-
The Magician's Assistant
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.29
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
-
-
Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
-
Bel Canto
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ann Patchett’s award winning, New York Times best-selling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Pratchett’s other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician’s Assistant, the author’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
-
-
Opera Has Charms to Soothe the Savage Guerillas
- By Mel on 03-01-13
By: Ann Patchett
-
State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
-
-
Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
-
Run
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
-
-
Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
-
-
Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
-
Bel Canto
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ann Patchett’s award winning, New York Times best-selling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Pratchett’s other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician’s Assistant, the author’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
-
-
Opera Has Charms to Soothe the Savage Guerillas
- By Mel on 03-01-13
By: Ann Patchett
-
State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
-
-
Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
-
Run
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
-
-
Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
Truth & Beauty
- A Friendship
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
-
-
A grim tale of unrecovered co-dependency
- By Charles on 04-05-05
By: Ann Patchett
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
-
-
Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
What Now?
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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?"
-
-
A commencement message for life
- By Annie M. on 06-17-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
Olive Kitteridge
- Fiction
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
-
-
Depressing! Watse of a credit!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-28-19
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.
-
-
So many “WTF” moments
- By Kristen R King on 05-04-18
By: Tayari Jones
Publisher's summary
When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
Critic reviews
"The kindliness of The Magician's Assistant is beguiling, and Patchett is an adroit, graceful writer. . . she is especially practiced at the razzle-dazzle of odd juxtapositions." (New York Times Book Review)
"A saga of redemption tenderly and terrifically told." (Kirkus Reviews)
Related to this topic
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Where I'm Calling From
- Selected Stories
- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.
-
-
Love Carver, But Dietz Ruins It With Reading
- By Noirbat on 05-10-18
By: Raymond Carver
-
Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
-
Never Change
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A self-anointed spinster at 51, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.
-
-
sweet story and lovely writing
- By LVG on 07-21-22
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
The Singing Bone
- By: Beth Hahn
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice and her three closest friends meet the enigmatic Jack Wyck. Enticed by his philosophy and the promise of a constant party, Alice and her friends join Mr. Wyck's small group of devoted followers. Their idyll takes an increasingly sinister turn. Mr. Wyck's grand scheme goes wrong, culminating in a night of horrific murders.
-
-
Mixed feelings - you may love it - or not!
- By C. Vincent on 04-19-16
By: Beth Hahn
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
-
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Where I'm Calling From
- Selected Stories
- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.
-
-
Love Carver, But Dietz Ruins It With Reading
- By Noirbat on 05-10-18
By: Raymond Carver
-
Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
-
Never Change
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A self-anointed spinster at 51, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.
-
-
sweet story and lovely writing
- By LVG on 07-21-22
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
The Singing Bone
- By: Beth Hahn
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice and her three closest friends meet the enigmatic Jack Wyck. Enticed by his philosophy and the promise of a constant party, Alice and her friends join Mr. Wyck's small group of devoted followers. Their idyll takes an increasingly sinister turn. Mr. Wyck's grand scheme goes wrong, culminating in a night of horrific murders.
-
-
Mixed feelings - you may love it - or not!
- By C. Vincent on 04-19-16
By: Beth Hahn
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
-
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
The Untelling
- By: Tayari Jones
- Narrated by: Michele Blackmon
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Don’t waste your time!
- By shasha on 09-18-20
By: Tayari Jones
-
Keeper of the Light
- Keeper Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Diane Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Arielle DeLisle
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Olivia Simon is on duty in the emergency room of North Carolina's Outer Banks Hospital when a gunshot victim is brought in. Midway through the desperate effort to save the young woman's life, Olivia realizes who she is - Annie O'Neill, the woman Olivia's husband, Paul, is in love with.
-
-
I can't finish this...
- By Calmeridian Tink on 03-31-16
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
-
-
The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
-
The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
-
-
Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
-
Tell the Wolves I’m Home
- A Novel
- By: Carol Rifka Brunt
- Narrated by: Amy Rubinate
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life - someone who will help her to heal....
-
-
worst protagonist ever
- By Danica on 12-19-14
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
Trading Dreams at Midnight
- By: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
- Narrated by: Shari Peele
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.
-
-
Hard to follow
- By Nevada on 08-13-10
-
Private Relations
- By: Diane Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the Chapel House, the old oceanfront mansion where a group of close friends share their hopes and dreams and where love is sometimes an unexpected guest. Heartfelt and deeply moving, Private Relations won the 1989 RITA Award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel from the Romance Writers of America.
-
-
What???
- By Kimberly K. Roberts on 06-12-18
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Run
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
-
-
Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
-
-
Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
-
-
Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
-
Taft
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: J.D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft - Fay and Carl's dead father - and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers.
-
-
Patchett's Novel's all Available on Audio Now
- By Murmansk on 09-26-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
Truth & Beauty
- A Friendship
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
-
-
A grim tale of unrecovered co-dependency
- By Charles on 04-05-05
By: Ann Patchett
-
Run
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a winter evening in Boston and the temperature has drastically dropped as a blizzard approaches the city. On this fateful night, Bernard Doyle plans to meet his two adopted sons, Tip the older, and more serious and Teddy, the affectionate dreamer, at a Harvard auditorium to hear a speech given by Jesse Jackson. Doyle, an Irish Catholic and former Boston mayor, has done his best to keep his two sons interested in politics, from the day he and his now deceased wife became their parents, through their childhoods, and now in their lives as college students.
-
-
Don't listen to the interview at the end.
- By S. Elder on 12-16-07
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
St. Elizabeth's is a lovely old place in a small town in Kentucky that used to be the beautiful Hotel Louisa. In the 1960s, it is a home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Life at St. Elizabeth's is not unpleasant, but it is temporary. All the pregnant women who come there will go home within the year. Except for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman, who is neither unwed nor alone. She is simply pregnant and doesn't want her husband or her mother to know. She plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother the baby needs.
-
-
Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
-
-
Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
-
Taft
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: J.D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft - Fay and Carl's dead father - and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers.
-
-
Patchett's Novel's all Available on Audio Now
- By Murmansk on 09-26-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
Truth & Beauty
- A Friendship
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
-
-
A grim tale of unrecovered co-dependency
- By Charles on 04-05-05
By: Ann Patchett
-
Commonwealth
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Patchett and Me--In-sympatico
- By Mel on 09-18-16
By: Ann Patchett
-
What Now?
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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?"
-
-
A commencement message for life
- By Annie M. on 06-17-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
Bel Canto
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ann Patchett’s award winning, New York Times best-selling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Pratchett’s other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician’s Assistant, the author’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
-
-
Opera Has Charms to Soothe the Savage Guerillas
- By Mel on 03-01-13
By: Ann Patchett
-
These Precious Days
- Essays
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.
-
-
Heartfelt Essays, Beautifully Performed
- By Brent Holcomb on 11-23-21
By: Ann Patchett
-
Escape Goat
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Farmer family has a big problem! Every day, their goat escapes, and every day, Mr. Farmer brings him back. So when things start to go awry on the farm, it must be the goat’s fault. Who’s to blame when Mrs. Farmer’s petunias are trampled? Or when all the cupcakes for Archie’s party disappear? And when the whole bucket of paint is spilled? Of course, everyone blames the goat! But is it really his fault?
-
-
Great story
- By michelle on 11-07-20
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Those Who Save Us
- By: Jenna Blum
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trudy, a college history professor, is collecting oral histories from World War II survivors (both German and Jewish). Her mother, Anna, refuses to talk to her, but Anna's story is revealed in flashback. She conducted an affair with a Jewish baker who was summarily killed. Afterward, Anna caught the eye of a high-ranking Nazi officer.
-
-
engaging
- By Taryn on 01-26-11
By: Jenna Blum
-
Lambslide
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Short and Sweet. And good.
- By Susanna Goodin on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
What We Keep
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Stephanie Roberts
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ginny Young is on a plane en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for 35 years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best.
-
-
Bebop
- By BARBARA A BROWN on 11-20-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
-
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iris Lockhart is busy tending to the everyday business of her vintage clothing shop and her complicated love affairs when she receives a stunning phone call. Her great-aunt Esme, whom she never even knew existed, is being released from a psychiatric hospital where she has been locked away for over 60 years.
-
-
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
- By Jessica on 06-19-08
By: Maggie O'Farrell
What listeners say about The Magician's Assistant
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ann
- 05-02-18
the magicians Assistant
I enjoyed listening to the Misicians assistant but found that jazzy musical interlude very irritating. I would prefer reading this book instead of listening to this book solely because of the music that accompanied it
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Mimi
- 11-04-08
A Journey Through the Richness and Variety of Love
I decided to listen to this selection because I so enjoyed "Bel Canto", and it was a good decision. It is not the well-devised story which makes this a five-star rated book, and it is not the excellent narration. Both those elements are necessary, and present; the primary enchantment is the beautiful use of language and construction of a story over time of people caught in personal connection leading to love. As I write this the news is full comments on voting in my state on a proposition which places civil rights against religious standards. This book addresses the emotional (and almost supernatural) attachment of one human being to another without regard to popular public opinion. It is not, believe me, overtly sexual in nature, but is a conception of parts love, loss and discovery delivered in enchanting and voluptuous prose.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Elisabeth W.
- 05-27-09
Somber and a bit plodding
I found this book uneven. Interesting things that propelled the plot forward only happened in occasional bursts. I found much of the book to be plodding. Perhaps it was meant to mirror the rhythym of winter in Nebraska where much of the book takes place. An ok story. What was up with the music? Very upbeat - did not match the somber tone of the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Livelightly
- 10-24-11
A learning experience
I thought that Bel Canto was terrific so I have made a point of reading everything else Ann Patchett has written. This is middling -- not as good as State of Wonder or the one about being reared in a home for unwed mothers, but better than Run and the non-fiction book about her friend who died. A homey sort of tale. I'm a guy and it's a girl's book. All about developing relationships among disparate women who have nothing in common but a distant relationship with a gay impresario who is now dead. Social commentary. Worth the time but not much more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marilyn
- 06-09-20
Non event
Are the story never went anywhere except to Nebraska in the winter. Lots of verbiage about snow and cold. I did enjoy the narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jan
- 08-20-18
Magic tricks
I loved the story, but the ending was unfinished in my opinion and I found that disappointing!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- patty15 in OC
- 07-06-22
So disappointing
I'm a devoted fan of Ann Patchett's writing: The Dutch House, Bel Canto, Commonwealth, State of Wonder, and others. I loved them, and even though the author doesn't write a happy ending, it feels somewhat true to life.
This one is dfferent. I had great hopes for this story until the end of the book was approaching and it seemed there was too much to put in any order. Her final "trick" reminded me of the cartoon of the student with a complex math proof on the board and one section that reads "then a miracle occurs." So there's that, and then a few more paragraphs, and then there's no next paragraph. It's just weird.
And that awful jarring music! How could the audio producer have thought THAT was a good idea?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Timorell
- 05-17-11
I liked it, even gave it 4 stars but it's flawed
I'm not going to recount the story because it annoys me to read reviews that tell the whole story. I can say that I was moved to tears more than once. But, I found the story's best punches were in the first 1/3, it levelled out in the middle and the end seemed to wander around. The actual ending is abrupt, unexpected and unfulfilling. That said, I do recommend it because the story is interesting, unique, engaging--and the narrator is quite good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- annie averill
- 08-25-22
Really enjoyable
I always like Ann Patchet books, loved the story, the characters, getting to know the deceased magician, however.. that horrible music interrupting my thoughts became maddening to the point I will not re listen to this book.
What was the point?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- nana52
- 09-25-23
The Ending???
I enjoyed the book until the ending. The story just stopped abruptly. I even reread and listened to the last chapter twice. It’s like the author just got tired of writing. Very disappointing after spending hours reading and listening…
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!