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An Unlasting Home
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Leila Buck
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's summary
The debut novel from an award-winning short story writer: a multigenerational saga spanning Lebanon, Iraq, India, the United States, and Kuwait that brings to life the triumphs and failures of three generations of Arab women.
In 2013, Sara is a philosophy professor at Kuwait University, having returned to Kuwait from Berkeley in the wake of her mother’s sudden death eleven years earlier. Her main companions are her grandmother’s talking parrot, Bebe Mitu; the family cook, Aasif; and Maria, her childhood ayah and the one person who has always been there for her. Sara’s relationship with Kuwait is complicated; it is a country she always thought she would leave, and a country she recognizes less and less, and yet a certain inertia keeps her there. But when teaching Nietzsche in her Intro to Philosophy course leads to an accusation of blasphemy, which carries with it the threat of execution, Sara realizes she must reconcile her feelings and her place in the world once and for all.
Interspersed with Sara’s narrative are the stories of her grandmothers: beautiful and stubborn Yasmine, who marries the son of the Pasha of Basra and lives to regret it, and Lulwa, born poor in the old town of Kuwait, swept off her feet to an estate in India by the son of a successful merchant family; and her two mothers: Noura, who dreams of building a life in America and helping to shape its Mid-East policies, and Maria, who leaves her own children behind in Pune to raise Sara and her brother Karim and, in so doing, transforms many lives.
Ranging from the 1920s to the near present, An Unlasting Home traces Kuwait’s rise from a pearl-diving backwater to its reign as a thriving cosmopolitan city to the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion. At once intimate and sweeping, personal and political, it is an unforgettable epic and a spellbinding family saga.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Paris, 1720. La Salpêtrière hospital is in crisis: too many occupants, not enough beds. Halfway across the world, France's colony in the wilds of North America has space to spare and needs families to fill it. So the director of the hospital rounds up nearly a hundred female “volunteers” of childbearing age—orphans, prisoners, and mental patients—to be shipped to New Orleans. Among this group are three unlikely friends: a sharp-tongued twelve-year old orphan, a mute ‘madwoman,’ and an accused abortionist.
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Historical perspective of my home state.
- By Marilyn Guild on 04-07-24
By: Julia Malye
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A Good Family
- By: A. H. Kim
- Narrated by: Abby Craden, Joy Osmanski, Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Beth is the darling of God Halsa, a pharmaceutical giant, and she’s got the outrageous salary and lifestyle to prove it. Until she lands in white-collar women’s prison, thanks to a high-profile whistleblower suit. Sam, Beth’s husband, used to be the town’s most eligible bachelor, and he’s never had to do anything for himself. Until his wife goes to jail, and he’s left to raise two daughters on his own. Lise, the au pair, is the whistle-blower. But is she? Everyone knows she’s not clever enough to have done it alone.
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very not good
- By Dave on 12-11-20
By: A. H. Kim
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Between the Mountain and the Sky
- A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, Healing, and Hope
- By: Maggie Doyne
- Narrated by: Maggie Doyne
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Maggie’s story begins in suburban New Jersey, in a comfortable middle-class family that supports her decision to travel the world during a gap year before starting college. During her travels, the trajectory of her life alters when she has a surprise encounter with a Nepali girl breaking rocks in a quarry. Maggie decides to invest her life savings of 5,000 dollars to buy a piece of land and open a children’s home in Nepal.
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I loved the message.
- By lovetheocean on 05-05-24
By: Maggie Doyne
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Fox's Earth
- By: Anne River Siddons
- Narrated by: Sally Darling
- Length: 19 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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When beautiful, dirt-poor Ruth Yancey rises to become mistress of Sparta, Georgia's finest mansion, she reveals a heart of pure evil. For three generations, she rules the mansion through cruel manipulation and insinuation, breaking hearts and shattering souls - until one courageous woman decides to match her madness.
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Narrated litrature at its best
- By Jamie Wallen on 01-18-10
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Broken People
- A Novel
- By: Sam Lansky
- Narrated by: Sam Lansky
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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“He fixes everything that’s wrong with you in three days.” This is what hooks Sam when he first overhears it at a fancy dinner party in the Hollywood Hills: the story of a globe-trotting shaman who claims to perform “open-soul surgery” on emotionally damaged people. For neurotic, depressed Sam, new to Los Angeles after his life in New York imploded, the possibility of total transformation is utterly tantalizing. He’s desperate for something to believe in, and the shaman - who promises ancient rituals, plant medicine, and encounters with the divine - seems convincing.
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A shallow look at self pity
- By J Kennedy on 06-15-20
By: Sam Lansky
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The Tiffany Girls
- A Novel
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Louis Comfort Tiffany, famous for his stained-glass windows, is planning a unique installation at the Paris World’s Fair, the largest in history. At their fifth-floor studio on Fourth Avenue, the artists of the Women’s Division of the Tiffany Glass Company are already working longer shifts to finish the pieces that Tiffany hopes will prove that he is the world’s finest artist in glass. Known as the “Tiffany Girls,” these women are responsible for much of the design and construction of Tiffany’s extraordinary glassworks, but none receive credit.
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So good
- By John on 07-02-23
By: Shelley Noble
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The Beautiful Things Shoppe
- By: Philip William Stover
- Narrated by: Michael Dean, Kale Williams
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving to eclectic New Hope, Pennsylvania, and running The Beautiful Things Shoppe is a dream come true for elegant and reserved fine arts dealer Prescott J. Henderson. He never agreed to share the space with Danny Roman, an easygoing extrovert who collects retro toys and colorful knickknacks. And yet here they are, trapped together in the quaint shop as they scramble to open in time for New Hope’s charming Winter Festival.
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Funny and sweet odd-couple romance!
- By Wide Eyes, Big Ears! on 04-21-21
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Grey Dog
- By: Elliott Gish
- Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd―spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist―accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past―riddled with grief and shame―has never seemed so far away. But then Ada begins to witness strange and grisly phenomena: a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun.
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great writing
- By Erica Davis on 04-29-24
By: Elliott Gish
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So Happy for You
- A Novel
- By: Celia Laskey
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Robin and Ellie have been best friends since childhood. When Robin came out, Ellie was there for her. When Ellie's father died, Robin had her back. But when Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honor, she is reluctant. A queer academic, Robin is dubious of the elaborate wedding rituals now sweeping the nation, which go far beyond champagne toasts and a bouquet toss. But loyalty wins out, and Robin accepts. Yet, as the wedding weekend approaches, a series of ominous occurrences lead Robin to second-guess her decision.
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Very fun, and loved the MC
- By Shayla Williams on 04-23-23
By: Celia Laskey
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Lola on Fire
- A Novel
- By: Rio Youers
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Brody Ellis is short on luck and even shorter on cash to buy the medication his sister Molly needs. Desperate, he robs a convenience store, but on the way out, he bumps into a young woman and loses his wallet. Just when he expects the cops to arrive, the phone rings. It’s Blair Mayo—the woman he bumped into—and she’s got the missing billfold. Brody will get it back, but only if he does her a favor: steal her late mother’s diamonds from her wicked stepmom. But when he gets to the house, he finds a gruesome crime scene—and a security camera. Brody knows he’s been framed.
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Early Book of the Year Lock
- By Tod M. Clark on 02-22-21
By: Rio Youers
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The Glass Woman
- A Novel
- By: Caroline Lea
- Narrated by: Heiða Reed, Smari Gunn
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Jane Eyre and Rebecca - The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea in which a young woman follows her new husband to his remote home on the Icelandic coast in the 1680s, where she faces dark secrets surrounding the death of his first wife amidst a foreboding landscape and the superstitions of the local villagers.
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Grim but ultimately worth it
- By Ellie on 08-29-20
By: Caroline Lea
What listeners say about An Unlasting Home
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kent M. Pitman
- 05-22-22
Epic tale of struggle for dignity under patriarchy
This is a very special kind of book that tells a story about an individual, but also gives a window into the complex way that lives weave together in the multi-generational, multi-national web that is family against an ever-present background of society—multiple societies, really, and yet unified by common themes, most notably patriarchy in a variety of forms. The persistent struggle for dignity that women endure is at once poignant and instructive.
What I like about Mai's writing is how matter-of-fact it is. She doesn't editorialize. It's somehow left to the reader to decide how to interpret what they see, how to relate to it. And yet the story is inevitably compelling, so it's hard to see the events and not become emotional. The personal histories she relates are composed of elements that speak for themselves in powerful ways. (I had similar feelings about her earlier and quite excellent book of short stories, The Hidden Light of Objects.)
In some ways, I would liken this novel to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels (beginning with My Brilliant Friend). Both use an individual point of view to tell a story about society, adversity, and growth. And again both are even-handed in the face of unpleasantries, and yet also quietly optimistic in spite of all. These are unabashedly fictionalized accounts, and yet in some broader sense you come away with a kind of truth anyway, an understanding that such things have happened and do happen.
I listened to this book on audio, as I do all my reading. The performance by Leila Buck was excellent. I probably would have struggled with pronunciation of names or cultural terms, so it's nice to have that detail taken care of and to just focus on story.
I have no idea where Mai will go next with her writing, but I'm all set to pre-order.
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- Coco likes books
- 09-01-24
A Snapshot of Interesting History
For the average westerner I imagine much of the early history in this novel is unknown. I found the parts about The trade between Kuwait and India particularly interesting, as was life in this area before the oil boom. The amalgamation of different people who end up in the protagonists life was also fascinating.
I might have given this novel five stars if I had read the book instead of listening to it. Because I’m an English speaker I found the great number of unfamiliar names hard to remember in the beginning as was the jumping around in history and place.
I would still highly recommend this book, just be prepared to go back and listen to some parts over again.
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