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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
- By Skeptical on 04-24-11
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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Performance
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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
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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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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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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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
- 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
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Performance
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Story
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
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes, Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus, and others
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- Unabridged
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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
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- 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 Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
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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
- By: Tobias Wolff
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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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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- Kera
- 06-30-13
An American writer captures North Korea
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Most good books have a few quotable lines that reach deep into your soul and connect with a life situation or tragedy or joy that you have felt attaching you to the truth. This book is a journey of truths. Each page an oyster bearing pearls from characters steeped in the fire of an unholy dictatorship.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Jun Do cracks open and delivers many of the oyster's pearls of wisdom as he faces a life dictated by the danger that comes from the great leader of North Korea and his forces. Travel writer Jamaica Kincaid wrote that writers often, "begin with a broken heart sometimes, a tender heart fractured, its sweet matter bejeweled with the sharp slivers of a special pain." If Adam Johnson did not have a broken heart when he began to write perhaps he tapped into the heart of every North Korean who suffers abuse and delivered to us a hero named Jun Do.
Any additional comments?
If you connected with Stieg Larsson's, Lisbeth Salander in his trilogy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo you are certainly ripe for the beauty that is Jun Do and his plight of a tragic yet victorious life.
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- Virginia Rendon
- 04-10-15
Even better the second time
This is my second time listening to this book. It's very well written and very well perform I enjoyed it the first time and will continue to enjoy it for many more years to come. The only thing I have to say on a sad note is there are no other books by this author.
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- juanacas88
- 02-04-15
Un pais zombi bajo el yugo de un tirano
escalofriante relato de como extirpar lo que nos hace diferente a los demas seres vivos
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- Loretta
- 02-18-15
Truth verses freedom
This book gives you a perspective on what truly is freedom. And how we see truth ...what truth really is.
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- Brigham
- 12-15-15
It Went From Well Written To Pulitzer Prize Worthy
At first, I was impressed with this story. It began compelling and interesting. Then approximately 1/3 - 1/2 into the book, it really took a jump from well written to Pulitzer Prize-deserving. From that point, the story earned its place atop my five-star shelf.
For those who have spent time interested in, or as students of North Korea, this will be particularly thrilling for you. The nature of the story seems so realistic against the true life stories shared by defectors from the DPRK.
What's more, this novel was released two years prior to the release of "Dear Leader" which convincingly (a true story) bears the realities of the Kim dynasty in North Korea and the mannerisms of Kim Jung-il. How Johnson came to personify Kim Jung-il with the realism he was able, verified by the Poet-Laureate of the DPRK is fabulous.
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23 people found this helpful
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- fred
- 01-27-12
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson!
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson!
I read a lot. I read a diverse cross-section of fiction. And I am telling you that I have NEVER read anything like Adam Johnson's novel, The Orphan Master's Son. And I'll cut to the chase here and tell you that it knocked my socks right off!
The novel is the story of Pak Jun Do, the eponymous orphan master's son. Jun Do spends the novel explaining to people that despite his orphan's name and upbringing in an orphanage, that he is not an orphan. Although he is not parented well, or for long. "All orphans are destined for the Army eventually. But this was how Jun Do, at fourteen, became a tunnel soldier, trained in the art of zero-light combat."
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- Rhea
- 09-13-13
More, more, more, PLEASE!!!!!!
Buy this book. I dont normally read fiction but this book was top notch. North Korea is such a great topic setting for a book. I LOVED IT.
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- Miss
- 07-02-13
Captivating and considered
The audio in this book is flawless. The readers draw you in with their subtly and nuance.
While the story takes a turn after the Texan event that initially seems implausible, the last third of the book makes it all unfold so well that you are left thinking about the amazing complexity of Kim Jung Il as a person who propagates such a society, eve if most of it is fiction.
The story has set me on a path to read/listen to more books about North Korea so I can garner a greater appreciation of this mysterious country.
A must...
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- Sue
- 02-03-14
Awesome book!
The narration, hands down, is outstanding. It adds so much to the book.
As much as others have reviewed this book as being about the horrors of North Korea, to me, at its core is a love story. The interregator's love for his parents...and a man's love for "his" wife and children... And the lengths they will go to for that love. What would you do in a land of no hope and oppression for the ones you love?
This is one of the few books that I have listened to that I would enjoy listening to again to enjoy all of the literary nuances one more time.
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- Colorado-reader
- 09-14-13
THE Most Important Fiction You will EVER Read!
Would you listen to The Orphan Master's Son again? Why?
Yes. Absolutely. It's important to remember that evil is dangerous and does exist in humans and their governments; those who believe that "making nice" with evil will bring the world to peace are naive, and perhaps equally as dangerous.
What other book might you compare The Orphan Master's Son to and why?
The Gulag Archipelago was arguably as important, but the Orphan Master's Son is much more engaging and easily read. Read it as non-fiction. Then think twice about chemical weapons.
Which scene was your favorite?
The scenes portraying the families' fear of each other within the family. The scenes of North Koreans holding themselves as superior to all others and stealing citizens of other countries. These are not folk tales.
My own father told me these stories in the mid-1970s as an explanation as to why we should NEVER have a treaty with North Korea. I was a naive "Peace-nic" and thought he must be exaggerating.
He was an intelligence officer (translate: spy) who won metals for discovering the very secret tunnels used as described in this book.
If you could rename The Orphan Master's Son, what would you call it?
The Other Reality. Yes, they really do believe that all other countries are evil and inferior. They also have no qualms about destroying each and every one of us.
Any additional comments?
Please know that I was tear-gassed during Viet-Nam war protests and do not regret it. That said, this book should be read by every American and citizen of the free world. These people are dangerous. Adam Johnson has an important message for us and we should take it very seriously.
This book deserves the awards it received!
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