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463rd out of 1,715 books
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405 voters
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
by
Ann Patchet
“Tell the story of your marriage,” my young friend Niki says to me. “Write down how it is you have a happy marriage” But the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney.
This December, we are excited to present our members with a gift that is truly unique: an original essay,
...moreAudiobook, Audible Audio Edition, 1 page
Published
December 11th 2011
by Audible, Inc.
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I love that this true story turns on a real world metaphor. Beautifully written and performed, thanks Audible!
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage reminded of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed (Ann says her and Gilbert are friends, so maybe they brainstormed off one another.) Both stories center around marriage and the authors’ hesitancy to engage in it. I forget Gilbert’s reasons now but for Ann it’s because she comes from a long line of divorcee’s; because her first short-lived marriage ended in divorce and because she then immediately got into another relationship that almost went down the same path (ma...more
It's no wonder I like Ann Patchett's novels so much; our lives seemed to have mirrored each other's in many ways.
In other words, "Hey, sistah, soul sistah, soul sistah..."
This is an audiobook which Ms. Patchett (I wish she'd finally say, "Call me Ann.") narrates as a brief memoir about her current marriage, but explains that she must first tell the tale of her lineage: four generations of failed marriages. (Ironically, for me, she begins the story by saying that she was never fond of audiobooks...more
In other words, "Hey, sistah, soul sistah, soul sistah..."
This is an audiobook which Ms. Patchett (I wish she'd finally say, "Call me Ann.") narrates as a brief memoir about her current marriage, but explains that she must first tell the tale of her lineage: four generations of failed marriages. (Ironically, for me, she begins the story by saying that she was never fond of audiobooks...more
This was free from audible.com, and that's why I listened to it. I've never read anything else by Ann Patchett, although I know a lot of folks really love her. I'd be open to trying something fictional of hers at some point, but I wasn't really all that impressed with this essay about her marriages.
First of all, is it just me, or did it seem kind of weird and slightly unbelievable that this woman has known two people that were so ridiculously hot that they like, couldn't go out in public withou...more
First of all, is it just me, or did it seem kind of weird and slightly unbelievable that this woman has known two people that were so ridiculously hot that they like, couldn't go out in public withou...more
About 20mins into the book, I thought to myself: Damn! If someone had told me the life lessons & relationship advices in this audiobook 15 years ago… or even just 10 years ago, it would have made a HUGE difference!
I had many of the same flawed reasoning as the author, one of which was if one doesn't get married then one can't get divorced. The author described her happy marriage as a fairytale, "the German kind... with scary things in the dark forests... the kind that's unsweetened by Disney...more
I had many of the same flawed reasoning as the author, one of which was if one doesn't get married then one can't get divorced. The author described her happy marriage as a fairytale, "the German kind... with scary things in the dark forests... the kind that's unsweetened by Disney...more
This short audio book, narrated by the author, is not really about a happy marriage, instead it is an autobiographical essay covering the author's experiences and thoughts about marriage. The essay starts out with divorce, and continues on with failed relationships until at the end, finally getting to the happy marriage promised by the title. The essay mainly meditates on the idea of loss, whether people (specifically the author) think that it can be avoided, despite its inevitability. Maybe med...more
This book was a free gift from Audible to its members (Thanks Audible!), and although I was feeling cynical and anti-happily-ever-after at the moment, the publisher’s summary: “Tell the story of your marriage,” my young friend Niki says to me. “Write down how it is you have a happy marriage” But the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney,’ seemed right up my alley. This is the Story of a Happ...more
Does he make you better?
That is the most profound and the best advice I really have heard in the case of relationships between men and women. In a sentence I might have given the "punch-line" of the book away but it needs to be told, repeated and passed on again and again.
This is a great true story about an author and her struggles with what I consider the last barrier of ultimate intimacy--marriage. Ultimate intimacy is what she finds in a beautiful, wounding and fateful path. You can't help b...more
That is the most profound and the best advice I really have heard in the case of relationships between men and women. In a sentence I might have given the "punch-line" of the book away but it needs to be told, repeated and passed on again and again.
This is a great true story about an author and her struggles with what I consider the last barrier of ultimate intimacy--marriage. Ultimate intimacy is what she finds in a beautiful, wounding and fateful path. You can't help b...more
I did enjoy hearing this short story, but the author's lifestyle and mine are so many miles apart that I don't think either of us could really relate to the other. I am happy for her that she has finally found what she has looked for and that she is in a good place. All of us can envy a great marriage. This audiobook was read by the author which is sometimes a good thing, and most of the time not a good thing. In this case, she did a pretty good job of narrating her own story. I wouldn't want to...more
This is one of the most depressing views of marriage and human communication (or lack there of) I have read. If you are looking to read this, please, get another book on a Christian view of marriage. Even if you are not a Christian, a healthy view on how to argue without hurting each other, how to love through serving your spouse, etc. is a much better way of approaching marriage. Giving up on the idea of marriage, sleeping with anyone and everyone because you can, and making sure you are "happy...more
Dec 02, 2012
Michelle
added it
Ms. Patchett wrote and narrates this simple but charming essay about her one foray into marriage and the lengthy journey it took to get there. In it, she reminds listeners that a happy marriage is not about being swept off of one's feet. It is not love at first sight. It is the deep and unselfish relationship that comes with time and total commitment and being friends more than lovers.
Throughout the essay, Ms. Patchett is not preachy. She is one person sharing her story with others. More importa...more
Throughout the essay, Ms. Patchett is not preachy. She is one person sharing her story with others. More importa...more
What did I enjoy about this brief essay...everything. I am happily married, but only after having suffered more than a few devastating loses.
Like most girls (yes girls) I was always searching for the man I would marry, yet it was only after I ceased searching and focused on growing me that I met my husband.
This story unearthed many truths about relationships and how we grow during the process. I smiled a lot during this reading because I truly truly understood and related.
Marriage is differen...more
Like most girls (yes girls) I was always searching for the man I would marry, yet it was only after I ceased searching and focused on growing me that I met my husband.
This story unearthed many truths about relationships and how we grow during the process. I smiled a lot during this reading because I truly truly understood and related.
Marriage is differen...more
Mar 15, 2012
Erich Franz Guzmann
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anyone that has 1 hr 18 mins of spare time
Recommended to Erich by:
Audible
This is a short story of a woman searching for love and marriage. She tells her story about her trials, experiences, successes and failures, for her desperate search for love and happiness.
She has and had a somewhat interesting life that she explains very well in such a short period of time. She gained wisdom in aspects of relationships and marriage from all her experiences she went through in her life.
I don't agree with everything she had said and the advice the she had given, but there are som
...more
This one was free at audible, I grabbed it even though I wasn't sure if I would ever listen to it. Today at work I finished with my regular book and had just a little bit of the day to go, so I listened to this one and was surprised by it.
I liked how the author read the story, as it was her personal story it made sense. I also liked how honest she was with her life, the good and the bad. The lessons she learned along the way are ones that anyone could put to use in their life. I loved how she fi...more
I liked how the author read the story, as it was her personal story it made sense. I also liked how honest she was with her life, the good and the bad. The lessons she learned along the way are ones that anyone could put to use in their life. I loved how she fi...more
I thought I was going to hear about how easy it was for two individuals to find each other, fall in love and live happily ever after; even with the warning from Ann about her marriage being more like the German fairy tale. While listening to Patchett’s story I realized my version of a happy marriage is the one where the couple falls for each other at first glimpse and stay madly in love with each other through their long, sweet union. This isn’t what I heard and I loved her friend’s advice; the...more
This is an essay written and read by Ann Patchett and given to audible.com members as a gift. I absolutely loved it. Patchett tells the story of what eventually lead to her happy marriage, even though divorce had plagued her own life and that of generation in her family before her. It is so well written and brought tears to my eyes.
**Audio Review: Hearing Patchett's own story from her own lips is delightful. One thing I thoroughly enjoyed was during her introduction when she spoke of her own en...more
**Audio Review: Hearing Patchett's own story from her own lips is delightful. One thing I thoroughly enjoyed was during her introduction when she spoke of her own en...more
short review: This is a short audiobook (about 90 minutes) that was written and released as an audible.com exclusive. Patchett was asked to write the story of her 'happy marriage' by a friend. Patchett started with her family's history of divorce, then her own divorce before slowly working to a short section that is actually on her marriage. Patchett is a good writer. I haven't read anything by her before but I will look for more.
A longer review is on my blog with a short comparison between Pat...more
A longer review is on my blog with a short comparison between Pat...more
Shouldn't there be a "heard" option as well as "read"? Enjoyed this while wrapping gifts last week (free on audible.com).
I remember the first time I heard the basic idea presented here as "Does he make you a better person?"...I was 18 or 19, and Anne Tyler's Accidental Tourist had the line, "Sometimes I think it's not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with them." Of course, hearing and knowing are two different things. I love Patchett's honesty, though I think her delivery,...more
I remember the first time I heard the basic idea presented here as "Does he make you a better person?"...I was 18 or 19, and Anne Tyler's Accidental Tourist had the line, "Sometimes I think it's not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with them." Of course, hearing and knowing are two different things. I love Patchett's honesty, though I think her delivery,...more
A very pleasant and interesting (urgh, I don't like this word, but nothing better comes to my mind) audiobook. I picked it up just because I wanted a cure for my insomnia, but ended up loving it.
It's read by the author herself and I think that made the experience even better.
Although the title says that it's a story of a happy marriage, it is more of a story of how the author's personal experience, her family's lovelife and her own lovelife has brought her to the point of being happily married...more
It's read by the author herself and I think that made the experience even better.
Although the title says that it's a story of a happy marriage, it is more of a story of how the author's personal experience, her family's lovelife and her own lovelife has brought her to the point of being happily married...more
This book was a bit depressing. The title is misleading. The author comes across as a fatalist and looks for ways to sabotage her relationships. I felt she was warped in her way of thinking about marriage as the beginning of the end of a meaningful relationship. I understand how she came to feel as she did with growing up as divorce being the norm, but even in the end, when she finally married after being with him for 11 years she comes to realize that she only agreed to marry him because she th...more
This was another free download with my membership to Audible.com. The free downloads have given me a chance to find out more about new authors. This audiobook was an essay by Ann Patchett and read by Ann Patchett about her marriage.
This essay was really interesting in the "behind the scenes" feel of Ann's life and how she came to meet and marry her husband. As I was listening to this the beginning was a little depressing. For some reason I thought it would be a story with feel good moments and...more
This essay was really interesting in the "behind the scenes" feel of Ann's life and how she came to meet and marry her husband. As I was listening to this the beginning was a little depressing. For some reason I thought it would be a story with feel good moments and...more
This was a free download on Audible.com this Christmas and I pretty much only got it because it was free and not very long. I thought it might turn me on to an author I had never had much interest in reading and if not? It was only an hour and 20 minute listen.
It was good. It was honest and it was interesting. I found myself nodding my head at parts and thinking that I wish I would have learned those lessons earlier too. Well worth the listen (or read if it ever makes it to print) if you have th...more
It was good. It was honest and it was interesting. I found myself nodding my head at parts and thinking that I wish I would have learned those lessons earlier too. Well worth the listen (or read if it ever makes it to print) if you have th...more
This essay was a holiday free gift for Audible members. I read some reviews where people were disappointed at how "dark" this story was for being a holiday gift, but if you look at it simply as a story about the complexities of marriage and families and not as a holiday story that should give you warm fuzzies, I don't think it would disappoint. I thought that it was well-written and interesting, and it just reinforces how much I enjoy memoirs and true stories, particularly ones that focus on rel...more
A short but fantastic listen. I really enjoyed State of Wonder ( my first Ann Patchett book), so I picked this up from audible.com to get another taste of her work. It was very touching and, in a way, inspirational. Beautifully written and read.
Does my spouse make me a better person? Why, I guess he does. Thanks, Ann Patchett, for a reminder of one of the key components of a good marriage, and thanks for sharing one heck of a good personal story.
Does my spouse make me a better person? Why, I guess he does. Thanks, Ann Patchett, for a reminder of one of the key components of a good marriage, and thanks for sharing one heck of a good personal story.
This holiday season, Audible.com commissioned Ann Patchett to write and record an essay exclusively for Audible listeners. I saved this up for when I was home with a bad cold yesterday, and it was just as wonderful as I had hoped. Ann Patchett writes about her happy marriage by detailing the many unhappy marriages in her family that preceded it. I hope this essay will appear in print somewhere so that I can share it with others.
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Terrific story, that I got as a free download from Audible. I totally related to her experience growing up in a divorced/remarried/blended family. And I just loved what she said about slowly, slowly coming to terms with being married. Great stuff. My favorite quote, because it so perfectly describes my own situation:
"We were not the product of our parents' happy marriage, we were the flotsam of their divorce."
"We were not the product of our parents' happy marriage, we were the flotsam of their divorce."
I love Ann Patchett's writing to begin with. I had loved Truth and Beauty which was a devastating love letter to a dearly departed friend. This short story is the telling of Ann's own history - a mini-memoir - that provides true insight with regard to love, relationships, divorce and marriage, including the best advice she was ever given: "Does he make you a better person?". I loved this short story.
I enjoyed this fairly short audio memoir, which describes the path that took a child of divorce through a number of difficult relationship to eventually wind up in a happy marriage. It's not so much about the marriage itself -- although almost everything said about Patchett's husband makes him sound utterly delightful -- but about her relationship mistakes and what she learned from them.
While I don't agree with all of Ann's thoughts on marriage, which is of course impossible to agree with ideas that sprung from personal experience when comparing them to my own, I did enjoy listening to her journey which was insightful and honest.
Her biggest question...the driving force behind her essay~
"Does he make you a better person"?
For me, I can say absolutely!
Her biggest question...the driving force behind her essay~
"Does he make you a better person"?
For me, I can say absolutely!
I can not count this towards my 2012 reading goal as it was such a short story, more like an article than a story. It was a very interesting story showing that a happy marriage is not the storybook version of two people falling love at first sight and then spending the rest of their life together, but the far more realistic of a failed first marriage or previous bad relationships and the finding of happiness when you stop looking.
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“Listen she said, everything ends, every single relationship you will ever have in your lifetime is going to end.... I'll die, you'll die, you'll get tired of each other. You don't always know how it's going to happen, but it is always going to happen. So stop trying to make everything permanent, it doesn't work. I want you to go out there and find some nice man you have no intention of spending the rest of your life with. You can be very, very happy with people you aren't going to marry.”
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24 people liked it
“... the story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney.”
—
4 people liked it
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