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Warlight
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
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John Buffalo Mailer narrates his father's book
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Publisher's summary
From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of The English Patient: a mesmerizing new novel that tells a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the lives of a small group of unexpected characters and two teenagers whose lives are indelibly shaped by their unwitting involvement.
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel.
In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel.
But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey - through facts, recollection, and imagination - that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.
Critic reviews
"London-born narrator Steve West effortlessly mixes tones of mystery, uncertain memory, sophistication, and innocence in Ondaatje's latest novel.... A wholly original listening experience." (AudioFile)
“Warlight is a quiet new masterpiece from Michael Ondaatje… An elegiac thriller [with] the immediate allure of a dark fairy tale. In Warlight, all is illuminated, at first dimly then starkly, but always brilliantly.” (Anna Mundow, The Washington Post)
“If writers are cartographers of the heart, Michael Ondaatje’s oeuvre could fill an atlas...[he] evokes a kaleidoscope of ideas and moods with exquisite lyricism... Warlight is an intricate ballet of longing and deception, and a singular ode to the mother-child bond .” (Hamilton Cain, O Magazine)
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- By Elizabeth K. Morse on 12-12-11
By: William Trevor
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The Eight
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Neville
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 25 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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New York City, 1972: A dabbler in mathematics and chess, Catherine Velis is also a computer expert for a Big Eight accounting firm. Before heading off to a new assignment in Algeria, Cat has her palm read by a fortune-teller. The woman warns Cat of danger. Then an antiques dealer approaches Cat with a mysterious offer: He has an anonymous client who is trying to collect the pieces of an ancient chess service, purported to be in Algeria. If Cat can bring the pieces back, there will be a generous reward.
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Best Plot-Driven Novel I've Ever Read
- By Tango on 09-08-13
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The Women in the Castle
- By: Jessica Shattuck
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
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Skating On The Thin Ice Of Life
- By Sara on 04-29-17
By: Jessica Shattuck
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Speak
- A Novel
- By: Louisa Hall
- Narrated by: Suzan Crowley, Christopher Ashman, Adrienne Rusk, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In a narrative that spans geography and time, from the Atlantic Ocean in the 17th century to a correctional institute in Texas in the near future, and told from the perspectives of five very different characters, Speak considers what it means to be human and what it means to be less than fully alive.
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Like nothing else
- By Anonymous User on 06-22-17
By: Louisa Hall
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The Flight of Gemma Hardy
- A Novel
- By: Margot Livesey
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned then neglected, young Gemma seemed destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands. But Gemma’s biggest trial is about to begin....
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f you loved Jane Eyre, you will like this novel.
- By Cecilia on 02-09-12
By: Margot Livesey
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The Distant Hours
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.
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Right Mood At The Right Time
- By Simone on 11-13-12
By: Kate Morton
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Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
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Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
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Beautiful Animals
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements, but still alive. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean Sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies. But when their seemingly simple plan to help Faoud unravels, all must face the horrific consequences they have set in motion.
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please offer more of this author's books
- By S. Liskey on 07-20-17
By: Lawrence Osborne
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The Glass Palace
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her.
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I struggled to finish... enough said.
- By Ty on 05-02-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Outline
- The Outline Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Rachel Cusk
- Narrated by: Kate Lock
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A man and a woman are seated next to each other on a plane. They get to talking - about their destination, their careers, their families. Grievances are aired, family tragedies discussed, marriages and divorces analyzed. An intimacy is established as two strangers contrast their own fictions about their lives. Outline is a novel in 10 conversations. Spare and stark, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens.
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Excruciating
- By Devoted Online Shopper on 03-15-23
By: Rachel Cusk
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The Red-Haired Woman
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before - not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
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Drags On
- By T. Conrad on 10-25-17
By: Orhan Pamuk
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The Garden of Evening Mists
- By: Tan Twan Eng
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp.
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The best
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 03-11-13
By: Tan Twan Eng
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The Muse
- A Novel
- By: Jessie Burton
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Maria Elena Infantino
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery.
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Mixed narration
- By Amy Fleury on 08-05-16
By: Jessie Burton
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Superb - But Not For All Readers or All Situations
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1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures.
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Damage to people done by warping check, ,
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When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
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In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life - her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home.
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Florida
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Over a decade ago, Groff moved to her adopted home state of Florida. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida—its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind—becomes its gravitational center. Storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Groff's evocative storytelling and knife-sharp intelligence first transport the listener, then jolt us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty....
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Don't buy the audiobook
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Munich
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Hugh Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving at 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Paul von Hartmann is on the staff of the German Foreign Office - and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Hugh flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Hartmann travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course.
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Gripping
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Waiting for the Barbarians
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For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
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An Interesting Read For The Current Times
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What listeners say about Warlight
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kelly
- 07-28-18
It both entertains and teaches.
I wavered between 4 and 5 stars for this beautifully crafted novel. It is my second read of an Ondaatje book, having read The English Patient a few months ago. I like this one much more. Ondaatje wove together a story with so many elements and characters and it was easy to follow because all of it captured me and held me hostage. I stayed up until 4 am to finish listening. His writing is marvelous. Rich and textured.
There are many wonderful reviews covering themes, but I want to focus on one thing that really made me think. As another reviewer said, the book has an interesting discussion of the fluidity of borders. This element of the story was riveting. Fascinating. I learned so much about the limitations of my own childhood education. I was a child of the 1960s and 1970s, raised in the midwest of the United States. I was a child of working class, blue collar parents. I never met a person who wasn't American (and mostly white, western European Americans with no connection to their country of heritage). I never had a teacher who was an immigrant or the child of immigrants. I never met a person with a foreign accent. And when I learned anything about other continents. I saw a map with the borders of the day. Nobody even mentioned that those borders had ever been disputed. Nobody ever discussed the fact that WW2 drastically changed the look of the European map. It wasn't until I was a young adult in the USAF and traveling a great deal that I started to learn how variable borders can be, but even then it was discussed with prejudice. If a border was in dispute there was a right side and a wrong side. And the right side was always the one we were protecting. It was an ethnocentric world. This book examined the notion of borders so well because it showed the reader much of the post-WW2 political game that was played within Europe and its approach to the topic was intriguing and thought-provoking without being judgmental.
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- R. Hughes
- 06-10-18
Instant favorite
I loved every single thing about this book. The gorgeous prose. The people inhabiting the story. The pitch perfect narration. I kept slowing down and listening to chapters over just to extend the book and savor every morsel one more time. Perfection.
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40 people found this helpful
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- Linda
- 06-03-18
BRILLIANT
I am always awed by the prose of Mr Odaatje. This book is an incredible example of his writing style, and perfectly narrated by Steve West. The story is an unwinding tale of wonderful intriguing character connections, with post World War ll as a backdrop. Part mystery, part romance, and an overall seeking of connection. A MUST READ!
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- Cheryl
- 07-11-18
Not ideal for an audiobook
I suspect that this book would be fine reading it normally, but as an audiobook, it's incredibly difficult to engage with the story and want to keep listening. The narrator does a very good job, but the nature of the prose is working heavily against him.
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28 people found this helpful
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- Michal A. Joyner
- 05-18-18
Can’t believe how boring this book was
I was so excited to read this book because I loved the English Patient. This book never developed s sympathetic character, and it was just flat boring! I should have returned it at 3 hours, but I was convinced the story would be redeemed! Sadly, it wasn’t!
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19 people found this helpful
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- Robert and Janet Dye
- 06-16-18
I loved this book and Steve West's reading
I was probably only an hour into listening to this book before I decided I had to _read_ it, too, so I bought the hardback. Some of the passages were so beautiful I had to savor the words at my own pace. Listening through the middle section, just before the transition to the second half, I did begin to wonder whether the beautiful, but slowing story would pick up. But the events and revelations at the mid-point hit me like a lightning strike and I was riveted from there to the very end. Don't give up. You will be rewarded. I'm going back to listen to that section which I now realize was so important. The world of post-WW2 London (and Europe) is a fascinating era and reading this book sent me to the library for more. Steve West is a wonderful reader and I look forward to hearing him again.
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16 people found this helpful
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- lniles
- 06-07-18
Interesting but not engaging
The story was interesting but it never quite pulled me in or became exciting. This was partly due to the organization — the timeline jumps around a bit which was sometimes difficult to follow in an audio book — but I think mostly due to the narration style. The narrator‘s voice is well-modulated and easy to listen to, but conveys all the excitement of a commentator for a televised golf tournament. The voice doesn’t communicate anything of the emotions of the characters or of an observer, nor does it tell the listener anything about what’s important and what’s not. That said, the story did have me curious enough to finish the book even though I was aware of the limitations well before the halfway point.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Peter Buchanan
- 05-22-18
Confusing story - drony performance
This book was so well reviewed that I thought it was worth a credit, but, after a painful bout of listening, I have to say I am disappointed. The story was disjointed, the narration was overbearing, and the end result was that I was just relieved when it ended. There's a lesson here: Top quality writing is wasted if the story isn't any good, and the storyteller isn't a good match for the story.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Kris Hicks
- 06-08-18
Warlight sheds light on how different every reader is. Maybe it’s just me?
Strong reviews and the synopsis had me at the start. Two chapters in and it had not delivered yet so I trudged on. Both reading and listening to perhaps grasp anything missed. Rarely do I find a book that is just so empty of character development and story by the time the plot is established and picking up pace that I can just walk away. I found Warlight lacking in ALL of these areas and I struggled to find direct cause. Taste and views vary with each reader of course and most of the time it will have a lot to do with only this, not the book, style, genre, etc. It also has to be based on a reader’s prior knowledge of the subject if it is historical in content. Knowing this world and it’s history is key to reading and understanding many writers. I blame myself and not Mr. Ondaatje.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Barbara B. Stein
- 05-23-18
Kept waiting for something to happen
Slow moving. Listened @ 1.5 X so I could finish it. Weak story. Undeveloped story lines. Obvious things written as if profound. I didn’t care about the characters. How did this book become a bestseller???
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10 people found this helpful