The Purple Lotus of the Orient
Memories from the Motherland
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The Purple Lotus of the Orient
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Narrated by:
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Brooke Taylor
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By:
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Ralph Clayton
About this listen
In the misty mountains near Yangtze River, there is a remote village. This is the place where she was born, The Purple Lotus. A poor farmer girl who will rise from the ashes of the old, like a phoenix. She will fly high above the sky reaching for the scorching sun. This is her destiny, to be free from bondage. This is her beginning, her one and only moment.
©2015, 2016 Ralph Clayton (P)2016 Ralph ClaytonListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 80
As the novel opens, Artemio Cruz, the all-powerful newspaper magnate and land baron, lies confined to his bed and, in dreamlike flashes, recalls the pivotal episodes of his life. Carlos Fuentes manipulates the ensuing kaleidoscope of images with dazzling inventiveness, layering memory upon memory, from Cruz’s heroic campaigns during the Mexican Revolution, through his relentless climb from poverty to wealth, to his uneasy death. Perhaps Fuentes’ masterpiece, The Death of Artemio Cruz is a haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Writing
- By Kelly B. on 05-01-14
By: Carlos Fuentes, and others
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,917
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,662
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,652
Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
By: Salman Rushdie
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Johnny Got His Gun
- By: Dalton Trumbo
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 982
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 857
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 860
This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered - not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives. This is no ordinary novel. This is the story of a young American soldier terribly maimed in World War I - he "survives" armless, legless, and faceless, but with his mind intact.
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5 out of 5 stars
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READ THE INTRODUCTION LAST
- By Carollynn7 on 11-27-11
By: Dalton Trumbo
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We Are Not from Here
- By: Jenny Torres Sanchez
- Narrated by: Marisa Blake
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 211
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 179
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Story5 out of 5 stars 178
Pulga has his dreams. Chico has his grief. Pequeña has her pride. And these three teens have one another. But none of them have illusions about the town they've grown up in. Even with the love of family, threats lurk around every corner. And when those threats become all too real, the trio knows they have no choice but to run: from their country, from their families, from their beloved home. Crossing from Guatemala through Mexico, they follow the route of La Bestia, the perilous train system that might deliver them to a better life - if they are lucky enough to survive the journey.
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5 out of 5 stars
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this book broke my heart and I love it.
- By Anonymous User on 03-29-22
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The Last Werewolf
- By: Glen Duncan
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 794
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 673
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Story4 out of 5 stars 675
Meet Jake. A bit on the elderly side (he turns 201 in March), but you’d never suspect it. Nonstop sex and exercise will do that for you - and a diet with lots of animal protein. Jake is a werewolf, and after the unfortunate and violent death of his one contemporary, he is now the last of his species. Although he is physically healthy, Jake is deeply distraught and lonely.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Ennui of a Naughty Dog
- By Mel on 09-12-11
By: Glen Duncan
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Women of the Silk
- A Novel
- By: Gail Tsukiyama
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
In Women of the Silk, Gail Tsukiyama takes listeners back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amid the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn to dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their ambition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another beautiful historical fiction!
- By T. Hoyt on 09-28-24
By: Gail Tsukiyama
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White Dog Fell from the Sky
- By: Eleanor Morse
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4 out of 5 stars 118
Botswana, 1976: Isaac Muthethe thinks he is dead. Smuggled across the border from South Africa in a hearse, he awakens covered in dust, staring at blue sky and the face of White Dog. Far from dead, he is, for the first time, in a country without apartheid. A medical student in South Africa, he was forced to flee after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unexpectedly Stunning Work!
- By Kathi on 03-15-13
By: Eleanor Morse
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She Would Be King
- A Novel
- By: Wayétu Moore
- Narrated by: Wayétu Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 882
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 788
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 785
Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful example of magical realism.
- By Danielle on 10-07-18
By: Wayétu Moore
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Freshwater
- By: Akwaeke Emezi
- Narrated by: Akwaeke Emezi
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 717
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 635
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Story4 out of 5 stars 632
An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side". Unsettling, heart-wrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities. Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Just ok.
- By Alexa on 07-02-18
By: Akwaeke Emezi
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Letter from an Unknown Woman
- By: Stefan Zweig
- Narrated by: Heather Wood, K. Anderson Yancy
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
Immediately following the death of her young son, distraught and heartbroken, a woman sends a heart-wrenching letter to the only man she has ever loved, chronicling their love affair, opening with, "To you, who have never known me."
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3 out of 5 stars
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Tough 2 Hear With Background Music & Sound Effects
- By DK on 09-19-15
By: Stefan Zweig
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The Passion
- By: Jeanette Winterson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues, Daniel Pirrie
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meets their singular destiny.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellence.
- By Scottie V. on 10-07-19
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The Gods of Tango
- A Novel
- By: Carolina De Robertis
- Narrated by: Carolina De Robertis
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father's cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A rousing tale
- By Jean on 07-24-15
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Undertaker's Moon
- By: Ronald Kelly
- Narrated by: J. Rodney Turner
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 514
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 459
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 459
The rural town of Old Hickory. Tennessee was a quiet, picturesque community...until the O'Sheas came to town. Becoming the new proprietors of the town's only funeral parlor, with the help of their charming patriarch, Square McManus, the Irish family was wholeheartedly accepted by the local town folk. The thing began to happen. Strange things...horrible, unspeakable things...in the dead of night. The sighting of wolfish beasts congregating around an open grave in the town cemetery.
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3 out of 5 stars
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good story but
- By simon lucas on 02-19-20
By: Ronald Kelly
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An American Dream
- By: Norman Mailer
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4 out of 5 stars 29
As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, author Norman Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the listener by the throat and refuses to let go.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mailers Immodest masterpiece
- By W C Woods on 07-02-20
By: Norman Mailer
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Shalimar the Clown
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Aasif Mandvi
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 572
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 241
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Story4 out of 5 stars 238
When Maximilian Ophuls is murdered outside his daughter's home by his Kashmiri Muslim driver, it appears to be a political killing. Ophuls is the former U.S. ambassador to India and America's leading figure in counter-terrorism. But there is much more to Ophuls and his assassin, a mysterious man calling himself "Shalimar the Clown", than meets the eye. One woman is at the center of their shared history, a history of betrayal and deception.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible
- By Barry on 12-07-05
By: Salman Rushdie