The Idea of Perfection
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The Idea of Perfection
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Narrated by:
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Odette Joannidis
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By:
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Kate Grenville
About this listen
Set in the eccentric backwater of Karakarook (pop. 1,374), New South Wales, this is the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a shy and clumsy engineer with jug-ears who meets Harley Savage, a woman who is known for being rather large and abrupt.
Douglas is there to pull down a quaint old bridge, and Harley aims to foster heritage. They are clearly on a collision course - but when they meet they are unaware that something unexpected is going to happen....
©2002 Kate Grenville (P)2003 W. F. Howes LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge - a 36-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Surviving The Blitz In WWII Great Britain
- By Sara on 04-24-16
By: Lissa Evans
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The Daughter
- By: Jane Shemilt
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 195
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 196
Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon. But when her youngest child, 15-year-old Naomi, doesn't come home after her school play, Jenny's seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.
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1 out of 5 stars
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BORING...
- By Nyesha on 06-08-15
By: Jane Shemilt
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A Golden Age
- A Novel
- By: Tahmima Anam
- Narrated by: Madhur Jaffrey
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Today she will throw a party for her son and daughter. In the garden of the house she has built, her roses are blooming, her children are almost grown, and beyond their doorstep, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air.
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5 out of 5 stars
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sad, poignant, thought-provoking, beautiful
- By Rio Delta Wild on 06-04-08
By: Tahmima Anam
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The Killer Next Door
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,651
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,285
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4,275
Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash - no credit check, no lease. It's the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options.The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don't know is that one of them is a killer. He's already chosen his next victim, and he'll do anything to protect his secret.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible--but not for the faint of heart
- By Lesley on 01-11-15
By: Alex Marwood
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The Kneebone Boy
- By: Ellen Potter
- Narrated by: Alex Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal.
In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Couldn't Stop Listening
- By nicole on 12-11-15
By: Ellen Potter
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Long Lankin
- By: Lindsey Barraclough
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
When Cora and her little sister, Mimi, are sent to stay with their great-aunt in the isolated village of Bryers Guerdon, they receive a less than warm welcome and are desperate to go back to London. But Auntie Ida’s life was devastated the last time two young girls were at Guerdon Hall, and now her nieces’ arrival has reawakened an evil that has lain in wait for years. A haunting voice in an empty room; a strange, scarred man lurking in the graveyard; mysterious words scrawled on the walls of the abandoned church ... all point to a horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its grip for centuries.
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5 out of 5 stars
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AMAZING!!!
- By Sharron on 09-06-14
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The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
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The Unseen
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Webb
- Narrated by: Clare Wille
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4 out of 5 stars 44
A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book!
- By Dana on 09-03-12
By: Katherine Webb
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The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
- By: Tiffany Baker
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 507
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 235
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Story4 out of 5 stars 237
Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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meh...
- By Victoria on 02-25-09
By: Tiffany Baker
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Elmet
- By: Fiona Mozley
- Narrated by: Gareth Bennett Ryan
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 538
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 500
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Story4 out of 5 stars 499
In this atmospheric and profoundly moving debut, Cathy and Daniel live with their father, John, in the remote woods of Yorkshire, in a house the three of them built themselves. John is a gentle brute of a man, a former enforcer who fights for money when he has to, but who otherwise just wants to be left alone to raise his children. When a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened, and a series of actions is set in motion that can only end in violence.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Strains credibility
- By DM on 01-06-18
By: Fiona Mozley
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The Wicked Girls
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,826
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 3,464
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,460
On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two 11-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside vacation town when her investigation leads her to interview carnival cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it's the first time they've seen each other since that dark day so many years ago.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I didn't want to like these girls...
- By Lesley on 08-30-13
By: Alex Marwood
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Story4 out of 5 stars 217
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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Leopard at the Door
- By: Jennifer McVeigh
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 441
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 388
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 385
After six years in England, Rachel has returned to Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she'd longed for is much changed. Her father's new companion - a strange, intolerant woman - has taken over the household. The political climate in the country grows more unsettled by the day and is approaching the boiling point. And looming over them all is the threat of the Mau Mau, a secret society intent on uniting the native Kenyans and overthrowing the whites.
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5 out of 5 stars
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IMPERIALISM
- By Haberwoman on 08-02-18
By: Jennifer McVeigh
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A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
What listeners say about The Idea of Perfection
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
- Catalina Andrade
- 03-07-23
A truly human story
…Meaning that in the two protagonists, the reader can feel the awkwardness, longing, regret, doubts, and the process of stumbling toward self-awareness. And care about it. Also it’s a small town world, well-sketched.
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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
- Barbara
- 05-31-22
Barbara
This is a splendid book. The author has crafted characters so well that they become one with the reader. I felt that I knew these people and was experiencing their problems. But a book even as good as this can be hurt by the wrong narrator. Wisely a gifted and expressive and even humorous voice was selected.
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1 person found this helpful