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Too Much Happiness
- Stories
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the first story, a young wife and mother receives release from the unbearable pain of losing her three children from a most surprising source. In another, a young woman, in the aftermath of an unusual and humiliating seduction, reacts in a clever, if less than admirable, fashion.
Other stories uncover the "deep holes" in a marriage, the unsuspected cruelty of children, and how a boy's disfigured face provides both the good things in his life and the bad. And in the long title story, we accompany Sophia Kovalevsky - a late-19th-century Russian émigré and mathematician - on a winter journey that takes her from the Riviera, where she visits her lover, to Paris, Germany, and Denmark, where she has a fateful meeting with a local doctor, and finally to Sweden, where she teaches at the only university in Europe willing to employ a female mathematician.
With clarity and ease, Alice Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives.
Too Much Happiness is a compelling, provocative - even daring - collection.
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- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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To See the Moon Again
- By: Jamie Langston Turner
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it …Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world.
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Beautiful Story of Forgiveness and Selfless Love
- By sharon on 09-20-14
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The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.
By: Lori Ostlund
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A Fatal Inversion
- By: Barbara Vine
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In the long, hot summer of 1976, a group of young people is camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall’s animal cemetery. Which woman? And whose child?
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Oh my!
- By Jill on 06-15-14
By: Barbara Vine
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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Liberating Paris
- A Novel
- By: Linda Bloodworth Thomason
- Narrated by: Cynthia Darlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Woodrow McIlmore, the town's golden boy and local gynecologist, is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart, Milan, and seems by all appearances to be leading the perfect life with his two children and extended family and friends. But when Wood's daughter announces that she is smitten with a college classmate and intends to marry him, her parents are stunned.
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Deeply moving, a great listen
- By Cynthia on 11-27-05
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The Pull of the Moon
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In the middle of her life, Nan decides to leave her husband at home and begin an impromptu trek across the country, carrying with her a turquoise leather journal she intends to fill. The Pull of the Moon is a novel about a woman coming to terms with issues of importance to all women. In her journal, Nan addresses the thorniness - and the allure - of marriage, the sweet ties to children, and the gifts and lessons that come from random encounters.
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For women over 50
- By Laura on 07-07-15
By: Elizabeth Berg
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A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
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Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
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Incomplete
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What listeners say about Too Much Happiness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Martinussen
- 09-26-20
Awestruck
Fantastic short stories. In the audio version the chapter separation is wrong before "Childs play" and at the beginning of the epilog.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Marina Yurieva
- 01-10-19
Too much misery
Well written but all the stories are very gloomy, depressing and hopeless. The aftertaste from this book is deeply rooted depression that you don't even notice anymore because why bother. I get that the title of the book is supposed to be ironic, yet I still hold a resentment towards it because I didn't really know much about the author and her books and couldn't tell from the example piece how mentally heavy these stories would be.
Narration was good for the most part but not in the last story where the narrator tried to do Russian, German and other accents. It wasn't an even accent during the whole story but rather heavy Russian accent growing into subtle Russian /German, weird French. Just don't try doing any accents please.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jillian Fischer
- 04-06-18
Huge fan of Alice Munro
Alice Munro's stories aren't for everyone. People seem to either love or hate them. Some say they're boring because not much seems to happen, at least externally. Her stories are very much about the characters' (often women) inner lives. I love this approach to writing. And I loved hearing her stories read aloud.
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Overall
- Ginette
- 06-11-10
Alice Munro is a must!!
I just loved all of the short stories featured in this book. Every single one of them was entrancing, interesting and plunged the reader in a different universe each time! I listen to audio books while I walk in the forest or in my neighborhood and Alice Munro kept me company for weeks on end!!
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9 people found this helpful
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- Leah
- 12-12-13
Strange collection, and one great story
I bought this one because the description (and the title story) is about a female mathematician's life - of great relevance to my own career. And, as it turns out, it is indeed a part biography of THE Sonia Kovalevskaya, who is well known in mathematics! Not a made-up story but a true story, that Alice Munro tells us, was inspired by her reading of "Little Sparrow".
I liked that part of the book and found it both engrossing, poignant, and moving. How times have changed (thank goodness!)
As for the rest of the collection in this book, I still have to think about what the author is trying to tell us. I "don't get it" yet. But it has gotten me thinking.
The performance is fine, but I don't like the distraction of switching between male and female voices. If the narrator is good enough, we should be carried along no matter what gender.
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3 people found this helpful
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- DMMP
- 08-16-19
Repeated Stories
If you're an Alice Munro like I am, be aware that many of the stories in this collection, including the title story--Too Much Happiness--are part of Family Furnishings. I wish there'd been a list of the stories included before I bought this.
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1 person found this helpful
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- symya08
- 06-04-21
Deep contemplations
This collection is overall fantastic although I detest several parts because of their break of rules. On the other hand, I stopped thinking about some dialogs and ideas. The story of child’s play was shocking and remained vivid in my mind for several days. The author’s description of feelings and thoughts is convincing and captures empathy.
The sound of the narrator can polish or disrupt the experience, and to me, it was good, unless when trying to mimic the sounds of different persons and accents.
I have already recommended the book to many friends.
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- carol g.
- 01-16-20
Loved 80% of this
When listening to most of these stories, I vowed to read everything of Munro’s that I could find. Some of the time I lost the thread however. I will listen again for sure.
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Overall
- Randy Lopez
- 12-21-22
Great breadth of stories with compelling character
A range of stories from heartwarming to disturbing, but all masterfully written and compellingly performed.
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- Shyguy123
- 01-04-16
Each story should start on its own track
The substance (performance, writing, etc.) of this audiobook is great, but the tracks are sloppily organized. This is a volume of short stories, so each story should begin at 0:00 on a separate track. For some reason, it's not organized like that. The third story, for example, starts roughly 55 minutes into the second track. Why do that? I remember Runaway, another Alice Munro collection, having the same problem. Please fix this.
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19 people found this helpful