
Little Gods
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.29
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Karen Huie
-
Francois Chau
-
Emily Woo Zeller
-
By:
-
Meng Jin
About this listen
“Expands the future of the immigrant novel.” (Gish Jen, New York Times Book Review)
“Spectacular and emotionally polyphonic.... That Jin has managed to craft such an intimate, emotionally complex story is an awesome achievement. That she managed to do it in her debut novel, doubly so.” (Omar El Akkad, BookPage, starred review)
On the night of June 4th, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time.
Seventeen years later, Su Lan’s daughter, Liya, brings her mother’s ashes to China, along with the silences and contradictions of Su Lan’s life. In a territory inhabited by the ghosts of the living and the dead, Liya’s memories are joined by those of two others: Zhu Wen, the woman last to know Su Lan before she left China, and Yongzong, the father Liya has never known. In this way a portrait of Su Lan emerges: an ambitious scientist, an ambivalent mother, and a woman whose relationship to her own history shapes and ultimately unmakes Liya’s own sense of displacement.
A story of migrations literal and emotional, spanning time, space, and class, Little Gods is a sharp yet expansive exploration of the aftermath of unfulfilled dreams, an immigrant story in negative that grapples with our tenuous connections to memory, history, and self.
©2020 Meng Jin (P)2020 HarperAudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
-
-
Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
Gods of Jade and Shadow
- By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Narrated by: Yetta Gottesman
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it - and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother.
-
-
I can’t finish this
- By zoomcity on 08-07-19
-
Honor
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past.
-
-
Wow.
- By Robert Bryant on 01-19-22
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
Babel
- Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
- Length: 21 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
-
-
The novel language lovers have been waiting for
- By LisaLee on 09-06-22
By: R. F. Kuang
-
Our Missing Hearts
- A Novel
- By: Celeste Ng
- Narrated by: Lucy Liu, Celeste Ng
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her—only that her books have been banned—and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.
-
-
Listen to the sample
- By Sunny White on 10-11-22
By: Celeste Ng
-
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
- A Novel
- By: Michael David Lukas
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family. For generations, the men of the al-Raqb family have served as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the infant Moses was taken from the Nile. Joseph learns of his ancestor Ali, a Muslim orphan who became enchanted by the legendary - perhaps magical - Ezra Scroll.
-
-
exquitly written
- By Menorca on 03-27-19
-
The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
-
-
Not my favorite Patchett
- By Regina on 12-07-19
By: Ann Patchett
-
Gods of Jade and Shadow
- By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Narrated by: Yetta Gottesman
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it - and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother.
-
-
I can’t finish this
- By zoomcity on 08-07-19
-
Honor
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past.
-
-
Wow.
- By Robert Bryant on 01-19-22
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
Babel
- Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
- Length: 21 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
-
-
The novel language lovers have been waiting for
- By LisaLee on 09-06-22
By: R. F. Kuang
-
Our Missing Hearts
- A Novel
- By: Celeste Ng
- Narrated by: Lucy Liu, Celeste Ng
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her—only that her books have been banned—and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.
-
-
Listen to the sample
- By Sunny White on 10-11-22
By: Celeste Ng
-
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
- A Novel
- By: Michael David Lukas
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family. For generations, the men of the al-Raqb family have served as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the infant Moses was taken from the Nile. Joseph learns of his ancestor Ali, a Muslim orphan who became enchanted by the legendary - perhaps magical - Ezra Scroll.
-
-
exquitly written
- By Menorca on 03-27-19
-
Afterlives
- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of East Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza, too, returns home from the war, scarred in body and soul and with nothing but the clothes on his back—until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya.
-
-
A Compelling book in every way
- By Edward Hower on 11-03-22
-
Long Bright River
- A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
- By: Liz Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit - and her sister - before it's too late.
-
-
Narration was good
- By Kelli avid listener on 01-14-20
By: Liz Moore
-
Red at the Bone
- A Novel
- By: Jacqueline Woodson
- Narrated by: Jacqueline Woodson, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Peter Francis James, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative 10 times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child.
-
-
Magic
- By Nanette L. Stearns on 09-22-19
-
Song of Solomon
- A Novel
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
-
-
Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
- By Student on 01-02-20
By: Toni Morrison
-
Mika in Real Life
- A Novel
- By: Emiko Jean
- Narrated by: Sura Siu, Andi Arndt
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At thirty-five, Mika Suzuki’s life is a mess. Her last relationship ended in flames. Her roommate-slash-best friend might be a hoarder. She’s a perpetual disappointment to her traditional Japanese parents. And, most recently, she’s been fired from her latest dead-end job. Mika is at her lowest point when she receives a phone call from Penny—the daughter she placed for adoption sixteen years ago. Penny is determined to forge a relationship with her birth mother, and in turn, Mika longs to be someone Penny is proud of. Faced with her own inadequacies, Mika embellishes a fact about her life.
-
-
Not Just a book, It's An Experience
- By Brenda C. on 08-04-22
By: Emiko Jean
-
The Memory Police
- A Novel
- By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder - translator
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses - until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards.
-
-
A Calm, Quiet Dystopian
- By Booky Nooky on 12-13-19
By: Yoko Ogawa, and others
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
Real Life
- A Novel
- By: Brandon Taylor
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness.
-
-
Not My Gay Real Life
- By Haynes on 02-29-20
By: Brandon Taylor
-
The Bad Muslim Discount
- A Novel
- By: Syed M. Masood
- Narrated by: Pej Vahdat, Hend Ayoub
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1995, and Anvar Faris is a restless, rebellious, and sharp-tongued boy doing his best to grow up in Karachi, Pakistan. As fundamentalism takes root within the social order and the zealots next door attempt to make Islam great again, his family decides, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. Ironically, Anvar's deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother adjust easily to life in America, while his fun-loving father can't find anyone he relates to. For his part, Anvar fully commits to being a bad Muslim.
-
-
A great well developed story.
- By SBB on 02-11-21
By: Syed M. Masood
-
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
- By: Lisa See
- Narrated by: Ruthie Ann Miles, Kimiko Glenn, Alex Allwine, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The thrilling new novel from number-one New York Times best-selling author Lisa See explores the lives of a Chinese mother and her daughter who has been abandoned and adopted by an American couple.
-
-
***EXCELLENT*** Six stars if I could !!
- By ROBIN on 04-10-17
By: Lisa See
-
The Invisible Hour
- A Novel
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Jessie Mueller
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?
-
-
An exquisite story about love and libraries.
- By Lori A Benson on 09-26-23
By: Alice Hoffman
-
To Be a Man
- Stories
- By: Nicole Krauss
- Narrated by: Nicole Krauss
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all.
-
-
The joy of great literature
- By Brian Datnow on 01-02-21
By: Nicole Krauss
Critic reviews
"A trio of gifted narrators performs this debut novel told from alternating points of view.... All the narrators imbue the characters with personality and bring them to life. Their performances play well together, each engaging the listener. Huie's quiet, expressive style, Chau's mild manner, and Zeller's versatility ensure that each of their protagonists comes to the forefront of her chapters. A beautiful production." (AudioFile Magazine)
What listeners say about Little Gods
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Yvonne Beckman
- 06-12-21
Great story but fizzled in the end
This story started simply , spare and beautiful. Then it evolve in too many gratuitous side stories , twists , America speak and cliche values ( did her backpack really need to get stolen? )which dragged down the magic of
the thing . Brilliant women were reduced to hopeless helpless creatures and the men were flawed in their own ways too. I felt sad for every Chinese person I saw dragging a baby and a book bag around at US campuses I used to visit.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- OwlLover
- 08-06-20
Lots of POVs and story lines
This is an interesting story. I really enjoyed the women's points of view. The men's got more interesting toward the end, but their voices weren't as distinct. I enjoyed the journey, and having information revealed slowly by different characters. There was definitely a strong connection to the mother, and empathy for the daughter grew in the last half of the book. The narration is good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
28 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-31-20
Glad I found this one!
Elegant, unique and very engaging with wonderful moments of science and truly memorable characters. Excellent narration was a plus.
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
- shlubbs
- 01-18-24
I don't have a single complaint.
Went into it fully blind as I closed my eyes and scrolled to a title in my library at random. Within the first chapter I was entirely sucked in. Thematically, it's incredibly relevant to me right now with its examination of motherhood and the way it changes everything.
Had me in tears more than once, and holding them back probably half the time. Many excerpts of this story are downright haunting; Zhu Wen's description of her husband's ghosts, for example. Every line in this entire damn novel is just heartbreaking.
The prose is beautiful and the story is gripping despite being one of the "nothing actually happens"
type books; which may be why some have a hard time feeling vested, but personally I have such a weakness for these when executed well. It took me 11 days to read it (I've been super busy) and not a single day passed since my first dip where I haven't thought about it and yearned to immerse myself in Su Lan's world again, as narrated through the people fulfilling different roles in her mysterious and dynamic life; the planets orbiting her sun.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- D. Lopez
- 08-22-20
Excellent Story!
I enjoyed this story a lot. I finished it straight thru. The narrator's also did a fabulous job.
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
- bluedrgn52
- 09-12-20
liked it right up until the end
it's good overall until the ending. Nothing is answered and it's confusing. I wish it was clearer there but otherwise good.
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
- Britt
- 02-11-20
Amazing Read, planning to buy the hardcover!
An enthralling journey through time to uncover the past, except our key character Su Lan doesn't want it exposed. Loved loved loved it!!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
26 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- suzy
- 09-27-20
Confusing
The narrators are exceptional. The story line is difficult to follow at times. Historical references of the various revolutions post WWll in China helped place context for the characters situations
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
- Kathleen A. McCabe
- 08-26-20
wonderful journey through time and space
I loved the story the characters, the mixing in of Chinese culture and language. science and experience. highly recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ron Doster
- 09-04-20
Intriguing story
A journey through several lifetimes in Shanghai, Beijing, other remote areas of China, to Los Angeles and back again. A story woven out of peasantry, intellect, politics, physics, mysticism and philosophy. So interesting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful