Everything Is Illuminated
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Narrated by:
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Robert Petkoff
About this listen
“Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange, as harrowing as The Painted Bird, as exuberant and twee as Candide, and you have Everything Is Illuminated . . . Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened—seared in the fire of something new.” — Washington Post
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather’s village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. As his search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power.
“A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader’s hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
Robert Petkoff has appeared on film and TV in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man, Madam Secretary, Elementary, The Good Wife, Chappelle’s Show, and Law & Order.
His Broadway credits include All The Way with Bryan Cranston, Anything Goes, Ragtime, Spamalot and Fiddler on the Roof. Mr. Petkoff is an Audie and Earphones award winner.
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Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, wowed critics on its way to winning several literary prizes, including Book of the Year honors from the Los Angeles Times. It has been published in 24 countries and will soon be a major motion picture. Foer's talent continues to shine in this sometimes hilarious and always heartfelt follow-up.
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Hard book to review
- By Jbug on 12-27-09
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The Cider House Rules
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 24 hrs and 5 mins
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From one of America's most beloved and respected writers comes the classic story of Homer Wells, an orphan, and Wilbur Larch, a doctor without children of his own, who develop an extraordinary bond with one another.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-02-07
By: John Irving
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The Wife
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- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
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A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
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A Fraction of the Whole
- By: Steve Toltz
- Narrated by: Colin McPhillamy, Craig Baldwin
- Length: 25 hrs and 11 mins
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Stewing in an Australian prison, Jasper Dean reflects on his relationship with his dead father and recounts the many zany adventures they shared together.
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A Funny and Thought-provoking Tale of Human Nature
- By Asha Ember on 01-27-10
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
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Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
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By: Toni Morrison
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The Corpse Washer
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Young Jawad, born to a traditional Shi'ite family of corpse washers and shrouders in Baghdad, decides to abandon the family tradition, choosing instead to become a sculptor, to celebrate life rather than tend to death. He enters Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, in defiance of his father's wishes and determined to forge his own path. But the circumstances of history dictate otherwise.
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Gorgeous story with talented narration
- By N. Barnes on 03-11-18
By: Sinan Antoon
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Diamond Head
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Story
Told through the eyes of the Leongs' secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning the Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, Diamond Head is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice, and miraculous hope.
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.
- By Gina on 09-06-15
By: Cecily Wong
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Honor
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An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
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The Muse
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England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery.
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Mixed narration
- By Amy Fleury on 08-05-16
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Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
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Overall
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Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
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THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
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Wonderful novel marred by imperfect narration
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Exquisite Narration, Breathtakingly Heartfelt Book
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Enjoyable but tiresome
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Wonderful novel marred by imperfect narration
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Exquisite Narration, Breathtakingly Heartfelt Book
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Great book poor marketing
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A hurricane is building, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's 14 and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.
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What listeners say about Everything Is Illuminated
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Justine Smith
- 07-20-24
Great story
I loved it. Very funny. I loved the dog and the driving around Ukraine. Alex was wonderful.
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- nora
- 10-21-21
movie and book
It's odd that this book is more interesting because I watched the movie first. May be my opinion alone. But I love that the movie became the outcome of their letters. It's Alex's story, the movie has the image of him as who he wants to be seen as. His family is the better versions he begs Jonathan to write of. It made the book beautiful to me. Heartbreaking too. Some rant parts were a little much, but genius piecing together.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ryan B.
- 12-31-22
Interesting at times but feels confusing
Really hard to follow at times. Maybe I wasn’t fully focused and just rushing to get one more book read.
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- Lindsay C Randall
- 07-29-22
Um, what?
I went into this knowing that I know a lot of people who love JSF. And there was a lot to love here…. Until the last few chapters.
This novel reads like an origami project that you carefully fold and unfold and retold from different angles to get to your final project… but in the last five folds decide it’s too complicated and just make a cliche airplane and chuck it across the room.
The story is slow to present itself, then intricate and interesting, and then a very rushed cliche pile of shit.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Peter Garik
- 04-17-23
Beautiful story, outstanding narration
It is a beautiful, meaningful story, many times hard to follow. Narration is outstanding, it goes straight to the heart. I recommend and will look for the movie.
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- Patrice
- 04-20-22
Spectacular Narration
If ever you’re going to listen to a book, make it this one. The narrator’s performance illuminated this painfully beautiful story.
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- Keiko Porath
- 04-04-23
great double story!
double story told by two different voices with a twist at the end. great
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- bookworm123abc
- 02-10-23
Astounding reading
An amazing book by a great American talent from the onset of his career. I think the reader brought so much to the story that I wouldn’t have experienced with the voice in my own head as a reader. In recommending this book to another I would urge them to take the audio path due to the excellence found here.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jason M Adkins
- 08-16-22
Astonishing
First, the narration was perfect. It not only did justice to, but elevated the story.
The story. I don't even know how to classify it. It was wise, funny, daring, imaginative, sweeping, terrifying, heart -breaking.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- David Grossman
- 01-10-22
Tied
This is my story and the story of my family. But while the characters got caught in the loop, my grandfather broke free and the momentum of that split cast him across the world and into a most remarkable life and illuminated success that has rippled through his generations reverberating in me and my daughters. While still during the hours of the night that find little boys racing through dream worlds, young fathers wondering how they have befallen this fate, tired men wondering about that dark eyed Gypsy woman, and old men sobbing silently, I can feel the tug of the strings as the current of the Broad swirls and twists.
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