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The Poisonwood Bible
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
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“A powerful new epic... [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty.” - Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
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"Beautifully written....Kingsolver's tale of domestic tragedy is more than just a well-told yarn.. Played out against the bloody backdrop of political struggles in Congo that continue to this day, it is also particularly timely." (People)
"The book's sheer enjoyability is given depth by Kingsolver's insight and compassion for Congo, including its people, and their language and sayings." (Boston Globe)
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As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, and above all as a father, Chabon's memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, are like a theme played by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor. At once dazzling, hilarious, and moving, Manhood for Amateurs is destined to become a classic.
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Terrible
- By Ken on 10-14-09
By: Michael Chabon
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Essays of E. B. White
- By: E. B. White
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.
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E.B. White writes honestly, fearlessly and clearly
- By Bonny on 09-03-17
By: E. B. White
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The Emissary
- By: Yoko Tawada, Margaret Mitsutani - translator
- Narrated by: Julian Cihi
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan, after suffering from a massive irreparable disaster, cuts itself off from the world. Children are so weak they can barely stand or walk: the only people with any get-go are the elderly. Mumei lives with his grandfather Yoshiro, who worries about him constantly. They carry on a day-to-day routine in what could be viewed as a post-Fukushima time, with all the children born ancient - frail and gray-haired, yet incredibly compassionate and wise. Mumei may be enfeebled and feverish, but he is a beacon of hope, full of wit and free of self-pity and pessimism.
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Tedious. Waste of time.
- By Kenneth McGovern on 02-17-19
By: Yoko Tawada, and others
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The Magic of Ordinary Days
- A Novel
- By: Ann Howard Creel
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Olivia Dunne, a studious minister's daughter who dreams of being an archaeologist, never thought that the drama of World War II would affect her quiet life in Denver. An exhilarating flirtation reshapes her life, though, and she finds herself banished to a rural Colorado outpost, married to a man she hardly knows. Overwhelmed by loneliness, Olivia tentatively tries to establish a new life, finding much-needed friendship and solace in two Japanese American sisters who are living at a nearby internment camp.
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I purchased this audio book not 15 minutes ago...
- By Kim on 09-15-16
By: Ann Howard Creel
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The Bridges of Madison County
- By: Robert James Waller
- Narrated by: Kelli O'Hara, Steven Pasquale
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The legendary love story and the major motion picture starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. This is the story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for fulfillment of a girlhood dream. It shows readers what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.
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Like a beautiful photograph
- By David Reinwald on 08-23-15
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Middle C
- By: William H. Gass
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Gass’ new novel moves from World War II Europe to a small town in postwar Ohio. In a series of variations, Gass gives us a mosaic of a life - futile, comic, anarchic - arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms and tones, and broken pieces with music as both theme and structure, set in the key of middle C. It begins in Graz, Austria, 1938. Joseph Skizzen's father, pretending to be Jewish, leaves his country for England with his wife and two children to avoid any connection with the Nazis, who he foresees will soon take over his homeland....
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All the world was a stage. But not for all the wor
- By Darwin8u on 06-07-14
By: William H. Gass
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The Probable Future
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window to the future - a future that she might not want to see.
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Nice, gentle story for when you feel bad.
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-17
By: Alice Hoffman
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A Hunter's Fireside Book
- Tales of Dogs, Ducks, Birds, & Guns
- By: Gene Hill
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The legendary American outdoor writer’s finest collection. For decades, Gene Hill’s articles and books have captured the spirit of the outdoors in a way that inspires and entertains millions of readers. A Hunter’s Fireside Book captures the essence of the life of a sportsman and explores the full spectrum of the hunter’s experience: sunrises in the duck blind, an unforgettable hunter’s moon, the camaraderie of men who know the pleasures of being wet and cold and a little bit lost.
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Beyond acquiring meat, this is why we go afield
- By Ray C on 02-28-20
By: Gene Hill
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Varina
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Molly Parker
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives.
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Read it rather than listen
- By Anonymous on 08-31-18
By: Charles Frazier
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In the snowbound city of Kiev, wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son—but Hitler’s invasion of Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper—a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.
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Excellent narration!
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mixed feelings
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The Philippines, 1941. When U.S. Navy nurse Eleanor Lindstrom, U.S. Army nurse Penny Franklin, and Filipina nurse Lita Capel forge a friendship at the Army Navy Club in Manila, they believe they’re living a paradise assignment. All three are seeking a way to escape their pasts, but soon the beauty and promise of their surroundings give way to the heavy mantle of war. In this sweeping story based on the true experiences of nurses dubbed “the Angels of Bataan,” three women shift in and out of each other’s lives through the darkest days of the war.
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A sanitized view of the Japanese in WWII.
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Classic Hannah Pre-Nightingale
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Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter - she doesn't behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe's head? Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
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In her new essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us from one of history's darker moments an extended love song to the world we still have. From its opening parable gleaned from recent news about a lost child saved in an astonishing way, the book moves on to consider a world of surprising and hopeful prospects, ranging from an inventive conservation scheme in a remote jungle to the backyard flock of chickens tended by the author's small daughter.
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Not much of a Wonder
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Firefly Lane
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In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all - beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn.
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Beachy Fare
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One Second After
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- Unabridged
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Already cited on the floor of Congress and discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a book all Americans should read, One Second After is the story of a war scenario that could become all too terrifyingly real. Based upon a real weapon - the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) - which may already be in the hands of our enemies, it is a truly realistic look at the awesome power of a weapon that can destroy the entire United States.
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What listeners say about The Poisonwood Bible
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ryan
- 12-24-13
The dangerous baggage of expectations
The Poisonwood Bible has been recommended to me several times over the past few years, and I can see why. It's full of heartfelt, lyrical imagery and parable-like insight into the tragedy of imperialism. The story centers on an unyielding Baptist preacher determined to spread his strict interpretation of the gospels in the Belgian Congo circa 1960, accompanied by his wife and four daughters. Each woman or girl has her own piece of the narrative, and shares her own reflections on the events that transpire as the stubborn Nathan Price beats himself against a land, culture, and superstitions that don't fit anyone's expectations, let alone cooperate with his vision of God's will.
The characters do feel intentionally symbolic, but the beautiful writing brings them vividly to life. Orleanna, the put-upon mother, acts as a buffer between her domineering husband and the needs of her children, and feels more and more disconnected from both. The vain eldest daughter, Rachel, plays the ugly American, uninterested in stepping outside her narrow comfort zone (though this, in a way, comes to serve her). Then there are the gifted twins, Leah and Adah. Strong-willed Leah gradually absorbs the Congo under her skin, while the silent, crippled Adah, a savant in arithmetic and the illuminating poetry of backwards phrases, sees truths only an outsider-from-birth can. Finally, there is the youngest daughter, the tomboyish Ruth, whose childish stream of consciousness holds its own insights.
As the story moves forward, tensions build among the Prices, and between the family and the villagers on whom Nathan's ministry is focused. Meanwhile, resentment towards whites in the rest of the country grows, as the Belgian pullout leaves a power vacuum that both nationalists and the CIA have different agendas for (though the politics is largely in the background). And nature offers up its own trials, as it always has. Around the midpoint of the novel, Things Fall Apart, and the six members of the Price family are pulled in different directions, to very different outcomes. Even in breakdown, though, there’s a poetic symmetry that I quite enjoyed, reminding me of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto.
This is, at its heart, a novel about the recognition that we're all caught in our own struggles to survive and the lives of others may be beyond our control. Kingsolver eloquently explores that theme in both the personal and political sense. Could the Western world’s jealous protectionism of capitalism-as-we-know-it actually have stunted Africa's potential? She seems to recognize, through her protagonists, that we don't know how else things might have turned out had we left the continent more to itself, but is unequivocal that it deserved better than being made a pawn to our national interests.
Definitely "message" fiction, but I don't mind that if it’s written with skill, compassion, and intelligence, and such was the case here. To me, the only thing that was too heavy-handed was the device of having Rachel constantly misuse words for ironic effect. Okay, the poor girl’s not that bright, but give her a break.
Audiobook narrator Dean Robinson does a passable job, but I wish she’d done a little more to distinguish the sisters and had had a better grasp of different international accents. Listeners should pay close attention to the chapter headings to keep up with who’s telling each part of the story.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Bryant
- 08-28-08
Awesome
Narration is quick and acting for the voices were entertaining and I can tell the difference of the characters. Usually I hate narration to be so slow for an audio but this is quicker than usual.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-17-12
The Poisonwood Bible
This is a work of fiction. Thank God!! The performance and the story are so expertly written I kept wondering throughout the narration could one person so influence the lives of so many? I'm a Christian and I know that one man did, J.C., my Lord.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Belinda
- 02-12-09
Good story, boring monotone voice
The story is totally worth 5 stars. However, the monotone voice is so boring. You cannot tell if it was the mother, the little 5-year old girl or the teenage daughter who's telling the story. They all sound the same as the mother (I couldn't bear that those daughters sound like middle-aged women). Like other reviewers mentioned, I was easily distracted from the story because of the boring monotone. The narrator was totally not into the story.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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- monique turner
- 07-30-19
Excellent read/listen
Just finished listening for the second time. I think I enjoyed it more. The first time I thought the narrator was flat and had a difficult time telling which character was speaking. The second time I really enjoyed the performance and loved the way she brought the characters to life! My one issue is with the format. There were a few times I switched from listening on my phone to Alexa and my place would get lost. The audible chapters are not divided into book chapters so it was very difficult finding my place again.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Markus
- 09-24-09
Great story and great way of telling the story
I really enjoyed the changing perspective of storytelling. In each chapter the role of the storyteller shifted to a different daughter of the family and in some rare parts also to the view of the mother. Thereby the listener spread his sympathies to all female of the family. Interestingly the viewpoint of the father was never taken in the story.
The story itself which was set in the background of real events in the Kongo takes a thought provoking critical stance on evangelization, colonialism and development aid.
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- Abby
- 06-30-17
I'm better for it
This is one of those books that is disturbing and difficult to read at times (not because of the writing, the writing is absolutely beautiful), but you keep going because it feels important. I think this is one of those books that stays with you for a long, long time.
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- Fiona
- 12-13-08
Poisonwood again
This is first audible book I have done. I had already read Poisonwood and adored it. I really enjoyed hearing it. I am addicted now to finding out about the Congo and audible books. Better than chocolate!
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- Toddgre6450
- 12-04-13
A wonderful performance makes this a better listen
Would you listen to The Poisonwood Bible again? Why?
Probably not. The book itself is pretty good, the vocal range of the narrator brings this book to life though. From someone who works in ministry and understands some of the baggage brought by missionary families into these settings, I can appreciate and enjoy this book - but not enough for a second read!
What did you like best about this story?
The reality. The book is absolutely humorous in parts, troubling in others, yet in the end you admire the strength of the mother and the daughters as they have endured so much.
What does Dean Robertson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Wonderful characters! Great work! The vocals make this book so much better!
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- M.W.
- 10-03-09
A Good Story
I enjoyed listening to this book. The characters were interesting and the story was well thought out. The complex interweaving of multiple cultures, religions and political beliefs was well done.
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