Brightly Shining
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $11.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jesse Vilinsky
About this listen
Beautifully told with humor and tenderness, a Norwegian Christmas tale of sisterhood, financial hardship, and far-off dreams, acclaimed by reviewers and beloved by readers and listeners across Europe, where it has been a major bestseller.
Christmas is just around the corner, and Ronja and Melissa’s dreamer of a father is out of work again. When ten-year-old Ronja hears about a job at a Christmas tree stand near where the family lives in central Oslo, she thinks it might be the stroke of luck they all need. Soon, the fridge fills with food, and their father returns home with money in his pocket and a smile on his face. But one evening he disappears into the night under the pretense of buying Christmas gifts—and the daughters know he has gone to his favorite local pub, Stargate, and they come to terms with the fact that he may lose his wonderful new job.
Melissa decides to take his place at the Christmas tree stand, working before and after school in the December afternoon dark, and brings along Ronja, who quickly charms all the middle-class customers. On rare breaks the sisters dream of a brighter place of kindness and plenty, and find help from some of those around them—but both understand that their family structure is a precarious one, and that they are going to need luck and strength to transcend their circumstances.
Skillfully told, evoking the delight, misunderstandings, and innocence of a child’s voice, Brightly Shining is small in stature but with an outsize impact on the listener, and has all the markings of a magical modern classic.
©2024 Ingvild Rishøi (P)2024 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Time of the Child
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.
-
-
A slower start than This Is Happiness but then….wonderful.
- By Georgia Burns on 12-01-24
By: Niall Williams
-
The Wood at Midwinter
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Susanna Clarke
- Length: 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.
-
-
Disappointment.
- By Elizabeth on 11-20-24
By: Susanna Clarke
-
Four Letters of Love
- A Novel
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Niall Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicholas Coughlan is twelve years old when his father, an Irish civil servant, announces that God has commanded him to become a painter. He abandons the family and a wife who is driven to despair. Years later, Nicholas’s own civil-service career is disrupted by tragic news: his father has burned down the house, with all his paintings and himself in it. Isabel Gore is the daughter of a poet. She’s a passionate girl, but her brother is the real prodigy, a musician. And yet this family, too, is struck by tragedy: a seizure leaves the boy mute and unable to play.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Cat Lover on 09-29-24
By: Niall Williams
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Havoc
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Bollen
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast. But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends. One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at check-in.
-
-
Horrible story
- By A. Zitelli on 12-20-24
-
Clear
- A Novel
- By: Carys Davies
- Narrated by: Russ Bain
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Stunning narrative and performance
- By Art Librarian on 07-01-24
By: Carys Davies
-
Time of the Child
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.
-
-
A slower start than This Is Happiness but then….wonderful.
- By Georgia Burns on 12-01-24
By: Niall Williams
-
The Wood at Midwinter
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Susanna Clarke
- Length: 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.
-
-
Disappointment.
- By Elizabeth on 11-20-24
By: Susanna Clarke
-
Four Letters of Love
- A Novel
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Niall Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicholas Coughlan is twelve years old when his father, an Irish civil servant, announces that God has commanded him to become a painter. He abandons the family and a wife who is driven to despair. Years later, Nicholas’s own civil-service career is disrupted by tragic news: his father has burned down the house, with all his paintings and himself in it. Isabel Gore is the daughter of a poet. She’s a passionate girl, but her brother is the real prodigy, a musician. And yet this family, too, is struck by tragedy: a seizure leaves the boy mute and unable to play.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Cat Lover on 09-29-24
By: Niall Williams
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Havoc
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Bollen
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast. But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends. One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at check-in.
-
-
Horrible story
- By A. Zitelli on 12-20-24
-
Clear
- A Novel
- By: Carys Davies
- Narrated by: Russ Bain
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Stunning narrative and performance
- By Art Librarian on 07-01-24
By: Carys Davies
-
This Strange Eventful History
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family's strangeness; of François's union with Barbara; of Chloe, the result of that union.
-
-
Be Prepared for a Jarring Narration
- By Thomp/Suis on 05-17-24
By: Claire Messud
-
The Christmas Book Hunt
- A Short Story
- By: Jenny Colgan
- Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mirren’s beloved great-aunt Violet is seriously ill. Her one Christmas wish is to be reunited with a long-lost hand-illustrated book from her childhood, a challenge Mirren gladly accepts to give Violet some much-needed festive cheer. With no sign of the cherished volume online, Mirren falls into the fascinating world of rare books. From London to snowy Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh’s cobbled streets, she chases leads from bookshop to bookshop—and bumps into mysterious, charming Theo, who, unbeknownst to her, is searching for the same book for reasons of his own…
-
-
Cute but a little boring at first
- By Mercy on 12-05-24
By: Jenny Colgan
-
Rental House
- A Novel
- By: Weike Wang
- Narrated by: Jen Zhao
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife. Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation.
-
-
Weike Wang’s Best Yet
- By preschoolteacher on 12-14-24
By: Weike Wang
-
The Most
- By: Jessica Anthony
- Narrated by: Abigail Reno
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957. Katheen, a college tennis champion turned Delaware housewife, decides not to join her flagrantly handsome life insurance salesman husband, Virgil, or their two young boys, at church. Instead, she takes a dip in the kidney-shaped swimming pool of their apartment complex. And then she won’t come out.
-
-
Loved it!
- By I Buy Things All The Time! on 12-09-24
By: Jessica Anthony
-
The Christmas Inn
- A Novel
- By: Pamela M. Kelley
- Narrated by: Stephanie Németh-Parker
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riley Sanders didn’t plan on losing her job as a content marketing manager right before Christmas. When she calls her sister Amy to vent, she learns that their mother has broken her leg and could really use some help at the inn. Riley decides to head home to the inn, nestled along the shores of Cape Cod, in time for the Christmas rush. She is happy to help and needs something to distract her as mistletoe is hung and snowflakes begin to fall.
-
-
Not good at all. Boring.
- By Kimberly on 12-22-24
By: Pamela M. Kelley
-
The Deal of a Lifetime
- A Novella
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It all begins with a father telling a story to his son on Christmas Eve. But this isn't your typical Christmas story. The father admits to his son that he's taken a life but he won't say whose - not yet. One week earlier, in a hospital late at night, the man met a five-year-old girl with cancer. She's a smart kid - smart enough to know that she won't beat cancer by drawing with crayons all day, but it seems to make the adults happy, so she keeps doing it.
-
-
Novellas Are Horrible!!!!!
- By 3xcharm on 12-28-17
By: Fredrik Backman
-
The Christmas Guest
- A Novella
- By: Peter Swanson
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times bestselling author Peter Swanson pens a spectacularly spine-chilling novella in which an American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall, her family’s Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughs, secrets are about to unravel, revealing this seemingly charming English village’s grim history.
-
-
Decent story, annoying performance
- By K. G. Bates on 12-23-23
By: Peter Swanson
-
Mr. Dickens and His Carol
- A Novel
- By: Samantha Silva
- Narrated by: Euan Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer's block sets in.
-
-
Ultimately worth it
- By Linda on 12-13-17
By: Samantha Silva
-
Orbital
- By: Samantha Harvey
- Narrated by: Sarah Naudi
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space—not towards the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.
-
-
Dull
- By ELLEZEE on 02-03-24
By: Samantha Harvey
-
Like Mother, Like Mother
- A Novel
- By: Susan Rieger
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detroit, 1960. Lila Pereira is two years old when her angry, abusive father has her mother committed to an asylum. Lila never sees her mother again. Three decades later, having mustered everything she has—brains, charm, talent, blond hair—Lila rises to the pinnacle of American media as the powerful, brilliant executive editor of The Washington Globe. Lila unapologetically prioritizes her career, leaving the rearing of her daughters to her generous husband, Joe. He doesn’t mind—until he does.
-
-
BORING
- By valerie on 11-01-24
By: Susan Rieger
-
Family Family
- A Novel
- By: Laurie Frankel
- Narrated by: Laurie Frankel, Patti Murin
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero. Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do—she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie.
-
-
Interesting story but horrible language
- By Jed on 01-26-24
By: Laurie Frankel
-
Comfort & Joy
- A Fable
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Candellaro once loved Christmas more than any other time of the year. Now, as the holiday approaches, she is at a crossroads in her life; recently divorced and alone, she can’t summon the old enthusiasm for celebrating. So without telling anyone, she buys a ticket and boards a plane bound for the beautiful Pacific Northwest. When an unexpected detour takes her deep into the woods of the Olympic rainforest, Joy makes a bold decision to leave her ordinary life behind - to just walk away - and thus begins an adventure unlike any she could have imagined.
-
-
Disappointed and Bla
- By Tina Bolling on 12-26-20
By: Kristin Hannah
Related to this topic
-
Booked for the Holidays
- By: Liz Maverick
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky, Andrew Eiden
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.
-
-
What a gem!
- By Joanna N. on 11-14-24
By: Liz Maverick
-
The Grandmother
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Anna Cordell, Max Dinnen
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.
-
-
Good story bad language
- By Patti on 12-18-24
By: Jane E. James
-
Mr. and Mrs. Christmas
- By: Michelle Stimpson
- Narrated by: Marcella Cox, Ian Hackney
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's no place like home for the holidays ... especially for Lesley Carver. Life in the big city just wasn't her jam and now she's back in Hickory Falls, working at the family diner and helping her mom after she took a tumble. Lesley longs to build a life here, working at the cafe, selling her handmade ornaments and ... er, apparently reviving her high school crush on her best friend’s older brother. Only one problem, her mom wants her to leave Hickory Falls far behind.
-
-
Loved the book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-15-24
-
Holiday Hideaway
- A Short Story
- By: Mary Kay Andrews
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.
-
-
I ain’t afraid of no ghosts
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 10-31-24
By: Mary Kay Andrews
-
A Christmas Carol
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Hugh Grant
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1843, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean and unpleasant man who dislikes people generally and Christmas especially. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and given a glimpse of the many homes and lives which Scrooge has touched in his wretched life to date. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
-
-
Christmas Classic Given New Life
- By E-Hank3 on 12-26-20
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Signature Performance: Tim Curry rescues Charles Dickens from the jaws of Disney with his one-of-a-kind performance of the treasured classic. Our listeners loved this version so much that it inspired our whole line of Signature Classics.
-
-
Wonderful!!!
- By Alia on 12-11-09
By: Charles Dickens
-
Booked for the Holidays
- By: Liz Maverick
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky, Andrew Eiden
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.
-
-
What a gem!
- By Joanna N. on 11-14-24
By: Liz Maverick
-
The Grandmother
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Anna Cordell, Max Dinnen
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.
-
-
Good story bad language
- By Patti on 12-18-24
By: Jane E. James
-
Mr. and Mrs. Christmas
- By: Michelle Stimpson
- Narrated by: Marcella Cox, Ian Hackney
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's no place like home for the holidays ... especially for Lesley Carver. Life in the big city just wasn't her jam and now she's back in Hickory Falls, working at the family diner and helping her mom after she took a tumble. Lesley longs to build a life here, working at the cafe, selling her handmade ornaments and ... er, apparently reviving her high school crush on her best friend’s older brother. Only one problem, her mom wants her to leave Hickory Falls far behind.
-
-
Loved the book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-15-24
-
Holiday Hideaway
- A Short Story
- By: Mary Kay Andrews
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.
-
-
I ain’t afraid of no ghosts
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 10-31-24
By: Mary Kay Andrews
-
A Christmas Carol
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Hugh Grant
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1843, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean and unpleasant man who dislikes people generally and Christmas especially. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and given a glimpse of the many homes and lives which Scrooge has touched in his wretched life to date. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
-
-
Christmas Classic Given New Life
- By E-Hank3 on 12-26-20
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Signature Performance: Tim Curry rescues Charles Dickens from the jaws of Disney with his one-of-a-kind performance of the treasured classic. Our listeners loved this version so much that it inspired our whole line of Signature Classics.
-
-
Wonderful!!!
- By Alia on 12-11-09
By: Charles Dickens
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Plight Before Christmas
- By: Kate Stewart
- Narrated by: Joe Arden, Maxine Mitchell
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clark Griswold was onto something...at least with his annual holiday meltdown. And since the last three weeks of my life have been riddled with humbug—another breakup, a broken toe, an office promotion I deserved and didn’t get—I’m not at all in the mood to celebrate nor have the happ, happ, happiest Christmas EVER.
-
-
Gaslighting and games
- By FMC on 12-22-22
By: Kate Stewart
-
He's Gone
- By: Rebecca Collomosse
- Narrated by: Victoria Blunt, Cicely Whitehead, Joe Eyre
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My fiancé brought me tea and scrambled eggs in bed that morning, and we snuggled together, talking about buying our rings, and about our perfect wedding next year. Then we headed into town. He held my hand and gazed at the ring I liked best, a smile spreading slowly over his face. Then a glass of bubbly to celebrate. I felt flushed, excited and ready for the rest of my life with the man I loved. We race to get on the train home. It screams to a halt and I run towards its open doors. Made it. I think he’s right behind me — but when I turn around, he’s gone.
-
-
Disappointing plot
- By TerriSweeta on 12-04-24
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
-
-
The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
-
Dead Med
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Patricia Santomasso, Scott Merriman
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.
-
-
Hmm
- By Morgan Meaux on 08-22-24
By: Freida McFadden
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Time of the Child
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.
-
-
A slower start than This Is Happiness but then….wonderful.
- By Georgia Burns on 12-01-24
By: Niall Williams
-
Only Here, Only Now
- A Novel
- By: Tom Newlands
- Narrated by: Amelia Leith
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise in the cramped house. Gunner is kind but strange, too—a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy strikes shortly after, Cora rebels against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance, and a path to something good. If only she can learn to navigate her grief and everything she thinks she knows about who she is and what she might be capable of, she may finally find the way forward.
By: Tom Newlands
-
The Magnificent Ruins
- By: Nayantara Roy
- Narrated by: Deepa Samuel
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lila De is on the verge of a career breakthrough when she gets a call from her mother in Kolkata, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate–so she returns home after a decade with no contact. Her extended family isn’t so easy to win over, and to make matters worse, Lila is caught between her old boyfriend and her occasional lover–her star author–who suddenly wants to define the relationship. As Lila come to terms with both past and present, suppressed family secrets emerge, culminating in a shocking act of violence. Lila has no choice but to finally address her family.
-
-
Two worlds
- By susan tray on 12-17-24
By: Nayantara Roy
-
In the Distance
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Alexander Skarsgard
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels east in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing west. Driven back again and again, he meets criminals, naturalists, religious fanatics, swindlers, American Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Diaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre, offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness.
By: Hernan Diaz
-
Christmas Days
- 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
- By: Jeanette Winterson
- Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson, Imogen Church
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These tales open a portal into the spirit of the season, when time slows down and magic starts to happen. From trees with mysterious powers to a tinsel baby that talks, philosophical fairies to flying dogs, a haunted house to a disappearing train, Winterson's innovative stories encompass the childlike and spooky wonder of Christmas, perfect for listening to by the fire with loved ones or while traveling home for the holidays.
-
-
Spirited Christmas Listen
- By Sara on 12-30-17
-
Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book Set
- By: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Narrated by: Arina Ii, Kevin Shen
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would you do if you could travel back in time? Discover the internationally bestselling novels of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, now a worldwide phenomenon and BookTok sensation, in this special new book set. Step inside Tokyo’s whimsical Café Funiculi Funicula and travel back in time with a cast of unforgettable characters.
-
-
very profound, lost in translation?
- By Ashlyn C. on 10-06-23
-
Time of the Child
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care.
-
-
A slower start than This Is Happiness but then….wonderful.
- By Georgia Burns on 12-01-24
By: Niall Williams
-
Only Here, Only Now
- A Novel
- By: Tom Newlands
- Narrated by: Amelia Leith
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise in the cramped house. Gunner is kind but strange, too—a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy strikes shortly after, Cora rebels against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance, and a path to something good. If only she can learn to navigate her grief and everything she thinks she knows about who she is and what she might be capable of, she may finally find the way forward.
By: Tom Newlands
-
The Magnificent Ruins
- By: Nayantara Roy
- Narrated by: Deepa Samuel
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lila De is on the verge of a career breakthrough when she gets a call from her mother in Kolkata, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate–so she returns home after a decade with no contact. Her extended family isn’t so easy to win over, and to make matters worse, Lila is caught between her old boyfriend and her occasional lover–her star author–who suddenly wants to define the relationship. As Lila come to terms with both past and present, suppressed family secrets emerge, culminating in a shocking act of violence. Lila has no choice but to finally address her family.
-
-
Two worlds
- By susan tray on 12-17-24
By: Nayantara Roy
-
In the Distance
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Alexander Skarsgard
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels east in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing west. Driven back again and again, he meets criminals, naturalists, religious fanatics, swindlers, American Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Diaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre, offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness.
By: Hernan Diaz
-
Christmas Days
- 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
- By: Jeanette Winterson
- Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson, Imogen Church
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These tales open a portal into the spirit of the season, when time slows down and magic starts to happen. From trees with mysterious powers to a tinsel baby that talks, philosophical fairies to flying dogs, a haunted house to a disappearing train, Winterson's innovative stories encompass the childlike and spooky wonder of Christmas, perfect for listening to by the fire with loved ones or while traveling home for the holidays.
-
-
Spirited Christmas Listen
- By Sara on 12-30-17
-
Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book Set
- By: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Narrated by: Arina Ii, Kevin Shen
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would you do if you could travel back in time? Discover the internationally bestselling novels of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, now a worldwide phenomenon and BookTok sensation, in this special new book set. Step inside Tokyo’s whimsical Café Funiculi Funicula and travel back in time with a cast of unforgettable characters.
-
-
very profound, lost in translation?
- By Ashlyn C. on 10-06-23
-
Shy Creatures
- A Novel
- By: Clare Chambers
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The London suburb of Croydon, 1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she’s an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor. One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist.
-
-
Slow moving
- By Susan Carson on 12-13-24
By: Clare Chambers
-
The Last Dream
- By: Pedro Almodóvar
- Narrated by: Colman Domingo, Rachel Weisz, Juan Diego Botto, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Making his English language debut, the iconoclastic, two-time Academy award-winning writer and director reveals his singular mind as never before in this collection of twelve remarkable stories spanning memoir, comedy, autofiction, parody, pastiche, and gothic fiction.
By: Pedro Almodóvar
-
Private Rites
- A Novel
- By: Julia Armfield
- Narrated by: Hannah van der Westhuysen
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and old rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father, an architect as cruel as he was revered, dies. His death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will.
-
-
Outstanding ending
- By Amybooksit on 12-21-24
By: Julia Armfield
-
A Pale Light in the Black
- A NeoG Novel
- By: K. B. Wagers
- Narrated by: Marisha Tapera
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past year, their close loss in the annual Boarding Games has haunted Interceptor Team: Zuma’s Ghost. With this year’s competition looming, they’re looking forward to some payback - until an unexpected personnel change leaves them reeling. Their best swordsman has been transferred, and a new lieutenant has been assigned in his place. Maxine Carmichael is trying to carve a place in the world on her own - away from the pressure and influence of her powerful family. The last thing she wants is to cause trouble at her command on Jupiter Station.
-
-
Compelling take on military sci fi
- By A. Olson on 07-03-21
By: K. B. Wagers
-
She's Always Hungry
- Stories
- By: Eliza Clark
- Narrated by: Kevin Shen, Sam Stafford, Natalie Simpson, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Eliza Clark, the author of the brilliant novels Boy Parts and Penance and one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, comes a fierce, visionary and darkly comic story collection. A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.
-
-
Lttly Chitaly
- By Stephanie on 12-10-24
By: Eliza Clark
-
Rental House
- A Novel
- By: Weike Wang
- Narrated by: Jen Zhao
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife. Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation.
-
-
Weike Wang’s Best Yet
- By preschoolteacher on 12-14-24
By: Weike Wang
-
History of the Rain
- By: Niall Williams
- Narrated by: Jennifer McGrath
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces, and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to her father.
-
-
The language is astoundingly beautiful.
- By Kindle Customer on 05-30-17
By: Niall Williams
-
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
- By: Naomi Wood
- Narrated by: Lynsey Beauchamp
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things illuminates the lives of malicious, subversive, and untamed women. Exploring failed sisterhood, dubious parenting, and the dark side of modern love, this powerful and funny collection exposes how society wants women to behave, and shows what happens when they refuse.
By: Naomi Wood
-
Christmas with the Queen
- A Novel
- By: Hazel Gaynor, Heather Webb
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Gary Furlong, Esther Wane
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
December 1952. While the young Queen Elizabeth II finds her feet as the new monarch, she must also find the right words to continue the tradition of her late father’s Christmas Day radio broadcast. But even traditions must evolve with the times, and the queen faces a postwar Britain hungry for change.
-
-
Wonderful story and fantastic performances
- By J. Roan on 12-20-24
By: Hazel Gaynor, and others
-
The City and Its Uncertain Walls
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves.
-
-
Easily One of His Best, Maybe Even the Best
- By Buddy Lamorey on 11-24-24
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
We Were the Universe
- A Novel
- By: Kimberly King Parsons
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh, Justis Bolding
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit’s best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.
-
-
The author’s use of detail is exceptional
- By Jane Roth on 06-17-24
-
The Wood at Midwinter
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Susanna Clarke
- Length: 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods. One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.
-
-
Disappointment.
- By Elizabeth on 11-20-24
By: Susanna Clarke
What listeners say about Brightly Shining
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Denise
- 12-04-24
What? Christmas? More like depression!
I found this very depressing especially for a Christmas story. This is something you should read in the middle of the year. Definitely not a joyful book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!