Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Brooklyn

Author: Colm Toibin

Narrator: Saoirse Ronan

Unabridged: 9 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/22/2024


Synopsis

A NEW PRODUCTION NARRATED BY SAOIRSE RONAN, ACADEMY AWARD–NOMINATED STAR OF THE 2015 FILM ADAPTATION!

Colm Tóibín’s New York Times bestselling novel—also an acclaimed film starring Saoirse Ronan and Jim Broadbent nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture—is “a moving, deeply satisfying read” (Entertainment Weekly) about a young Irish immigrant in Brooklyn in the early 1950s.

“One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.

Author “Colm Tóibín…is his generation’s most gifted writer of love’s complicated, contradictory power” (Los Angeles Times). “Written with mesmerizing power and skill” (The Boston Globe), Brooklyn is a “triumph…One of those magically quiet novels that sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations” (USA TODAY).

About Colm Toibin

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022–2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize. He was also awarded the Bodley Medal, the Würth Prize for European Literature, and the Prix Femina spécial for his body of work. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on December 19, 2021

[Edited 12/19/21] Assuming we have a reliable narrator, we can date this story by the newly-released movie she views - Singing in the Rain - so it’s 1952. A young Irish woman emigrates to Brooklyn. Back in Ireland, she has three brothers all working in England, as well as an older sister who will now......more

Goodreads review by emma on November 25, 2024

couldn't wait to read this armed with the knowledge i can picture a saoirse ronan performance as the protagonist. more books should have that distinction. possibly the scariest feeling on earth is when you love a book you almost didn't read. i love you and i hate you, butterfly effect. from page one,......more

Goodreads review by Will on November 08, 2023

Brooklyn is a wonderful character portrait and captures as well the struggle of an Irish immigrant to the US in the post war world. Eilis Lacy is a twenty-something in a small Irish town, frustrated at the sclerotic nature of her environment. Her life lies ahead of her in a single, entirely predicta......more

Goodreads review by Taufiq on March 01, 2025

In the 1950s, young Eilis left her small Irish town for Brooklyn, diving headfirst into an unpredictable new life. She was brimming with youthful hope until a letter from home suddenly made her loathe everything around her. The story itself isn’t complicated - it’s neatly divided into 4 chapters tha......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on February 12, 2017

Some books are worth sticking with. To call this book a slow starter would be to evoke a drastic understatement. After around a hundred or so pages, I was beginning to wonder if this book was actually going anywhere. There was a completer lack of plot, as the mundane life of an ordinary girl unf......more


Quotes

"Colm Tóibín’s appealing 2009 novel receives an exemplary performance from Saoirse Ronan. Set in Ireland and Brooklyn in the 1950s, the story unfolds with Ronan’s lilting voice and lush pronunciations allowing both Ireland and Brooklyn to become vivid locales. Ronan’s sensitive delivery highlights Ellis Lacey’s emotional connection to her tiny Irish village and to her mother and sister. After leaving for Brooklyn and a better life, Ellis deals with homesickness and the stresses faced by newcomers anywhere. She also finds friendship, love, and hope. Ronan’s familiarity with the characters—she played Ellis in the film version—serves the audiobook well. She creates a clear-eyed, if naïve, young woman’s coming of age in a postwar world. Ronan’s authentic performance makes this first-rate listening."