
To Paradise
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Edoardo Ballerini
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Catherine Ho
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BD Wong
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Feodor Chin
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Kurt Kanazawa
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By:
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Hanya Yanagihara
About this listen
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the award-winning, best-selling author of the classic A Little Life—a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: VOGUE • ESQUIRE • NPR • GOODREADS
To Paradise is a fin de siècle novel of marvelous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love—partners, lovers, children, friends, family, and even our fellow citizens—and the pain that ensues when we cannot.
In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him—and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances.
These three sections comprise an ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.
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Critic reviews
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SUMMER READING LIST
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: VOGUE • ESQUIRE • GLAMOUR • NPR • GOODREADS • O MAGAZINE
“Remarkable…The emotional impact of this novel is less visceral than A LITTLE LIFE but only because the author’s scope is so vast and her dexterity so dazzling….TO PARADISE demonstrates the inexhaustible ingenuity of an author who keeps shattering expectations….she explores the dream of freedom that lures all these characters to risk everything for a paradise they desire but can barely envision. No matter the setting – past present or future – TO PARADISE stems from the hypnotic confluence of Yanagihara’s skills. She speaks softly, with the urgency of a whisper. She draws us into the most intimate sympathy with these characters while placing them in crises that feel irresistibly compelling.” — Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“We are given a patriarch, wealth, children; there is an arranged marriage, an inheritance, a true love, a class divide and a significant twist. Deftly paced and judiciously detailed, the tale makes hay with the conventions of the 19th-century novel. But that’s not all. With breathtaking audacity Yanagihara rewrites America….Yanagihara masterfully repurposes themes, situations and motifs…This ambitious novel tackles major American questions and answers them in an original, engrossing way. It has a major feel. But it is finally in [its] minor moments that Yanagihara shows greatness.” — Gish Jen, The New York Times Book Review (cover review)
"Tour de force…Yanagihara changes the novel landscape: What is different, we accept; what is familiar, we recognize. To Paradise resonates because of its exploration of human relationships and the dismantling of preconceived notions. Biases and hatreds lurk and linger, emerging periodically to remind us that while one form of discrimination may have been eliminated, others remain embedded in our institutions, and cannot easily be eradicated; in the end, threads of prejudice bind all three parts. And yet To Paradise is rich with characters that live and love, with few boundaries. Yanagihara asks us to consider an alternative America that could have existed at any point in history if other decisions had been made, and that might still prevail if we do the right thing." — Oprah Daily
Interview: Hanya Yanagihara on Why Our Longing for Paradise Will Forever Disappoint

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The Sea, the Sea
- By: Iris Murdoch, Mary Kinzie - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
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Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years.
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Murdoch Amazes
- By Sara on 08-30-17
By: Iris Murdoch, and others
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The Night Tiger
- A Novel
- By: Yangsze Choo
- Narrated by: Yangsze Choo
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dance hall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for. Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.
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very satisfying
- By Ian Macdonald on 03-19-19
By: Yangsze Choo
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Miss Eliza's English Kitchen
- A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship
- By: Annabel Abbs
- Narrated by: Ell Potter, Bianca Amato
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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England, 1835. London is awash with thrilling new ingredients, from rare spices to exotic fruits. But no one knows how to use them. When Eliza Acton is told by her publisher to write a cookery book instead of the poetry she loves, she refuses - until her bankrupt father is forced to flee the country. As a woman, Eliza has few options. Although she’s never set foot in a kitchen, she begins collecting recipes and teaching herself to cook. Much to her surprise, she discovers a talent - and a passion - for the culinary arts.
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A gem!
- By Sara Shirley on 01-04-22
By: Annabel Abbs
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Unorthodox
- The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
- By: Deborah Feldman
- Narrated by: Rachel Botchan, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. Yet in spite of her repressive upbringing, Deborah grew into an independent-minded young woman whose stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped her to imagine an alternative way of life among the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
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Narrator Problem
- By Phyllis on 04-24-20
By: Deborah Feldman
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The Mercies
- By: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa.
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The Mercies is a Strong and Moving Story, Not to be Missed
- By The Village Witch on 02-29-20
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Animal
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Taddeo
- Narrated by: Emma Roberts
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruelties of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past. In the sweltering hills above Los Angeles, Joan unravels the horrific event she witnessed as a child - that has haunted her every waking moment - while forging the power to finally strike back.
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Should come with a lot of trigger warnings
- By Quinn on 07-13-21
By: Lisa Taddeo
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The Address
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddenly awash in possibility - no mean feat for a servant in 1884. The opportunity to move to America. The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota. And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else...and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.
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Should be a movie!
- By Linda Slater on 10-19-17
By: Fiona Davis
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Libertie
- By: Kaitlyn Greenidge
- Narrated by: Channie Waites
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Coming of age as a free-born Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson was all too aware that her purposeful mother, a practicing physician, had a vision for their future together: Libertie would go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie, drawn more to music than science, feels stifled by her mother’s choices and is hungry for something else - is there really only one way to have an autonomous life? And she is constantly reminded that, unlike her mother who can pass, Libertie has skin that is too dark.
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absolutely loved ir
- By kimberly eisner on 04-07-21
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Fifty Words for Rain
- A Novel
- By: Asha Lemmie
- Narrated by: Robin Eller, Siho Ellsmore, Katharine Lee McEwan, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity.
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Transformation of a bastered girl with Blue blood
- By Emiko Sugita Deri on 10-11-20
By: Asha Lemmie
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This Is How It Always Is
- A Novel
- By: Laurie Frankel
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it's another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.
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Story mirrors our life -- to a point -- spoilers
- By 1mom3kids on 11-14-17
By: Laurie Frankel
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Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
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A small and perfect novel
- By martin hall on 03-06-21
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Blacktop Wasteland
- A Novel
- By: S. A. Cosby
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Beauregard "Bug" Montage is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hardworking dad. Bug knows there's no future in the man he used to be: Known from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida as the best wheelman on the East Coast. He thought he'd left all that behind him, but as his carefully built new life begins to crumble, he finds himself drawn inexorably back into a world of blood and bullets. When a smooth-talking former associate comes calling with a can't-miss jewelry store heist, Bug feels he has no choice but to get back in the driver's seat.
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Fantastic All Around
- By stuartjash on 07-16-20
By: S. A. Cosby
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The Making of Us
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Helen Duff
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Lydia, Dean, and Robyn live very different lives, but each of them, independently, has always felt that something was missing. What they don't know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It's a letter containing a secret - one that will bind them together and show them what love and family and friendship really mean.
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Extraordinary Stories
- By JimKnott on 08-16-18
By: Lisa Jewell
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Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
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Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
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Nothing More Dangerous
- By: Allen Eskens
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In a small Southern town where loyalty to family and to "your people" carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition. After 15 years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored.
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Eskens writes another solid coming of age...
- By shelley on 11-21-19
By: Allen Eskens
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Ducks, Newburyport
- By: Lucy Ellmann
- Narrated by: Stephanie Ellyne
- Length: 45 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Baking a multitude of tartes tatins for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats and chickens. Also, America's ignoble past, and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, open carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son's toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land and broken treaties, and nobody helps you when you get a flat tire on the interstate? When are you allowed to start swearing?
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Stephanie Ellyne really brings the book to life
- By Shashank on 02-27-20
By: Lucy Ellmann
What listeners say about To Paradise
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Menorca
- 01-18-22
a masterpiece
An exquisitely written, convoluted book. It will surely enter the canon of American literature.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Elizabeth Pep
- 12-02-23
Absolutely extraordinary
Breathtaking, sweeping, layered and rich tapestry of lives. This is the second book of Hanya Yanagihara’s I’ve listened to and they both kept me spellbound.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-02-23
Thank you
Thank you to the brilliant author and wonderful readers, especially B D. Wong.
Magnificent story.
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1 person found this helpful
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- # 1 Listener
- 01-28-22
Absolute Genius
Hanya Yanagihara is a genius, we’ve all been waiting for this third book and it doesn’t disappoint. This is a story that must be savored like fine wine, scotch, a good cigar…to be fully understood. A book you want to listen to several times to truly understand the interrelationship of the three stories, you actually want to dive in like a great puzzle. The protagonist stays with you and becomes part of your psyche, just like the protagonist in A little life, and The people in the trees. You are left satisfied, however, you want more. Can’t wait for the next book.
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- Nature girl
- 01-30-22
Wow; just wow!
Incredible book with so many parallels it’s frightening. A must read or listen for anyone living in our current circumstances.
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- C. L., Berkeley, CA
- 02-21-22
An instant classic
This is an ambitious epic that spans 200 years, the US past, present and future, in universes imagined, real, and somewhere in-between. The 28 hours of listening was an amazing experience - roller coaster rides in emotion, story trajectory and the fate of a nation. The book felt like a poetry, structured in three grand verses that rhyme, resonate and cross-illuminate. The author is without a doubt a major talent of our time. It’s so captivating and hard to even pause for a short break. The book is an absolute master piece.
p.s., I just read the review by Becca Rothfled on the TLS - that woman obviously had issues that kept her from appreciating this book for what it is. Total embarrassment for the TLS to have published such an irresponsible review by someone who did not have the capacity to comprehend a major work of modern American literature.
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- kbbaby
- 01-13-23
Strange and ambitious, terrifying and lyrical
So richly layered and dense. Compelling and elegant and magnificently thought-provoking. Variations on themes playing out through different times and places to create a symphony of the human condition.
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- A
- 01-17-23
Written beautifully. Excellent Narration. Weird story
Long, drawn out weird stories, all with homosexual themes. Trying to see how they all link together in the end. Artful. Beautifully written. Excellent narration. Overall theme/ story line was way too long.
I only finished it( 35hrs!) to see if the stories tied together and redeemed themselves. I wouldn’t recommend. Life it too short and this is too long a book with nothing to reap from it but a feeling of great woe.
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- Anonymous User
- 12-28-23
the story stays with you
there are 3 different stores remotely connected.. its been a long while ago since I finished the book and it stays with me I return to think about them quite often
The performance is just brilliant, I had to look up people that read this book, amazing well well done!
I defiantly recommend
Tanya Yanagihara has a way with words for sure, such a gift, its a pleasure diving in the world that she created
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- Cat
- 03-05-24
Slow Build of a Story Across Generations
I love that Hanya Yanagihara follows a story across generations. It’s a very cool element to her stories that is very unique. Beautiful writing!
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