By: Edna O'Brien
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 502
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 445
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 446
Vlad, a stranger from Eastern Europe masquerading as a healer, settles in a small Irish village where the locals fall under his spell. One woman, Fidelma McBride, becomes so enamored that she begs him for a child. All that world is shattered when Vlad is arrested, and his identity as a war criminal is revealed.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Red, as Scarlet, as Enraging, as Bloody
- By W Perry Hall on 04-17-16
By: Edna O'Brien
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 337
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 305
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 305
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Also a Poet
- A Memoir
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Ada Calhoun, Lili Taylor, Josephine Brill
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 158
When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started 40 years earlier. As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Pretty Interesting
- By Michele A. Cacano-Green on 08-02-22
By: Ada Calhoun
-
August Blue
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Levy
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson—former child prodigy, now in her thirties—walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Unsure about this
- By Maryanne T. on 12-31-23
By: Deborah Levy
-
The Man Who Saw Everything
- By: Deborah Levy
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 73
It is 1988 and Saul Adler, a narcissistic young historian, has been invited to Communist East Berlin to do research; in exchange, he must publish a favorable essay about the German Democratic Republic. As a gift for his translator's sister, a Beatles fanatic who will be his host, Saul's girlfriend will shoot a photograph of him standing in the crosswalk on Abbey Road, an homage to the famous album cover. As he waits for her to arrive, he is grazed by an oncoming car, which changes the trajectory of his life.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Delicately written, but not holding together entirely
- By Lilly Marlène on 10-19-19
By: Deborah Levy
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,231
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,090
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,087
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Little Red Chairs
- By: Edna O'Brien
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 502
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 445
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 446
Vlad, a stranger from Eastern Europe masquerading as a healer, settles in a small Irish village where the locals fall under his spell. One woman, Fidelma McBride, becomes so enamored that she begs him for a child. All that world is shattered when Vlad is arrested, and his identity as a war criminal is revealed.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Red, as Scarlet, as Enraging, as Bloody
- By W Perry Hall on 04-17-16
By: Edna O'Brien
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 337
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 305
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 305
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Also a Poet
- A Memoir
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Ada Calhoun, Lili Taylor, Josephine Brill
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 158
When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started 40 years earlier. As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Pretty Interesting
- By Michele A. Cacano-Green on 08-02-22
By: Ada Calhoun
-
So Late in the Day
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Claire Keegan
- Length: 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabine with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. All evening, with only the television and a bottle of champagne for company, thoughts of this woman and others intrude - and the true significance of this particular date is revealed.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This Audible is not the full Kindle/Book version.
- By Mary F. on 11-26-23
By: Claire Keegan
-
Tremor
- A Novel
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Atta Otigba, Yetide Badaki
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 17
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis. We’re invited to experience these events and others through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Fractured narrative line but little gained from splicing of stories
- By Kirsten Scheid on 03-14-24
By: Teju Cole
-
Milkman
- By: Anna Burns
- Narrated by: Bríd Brennan
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,978
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,763
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,759
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes "interesting" - the last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed, and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is a story of inaction with enormous consequences.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Like the writing, not the audio issues
- By Criticalthinker on 12-31-18
By: Anna Burns
-
Lost & Found
- A Memoir
- By: Kathryn Schulz
- Narrated by: Kathryn Schulz
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 302
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 261
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 262
One spring morning, Kathryn Schulz went to lunch with a stranger and fell in love. Having spent years looking for the right relationship, she was dazzled by how swiftly everything changed when she finally met her future wife. But as the two of them began building a life together, Schulz’s beloved father—a charming, brilliant, absentminded Jewish refugee—went into the hospital with a minor heart condition and never came out. Newly in love yet also newly bereft, Schulz was left contending simultaneously with wild joy and terrible grief.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Bored to death
- By Amazon Customer on 03-15-22
By: Kathryn Schulz
-
Nothing Special
- By: Nicole Flattery
- Narrated by: Becca Stewart
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 11
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 10
New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Boring n tedious
- By Mairyann on 06-04-24
By: Nicole Flattery
-
A Woman's Story
- By: Annie Ernaux, Tanya Leslie
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 1 hr and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Upon her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, Annie Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to “capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me, born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris.” She explores the bond between mother and daughter, tenuous and unshakable at once, the alienating worlds that separate them, and the inescapable truth that we must lose the ones we love.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful Tribute, Beautiful Writing
- By Amazon Customer on 07-07-23
By: Annie Ernaux, and others
-
The God of Small Things
- By: Arundhati Roy
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,707
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,409
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,405
Likened to the works of Faulkner and Dickens when it was first published 20 years ago, this extraordinarily accomplished debut novel is a brilliantly plotted story of forbidden love and piercing political drama, centered on the tragic decline of an Indian family in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worthy Booker winner!
- By Saman on 08-10-17
By: Arundhati Roy
-
The Lowland
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,306
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,130
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,146
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
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 656
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 574
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 568
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 Dark Flood Rises
- A Novel
- By: Dame Margaret Drabble
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 125
Francesca Stubbs has a very full life. A highly regarded expert on housing for the elderly who is herself getting on in age, she drives restlessly round England. Amid the professional conferences she attends, she fits in visits to old friends, brings home-cooked dinners to her ex-husband, texts her son, who is grieving over the sudden death of his girlfriend, and drops in on her daughter, a quirky young woman who lives in a floodplain in the West Country.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Life Observed By An Exceptional Writer
- By Sara on 03-22-17
-
Unquiet
- A Novel
- By: Linn Ullmann
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 36
A heartbreaking and darkly funny depiction of the intricacies of family, Unquiet is an elegy of memory and loss, identity and art, growing up and growing old. Linn Ullmann nimbly blends memoir and fiction in her most inventive novel yet, weaving a luminous meditation on language, mourning, and the many narratives that make up a life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Marvelous
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 02-03-19
By: Linn Ullmann
-
To Throw Away Unopened
- By: Viv Albertine
- Narrated by: Jasmine Blackborow
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys., Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty. To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in bloodletting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent
- By Anora Sutherland McGaha on 11-07-20
By: Viv Albertine
Critic reviews
On GQ's list of "110 best books to read right now"
“A flinty and moving memoir . . . [Levy] reclaims herself from the “societal story” that has denied middle-aged women the right to revel in the same appetites and desires as their younger selves. Her route to freedom comes through renewed dedication to her craft while enduring the privations of a damp garden shed, enjoying her peregrinations on an electric bike, tending to herself and her needs.” (The Globe and Mail)
“Utterly spectacular...” (Toronto Star)
Related to this topic
-
The Dark Flood Rises
- A Novel
- By: Dame Margaret Drabble
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 125
Francesca Stubbs has a very full life. A highly regarded expert on housing for the elderly who is herself getting on in age, she drives restlessly round England. Amid the professional conferences she attends, she fits in visits to old friends, brings home-cooked dinners to her ex-husband, texts her son, who is grieving over the sudden death of his girlfriend, and drops in on her daughter, a quirky young woman who lives in a floodplain in the West Country.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Life Observed By An Exceptional Writer
- By Sara on 03-22-17
-
Putney
- A Novel
- By: Sofka Zinovieff
- Narrated by: Michelle Ford
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 51
In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man 20 years her senior. Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints - victim, perpetrator, and witness - Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
One of the greatest stories of all time!
- By Valarie on 06-17-20
By: Sofka Zinovieff
-
Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 185
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 168
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 132
This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
-
Us: A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: David Haig
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 862
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 769
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 773
Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
-
The Dark Flood Rises
- A Novel
- By: Dame Margaret Drabble
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 125
Francesca Stubbs has a very full life. A highly regarded expert on housing for the elderly who is herself getting on in age, she drives restlessly round England. Amid the professional conferences she attends, she fits in visits to old friends, brings home-cooked dinners to her ex-husband, texts her son, who is grieving over the sudden death of his girlfriend, and drops in on her daughter, a quirky young woman who lives in a floodplain in the West Country.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Life Observed By An Exceptional Writer
- By Sara on 03-22-17
-
Putney
- A Novel
- By: Sofka Zinovieff
- Narrated by: Michelle Ford
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 51
In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man 20 years her senior. Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints - victim, perpetrator, and witness - Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
One of the greatest stories of all time!
- By Valarie on 06-17-20
By: Sofka Zinovieff
-
Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 185
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 168
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 132
This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
-
Us: A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: David Haig
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 862
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 769
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 773
Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
-
Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 510
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 453
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 449
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
-
The Road Home
- By: Rose Tremain
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 67
Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008, The Road Home is the best-selling story of Lev, a middle-aged migrant from Eastern Europe, who moves to London in search of work after losing his wife and job. Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency. The world Tremain creates is both convincing and poignant.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
OK - nice narration - good characters
- By bea on 02-21-11
By: Rose Tremain
-
A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 343
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 302
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 302
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
-
Street Without a Name
- Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
- By: Kapka Kassabova
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
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.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Good start, but ended up not liking the author
- By Giselle on 11-02-21
By: Kapka Kassabova
-
All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
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....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
The Poison Tree
- By: Erin Kelly
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 96
Successful journalist Erin Kelly has electrified readers and critics alike with her debut novel The Poison Tree. In this scintillating work, Karen and her daughter Alice have established a safe, happy life free from the madness of Karen’s past. But when Karen’s former lover Rex is released from prison, her old associations intrude upon the present - and threaten everything she holds dear.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I couldn't stop listening the book.
- By Gladys on 07-29-15
By: Erin Kelly
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,089
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,398
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,391
For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 227
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 207
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 208
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
- By: Sue Townsend
- Narrated by: Nicholas Barnes
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 45
"Friday January 2nd. I felt rotten today. It’s my mother's fault for singing "My Way" at two o clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home..." Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents' marital troubles, the dog, and his life as a tortured poet and misunderstood intellectual, Adrian's painfully honest diary is a hilarious and compelling listen.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Hapless, clueless, and hysterically funny
- By Sheila on 08-31-12
By: Sue Townsend
-
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 266
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 231
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 230
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
-
Fragile Things
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,492
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,692
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,672
Marvelous creations, including a short story set in the world of The Matrix and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction, can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his entertaining (and dark) sense of humor.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Perhaps a different format?
- By Karen on 11-03-10
By: Neil Gaiman