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The Mystical Land of Myrrh
- Narrated by: MaryAnn Shank
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
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The Mystical Land of Myrrh
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Publisher's summary
The author found golden earrings and a million memories when she was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia. Listen to the stars dancing over Somalia and hear tales of warriors and camel herders, songs at the wells and melodies in every footstep.
Moira, a young Peace Corps Volunteer, stretched her senses to soak in every story, every song that was around her. Her missteps tossed a beautiful young woman into a whipping circle, and denied her students the futures they had worked so hard to obtain.
Moira’s successes were few. Even her search for a lesbian lover in the labyrinth that was Mogadishu seemed hopeless.
Moira was shaken to her very core when she stumbled on the Ritual, female circumcision, carried out in a hidden hut in the bush country, the Ritual that rips all feelings of sexual pleasure from between a young girl’s legs.
Through it all the Somali Goddess Arawello spreads her protective arms, reaching through wars and famines to reach her people. Once Arawello brought Peace by turning men into eunuchs, and may do so again.
This is a journey of a young woman ready to meet the challenges of the world on her own terms, one who faces the terrors of bush country alongside the embrace of a lover. Moira faces challenges she never knew existed, and a love that envelopes her like an unfolding bird of paradise.
Through the turmoil and ecstasy, Moira's love for the Somali people deepens as she reluctantly realizes there is nothing - nothing - she can do to change their world to avert disaster. On the contrary, it is Somalia that changes her. She will never be the same again.
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- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
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The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
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The Third Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Talia Carner
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 406
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 364
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 361
The turn of the 20th century finds 14-year-old Batya in the Russian countryside, fleeing with her family endless pogroms. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who can guarantee his daughter an easy life and passage to America. Feeling like a princess in a fairytale, Batya leaves her old life behind as she is whisked away to a new world. But soon, she discovers that she’s entered a waking nightmare. Her new “husband” does indeed bring her to America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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brilliant novel based on shocking truth
- By Rochelle Jewel Shapiro on 07-05-20
By: Talia Carner
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Virgins of Paradise
- By: Barbara Wood
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Jasmine and Camelia Rasheed grow to womanhood under the watchful eye of their grandmother inside the walls surrounding a beautiful house on Virgins of Paradise Street in exotic Cairo. They come of age in society in which the subjugation of women is assumed - they must wear veils, are forbidden to leave the house, have no independent rights, and are circumcised to ensure purity and obedience.
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4 out of 5 stars
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eye opening
- By C Ohana on 11-13-08
By: Barbara Wood
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On the Plain of Snakes
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A 40-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A pedantic, poorly narrated, 20 hour lecture
- By Birdshot on 11-16-19
By: Paul Theroux
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Guesthouse for Ganesha
- A Novel
- By: Judith Teitelman
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi, Soneela Nankani
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
In 1923, 17-year-old Esther arrives in Köln "with a hardened heart as her sole luggage.” Thus begins a 22-year journey, woven against the European Holocaust and the Hindu Kali Yuga (the “Age of Darkness” when human civilization degenerates spiritually), in search of a place of sanctuary. Throughout her travails, using cunning and shrewdness, Esther relies on her masterful tailoring skills to help mask her Jewish heritage, navigate war-torn Europe, and emigrate to India. Esther’s traveling companion and the novel’s narrator is Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu God....
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5 out of 5 stars
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A captivating and thought-provoking journey
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 03-16-21
By: Judith Teitelman
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The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted
- By: Robert Hillman
- Narrated by: Daniel Lapaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met - she's passionate, artistic, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has only read only one book in his life, the two soon discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife - and still missing her sweet son, Peter - Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Listener beware
- By Little old lady from Iowa on 06-11-23
By: Robert Hillman
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Braver Than You Think
- Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother's) Lifetime
- By: Maggie Downs
- Narrated by: Rachel Fulginiti
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
As a child, Maggie Downs often doubted that she would ever possess the courage to visit the destinations her mother dreamed of one day seeing. "You are braver than you think," her mother always insisted. That statement would guide her as, over the course of one year, Downs backpacked through seventeen countries - visiting all the places her mother, struck with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, could not visit herself - encountering some of the world's most striking locales while confronting the slow loss of her mother.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not Ypur Typical Ttavel Destinations
- By Pammerpower on 06-12-20
By: Maggie Downs
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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 Library of Legends
- A Novel
- By: Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Story4 out of 5 stars 164
China, 1937: When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, 19-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than 100 students, faculty, and staff must walk 1,000 miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by hunger, cold, and the constant threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the student refugees who are at risk: Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure, a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful and Umique!
- By D. Fields on 02-18-22
By: Janie Chang
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Fletch
- By: Gregory Mcdonald
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,864
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,674
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,670
The acidly funny first book starring the subversive sleuth in one of the most successful mystery series of all time. Fletch is an investigative reporter whose methods are a little unorthodox. Currently he's living on the beach. He's taking more than a little flak from his editor. She doesn't appreciate his style. Or the expense account items he's racking up. Or his definition of the word "deadline". Or the divorce lawyers who keep showing up at the office. So when multimillionaire Alan Stanwyk offers Fletch the job of a lifetime, which could be worth a fortune, he's intrigued.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Fletch is Literally a Psychopath
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-21
By: Gregory Mcdonald
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From Miniskirt to Hijab
- A Girl in Revolutionary Iran
- By: Jacqueline Saper
- Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 338
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 311
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 313
Jacqueline Saper, named after Jacqueline Kennedy, was born in Tehran to Iranian and British parents. At 18 she witnessed the civil unrest of the 1979 Iranian revolution and continued to live in the Islamic Republic during its most volatile times, including the Iran-Iraq War. In a deeply intimate and personal story, Saper recounts her privileged childhood in prerevolutionary Iran and how she gradually became aware of the paradoxes in her life and community - primarily the disparate religions and cultures.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very good
- By Matt on 11-10-21
By: Jacqueline Saper
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Two Crosses
- Secrets of the Cross, Book 1
- By: Elizabeth Musser
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 57
The glimmering Huguenot cross she so innocently wears leads her deep into the shadows. When Gabriella Madison arrives in the French village of Castelnau in 1961 to continue her university studies, she doesn’t anticipate being drawn into the secretive world behind the Algerian war for independence from France. And the further she delves into the war efforts, the more her faith is challenged. The people who surround her bring a whirlwind of transforming forces.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Faith, Romance, Spies, and Fascinating History
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-19
By: Elizabeth Musser
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America Is in the Heart
- By: Carlos Bulosan, Elaine Castillo - foreword, E. San Juan Jr. - introduction, and others
- Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Poet, essayist, novelist, fiction writer, and labor organizer, Carlos Bulosan (1911-1956) wrote one of the most influential working class literary classics about the US pre-World War II, a period and setting similar to that of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. Bulosan's semi-autobiographical novel America Is in the Heart begins with the narrator's rural childhood in the Philippines and the struggles of land-poor peasant families affected by US imperialism after the Spanish-American War of the late 1890s.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pointless, wandering narrative poorly performed
- By B. Bartok on 08-15-20
By: Carlos Bulosan, and others
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Fast Times in Palestine
- A Love Affair with a Homeless Homeland
- By: Pamela J. Olson
- Narrated by: Julia Farhat
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Pamela Olson, a small town girl from eastern Oklahoma, had what she always wanted: a physics degree from Stanford University. But instead of feeling excited for what came next, she felt consumed by dread and confusion. This irresistible memoir chronicles her journey from aimless ex-bartender to Ramallah-based journalist and foreign press coordinator for a Palestinian presidential candidate.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Palestine from the Inside—and Out
- By Susie on 11-04-13
By: Pamela J. Olson
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The Parisian
- By: Isabella Hammad
- Narrated by: Fiona Button
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4 out of 5 stars 142
A masterful debut novel by Plimpton Prize winner Isabella Hammad, The Parisian illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Overly ambitious
- By Placeholder on 06-16-19
By: Isabella Hammad
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Remembering Shanghai
- A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels
- By: Isabel Sun Chao, Claire Chao
- Narrated by: Rachel Yong, Claire Chao, Isabel Sun Chao
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
Meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations, from vibrant Shanghai to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity and loss against the epic backdrop of a country in turmoil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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touching stories of resilience and family
- By Rodger on 01-17-21
By: Isabel Sun Chao, and others
What listeners say about The Mystical Land of Myrrh
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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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
- Kindle Customer
- 01-20-20
VERY REAL
A novel that grew out of MaryAnn Shank's Peace Corps experiences in Somalia in the late 1960s. With precise details and a strong feminist point of view, she very realistically captures the personalities, the Western culture, and the Somali culture that she encountered during her two years in the small, southern Somali town of Baidoa. Since I was there at the same time, I can certainly vouch for the accuracy of much of what she relates. Her strong Lesbian perspectives and how those shaped her thinking and experiences add a whole new and often tragic aspect to the novel.
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