-
The Hare with Amber Eyes
- A Hidden Inheritance
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $25.51
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
-
-
Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
-
Letters to Camondo
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Edmund de Waal
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters to Camondo is a collection of imaginary letters from Edmund de Waal to Moise de Camondo, the banker and art collector who created a spectacular house in Paris, now the Musée Nissim de Camondo, and filled it with the greatest private collection of French 18th-century art.
-
-
Fantastic book
- By Pamela C. Ronald on 02-24-22
By: Edmund de Waal
-
The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
-
-
A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
-
When Time Stopped
- A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains
- By: Ariana Neumann
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
-
-
yesterday as fresh as today
- By reader mother on 02-17-20
By: Ariana Neumann
-
The Candy House
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman, Nicole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is forty, with four kids, restless, and desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory.
-
-
She did it again!! Love it!
- By Monica on 04-07-22
By: Jennifer Egan
-
Cloud Cuckoo Land
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Simon Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
-
-
Academic Snobbery
- By TVR on 10-03-21
By: Anthony Doerr
-
The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
-
-
Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
-
Letters to Camondo
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Edmund de Waal
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters to Camondo is a collection of imaginary letters from Edmund de Waal to Moise de Camondo, the banker and art collector who created a spectacular house in Paris, now the Musée Nissim de Camondo, and filled it with the greatest private collection of French 18th-century art.
-
-
Fantastic book
- By Pamela C. Ronald on 02-24-22
By: Edmund de Waal
-
The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
-
-
A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
-
When Time Stopped
- A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains
- By: Ariana Neumann
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
-
-
yesterday as fresh as today
- By reader mother on 02-17-20
By: Ariana Neumann
-
The Candy House
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman, Nicole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is forty, with four kids, restless, and desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory.
-
-
She did it again!! Love it!
- By Monica on 04-07-22
By: Jennifer Egan
-
Cloud Cuckoo Land
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Simon Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
-
-
Academic Snobbery
- By TVR on 10-03-21
By: Anthony Doerr
-
The Lincoln Highway
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland, Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car.
-
-
I'm totally opposite
- By Meaghan Bynum on 10-10-21
By: Amor Towles
-
Horse
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse.
-
-
Love Geraldine Brooks
- By Regina on 06-25-22
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
The Magician
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice.
-
-
Terrific listening experience
- By M. Mead on 09-17-21
By: Colm Toibin
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
-
-
Memorable novel
- By Mark on 12-02-17
By: Amor Towles
-
Craft
- An American History
- By: Glenn Adamson
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking and endlessly surprising history of how artisans created America, from the nation’s origins to the present day. At the center of the United States’ economic and social development, according to conventional wisdom, are industry and technology - while craftspeople and handmade objects are relegated to a bygone past. Renowned historian Glenn Adamson turns that narrative on its head in this innovative account, revealing makers’ central role in shaping America’s identity.
-
-
Great book full of useful information skillfully woven together
- By Aida on 09-22-21
By: Glenn Adamson
-
The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
-
-
Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
By: Joshua Cohen
-
Trust
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Long buildup to tepid ending
- By tpritch on 05-21-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Best Narration I have heard-magnificent story
- By Felicity Xenia Spamotic on 12-02-15
By: Donna Tartt
-
House on Endless Waters
- A Novel
- By: Emuna Elon
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to promote his books, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Historical Museum with his wife, Yoel stumbles upon footage portraying prewar Dutch Jewry and is astonished to see the youthful face of his beloved mother staring back at him, posing with his father, his older sister…and an infant he doesn’t recognize.
-
-
Interesting, worth the listen, but not great.
- By Npleaf on 02-11-20
By: Emuna Elon
-
People of the Book
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Edwina Wren
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in 15th-century Spain.
When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding - an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair - only begin to unlock its deep mysteries.
-
-
tremendously done
- By Cindyhasitall on 03-07-10
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
The Invisible Bridge
- By: Julie Orringer
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 27 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter’s recipient, he becomes privy to a secret history that will alter the course of his own life. Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europe’s unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty.
-
-
Excellent story - improvable on narration
- By Dieter on 11-13-11
By: Julie Orringer
-
All the Light We Cannot See
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Zach Appelman
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
-
-
4.72 stars......one of the best
- By james on 08-08-17
By: Anthony Doerr
Publisher's Summary
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in 19th-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox.
The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection. The netsuke—drunken monks, almost-ripe plums, snarling tigers—were gathered by Charles Ephrussi at the height of the Parisian rage for all things Japanese. Charles had shunned the place set aside for him in the family business to make a study of art, and of beautiful living. An early supporter of the Impressionists, he appears, oddly formal in a top hat, in Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. Marcel Proust studied Charles closely enough to use him as a model for the aesthete and lover Swann in Remembrance of Things Past.
Charles gave the carvings as a wedding gift to his cousin Viktor in Vienna; his children were allowed to play with one netsuke each while they watched their mother, the Baroness Emmy, dress for ball after ball. Her older daughter grew up to disdain fashionable society. Longing to write, she struck up a correspondence with Rilke, who encouraged her in her poetry.
The Anschluss changed their world beyond recognition. Ephrussi and his cosmopolitan family were imprisoned or scattered, and Hitler’s theorist on the “Jewish question” appropriated their magnificent palace on the Ringstrasse. A library of priceless books and a collection of Old Master paintings were confiscated by the Nazis. But the netsuke were smuggled away by a loyal maid, Anna, and hidden in her straw mattress. Years after the war, she would find a way to return them to the family she’d served even in their exile.
In The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal unfolds the story of a remarkable family and a tumultuous century. Sweeping yet intimate, it is a highly original meditation on art, history, and family, as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Hare with Amber Eyes
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SB Price
- 01-19-12
A vagabond through history, clutching a tiny carvi
"Hare With The Amber Eyes" is a perfect book for someone interested in art history, family history, and the stories our stuff have to tell. That would be me.
Author Edmund de Waal is a ceramics artist, raised in a Church of England family. When he inherits a collection of netsuke (tiny Japanese carvings) from his great-uncle Iggy, he sets out to tell their story. This draws him into a two-year "vagabond" in which he explores his mother's side of the family. She is from one of the great Russian-Jewish merchant/banking families of Europe -- the Ephrussis.
The subtitle is "A Family's Century of Art and Loss." When the netsuke collection was acquired in the 1870s, in Paris, the Ephrussis were the toast of the town, mingling with authors like Proust and many of the Impressionist painters. But anti-Semitism lurks beneath the surface. The netsuke are sent as a wedding present to a nephew in Vienna, just as Hitler is beginning his rise.
Nothing remains but the stories. This is the theme, I think. Families come and go. Dynasties rise and fall. A few trinkets get passed along. We want their stories. De Waal does a beautiful job of following his curiosity, walking (as literally as he can) in his ancestors footsteps through Japan, Paris, Vienna, and Odessa. He's lucky in that his family was famous, so there is documentation of them everywhere. But instead of being overwhelmed with the details, he uses the netsuke -- and the family love of art -- to pull together a strong narrative.
The book also explores our attachment to our possessions -- most dramatically when the Nazis march through Vienna seizing property from the wealthy Jews, snatching their works of art and meticulously cataloging them for "Aryan" museums. The meaning of being dispossessed, of losing everything, came home to me. Like it or not, our possessions are us.
I originally downloaded the book on Kindle, but couldn't find the time to settle into it. So I wound up downloading it from Audible. Michael Maloney's reading immediately engaged me.
42 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathryn
- 01-26-12
An Amazing Read
This non-fiction audiobook "reads" as a fiction book in the sense that it holds one's attention without bogging the reader down with dry minutiae. Each person in the recounting came to life in such a way that I still think of them.
It was fascinating to learn about this interesting and accomplished family and its fate, told in part through the travels of a collection of netsuke over two centuries.I was sad when the story came to an end, as the listening was so enjoyable.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Miriam
- 07-28-12
Intriguing read
Would you listen to The Hare with Amber Eyes again? Why?
No, I enjoyed it fully. Now time to spread the word about this amazing journey.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Hare with Amber Eyes?
Many suprises!
Which scene was your favorite?
Do I really have to limit it to one? The story isnt really structured that way. Its the experience of the whole book that matters.
Any additional comments?
Narration is very good. It did take me a little while to settle into it but once I did, could not stop listening. Now its done and I feel bereft. The sadness of finishing a truly absorbing story.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Katherine
- 04-17-15
Not for me
Another reviewer summed it up best, I think: "too much and too little". Too much of things that I didn't find compelling and not enough of what I do find compelling. I didn't finish it, stopping around Chapter 3 in the 1870's. A family member sent me the family tree from the book, which was helpful, but I just wasn't finding the people or the time periods came to life enough to make it something I cared about. The narrator seemed great and had superior French pronunciation!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Greg
- 10-09-12
Thoroughly absorbing despite major narrator flaw
What made the experience of listening to The Hare with Amber Eyes the most enjoyable?
Listening to the story of the Ephrussi family took me to so much history that is interesting to me: art and collecting in the Impressionist period, the Jews in France and Austria, and the lives of people who help define and participate in their times. The personal journey of the author in learning about his family was beautifully described.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Hare with Amber Eyes?
Each period of the story was memorable: the relationship of Charles Ephrussi with the Impressionists and with Proust, the hideous fulmination of Viennese anti-Semitism, the relationship of the author with his great uncle in Japan.
What aspect of Michael Maloney’s performance would you have changed?
His inaccurate pronunciation of the word "netsuke." Considering that the journey of the netsuke collection is the core of the story and that it is the most important single word in the story, it is hard to understand how the pronunciation was overlooked.
There was a podcast with the author at the end of the book. He says the word correctly, of course, and that just made the error worse.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, if I had that much time! I listened in huge chunks of time while I was working. It is also so good that I was sorry when it ended.
Any additional comments?
The book reads like a really good work of fiction which made it even more amazing that it is a true story.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lectrice
- 02-08-14
Better than the printed version IMO
If you could sum up The Hare with Amber Eyes in three words, what would they be?
Sumptuous historical mystery!
What did you like best about this story?
Michael Maloney is a superb narrator for this wonderful multi-faceted historical family memoir. Got the book in whisper-sync and read it half-and-half on kindle app and listened. Maloney has the golden voice of a Shakespearean actor (sounds a bit like Richard Burton but not nearly as hammy) and reads the book with great flair and enthusiasm, so that even the occasional dry parts with the lists of endless objects in the Ephrussi households are very engaging to listen to. One of the nicest voices of any narrator I have listened to so far.
The story itself is gripping--I had a certain interest in netsuke (though knew little), but found myself completely engrossed and fascinated in all sections of the book except maybe the epilogue, where de Waal describes how he can't let go of the book; he's already made that obvious, so I don't think he needed to add that little bit, but it was interesting to hear him make the analogy with his pottery making, which is always about letting go of the beautiful objects that he sells.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Most moving was the takeover by the Nazis of the Palais Ephrussi in Vienna. This old couple are suddenly prisoners in 2 little windowless rooms of this fantastic fairytale palace, and even though they can exit the grounds, there is no place where Jews are allowed anywhere in the whole city--not even a park bench! Very touching. Also touching is the return of the netsuke to a prominent place in the elegant living room of Uncle Iggie, the author's great uncle, in his elegant house in Tokyo.
Any additional comments?
Will look for more books narrated by Michael Maloney.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Linda
- 03-26-20
Small yet important detail
The author describes very well the small Japanese art objects that the family love, collect, and pass on to Uncle Iggy and his nephew Edmund. . The narrator pronounces the name for the objects " net-SOO-keh." That is how it's spelled in the Western
alphabet - "netsuke"
When I went to Japan a year after hearing this book, I asked many Japanese people where
to view net-SOO-keh. No one knew what I was talking about. Finally I showed someone a picture and the word
in English. "oh, you are not saying it correctly. It is pronounced NET-SKEH. We do not pronounce the U after the S sound"
The next time the book is narrated, please give the narrator this tip.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Doggy Bird
- 05-14-13
Fascinating story, unusual focus
This story focuses on 'netsuke', tiny Japanese carvings which were fashionable in Paris during La Belle Epoque. The narrative wanders among the lives of the family who owned a particular collection of netsuke through Paris, Vienna and Tokyo with a few stops in other cities for background. Because the family was one of the wealthy Jewish banking families of the late 19th century and early 20th century, the story of the 'netsuke' illuminates some of the significant political, economic and cultural trends in which the family was involved,. In particular the role of the first Effrusi owner of the 'bibelots' in the high culture of Paris at the turn of the century is examined in letters and novels of the period. The story then travels to the transformation of Vienna from the capital of a splendid empire to the forefront of National Socialism, and makes a stop in the postwar period in Japan. The role of the objects we own and value is examined from multiple planes, much like through different sides of a prism.
I found the book very satisfying but found the performance frustrating at times. It was well read in terms of speed but the tone was at times overly dramatic. Also, the accent of the narrator was very pleasing and upper class (which matched the narrative) but he gets a bit carried away with the sound of his own voice and this sometimes distracted from the story. I have actually purchased a copy of the book because I would just like to read the story without the dramatic intonation. And despite sounding like he has an ear for languages, the narrator misprounounces a LOT of the foreign words, including 'netsuke'. If you listen to the podcast interview that follows the book, the pronunciation by the author and the interviewer makes it clear that it is mispronounced throughout the book. That was my only complaint with this recording. HIghly recommended book otherwise, especially for anyone interested in turn of the century culture and art.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jclark
- 10-30-12
Well worth the read
If you could sum up The Hare with Amber Eyes in three words, what would they be?
subtle textured surprising
Who was your favorite character and why?
narrator
What does Michael Maloney bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
his ability to speak the many languages employed throughout - gives you a sense of place
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
a family epic like none other
Any additional comments?
Don't stop after the first 100 pages! This is a slow start, but then it just picks up and sweeps you away.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hasmi
- 03-26-12
Stunning Story and Narration
What did you love best about The Hare with Amber Eyes?
When I heard about this book, my son was working on a family history project at school and we had just discovered that his grandmother had squirrelled away a family tree that dated back to 1460. Fascinated by seeing names of 17 generations and not knowing anything about them, I was drawn to The Hare with the Amber Eyes.
You won't be disappointed! This book is beautifully written, lyrical, moving. Michael Maloney's narration is perfect, his cadence enhancing the natural rhythm of the writing. It is a personal story of a family but it is also a story of this family's place in time and history, a story of the world outside the family and how events shaped the legacy and affected every individual that came before Edmund. The Hare with the Amber Eyes is one of the best books that I have read or listened to in the last 12 months. I highly recommend it.
What did you like best about this story?
The writing and the narration.
Have you listened to any of Michael Maloney???s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No.
6 people found this helpful