The Last Life
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The Last Life
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Narrated by:
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Saskia Maarleveld
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By:
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Claire Messud
About this listen
Narrated by a 15-year-old girl with a ruthless regard for truth, The Last Life is a beautifully told novel of lies and ghosts, love and honor. Set in colonial Algeria, and in the south of France and New England, it is the tale of the LaBasse family, whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from a grandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble, long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before he was even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed, a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue - the family business - to its knees. Messud skillfully and inexorably describes how the stories we tell ourselves, and the lies to which we cling, can turn on us in a moment. It is a work of stunning power from a writer to watch.
©1999 Claire Messud (P)2018 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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By: Isabella Hammad
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Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,064
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 943
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Story4 out of 5 stars 936
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
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The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 682
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 595
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 595
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
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The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
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The Winemakers
- A Novel of Wine and Secrets
- By: Jan Moran
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 240
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 217
Years ago, the Rosetta family's hard-won dreams of staking their claim in the vineyards of California came to fruition. Now high-spirited, passionate Caterina Rosetta, who has inherited both her mother's talent for crafting the finest wines and also her indomitable will, wants nothing more than to win her mother's approval and work at her side. But that can never happen, because Caterina is keeping a secret that could ruin her: a daughter of her own, fathered by the love of her life, who left her without explanation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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awesome.
- By Joe C. Smith on 04-25-21
By: Jan Moran
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What Storm, What Thunder
- By: Myriam J.A. Chancy
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
The Earth had buckled, and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the Earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination. At the end of a long sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster
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5 out of 5 stars
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We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 03-15-22
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The Final Victim
- By: Wendy Corsi Staub
- Narrated by: Emily Cauldwell
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Everyone in Savannah, Georgia knows the Remington estate. The rambling old house bears blatant testimony not just to the esteemed family's vast wealth, but to unbearable tragedy and whispered secrets. Soon, the Remington's will all come home to this secluded plantation nestled deep in the shadow of moss-covered trees. Then they will have to die...one by one... For Charlotte Remington Maitland, the past five years have been a haze of pain and loss.
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4 out of 5 stars
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As always great story
- By Corinna on 04-28-22
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The Godmothers
- A Novel
- By: Camille Aubray
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 755
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 671
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 665
Meet the Godmothers: Filomena is a clever and resourceful war refugee with a childhood secret, who comes to America to wed Mario, the family's favored son. Amie, a beautiful and dreamy French girl from upstate New York, escapes an abusive husband after falling in love with Johnny, the oldest of the brothers. Lucy, a tough-as-nails Irish nurse, ran away from a strict girls' home and marries Frankie, the sensuous middle son. And the glamorous Petrina, the family's only daughter, graduates with honors from Barnard College despite a past trauma that nearly caused a family scandal.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Easy Enjoyable Read
- By Bunny on 06-23-21
By: Camille Aubray
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My Life as a Rat
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sadie Alexandru
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 154
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4 out of 5 stars 134
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Heavy Topics & Satisfying Story
- By Oscar on 06-30-19
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A Girl Is a Body of Water
- By: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
- Narrated by: Tovah Ott
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
International award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and - most importantly - how they find their way back to each other. In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta - her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts - but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow.
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3 out of 5 stars
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African narrators for African novels!
- By Lynn on 04-24-21
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5 out of 5 stars
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Disturbing, Frustrating, Messed Up and AWESOME!
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5 out of 5 stars
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Luscious prose, intimate and realistic
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4
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If you ask a Finn, they will likely be as baffled as you are. That’s why Melanie Dower, an expat who has been living in Finland for the past decade, has taken up the charge. Her vantage as an outsider entrenched in Finnish culture uniquely positions her to identify the keys to Finnish happiness that elude the rest of the world and that Finns take for granted. From sauna to strong social safety nets, Finnish life is made up of a constellation of habits and structures that leave its residents relaxed, healthy, and fulfilled.
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5 out of 5 stars
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INSPIRING BOOK. (Listening after Hurricane Helene)
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Held
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 31
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1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures
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4 out of 5 stars
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Love is foremost.
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The Girls in the Stilt House
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,207
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 7,476
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Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle, so she forms a plan to go north.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Long winded
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By: Kelly Mustian
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Foster
- By: Claire Keegan
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It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A story that will stay with me a long time
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The Safekeep
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What listeners say about The Last Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- pebs
- 10-14-24
Missing a French accented narrator
One of the broadest failures in the narrative is this book is narratef by someone clearly European English.
it is more than a little confusing because there's no separation of characters in the voice acting.
it kind of detracts from the beautiful sentences and storyline.
I did appreciate the historical values and research that went into this writing. she creates very strong, defined characters.
this is an excellent pastime read for someone that would like a greater understanding of the history of Algeria.
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