
The Summer Book
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Narrated by:
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Natasha Soudek
About this listen
In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer - its sunlight and storms - into 22 crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God, and of love. "On an island," thinks the grandmother, "everything is complete." In The Summer Book, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life.
©1972 Tove Jansson (Moomin Characters); translation copyright 1974 by The Estate of Tove Jansson; Introduction copyright by Kathryn Davis (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Indoors are servants, meals, and furniture. There, too, is The Man of Wrath, her upright Teutonic husband, inspiring in Elizabeth a mixture of irritation, affection, and irreverence. But outside she can escape domestic routine, read favorite books, play with her three babies and garden to her heart's content. Through Elizabeth's eyes we watch the seasons, from May's "oasis of bird-cherries and greenery" to the time when "snow carpets her Pomeranian wilderness".
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Cavorting in the Gardens
- By Joseph R on 08-20-09
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Woman, Eating
- A Literary Vampire Novel
- By: Claire Kohda
- Narrated by: Jane Lui
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people.
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Really wanted to like it.
- By Emily Nigh on 07-21-22
By: Claire Kohda
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Dr. No
- A Novel
- By: Percival Everett
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means "nothing" in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for "nothing.") He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it.
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(Ian Fleming + Vonnegut) +/- J-P Sartre = 0
- By Darwin8u on 10-30-24
By: Percival Everett
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A Circle of Quiet
- The Crosswicks Journals, Book 1
- By: Madeleine L'Engle
- Narrated by: Pamela Almand
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Set against the lush backdrop of Crosswicks, her family's farmhouse in rural Connecticut, this deeply personal memoir details Madeleine L'Engle's journey to find balance between her career as a Newbery Medal-winning author and her responsibilities as a wife, mother, teacher, and Christian.
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I Love Madeleine L'Engle!!!
- By Neyhart on 02-08-18
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Clear
- A Novel
- By: Carys Davies
- Narrated by: Russ Bain
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted.
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Yes, Another Island Book
- By Kate Juliff on 11-10-24
By: Carys Davies
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Betty
- A Novel
- By: Tiffany McDaniel
- Narrated by: Dale Dickey
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty Carpenter is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence—both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. But despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.
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Well
- By Becky Lake on 03-07-21
By: Tiffany McDaniel
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A Room of One’s Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Marina Arnaudo
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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“A Room of One’s Own” is one of Virginia Woolf’s most influential works and a cornerstone of the feminist movement. In this brilliant essay, Woolf explores the limitations faced by women in the early 20th century, using captivating prose and the poetic style characteristic of a novelist. She compellingly argues that the lack of financial independence and a private space are key barriers preventing women from fully developing their literary talents
By: Virginia Woolf
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Once There Were Wolves
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love.
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Takes a dive into dark
- By Linda Ottey on 08-10-21
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The Pearl
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Hector Elizondo
- Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In this short book illuminated by a deep understanding and love of humanity, John Steinbeck retells an old Mexican folk tale: the story of the great pearl, how it was found, and how it was lost. For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to the tragedy. For Steinbeck, Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems.
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Stay poor
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 10-31-11
By: John Steinbeck
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It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over
- By: Anne de Marcken
- Narrated by: Jessica Preddy
- Length: 3 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Traveling across the landscapes of time and of space, heading always west, and carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest, our undead narrator encounters and loses parts of her body and her self in one terrifying, hilarious, and heartbreaking situation after another.
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The manner of which this book was written
- By Vanessa on 03-31-25
By: Anne de Marcken
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A Psalm for the Wild-Built
- Monk & Robot, Book 1
- By: Becky Chambers
- Narrated by: Em Grosland
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 07-15-21
By: Becky Chambers
What listeners say about The Summer Book
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Linda M. Smith
- 08-31-24
What A Wonderful Book
I loved the story of the relationship of the grandmother and the granddaughter. What a sweet connection as they mived through the days if summer having one adventure after another.
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- Ava
- 01-15-25
Swedish Finns
Tove Jansen, a Swedish-speaking Finn, writes a charming story of a woman and her granddaughter who live on an island off the Finnish coast. Narrator is fantastic and brings the characters to life.
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- Kristen
- 07-16-22
Pure delight
What a wonderful compilation of tales. True joy in the relationship between a grandmother and her precocious granddaughter.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Greg Bays
- 03-31-25
LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
i was forced the read this book for english, but i would honestly read it again. such a good story and beautiful symbolism. would recommend!!
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- Annie Armstrong
- 04-14-22
GORGEOUS. FULL OF GRACE. NEEDED THIS.
Thank you for this exquisite audiobook. I wasn’t expecting much, because it’s been a tough time so I’m not expecting much of anything. This audiobook reminded me of the beauty of life, and not just reminded me, but gave me the experience of it. The narrator did an absolutely gorgeous job voicing the old woman, little girl, and all the characters. Sometimes narrators are super annoying when they voice old or young people, but Natasha Soudek brought an authenticity to it that mesmerized and sucked me in. It was like she was transmitting love, care, wisdom, and curiosity into my soul, which sounds super cheesy, but that’s how it was. This audiobook is important because it connected me with youth, the old age that is to come, and all the magic in between that makes living not just worth it, but (often) magical. Seeing simple things through the characters’ eyes, hearing their emotions and wisdom through the narrator’s wonderful voice… all of it shifted something in me. Thank you. Needed this.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Stephanie King
- 12-27-24
why did they write this
want a waste of time. maybe because it was translated from its original language, but I doubt it. I hope others enjoy this more than I did. it seemed absolutely pointless.
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- William Hinkle
- 08-09-24
Not a good book by any stretch
This was painful to sit through. If it wasn’t free I would’ve been upset. Do not recommend to anyone especially if you’re older than 6.
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- Jacob
- 11-10-24
Dull Beyond Belief
Well written book, but there is absolutely no real conflict or connecting plot. Just mundane stories.
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