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The Garden of Evening Mists
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's summary
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. Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice "until the monsoon comes". Then she can design a garden for herself.
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When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be - until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the listener’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
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Basic Story Interesting, But...
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The Last King of Scotland
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his Maserati, has hit a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, obsessed with all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. So begins a fateful dalliance with the African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror.
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Worst Production Ever
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By: Giles Foden
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The Tenth Chamber
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Overall
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Story
Abbey of Ruac, rural France: A medieval script is discovered hidden behind an antique bookcase. Badly damaged, it is sent to Paris for restoration, and there literary historian Hugo Pineau begins to read the startling 14th-century text. Within its pages lies a fanciful tale of a painted cave and the secrets it contains - and a rudimentary map showing its position close to the abbey. Intrigued, Hugo enlists the help of archaeologist Luc Simard and the two men go exploring.
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Leaves Dan Brown's "INFERNO" in the Dust
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By: Glenn Cooper
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Stories
- All-New Tales
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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Something for Everyone
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By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Oil on Water
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, a British oil executive's wife has been kidnapped. Two journalists - a young upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disillusioned veteran, Zaq - are sent to find her. In a story rich with atmosphere and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the conflict between idealism and cynical disillusionment in a journey full of danger and unintended consequences.
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Entertaining and Timely
- By Lynn on 07-16-11
By: Helon Habila
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The Muse
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Overall
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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
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By: Jessie Burton
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Leopard at the Door
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Overall
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After six years in England, Rachel has returned to Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she'd longed for is much changed. Her father's new companion - a strange, intolerant woman - has taken over the household. The political climate in the country grows more unsettled by the day and is approaching the boiling point. And looming over them all is the threat of the Mau Mau, a secret society intent on uniting the native Kenyans and overthrowing the whites.
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IMPERIALISM
- By Haberwoman on 08-02-18
By: Jennifer McVeigh
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Lost in Translation
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A novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Lost in Translation heralds the debut of a unique new voice on the literary landscape. Nicole Mones creates an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land - only to discover her home, her heart, herself.
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Absolutely fascinating!
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By: Nicole Mones
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The Bell Messenger
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Overall
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Adventurer and author Robert Cornuke delivers an archaeological thriller that crosses the globe and spans two centuries. With these hopeful words, a dying Confederate lad bequeaths his Bible to the Union soldier who just shot him: "Be God's messenger as I have been." And so begins the journey of Elijah Bell's cherished Bible as it travels the world, transforming hearts wherever it goes.
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Loved it!
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By: Robert Cornuke
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My Beautiful Enemy
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Catherine Blade's uncommon beauty and daring have taken her far in the world, but she still doesn't have the freedom to live life as she chooses. Finally given the chance to earn her independence, who should be standing in her way but the only man she's ever loved - the only person to ever betray her. Despite the scars Catherine left him, Captain Leighton Atwood has never been able to forget the mysterious girl who once so thoroughly captivated him.
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my least favorite from this author, and still good
- By Christina on 09-04-14
By: Sherry Thomas
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The Magus
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Story
John Fowles’s The Magus was a literary landmark of the 1960s. Nicholas Urfe goes to a Greek island to teach at a private school and becomes enmeshed in curious happenings at the home of a mysterious Greek recluse, Maurice Conchis. Are these events, involving attractive young English sisters, just psychological games, or an elaborate joke, or more? Reality shifts as the story unfolds. The Magus reflected the issues of the 1960s perfectly, and it continues to create tension and concern today.
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One of the best novels that I really think I hate.
- By Darwin8u on 01-29-14
By: John Fowles
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White Dog Fell from the Sky
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Botswana, 1976: Isaac Muthethe thinks he is dead. Smuggled across the border from South Africa in a hearse, he awakens covered in dust, staring at blue sky and the face of White Dog. Far from dead, he is, for the first time, in a country without apartheid. A medical student in South Africa, he was forced to flee after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force.
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Unexpectedly Stunning Work!
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Diamond Head
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Told through the eyes of the Leongs' secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning the Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, Diamond Head is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice, and miraculous hope.
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.
- By Gina on 09-06-15
By: Cecily Wong
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What listeners say about The Garden of Evening Mists
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- KT
- 06-14-15
This Book is Absolute Perfection
With most books, the author either has you root for the main character (despite their flaws), or has you love the main character because they're so darn cool. It takes incredible skill and enormous courage for an author to force the reader to squirm from discomfort because we may not actually LIKE the main character and we may not find much endearing about her at all. We may not actually be able to forgive some actions of the main character but it doesn't mean we're not with her throughout the story, keeping her at a distance but utterly engrossed.
That kind of writing happens once in a blue moon but Tan Twan Eng has done it. This novel is pure poetry. It forces the reader to question their own morality, to ask themselves "Do I REALLY know what I would do in such a situation? Do I have the right to judge others, having never been in those circumstances?"
Anna Bentinck does a brilliant job. Her accents are fantastic (though admittedly not always accurate) and she portrays the main character with the perfect amount of "chilliness".
Early on in the book, I immediately judged the Professor as some bit player, an insignificant nobody. However, as the book unfolds, the Professor, as a human being, becomes heartbreakingly unforgettable.
This is my favorite book of all time. I'm desperate for Audible to have his other book, Gift of Rain, narrated.
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- Wave Usa LLC
- 10-11-15
A Work of Art
Any additional comments?
Without question the most beautifully written and narrated book I've had the pleasure to listen to.
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- Johanne Langlois
- 12-21-22
Beautiful story.
Well written. Very descriptive. At times the flag back. Are hard to place in the time line. Narrator could have tried different accents or just read it without an accent. I will read this book again to try and get more details in the correct timeline.
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- Book fan
- 01-27-24
Extraordinary in every way
Beautiful writing. A revelation of Malaysian culture and history. Insight into Asian differences. Memorable and deeply moving. A treasure.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Onion Eaters
- 05-13-23
Great book. Just don’t listen to it.
The book itself is fantastic. Highly recommended you read it. But skip the Audible version. As long as the narrator is telling the story, it’s fine. But once she tries a character’s voice, speaking in the dialect of a Japanese or Malaysian or any human, it starts grating on your nerves. Like nails on a chalkboard. A bad Mel Blanc impression.
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- Susan
- 05-02-21
A tale of good and evil in all of us
A beautiful symphonic tale of the art of Japanese gardening and tattooing, coexisting with torture and suffering. Themes of love in different forms, betrayal and redemption.
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- Turtle
- 02-17-13
nice story despite terrible narration
Where does The Garden of Evening Mists rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
this narrator took on many characters from many parts of the world- and should have simple read it in her normal voice. her "accents" are terrible.
the story is lovely.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
stunning visuals
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13 people found this helpful
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- JGrace
- 02-18-13
Mists of memory
The Garden of Evening Mists- Tan Eng
“Memories I had locked away have begun to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these broken floes drift toward the morning light of remembrance.”
When Yun Ling first comes to Yugiri in the decade following World War Two she remembers her sister’s death and their three years in a Japanese death camp. When she returns to Yugiri 40 years later, she remembers Aritomo. Aritomo, once the Japanese emperor’s gardener, created Yugiri, the Garden of Evening Mists. The garden was designed and built before the war in the Camaron Highlands of Malaya. Yun Ling has spent most of her life trying to forget, but as her aging brain threatens to erase her memories forever, she begins to record her story.
This is an intricate, layered story that worked beautifully on every level. The prose is poetic and suited to the exotic location. As the story develops, it is filled with details about Japanese gardens, woodblock printing, and surprisingly, tattoos. The characters are flawed, complex, and very real. They are people who grapple with devastating loss, survivor guilt, divided loyalties, and dangerous secrets. In the end some of the secrets are revealed. Some of the truth will never be completely revealed. Despite the lack of definitive answers, the ending of the book felt entirely correct.
Anna Bentinck’s performance of this book was outstanding. She handled all of the character voices and accents perfectly. I was especially impressed that she was able to maintain a consistent voice for Yun Ling while perceptibly aging the voice for the different time periods of the narrative.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Sam
- 06-03-17
A trip to Malaysia in my Mind
This book, beautifully written, brought me back to my own time in Malaysia and Singapore. I loved disappearing into it each day. The reading was well done and caught the accents from the region in a fair manner. However, I did find the book a bit long in places especially the earlier and middle chapters.
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- Mel
- 03-28-13
"Everything Beautiful and Sorrowful About Life"
'On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan.'
Teoh Yun Ling retires from her position as a Supreme Court judge in the courts of Kuala Lumpur after discovering that she has aphasia, a disease that will soon render her unable to communicate (already she has flashes where she recognizes nothing). Questioning what she will become when she is cut off from the world, she realizes that the memories she has worked hard to forget will be her only anchor to the real world, without them she will be "a ghost, trapped between worlds, without an identity." Remembering will require her to uncover that past - - this is Yun Ling's story.
When her affluent family is captured during the Japanese occupation of Malaysia, Yun Ling and her sister are sent to a brutal prisoner of war camp. The girls find solace from the cruelties the Japanese soldiers inflict upon them by remembering a beautiful Japanese garden they once visited in Kyoto. Only Yun Ling survives the camp, and sets out to create a Japanese garden to honor her sister. Her mission takes her to Yugiri - the mountain "garden of evening mists" and its master gardener Aritomo, former gardener for Emperor Hirohito. To complete her quest, she must reckon her bitter resentment of all things Japanese to become Aritomo's apprentice. In the process, Yun Ling begins to recall all the horrors of her past, what it really took for her to survive, and the involvement of her Japanese teacher, Aritomo.
This is a complex and layered novel with intertwined themes of remembering and forgetting, moral ambiguity, scars and healing, and other characters with back stories of their own. The metaphors of the garden become the words too painful for the haunted characters to vocalize; the cycle of the garden carries the story through to the realization and self-healing. Author Tan Twan Eng also uses the cultural practices of Zen philosophy, the cultivation of tea, archery, and the secretive art of horimono (Japanese body tattoo) to shape the characters and reflect their journeys.
Reader's that enjoy all of the nuances of frost melting on a stone, or the slow twirling descent of a leaf from a tree, will find this book to be an exquisite journey that "captures everything beautiful and sorrowful about life." It is so beautifully constructed that there isn't a single flaw, and reminded me of looking at an orchid and contemplating the pure beauty. But, like a garden growing...it is a slow process that sometimes seemed like watching grass grow. I'm not saying I didn't like this--only that it is like taking baby steps through a journey of a thousand miles. One complaint I do have is the narrator. Her voice is lovely--very English--but the accents she uses for the characters are so inconsistent and off that she often confounds the story, making it hard to follow. I would have preferred to hear her read without the characterizations. Ethereal and transcendent, somewhat like tai chi...slow and meditative, good selection for the right kind of reader.
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35 people found this helpful