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Four Seasons in Japan
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
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Publisher's summary
Brought to you by Penguin
Flo is sick of Tokyo. Suffering from a crisis in confidence, she is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a fellow passenger on the Tokyo Subway. From the very first page, Flo is transformed and immediately feels compelled to translate this forgotten novel, a decision which sets her on a path that will change her life...
It is a story about Ayako, a fierce and strict old woman who runs a coffee shop in the small town of Onomichi, where she has just taken guardianship of her grandson, Kyo. Haunted by long-buried family tragedy, both have suffered extreme loss and feel unable to open up to each other. As Flo follows the characters across a year in rural Japan, through the ups and downs of the pair's burgeoning relationship, she quickly realises that she needs to venture outside the pages of the book to track down its elusive author. And, as her two protagonists reveal themselves to have more in common with her life than first meets the eye, the lines between text and translator converge. The journey is just beginning.
From the author of The Cat and the City, Four Seasons in Japan is a gorgeously crafted book-within-a-book about literature, purpose and what it is to belong.
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- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Max Roll
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Jane Austen fan Amelia Bennett sneaks away from a dull tour of an English country manor, only to run into a man more dashing than Mr. Darcy himself. About to lose his ancestral home to family debts, charming aristocrat Tom Calder invites his American guest to join him in drinking his way through the estate’s priceless wine collection. But when they wake in his bed the next morning, they’re convinced that in their drunken haze they witnessed a murder. Problem is, the body has vanished and no one believes them.
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Fun rom-com mystery
- By C. Wright on 03-01-24
By: Brynn Kelly
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Dietrich
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ed Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
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It’s the summer of ’77 in New York City, and the only thing more unnerving than the scorching heatwave is the rampant murder, leaving washed-up homicide detective Richard Dietrich on edge. When Dietrich investigates a brutal mob hit the brass doesn’t want him to solve, he goes from phoning it in to getting in over his head. Caught up in a mysterious second homicide with an even more perplexing perpetrator, Dietrich starts to second guess his instincts—and his memory—as he searches for answers at the bottom of a bottle.
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Haunting ending
- By Shirley Anderson on 04-21-24
By: Don Winslow
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Bluebeard
- By: Jim Clemente, Peter McDonnell
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In 1919, Kathryn Wombacher finds a lonely-hearts ad placed by one Walter Andrew: "Would be pleased to correspond with a refined young lady or widow. Object, matrimony.” Kathryn and Walter fall in love and marry within weeks. What Kathryn doesn’t know...is that her new husband is really James “Bluebeard” Watson, a notorious West Coast serial killer who catfished and married 22 women, murdering 10.
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Performances
- By HappyMom on 05-24-24
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The Justice
- By: James Patterson, Aaron Cooley
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Justice Beth Garner (Sanaa Lathan) just landed the appointment of a lifetime—a seat on the Supreme Court. Now a mysterious company is blackmailing her for her vote on a landmark case. Caught up in the checkered past of her hero and mentor, Chief Justice Clayton Erlenborn, Beth must cunningly maneuver through a dangerous web of secrets, deception, and cold-blooded murder. Armed with only her moral compass and unflinching nerve, she’s up against a sinister world full of undercover agents, domestic terrorists, and black ops assassins—all of whom want her to comply or die.
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One of the best
- By Jackie on 02-25-24
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Oregon
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ed Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
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It was 1970 in a defeated Rhode Island fishing town. Vietnam and Nixon dominated the national news. Both the near and distant future looked bleak. But they were five inseparable high school friends with something incredible in common: an unwavering resolve to look after each other no matter what hell life threw at them. And they were on a mission. The plan was simple: Go off the grid before they turned 18 to avoid the draft. They’d sell some grass, stack some cash, then head west and start a commune. What could possibly go wrong?
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This really hit home.
- By Ray Beaulieu on 05-26-24
By: Don Winslow
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Too Late
- Definitive Edition
- By: Colleen Hoover
- Narrated by: Ryan Gray, Maxine Mitchell, Joe Arden
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
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Sloan will go through hell and back for those she loves. And she does so, every single day. Caught up with the alluring Asa Jackson, a notorious drug trafficker, Sloan has finally found a lifeline to cling to, even if it’s meant compromising her morals. She was in dire straits trying to pay for her brother’s care until she met Asa. But as Sloan became emotionally and economically reliant on him, he in turn developed a disturbing obsession with her—one that becomes increasingly dangerous every day.
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Triggering and poor narration
- By Katherine Epperson on 07-11-23
By: Colleen Hoover
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One of Us Is Dead
- By: Jeneva Rose
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- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
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Opulence. Sex. Betrayal…sometimes friendship can be deadly. Meet the women of Buckhead—a place of expensive cars, huge houses, and competitive friendships. Who amongst these women will be clever enough to survive Buckhead—and who will wind up dead? They say that friendships can be complex, but no one said it could ever be this deadly.
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Great mystery. Sexually graphic.
- By Sue on 09-04-22
By: Jeneva Rose
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Not insightful but inspirational
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What listeners say about Four Seasons in Japan
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Zach
- 04-09-24
Beautiful tale, setting, and narration
This kind of book is very far from my norm - I typically read nonfiction and especially histories (ironic, considering a particular scene in this book). I don't have a particular interest in Japan moreso than I do any other country. But I really enjoyed the narrator's vocal work in the video game Baldur's Gate 3, had a spare credit, and decided to see if she had done any audiobook narration on a whim. This book looked the most interesting, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm very glad I did.
The overall, absolute bare-bones summary of this book, is perhaps nothing special. It's a story-within-a-story where both layers feature inherently depressed and listless characters doing their best under less than ideal circumstances. But what makes the story shine is just how well-crafted everything is. The outer, framing story, featuring translator Flo, is compelling enough to get you to sympathize with her as tries to work through her rut. But the inner story, a coming of age tale featuring 19 year old Kyo, born and raised in Tokyo, foisted upon his old-school grandmother Ayako in a provincial, mountainous town, is the real star.
Yes, Kyo sometimes acts like an idiot and makes several stupid decisions throughout the first half of the book. Yes, Ayako is overly strict when she should probably have good reason to know better given her past history. It doesn't matter. The characters have good reasons to act the way they do. They are relatable. They are well explored. You root for them (and Flo) to overcome their issues, accomplish their goals, and learn to communicate with the ones they care about, about the issues that matter.
Japan itself is also a character in this book, and it's really well done. From the lively but sometimes suffocating confines of Tokyo, to provincial but captivating Onomichi, to Hiroshima, where the weight of history is well-represented, the author's love for the country really shines through and adds to the story's weight. I was going to say that it's difficult to remember that he's a Westerner rather than a Japanese native as you are going through the text, but perhaps this is inaccurate. Perhaps the fact that he *is* a Westerner and thus is taking special time and effort to display the beauty and complexity of the country as he sees it, but still from a Westerner's perspective, is what makes the story and the descriptions work so well. Perhaps a native would only gloss over the various descriptions of everyday settings, considering them unimportant to the tale. I wouldn't know. This setup works very well. That's enough for me.
As for the narration, it is superb. Hanako Footman's vocal work was what drew me here to the first place and she delivers here, injecting enough differences in her characters to make them stand out and putting the exact right amount of emotion in every scene to really make you feel what the characters are going through at any given moment. I won't comment on the accuracy of her pronunciation of various Japanese words, as I have no experience with the language, but they sure sound correct to me.
I played this audiobook on a long drive, winding through highways with mountains in the background, I think this only adds to the atmosphere. It really allowed me to immerse myself in the characters and the setting, and I was almost sad when I finally got to my destination and I still had some of the book to go. I strongly recommend both this book and listening to it under the exact circumstances that I did. A lovely experience from start to finish.
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- Roger Winright
- 04-11-24
Therapeutic Background Sound
Highly enjoyed hearing this beautiful novel. The characters are amazing people and the story flows beautifully.
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