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The Orphan Master's Son
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee, Adam Johnson
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2013
An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”
Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master’s Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, The Orphan Master’s Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today’s greatest writers.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Beginning in the summer of 1939, 14-year-old Jacob Koopman and his older brother, Edwin, enjoy lives of prosperity and quiet contentment. Many of the residents in their small Dutch town have some connection to the Koopman lightbulb factory, and the locals hold the family in high esteem. On days when they aren't playing with friends, Jacob and Edwin help their uncle Martin on his fishing boat in the North Sea, where German ships have become a common sight. When war breaks out, Jacob's world is thrown into chaos.
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Not a typical World War II story
- By Marsha L. Woerner on 01-31-18
By: Devin Murphy
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A Flag for Sunrise
- By: Robert Stone
- Narrated by: Stephen Lang
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Possessed of astonishing dramatic, emotional, and philosophical resonance, A Flag for Sunrise is a novel in the grand tradition about Americans drawn into the maelstrom of a small Central American country on the brink of revolution. From the book's inception, listeners will be seized by the dangers and nightmare suspense of life lived on the rim of a political volcano.
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A towering achievement
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By: Robert Stone
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I, Who Did Not Die
- A Sweeping Story of Loss, Redemption, and Fate
- By: Zahed Haftlang, Najah Aboud
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
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Overall
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Story
Khorramshahr, Iran, May 1982 - It was the bloodiest battle of one of the most brutal wars of the twentieth century, and Najah, a 29-year-old wounded Iraqi conscript, was face to face with a 13-year-old Iranian child soldier who was ordered to kill him. Instead, the boy committed an astonishing act of mercy. It was an act that decades later would save his own life.
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- By jennie on 04-10-24
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The Seas
- By: Samantha Hunt, Maggie Nelson - introduction
- Narrated by: Samantha Hunt
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit. She's often the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean 11 years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid.
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bizarre and interesting.
- By Sadie on 03-11-21
By: Samantha Hunt, and others
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The Cider House Rules
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 24 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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From one of America's most beloved and respected writers comes the classic story of Homer Wells, an orphan, and Wilbur Larch, a doctor without children of his own, who develop an extraordinary bond with one another.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-02-07
By: John Irving
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White Dog Fell from the Sky
- By: Eleanor Morse
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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!
- By Kathi on 03-15-13
By: Eleanor Morse
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The Last King of Scotland
- By: Giles Foden
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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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
- By James on 01-24-07
By: Giles Foden
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
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- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
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Overall
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Tigerman
- By: Nick Harkaway
- Narrated by: Matt Bates
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
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Overall
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Lester Ferris needs a rest. He's spent his life being shot at, and Afghanistan was the last stop on his road to exhaustion. Mancreu is the ideal place for Lester to relax. A former British colony, soon to be destroyed because of its very special version of toxic pollution. But Lester Ferris makes a friend: a street kid with a comicbook fixation who will need a home - who might, Lester hopes, become an adopted son. But in a place like Mancreu, just what sort of hero will the boy need?
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Slow start - but very touching
- By Cath on 08-25-14
By: Nick Harkaway
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Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
- By: Kelly Link - editor, Gavin J. Grant - editor
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, and intrepid orphans - decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots - solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
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MMMM, Orca Bacon
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 09-14-13
By: Kelly Link - editor, and others
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Oil on Water
- By: Helon Habila
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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
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The Patriots
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- By: Sana Krasikov
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
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Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
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Bullet in the Brain
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Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....
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The Perfect Example
- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
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What listeners say about The Orphan Master's Son
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-12-16
Horrors of the ghost country
While I am as happy as the next guy to see someone poke the teeny fluffy dear leader in the eye, or beat his fat ass at his own game, I found this book to be big on needlessly disgusting descriptions of mutilation, torture and other unspeakable horrors.
That said; the Orphan Masters Son was an eye opener. It was fascinating, well researched and most of the stories smacked of absolute truth..
The descriptions of the camps and the limits of human endurance will haunt my dreams. What was more frightening was the depiction of the dreary horror of the every day struggle for physical survival and mental health - given that the society has taken away "the self" via endless invasive daily piped in propaganda and a life lived in fear
How do we combat crimes against humanity perpetrated against an entire country?
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3 people found this helpful
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- W Perry Hall
- 03-14-14
Back in the DPRK, Don't Know How Lucky U Say, Boy
I purchased the Kindle version of this when it was published. I gave up after 75 pages, believing it too dark and foreign for me to care much about it.
Then, Adam Johnson was awarded the Pulitzer Price in Fiction for 2013 for this novel, and I exclaimed, Good Grief! I bought the audiobook version, had to start over and gave up again around the same point.
For whatever reason though, I repurchased the audiobook, pulled out the Kindle version and made one more stab. Not 10 pages after my stopping point, I became interested and then I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.
And, I cannot laud it highly enough to do it justice in my book. Excellent development of characters and subtext to perfectly place of the reader in another world and a wonderful story that seemed so real (based loosely on one that is). The representation of North Korean life and the dictatorship made the story all the more profound and effective. Consider, for example, the news within the past 6 months that the Kim Jong Un had 9 orchestra members executed to squash rumors that his wife, a singer, was "friendly" prior to marrying the Jong Un.
A quote in the book relating life in North Korea:
“I wonder of what you must daily endure in America, having no government to protect you, no one to tell you what to do. Is it true you're given no ration card, that you must find food for yourself? Is it true that you labor for no higher purpose than paper money? What is California, this place you come from? I have never seen a picture. What plays over the American loudspeakers, when is your curfew, what is taught at your child-rearing collectives? Where does a woman go with her children on Sunday afternoons, and if a woman loses her husband, how does she know the government will assign her a good replacement? With whom would she curry favor to ensure her children got the best Youth Troop leader?”
***
This novel has adventure, suspense, a great literary structure and even some romance:
“They’re about a woman whose beauty is like a rare flower. There is a man who has a great love for her, a love he’s been saving up for his entire life, and it doesn’t matter that he must make a great journey to her, and it doesn’t matter if their time together is brief, that afterward he might lose her, for she is the flower of his heart and nothing will keep him from her.”
>>>>
I loved this book. The parts with Kim Jong-il gave me goosebumps and were scary funny.
This is the best book I've read/listened to in quite a few years. Sometimes perseverence pays, particularly in audiobooks. I probably wouldn't have finished this if I'd had to pick back up the book in print instead of just turning up the audio version on the way to and from work.
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- meredith mcarthur
- 07-30-12
too depressing to continue with
Listening to this reminds me of just how sad and corrupt the state of North Korea
must be, where children and women are treated as commodities, and where survival is a matter of conformity to a corrupt and heartless regime
I suppose it would have got better if I had have kept going. But the negativity and hardship just got to me, and I couldn't finish it.
It has been reviewed very well elsewhere, so perhaps my take on it is not accurate.
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- Constance J. Whitesell
- 06-02-12
Storytelling at its best
I can't remember when I've read or listened to anything quite as stunning as The Orphan Master's Son. First, I listened to "Escape From Camp 14" -- the nonfiction account of the only soul ever to escape a North Korean prison camp. Then I moved on to The Orphan Master's Son, a superb novel that spoon-feeds its reader with the bizaare reality that defines life inside North Korea. This novel is transfixing, profound, chilling, beautiful. Do I recommend it? Oh, yes.
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- Marianne
- 08-30-12
Loved it!
Would you listen to The Orphan Master's Son again? Why?
I already have started listening to it for a second time. Tim Kang's vocal performance is absolutely first rate. The tone color of his voice is warm and easy to listen to. The various "voices" he uses for the different characters are amazing.
What did you like best about this story?
It's a love story, a thriller and a political narrative all at the same time.
Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?
Jun Do.
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- Chris Perkins
- 02-01-17
Brutal allegory set in North Korea
The fictional life story of an orphan in an oppressive totalitarian state. Fascinating, violent and well narrated.
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- Andrea
- 12-07-13
What a great story!
Would you listen to The Orphan Master's Son again? Why?
What an amazing story! Excellent storytelling. It may take a bit to get into due to subject matter but if you stay with it, it is so rewarding. Easily my favorite audio book in a LONG time.
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- Angie
- 05-31-13
Very interesting portrait of North Korea
This story was really engaging and a bit frightening if this is really how life is in North Korea. The paranoia, the games, the "rehabilitation camps" the propaganda is so cold war it is hard to believe that this still exists. I immediately cared about the characters and couldn't wait to continue the story each time I had to stop the book.
The narrators were really excellent as well. The added alot to the story and really added life to the story. I am interested to read more from this author and this story made me want to learn more about this mysterious and dangerous place called North Korea.
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- Mike W Reid
- 01-21-18
Narrator nails on chalk board
Incredible story. I really enjoyed it but one of narrators was really hard for me to listen to.
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- cool cat
- 02-08-17
Insightful
Dark is the tale of North Korean life.
If it's anything like this, thank your lucky stars you are free.
Interesting characters with grit, beauty, depth and tragedy. A heavy read. It's going to stay with me for a long time. Maybe forever. That may be a sign of a great book. You just cant shake it. Powerful.
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