Listen free for 30 days
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.22
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
The Secret Life of Bees
- Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-01-19
Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
-
The Book of Longings
- A Novel
- Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with 18-year-old Jesus changes everything.
-
-
Breathtakingly rich, nuanced and interesting
- By Jackie Greenizan on 2020-05-10
Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
-
The Mermaid Chair
- Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.
-
-
Love the writing
- By patricia on 2022-08-04
Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
-
The Only Woman in the Room
- Written by: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.
-
-
One amazing woman
- By L. Fullerton on 2021-06-22
Written by: Marie Benedict
-
Stay with Me
- A Novel
- Written by: Ayobami Adebayo
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: Polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage - after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures - Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time - until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife.
-
-
TERRIBLE NARRATOR
- By Thina on 2020-11-04
Written by: Ayobami Adebayo
-
The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- Written by: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
-
-
Too Slow - Too descriptive
- By Jaime Larre on 2021-08-31
Written by: Nathan Harris
-
The Secret Life of Bees
- Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-01-19
Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
-
The Book of Longings
- A Novel
- Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with 18-year-old Jesus changes everything.
-
-
Breathtakingly rich, nuanced and interesting
- By Jackie Greenizan on 2020-05-10
Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
-
The Mermaid Chair
- Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.
-
-
Love the writing
- By patricia on 2022-08-04
Written by: Sue Monk Kidd
-
The Only Woman in the Room
- Written by: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.
-
-
One amazing woman
- By L. Fullerton on 2021-06-22
Written by: Marie Benedict
-
Stay with Me
- A Novel
- Written by: Ayobami Adebayo
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: Polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage - after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures - Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time - until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife.
-
-
TERRIBLE NARRATOR
- By Thina on 2020-11-04
Written by: Ayobami Adebayo
-
The Sweetness of Water (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- Written by: Nathan Harris
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
-
-
Too Slow - Too descriptive
- By Jaime Larre on 2021-08-31
Written by: Nathan Harris
-
The Kitchen House
- A Novel
- Written by: Kathleen Grissom
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food while guided by the quiet strength and love of her new family. In time Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master's opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart.
-
-
Impressive
- By JAG on 2021-11-13
Written by: Kathleen Grissom
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- Written by: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
-
-
I wanted to like it more
- By CKH Vancouver on 2023-04-20
Written by: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
-
The Women of Chateau Lafayette
- Written by: Stephanie Dray
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Emma Bering, Rachel L. Jacobs
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic saga from New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy.
-
-
6 stars!
- By Anonymous User on 2024-02-13
Written by: Stephanie Dray
-
The Yellow Wife
- A Novel
- Written by: Sadeqa Johnson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre.
-
-
When trusting your gut goes right insteada lef
- By Nicole Bee on 2021-01-14
Written by: Sadeqa Johnson
-
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
- A Novel
- Written by: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car - strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away.
-
-
painful until the end, then finally awesome
- By Allison J on 2021-08-15
Written by: Marie Benedict
-
Circling the Sun
- A Novel
- Written by: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This powerful novel transports listeners to the breathtaking world of Out of Africa—1920s Kenya—and reveals the extraordinary adventures of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time. Brought to Kenya from England by pioneering parents dreaming of a new life on an African farm, Beryl is raised unconventionally, developing a fierce will and a love of all things wild.
-
-
Into and out of Africa
- By Sarah on 2021-08-06
Written by: Paula McLain
Publisher's Summary
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women.
Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection.
Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.
As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.
Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.
This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.
What the critics say
“A remarkable novel that heightened my sense of what it meant to be a woman - slave or free... a conversation changer.” (Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine)
“Exhilarating...powerful...By humanizing these formidable women, The Invention of Wings furthers our essential understanding of what has happened among us as Americans - and why it still matters.” (The Washington Post)
“A textured masterpiece, quietly yet powerfully poking our consciences and our consciousness... leaves us feeling uplifted and hopeful.” (NPR)
More from the same
What listeners say about The Invention of Wings
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-06-10
It was a nice story
The only reason why I give the story itself Three stars is because I wish that Sarah could’ve achieved her dreams and I would’ve liked to read about handful being settled and free. Plus I wish that handful. Plus I wish Sarah would’ve stayed close handful even though nina was close to Sarah
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- candice
- 2022-06-06
Spectacular Book
I so enjoyed The Secret Life of Bees, so was looking forward to this book. It was as good as, if not even better, absolutely beautiful. The characters were based on real people and events that actually happened, along which the author’s brilliant imagination… woven together in a bittersweet story with characters I will miss in my daily read ! The narration by 2 different actors of the 2 main characters added to the depth of this audible version of this story. 5 stars all the way.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jenna Wright
- 2018-06-30
Best Audiobook I’ve Enjoyed Yet!
This story was completely captivating and the two narrators were exceptional. I was sad to have it end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M.S.
- 2020-08-20
Interesting book
The story follows two main characters from the childhood to adulthood in the time when not too many people had questioning the slavery in the South. The book was inspired by the life of the Grimke’s sisters from the early nineteenth century and their quest for freedom not just to free the slaves but also to lift the limits imposed on the girls and women even from the wealthy families. Many people are not aware of the struggle for freedom of the historical figure of Sarah and Angelina Grimke.
Inspired story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jo-Anne
- 2022-07-01
Excellent in every way.
Excellent, educational, inspirational,
compelling story of little known and fascinating historical women. The narrator’s voices perfectly set the tone and characters.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jennifer j.
- 2020-07-23
Jennifer. Jamieson
Enjoyable story of two sisters who fought against slavery, fought for equal rights for women and the right to vote.It is fascinating to go back in history and be grateful today for rights we take for granted
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sharron padden
- 2021-08-31
The Invention of Wings
A very comprehensive book about the African American and women’s fight for equality in America. The characters are gripping and the narration are excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- carlee
- 2018-09-19
A Great Story and Listen
#Audible1 This was the first book I bought through audible, as I had been meaning to read it for years. It's a great story and the narrator switches back and forth which keeps it interesting. All the speakers have great voices. Never a dull moment!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cheryl C.
- 2022-07-08
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
This is a fantastic story and the narrators do a great job with the voices and storytelling. Highly recommend! I enjoyed every moment. I’ll definitely listen to more of her books on Audible.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Megan
- 2023-01-27
So Good!!!
I wish it didn’t end! Highly recommend to anyone! The narrators drew me right in.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!