Commonwealth
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Narrated by:
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Hope Davis
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By:
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Ann Patchett
About this listen
The acclaimed best-selling author - winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize - tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives.
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.
When, in her 20s, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.
Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.
©2016 Ann Patchett (P)2016 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Editors Select, September 2016 - The day I get to start a new novel from Ann Patchett is like Christmas to me. I can't wait to open the gift of her lyrical writing and then am sad when the book is over and wish I could relive the magic of experiencing it for the first time. My Christmas came early this year, as I got the chance to read Commonwealth ahead of publication, and will come again on September 13 when I listen to the marvelous actress Hope Davis perform the story. Davis narrated Patchett's last novel, and the return of this powerhouse combination is sure to have Commonwealth - a smart, funny, and heart-wrenchingly relatable story of two families coming together over the course of 50 years - at the top of the best seller and Best of 2016 lists. Diana, Audible Editor
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Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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The Untelling
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Michele Blackmon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt - real and imagined. At 25, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her.
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Don’t waste your time!
- By shasha on 09-18-20
By: Tayari Jones
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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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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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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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May We Be Forgiven
- By: A. M. Homes
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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May We Be Forgiven, a darkly comic novel of 21st-century domestic life, stars Harold Silver, a historian who's always been jealous of his successful brother, George. But when the hot-tempered George is institutionalized for committing a violent act, Harold finds himself comforting his brother's wife and children. What follows is a scathing examination of a family so fractured it may never be whole again.
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Give this one a try!
- By JWB on 02-13-13
By: A. M. Homes
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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The Daisy Children
- A Novel
- By: Sofia Grant
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When Katie Garrett gets the news that she’s received an inheritance from the grandmother she hardly knew, it couldn’t have come at a better time. She flees Boston and travels to rural Texas. There, she’s greeted by her distant cousin Scarlett. Friendly and flamboyant, Scarlett couldn’t be more different from sensible Katie. And as they begin the task of sorting through their grandmother’s possessions, they discover letters and photographs that uncover the hidden truths about their shared history, and the long-forgotten tragedy of the New London school explosion of 1937 that binds them.
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a little odd to me
- By G-Mom on 11-09-24
By: Sofia Grant
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If I am Missing or Dead
- A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
- By: Janine Latus
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 2002, Janine Latus' youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. "Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved", it read, "but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...."
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All About Janine
- By Ellen on 07-02-07
By: Janine Latus
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The Man in the Crooked Hat
- By: Harry Dolan
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Private investigator Jack Pellum has spent two years searching for the man he believes murdered his wife - a man he last saw wearing a peacoat and a fedora. Months of posting flyers and combing through crime records yields no leads. Then a local writer commits suicide, and he leaves a bewildering message that may be the first breadcrumb in a winding trail of unsolved murders....
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Crazy Glue'd Me To Story
- By Ted on 01-11-18
By: Harry Dolan
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Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
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Incomplete
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Patchett's Novel's all Available on Audio Now
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At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
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Not my favorite Patchett
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What Now?
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Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by best-selling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, "What now?"
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A commencement message for life
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By: Ann Patchett
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Tom Lake
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In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
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So incredibly boring
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A collection of 17 wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. The short stories are surprising, intelligent, heartwarming, and, for the millions and millions of Tom Hanks fans, an absolute must-have!
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Old fashioned romp of stories, some real gems!
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Reclusive literary legend M. M. "Mimi" Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style Ponzi scheme, she's flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. The prickly Mimi reluctantly complies - with a few stipulations: no Ivy Leaguers or English majors. Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids.
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A Whirlwind
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Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
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Brilliant. But what's up with the PDF?
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Lambslide
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Nicolette Farmer is running for class president, and the rest of the Farmer family tells her she’ll win by a landslide. A pack of overconfident lambs mistakenly hear lambslide and can’t believe there’s a slide made just for them. But when they can’t find one on the farm, there’s only one thing left to do: take a vote! They campaign. They bargain. They ask all the other animals if they, too, would like a lambslide.
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Short and Sweet. And good.
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By: Ann Patchett
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Mercy Street
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For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city. The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in crisis. For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance. But outside the clinic, the reality is different. Anonymous threats are frequent. A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door.
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Unbearable
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What listeners say about Commonwealth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- green ice cream garden
- 11-29-16
Soap opera with less drama
I'm rating this book a 4 start but feel it may be closer to a 3 for me. The writing is excellent, so well written that the story entraps you like a web. The problem for me was that the web was getting too long and drawn out. However, I loved the book within a book feel and the jumping around in time was done perfectly. I never got lost. The downside is that I'm not sure what this book is about. It's about how events (good and bad) change life's course but is where you end up that terrible after all? I wonder if the title is more than just the setting. And most important, I'll spend the next few days pondering the ending. In summary, it's a great book but at times a little slow and left me a bit unsettled. Maybe it is a 4+ rating after all of the above. Book club material without hesitation.
PS - The narration was superb.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Thomas M. Bronder
- 09-29-16
Great story
loved it will roecommend to my daughter. understand this was on bygones best seller list
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3 people found this helpful
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- Sara
- 10-19-17
Decent, nothing exceptional
The plot is decent, but it jumps around enough (both in the timeline and between characters) that it's hard to really get to know any one character in the book. It kind of jumps between the 6 kids and over 50ish years, so you end up just getting little pieces of them all at different ages. It would work ok if the kids all stayed close throughout their lives, but it doesn't seem like any of them do, so you're pretty much trying to follow 6 vaguely related people over the course of their lifetimes without really getting to know any of them.
The performance is also just okay. Hope Davis does an ok job for most of it, but all of her voices for the female characters sounded either painfully airy or like a shrill old woman with a cracking voice. It kind of made it hard for me to listen to.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Robbi Wagner
- 10-29-16
Couldn't get into the narrator
Is there anything you would change about this book?
I simply didn't like the voices the narrator decided to assign to each character. The women sounded dumb and blonde; every single one of them. I kept waiting for something to really happen, and I can't say I get it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jennifer T.
- 09-21-16
Great narrator but didn't finish
The author is a wonderful writer and the characters are well developed but there isn't enough story to keep me interested. I didn't finish the book. it's kind of dreary, but the narrator is terrific.
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- Taren
- 06-13-17
An Honest Look at Blended Families
Any additional comments?
If you are looking for a feel-good book, this isn't it. However, I highly recommend it. It's a story about parents, their children, blended families, how they interact, parent visitation schedules, the difficulties of dealing with broken families, etc. The author Ann Patchett did an excellent job of telling a difficult story from a point-of-view that often gets overlooked: the childrens'. Most of the story is told through the eyes of Frannie, the 5th child of the Cousins/Keating blended family. She tells of how the step-siblings came to live with them every summer, how each of the 6 siblings interacted & details of their personalities, how the parents & step-parents handled their own children & their step-children. I am fortunate enough that I can say I can't identify with this story personally as my parents, my husband's parents, & none of our grandparents every went through a divorce or were part of a blended family. However, just the mere fact that I am alive & have friends means that I have heard of someone else's story that resembles Ann Patchett's. It's a sad story that needs to be heard so that we, the friends & family, can better understand our loved ones & extend to them the kind of love they need to best move forward.
Age recommendation: 14 & up (occasional profanity)
On a scale of 1-10 stars, I give it 9.
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- kristin
- 03-28-19
such a lovely surprise.
this book is a small miracle. i feel so lucky to have happened upon it.
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- Mary
- 12-10-16
Commonwealth
I loved this book – Ann Patchett weaved the stories of these families together in a compelling and heartwarming fashion. The performance of the audiobook was excellent as well. Would recommend this book to anyone.
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- Susan
- 10-03-16
A winner
Any additional comments?
Best Ann Patchett book in a long time. Very well done with an excellent reading performance.
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- AnnieW
- 02-21-17
Humans adaptin
A family saga covering about 50 years. A divorce and remarriages. The children each adapt in his/her own way. I liked most of the characters. It is a story of human frailty, forgiveness, moving on. Frannie, the youngest seems to be the steady hand. I found the ending startling, abrupt. I guess I wanted more. But it is a realistic ending.
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