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Beloved

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Beloved

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
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About this listen

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.

This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

©1987 Toni Morrison (P)1998 Random House, Inc. African American Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Haunted Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

“A masterwork. . . . Wonderful. . . . I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

“A triumph.” —Margaret Atwood, The New York Times Book Review

“Toni Morrison’s finest work. . . . [It] sets her apart [and] displays her prodigious talent.” —Chicago Sun-Times
All stars
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What a storyteller. What a story. And such a rich experience enhanced by the narrator. Life changing read.

unique, so warm, shocking and beautiful

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I had no expectations of this book and was blown away by its depth. Recommended.

A must read!

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such darkness wrapped in bittersweet poetry. A story of so much survival, struggle and dying. with so much inside, so much between the lines...I am mesmerized. if Toni Morrison could read to me forever...I would be happy. Such beautiful sadness. Too many emotions . just too many. she has a way of describing tiny tiny nuances of feeling. Gush gush.

mesmerizing

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this book is phenomenal and devastating- disturbing and stunning -beautiful. you already know you want to read it- and you will -and here this modern classic is read by the author herself. you couldn’t ask for a more perfect audiobook: her voice is soft and raspy and deep -her intonation for the different characters is subtle but clear.

an opportunity to hear the voice of a true genius read her work. wow. what an experience.

read by the late great Toni Morrison herself

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Wow what a story, Morrison made me really connect with her characters and feel what they felt. I truly felt proud of Denver and her growth towards the end of the story, that just goes to show the connection between the characters and the audience. I would recommend to anyone the language is simple enough for most readers to grasp, but the subtext can really make an advanced reader think, about what is being said. My only negative is the story seemed to jump around through time a bit, but while it is an annoyance of mine, it was still presented in a meaningful way, and at relevant times throughout the story.

Insightful

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A difficult book to listen to as it switches narrators and time frames without notice. The story feeds out in disjointed pieces - challenging but a good story. Loved the author's use of language and her poetic turn of phrase.
The narration was very slow and breathless which I initially felt created good atmosphere, but later found annoying so I slightly sped up the narration speed with good effect.

A challenging listen

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There are no words to describe how beautiful this novel is. Its voice and language and imagery are poetic. When read by Toni Morrison herself, it comes alive. I've fallen in love with this book all over again.

Sensational

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I’ve never read Morrison. I’d been meaning to for years and her death hastened the reading. It is such a strange world she shows us. An internal world of foreign logic.

Then her language - so simple and profound and yes, at times poetic.

Morrison has a wonderful reading voice, warm and comforting and calm even as she describes horrors. You can get lost in it. I did.

Beloved - a strange world

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Powerful beyond words. We too are like the clouds, real and ephemeral, shaped and true, yet pass and never reappear in precisely that form again. Replaced by others. Yet each is real, sometimes dark, menacing, beautiful. It is all captured here. Sublime!

Stunning

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The poetry of this book is mesmerising. The shocking depiction of slavery, death and escape is set amongst a landscape of beauty, strength and love. Toni Morrison’s reading of her work brings it all to life in a way that would be harder to do by reading the words alone. The story moves between time, place and narrator but even if threads remain dangling and hard to hold on to, it all comes together in a tapestry so rich and evocative it will be hard to forget.

Extraordinary, shocking and beautiful

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