The Sparrow
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The Sparrow
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Narrated by:
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David Colacci
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Written by:
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Mary Doria Russell
About this listen
A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: To make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.
©2008 Mary Doria Russell (P)2008 Brilliance AudioYou may also enjoy...
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What the critics say
“A startling, engrossing, and moral work of fiction.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them.” (Entertainment Weekly)
“Powerful...The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
What listeners say about The Sparrow
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Abraham Vermeulen
- 2021-10-16
Awesome
Gripping and thought provoking journey to an alien world with deep, spiritual overtones. The romantic in me were looking forward to the lonely priest and sephardic Sophia continuing their love story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rebecca Morgan Quin
- 2022-12-13
Compelling and fascinating
An intricate story that’s very well told. Great narration! Fascinating exploration of Jesuit culture, first contact narrative and linguistics.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2020-06-17
an incredible masterpiece
one of my top five sci fi books of all time! Russell is a very talented and brilliant writer !
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- FuzzyThoughts
- 2024-04-10
Amazingly well written
the Author is an anthropologist, raised a Christian, atheist when she began writing the book, converted to Judaism during writing, so you get just a fantastic combination of well thought out scientific and religious ideas. I'm not personally of any faith but I find them fascinating, and this is just a consistently intelligent book throughout all it's topics, there's really only a few plot points I was left wondering about, but I hope to see them being addressed in the sequel.
fyi, the shocking mystery isn't too shocking, and this book is definitely more for folk like me who like to imagine the trains of thought in the characters minds. normally in a story, the stupid thing to happen is just that, stupid. in this story, at the worst you're just like "You probably even knew how dumb that was before doing it but I get why you did". it's refreshing as cold water to have characters never do a thing purely out of plot contrivance.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Johnny B.
- 2020-01-16
JohnB
Excellent story! Although the audio was not the greatest and some parts were very hard to hear
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Libellule
- 2021-02-21
One of the best books I ever read
I read "The Sparrow" a very long time ago. The book stayed with me all those years. Now that years have past, I felt the need to read it again. And it happened again. I was mesmerized. But the closer it got to the end, the more I remembered about the sequel "Children of God" which is a big contrast to this one. I will be reading that one again also.
The narrator was good, but at times I felt like he had always the same intonations in every sentence.
This is not a book about religion, "they meant no harm" as the author says, or as we say in French: "l'enfer est pavé de bonnes intentions." (hell is paved with good intentions).
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ALK
- 2017-10-01
a favourite of mine
I've read the physical book format several times and love it more each time. I'm not particularly religious, wouldn't even call myself spiritual, however I think this book provides so much insight into our humanity and the ways in which we choose to interact with the world.
I really enjoyed this on audio (but am glad that I read it in print first given how many characters/places/time periods there are) - however this is the first audiobook I have ever had to slow down the speed. It seemed ridiculously fast, and I even knew all the characters/background! Either the narrator talks way too fast naturally, or someone screwed up when making the digital file. I found .95 was good, but if you've never read it before I would suggest starting at .90.
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12 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2023-01-05
Thoroughly enjoyed
Thought the narrator did a great job with the different characters. Story was slow for the beginning, great middle and fast paced ending.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ben Peltz
- 2024-06-26
As good a theodicy as I've encountered
As a pastor to native people I sought out this book when I heard that the author intended it as an exploration of how colonialism could have happened despite people's good intentions. It definitely provides some food for thought on that front but above and beyond that, it's one of the most honest and engaging explorations of the question of suffering that I've read. I will definitely read the sequel soon, and mull over this for a long time.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Dan K.
- 2021-05-27
The worst...
Struggled to finish. This story is entirely religious based. It is predictable and pedestrian and to no one's surprise confirms how great the god of the bible is. 18 hours I will never get back.
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7 people found this helpful