
To the Edge of Sorrow
A Novel
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Michael Crouch
About this listen
From "fiction's foremost chronicler of the Holocaust" (Philip Roth), here is a haunting novel about an unforgettable group of Jewish partisans fighting the Nazis during World War II.
Battling numbing cold, ever-present hunger, and German soldiers determined to hunt them down, four dozen resistance fighters - escapees from a nearby ghetto - hide in a Ukrainian forest, determined to survive the war, sabotage the German war effort, and rescue as many Jews as they can from the trains taking them to concentration camps. Their leader is relentless in his efforts to turn his ragtag band of men and boys into a disciplined force that accomplishes its goals without losing its moral compass. And so when they're not raiding peasants' homes for food and supplies, or training with the weapons taken from the soldiers they have ambushed and killed, the partisans read books of faith and philosophy that they have rescued from abandoned Jewish homes, and they draw strength from the women, the elderly, and the remarkably resilient orphaned children they are protecting. When they hear about the advances being made by the Soviet Army, the partisans prepare for what they know will be a furious attack on their compound by the retreating Germans. In the heartbreaking aftermath, the survivors emerge from the forest to bury their dead, care for their wounded, and grimly confront a world that is surprised by their existence - and profoundly unwelcoming.
Narrated by 17-year-old Edmund - a member of the group who maintains his own inner resolve with memories of his parents and their life before the war - this powerful story of Jews who fought back is suffused with the riveting detail that Aharon Appelfeld was uniquely able to bring to his award-winning novels.
©2020 Aharon Appelfeld and Stuart Schoffman (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Poland, a Green Land
- A Novel
- By: Aharon Appelfeld
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yaakov Fine’s practical wife and daughters are baffled by his decision to leave his flourishing dress shop for a ten-day trip to his family’s ancestral village in Poland. Struggling to emerge from a midlife depression, Yaakov is drawn to Szydowce, intrigued by the stories he'd heard as a child from his parents and their friends, who would wax nostalgic about their pastoral, verdant hometown in the decades before 1939. The horrific years that followed were relegated to the nightmares that shattered sleep and were not discussed during waking hours.
-
-
Perspective
- By Michael P. Barry on 12-20-23
By: Aharon Appelfeld
-
A Most Remarkable Creature
- The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
- By: Jonathan Meiburg
- Narrated by: Jonathan Meiburg
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history.
-
-
I don't leave reviews often, but . . .
- By Steven L Peck on 06-24-21
By: Jonathan Meiburg
-
Happiness Falls (Good Morning America Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Angie Kim
- Narrated by: Shannon Tyo, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Thomas Pruyn, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything—which is why she isn’t initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don’t return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia’s brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.
-
-
A mixed review, but recommend
- By Andrea B. on 09-07-23
By: Angie Kim
-
More than I Love My Life
- A Novel
- By: David Grossman, Jessica Cohen - translator
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More Than I Love My Life is the story of three strong women: Vera, age ninety; her daughter, Nina; and her granddaughter, Gili, who at thirty-nine is a filmmaker and a wary consumer of affection. A bitter secret divides each mother and daughter pair, though Gili—abandoned by Nina when she was just three—has always been close to her grandmother.
-
-
Disappointing
- By T. Imaging on 11-30-21
By: David Grossman, and others
-
The Midwife of Auschwitz
- By: Anna Stuart
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ana Kaminski is pushed through the iron gates of Auschwitz beside her frightened young friend Ester Pasternak. As they reach the front of the line, Ana steps forward and quietly declares herself a midwife--and Ester her assistant. Their arms are tattooed and they’re ordered to the maternity hut. Holding an innocent newborn baby, Ana knows the fate of so many are in her hands and vows to do everything she can to save them.
-
-
Wrongly represented as a midwife book
- By Mary Watkins on 03-27-23
By: Anna Stuart
-
The Forgotten Soldier
- By: Guy Sajer
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue, and constant deprivation. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland division, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive.
-
-
A Beautifully Written Heartrending Tragedy
- By Gillian on 03-31-17
By: Guy Sajer
-
Poland, a Green Land
- A Novel
- By: Aharon Appelfeld
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yaakov Fine’s practical wife and daughters are baffled by his decision to leave his flourishing dress shop for a ten-day trip to his family’s ancestral village in Poland. Struggling to emerge from a midlife depression, Yaakov is drawn to Szydowce, intrigued by the stories he'd heard as a child from his parents and their friends, who would wax nostalgic about their pastoral, verdant hometown in the decades before 1939. The horrific years that followed were relegated to the nightmares that shattered sleep and were not discussed during waking hours.
-
-
Perspective
- By Michael P. Barry on 12-20-23
By: Aharon Appelfeld
-
A Most Remarkable Creature
- The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
- By: Jonathan Meiburg
- Narrated by: Jonathan Meiburg
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history.
-
-
I don't leave reviews often, but . . .
- By Steven L Peck on 06-24-21
By: Jonathan Meiburg
-
Happiness Falls (Good Morning America Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Angie Kim
- Narrated by: Shannon Tyo, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Thomas Pruyn, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything—which is why she isn’t initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don’t return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia’s brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.
-
-
A mixed review, but recommend
- By Andrea B. on 09-07-23
By: Angie Kim
-
More than I Love My Life
- A Novel
- By: David Grossman, Jessica Cohen - translator
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More Than I Love My Life is the story of three strong women: Vera, age ninety; her daughter, Nina; and her granddaughter, Gili, who at thirty-nine is a filmmaker and a wary consumer of affection. A bitter secret divides each mother and daughter pair, though Gili—abandoned by Nina when she was just three—has always been close to her grandmother.
-
-
Disappointing
- By T. Imaging on 11-30-21
By: David Grossman, and others
-
The Midwife of Auschwitz
- By: Anna Stuart
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ana Kaminski is pushed through the iron gates of Auschwitz beside her frightened young friend Ester Pasternak. As they reach the front of the line, Ana steps forward and quietly declares herself a midwife--and Ester her assistant. Their arms are tattooed and they’re ordered to the maternity hut. Holding an innocent newborn baby, Ana knows the fate of so many are in her hands and vows to do everything she can to save them.
-
-
Wrongly represented as a midwife book
- By Mary Watkins on 03-27-23
By: Anna Stuart
-
The Forgotten Soldier
- By: Guy Sajer
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue, and constant deprivation. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland division, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive.
-
-
A Beautifully Written Heartrending Tragedy
- By Gillian on 03-31-17
By: Guy Sajer
-
The Wall
- By: John Hersey
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 29 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riveting and compelling, The Wall tells the inspiring story of 40 men and women who escape the dehumanizing horror of the Warsaw ghetto. John Hersey's novel documents the Warsaw ghetto both as an emblem of Nazi persecution and as a personal confrontation with torture, starvation, humiliation, and cruelty - a gripping and visceral story, impossible to pause.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Phil on 06-14-21
By: John Hersey
-
Night
- By: Elie Wiesel
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Gold Medal, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel offers an unforgettable account of Hitler's horrific reign of terror in Night. This definitive edition features a new translation from the original French by Wiesel's wife and frequent translator, Marion Wiesel.
-
-
This book consumed me
- By Ella on 01-24-06
By: Elie Wiesel
-
Symphony of Secrets
- By: Brendan Slocumb
- Narrated by: Chanté McCormick, Brendan Slocumb
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bern Hendricks has just received the call of a lifetime. As one of the world’s preeminent experts on the famed twentieth-century composer Frederick Delaney, Bern knows everything there is to know about the man behind the music. When Mallory Roberts, a board member of the distinguished Delaney Foundation and direct descendant of the man himself, asks for Bern’s help authenticating a newly discovered piece, which may be his famous lost opera, RED, he jumps at the chance.
-
-
Engaging and clever
- By BookJunkie on 04-22-23
By: Brendan Slocumb
-
The Teacher of Warsaw
- A WWII Novel
- By: Mario Escobar
- Narrated by: Zach Hoffman
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
September 1, 1939: Sixty-year-old Janusz Korczak and the students and teachers at his Dom Sierot Jewish orphanage are outside enjoying a beautiful day in Warsaw. Hours later, their lives are altered forever when the Nazis invade. Suddenly treated as an outcast in his own city, Janusz--a respected leader known for his heroism and teaching--is determined to do whatever it takes to protect the children from the horrors to come.
-
-
thank you for writing this book
- By BarbieAlaska on 06-12-22
By: Mario Escobar
-
The Volunteer
- One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz
- By: Jack Fairweather
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a young Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: intentionally get captured and transported to the new camp to report back on what was going on there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside - where the Germans would least expect it. The name of the camp was Auschwitz.
-
-
It is impossible to hear of the atrocities of Auschwitz without being. Forced to consider man’s infinite cruelty
- By Marge Greenwald on 07-15-19
By: Jack Fairweather
-
The Postcard
- By: Anne Berest, Tina Kover - translator
- Narrated by: Barrie Kealoha
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz. Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why.
-
-
The author’s words deserve a better narrator
- By TK on 05-22-23
By: Anne Berest, and others
-
The Last Green Valley
- A Novel
- By: Mark Sullivan
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late March 1944, as Stalin’s forces push into Ukraine, young Emil and Adeline Martel must make a terrible decision: Do they wait for the Soviet bear’s intrusion and risk being sent to Siberia? Or do they reluctantly follow the wolves - murderous Nazi officers who have pledged to protect “pure-blood” Germans? The Martels are one of many families of German heritage whose ancestors have farmed in Ukraine for more than a century.
-
-
Too Religious
- By Laurie N. on 06-02-21
By: Mark Sullivan
-
The Passenger
- A Novel
- By: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, André Aciman
- Narrated by: Philip Boehm, Neil Hellegers
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops have been ransacked and looted, synagogues destroyed. As storm troopers pound on his door, Otto Silbermann, a respected businessman who fought for Germany in the Great War, is forced to sneak out the back of his own home. Turned away from establishments he had long patronized, and fearful of being exposed as a Jew despite his Aryan looks, he boards a train.
-
-
Top-notch novel
- By R. Klein on 05-31-21
By: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, and others
-
Tears of Amber
- By: Sofía Segovia, Simon Bruni - translator
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Angela Dawe
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With war looming dangerously close, Ilse’s school days soon turn to lessons of survival. In the harshness of winter, her family must join the largest exodus in human history to survive. As battle lines are drawn and East Prussia’s borders vanish beneath them, they leave their farm and all they know behind for an uncertain future. But Ilse also has Janusz, her family’s young Polish laborer, by her side. As they flee from the Soviet army, his enchanting folktales keep her mind off the cold, the hunger, and the horrors unfolding around them.
-
-
A remarkable book - compelling story
- By just asking for some common sense on 05-11-21
By: Sofía Segovia, and others
-
The White Lady
- A Novel
- By: Jacqueline Winspear
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A reluctant ex-spy with demons of her own, Elinor finds herself facing down one of the most dangerous organized crime gangs in London, ultimately exposing corruption from Scotland Yard to the highest levels of government. The private, quiet “Miss White" as Elinor is known, lives in a village in rural Kent, England, and to her fellow villagers seems something of an enigma. Well she might, as Elinor occupies a "grace and favor" property, a rare privilege offered to faithful servants of the Crown for services to the nation.
-
-
Mystery Maven
- By Mystery Maven on 03-24-23
-
When Time Stopped
- A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains
- By: Ariana Neumann
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
-
-
yesterday as fresh as today
- By reader mother on 02-17-20
By: Ariana Neumann
-
The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
- A Novel
- By: Sarit Yishai-Levi, Anthony Berris - translator
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gabriela's mother, Luna, is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gabriela senses there's more to her mother than painted nails and lips. Desperate to understand their relationship, Gabriela pieces together the stories of her family's previous generations.
-
-
Time travel
- By Bibliophile Equestrienne on 09-15-21
By: Sarit Yishai-Levi, and others
Critic reviews
"In this spirited novel set in Ukraine near the end of World War II, Appelfeld describes the daily hardships and travails of a band of Jewish resistance fighters in near-reportorial detail. A powerful tale of lives lived amid the duress and horrors of war that is unflinching in its authenticity." (Publishers Weekly)
"To the Edge of Sorrow is immediately recognizable as Appelfeld’s, through its spare, eerily understated approach, which records atrocities from a grim remove. Unlike many of the brilliantly allusive author’s other novels, this one makes explicit reference to the Holocaust, but there’s still a dreamlike quality at work.... The story moves toward its climax with the usual disquieting force. Another haunting and heartbreaking tale of the Holocaust from one who survived it." (Kirkus Reviews, starred)
"Like Thomas Mann, Aharon Appelfeld surveys all the great quandaries of the twentieth century, only in their Jewish versions...His novels are not about waiting for what will happen next but about immersion in a timeless present, a bubble world that is all the more enthralling because you know it is about to pop.” (Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker)