The Wedding Party
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The Wedding Party
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Narrated by:
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Caroline McLaughlin
About this listen
In this sprawling, award-winning novel, celebrated Chinese writer Liu Xinwu cordially invites you to an epic, riotous, and moving neighborhood feast.
On a December morning in 1982, the courtyard of a Beijing siheyuan - a lively quadrangle of homes - begins to stir. Auntie Xue’s son Jiyue is getting married today, and she is determined to make the day a triumph. Despite Jiyue’s woeful ignorance in matters of the heart - and the body. Despite a chef in training tasked with the onerous responsibility of preparing the banquet. With a cross-generational multitude of guests, from anxious family members to a fretful bridal party - not to mention exasperating friends, interfering neighbors, and wedding crashers - what will the day ahead bring?
Set at a pivotal point after the turmoil of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Liu Xinwu’s tale weaves together a rich tapestry of characters, intertwined lives, and stories within stories. The Wedding Party is a touching, hilarious portrait of life in this singular city, all packed into a Beijing courtyard on a single day that manages to be both perfectly normal and utterly extraordinary at the same time.
©2016 Liu Xinwu (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2021 by Jeremy Tiang.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Caroline McLaughlin makes the most of this romp through a wedding day, told through the eyes of Auntie Xue, an ambitious, exasperated mother who is also the matriarch of her neighborhood. Fans of Chinese fiction will find much to admire as McLaughlin sets an energetic pace for a story filled with colorful characters and their slightly manic antics. She moves us from Auntie Xue to her clueless son—the reluctant bridegroom—and a slew of guests who span a wide age range.… Told with gusto, this is a fun listening experience.”—AudioFile Magazine
“This novel introduces readers to the boisterous milieu of a siheyuan, one of Beijing’s traditional multifamily courtyard residences, via the story of the Xue family’s wedding banquet…A lovingly rendered portrait of a city and its inhabitants, the novel is also an act of preservation.”—The New Yorker
“The novel’s heart lies with quiet, passionately competent chef Xichun, whose cooking never falters and who never loses sight of his and others’ humanity. A deep immersion in everyday life in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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- By LOVETOQUILT on 05-06-23
By: Marta Molnar, and others
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My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
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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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A Suitable Boy (Dramatised)
- By: Vikram Seth
- Narrated by: Ayesha Dharker, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, full cast
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 348
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 284
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Story4 out of 5 stars 278
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. The story unfolds through four middle class families: the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans, and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with.
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2 out of 5 stars
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would prefer unabridged naration
- By Tamshine on 07-07-11
By: Vikram Seth
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In the Time of Our History
- By: Susanne Pari
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita's death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents' home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of "The One Year." Ana is always in Mitra's heart, though they chose very different paths. While Ana, sweet and dutiful, bowed to their domineering father's demands and married, Mitra rebelled, and was banished.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable
- By J. E. Jordan on 05-23-23
By: Susanne Pari
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The Godmothers
- A Novel
- By: Camille Aubray
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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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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The Secret Life of Sunflowers
- By: Marta Molnar, Dana Marton
- Narrated by: Kendra Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,354
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,260
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,260
When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Nothing like a expected…
- By LOVETOQUILT on 05-06-23
By: Marta Molnar, and others
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The Lions of Fifth Avenue
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,376
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,918
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,911
It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life - her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Exhilarating
- By Joanna Butler on 08-20-20
By: Fiona Davis
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Under Red Skies
- Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China
- By: Karoline Kan
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
A deeply personal and shocking look at how China is coming to terms with its conflicted past as it emerges into a modern, cutting-edge superpower.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An intimate view of real life in China
- By Lonnie G. Hardy, Jr. on 08-15-19
By: Karoline Kan
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The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit
- My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
- By: Lucette Lagnado
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
In vivid and graceful prose, Lucette Lagnado recreates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years before Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power. With Nasser’s nationalization of Egyptian industry, her father, Leon, a boulevardier who conducted business in his white sharkskin suit, loses everything and departs with the family for any land that will take them. The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxtaposed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Touching Memoir of a Jewish Family in Egypt
- By Brustar on 06-10-20
By: Lucette Lagnado
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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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Sanshiro
- Penguin Classics
- By: Natsume Soseki, Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin
- Narrated by: Andrew Koji
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro's doomed innocence, the novel comes to life. Sanshiro is also penetrating social and cultural commentary.
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3 out of 5 stars
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This story had no point.
- By icelandicponies on 12-30-21
By: Natsume Soseki, and others
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Half a Lifelong Romance
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after many years, can they start their relationship again? Or is it destined to be the romance of only half a lifetime?
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5 out of 5 stars
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super
- By Marcus Aurelius on 10-05-17
By: Eileen Chang
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The Marriage Bureau for Rich People
- By: Farahad Zama
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 307
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 249
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Story4 out of 5 stars 245
Farahad Zama's debut novel transports listeners to faraway India for a story brimming with endearing characters, homespun wisdom, and blossoming love. After Mr. Ali retires, he launches a matchmaking service that helps an array of clients arrange marriages. But he's unaware of his able assistant's dire need for his marriage bureau.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Marriage Bureau for Rich People
- By Lorriee on 01-29-11
By: Farahad Zama
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The Mathematician's Shiva
- By: Stuart Rojstaczer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil, Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Lee Crowe on 07-27-15
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The Vineyards of Champagne
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 239
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
Deep within the labyrinth of caves that lies below the lush, rolling vineyards of the Champagne region, an underground city of women and children hums with life. Forced to take shelter from the unrelenting onslaught of German shellfire above, the bravest and most defiant women venture out to pluck sweet grapes for the harvest. But wine is not the only secret preserved in the cool, dark cellars... In present day, Rosalyn Acosta travels to Champagne to select vintages for her Napa-based employer. Rosalyn doesn't much care for champagne - or France, for that matter.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very Depressing
- By Miranda on 03-08-20
By: Juliet Blackwell
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House of Trelawney
- By: Hannah Rothschild
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 112
The seat of the Trelawney family for over 700 years, Trelawney Castle was once the jewel of the Cornish coast. Each successive Earl spent with abandon, turning the house and grounds into a sprawling, extravagant palimpsest of wings, turrets, and follies. But as the centuries passed the Earls of Trelawney, their ambition dulled by generations of pampered living, failed to develop other skills.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Really fun read
- By Ruthi on 04-12-20
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The Shadow Lines
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Raj Varma
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4 out of 5 stars 67
Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Ghosh’s radiant second novel follows two families - one English, one Bengali - as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian-born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrator Doesn't Know How to Pronounce
- By Amazon Customer on 08-27-11
By: Amitav Ghosh
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If My Heart Had Wings
- A World War II Love Story
- By: Nadine Taylor
- Narrated by: Nadine Taylor
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
At the height of WW2, 22-year-old Nina Raff learns that her beloved pilot husband has been killed in plane crash. To escape her grief, she upends her life, moves across country, and plunges into another marriage far too soon. For the next 20 years, she buries her sadness and ignores the past to appease her jealous alcoholic second husband. But when her teenage daughter discovers a long-hidden wedding photo, an unforgettable story of love, heartbreaking loss, oppression, and family secrets tumbles out, compounded by a mystery the daughter is determined to solve.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully done!
- By Cdg on 07-10-20
By: Nadine Taylor
What listeners say about The Wedding Party
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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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Doris Lowenfels
- 01-30-22
have trouble understanding the narrator
I am disappointed in the narration which I find difficult to follow. The book is wonderful but I have to read the print copy.
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