Moon Tiger

By: Penelope Lively

Narrated by: Ruth Urquhart

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Man Booker Prize

Penelope Lively won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for this deeply moving, elegantly structured novel.

Elderly, uncompromising Claudia Hampton lies in a London hospital bed with memories of life fluttering through her fading consciousness. An author of popular history, Claudia proclaims she's carrying out her last project: a history of the world. This history turns out to be a mosaic of her life, her own story tangled with those of her brother, her lover and father of her daughter, and the center of her life, Tom, her one great love found and lost in war-torn Egypt.

Always the independent woman, often with contentious relationships, Claudia's personal history is complex and fascinating. As people visit Claudia, they shake and twist the mosaic, changing speed, movement, and voice, to reveal themselves and Claudia's impact on their world.

©1987 Penelope Lively (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Excellent story marred by performance

One of my biggest pet peeves is audiobook narrators who don't do their homework in learning the correct pronunciations of words, particularly proper names, in the books they record. In this case the Yugoslavian dictator Tito (tee-to) was rendered as Tie-to; the U.S. state of Iowa became ee-OH-wa, and any French word including the diphthong "oi" (pronounced "wah," as in Miss Piggy's "moi") became OY, to name but a few. I did think the reader's choices of voice for different characters was generally quite well done.
The book itself is very fine, as the recollections at the end of life of a strong and independent woman who, when gutted by the loss of her great love, becomes yet stronger and more independent in her relations with her family.

LOVED THIS BOOK, POOR NARRATION

Usually when the narration of a book is this bad, I don't bother to finish the audiobook. However, this is such a wonderful book and I have so little time to sit in a chair and read I was forced to finish the audiobook despite how the narrator grated on me. I'm so glad I was able to do so. This is SUCH A WONDERFUL MEANINGFUL book and I enjoyed it so much. I have a paperback copy and I look forward to reading it in two weeks on a long eight hour flight I have planned. However the narrator delivers this test in both a singsong and breathless voice for the main character that is so annoying it really took me quite a while to get beyond how poorly done it was. This is the first time I have read Penelope Lively although I have been meaning to do so for years and have a number of her books awaiting my attention on shelves. Hopefully some of the other audiobooks available will have better narrators as well. This particular book won a Booker Prize in 1987 - and one can easily see why, it's a profound and moving memoir of a woman's experience and love told from her deathbed in poetic bursts of memory through other characters and her own thoughts. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the book - I can't wait to read it again and savor it even more.

I LOVED THIS STORY !

This is a powerful, beautiful, haunting and real work. The narrator is excellent and brings the already vivid characters to the life they deserve in the listening. I must admit I was first drawn to the title of the book and the beauty of the cover, but am so glad for that. In a world without enough ways for celebrating strong women, this story adds another level of exploration. I was mesmerized. When the story ended I wanted more. Do not miss this one !

Great audiobook 😊

Did I hear that right? This book was written in 1987? How am I just now reading this book? I read reviews that stated some readers felt as though Claudia was a self absorbed person and maybe even narcissistic but I don’t agree with those opinions I think Claudia is passionate about what interests her and there’s nothing wrong with that imho overall this is a fabulous read with a great narrator 😄

An Epic Story

A brilliant story with so many threads and extraordinary characters. My only critique is that the reader chose a rather querilous voice for tge1

stunning beauty

intricate description and a veritable dance between the present and the past as a frail woman finds herself as a part of the history of the world.

Makes me wish I had been a reporter in WWII

Exciting, free life of a woman quietly determined to live her own life. I only wish I'd had the confidence to live the life I wanted instead of the life expected of a woman in the early 60's.
Very well written, rather more moving than I expected it to be. I love being surprised like that. Penelope Lively is a new favorite author now.

Again and even more as i, too, age

The hero here is narrative. The word. The story. C’s story and Tom’s, hers and Gordon’s, her husband (jasper), her mother, her child, her Hungarian refugee and all the smaller characters like the unknowing nurses, the disinvolved doctor.

She is a writer, Tom (we learn late) is a writer, Life is suddenly everywhere, a beautiful miracle, and death also everywhere with its awful, total stillness.

What is the sense of it all? How are we to make sense of it?

Gorgeous Story

This is definitely one of the best audiobooks I’ve listened to. The scope of the writing is wide but the author still managed to create characters that I cared about and who were interesting.
Lovely writing, easy to envision the scenes and just an excellent tempo. The narrator does an excellent job, though, at times, I could imagine different inflections that I would have preferred— it just seemed a bit wooden, sometimes, especially with the male voices. But I really appreciated being read to, otherwise I might not have found the time to enjoy this very worthwhile book!

Too much about nothing

Both the content and audio performance were overly excited. It was too much ado about nothing much.