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Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity Audiobook

Name: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity Audiobook
Brand: Random House Audio
SKU: asuw
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.00 (18612 reviews)
Author: Katherine Boo
ISBN: 9780307934062

By: Katherine Boo

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Read By: Sunil Malhotra Publisher: Random House Audio Listen Time: 8.25 hours at 1.0x Speed 5.50 hours at 1.5x Speed 4.13 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: February 2012 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9780307934062

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Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

Longest Chapter Length:

09:41 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

15 seconds

Average Chapter Length:

07:30 minutes

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Plot Summary

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity is a stunning work of narrative nonfiction that recounts the sometimes heartbreaking and always dramatic tale of families dreaming of a better life in one of the giant, socially stratified cities of our time.

Based on three years of expert journalism, this quick moving and brilliant book brings to life an era of inequality, and unprecedented global change.

At the foot of the exclusive hotels surrounding the Mumbai airport, sits the ramshackle neighborhood of Annawadi, where the residents are full of hope for their future in a newly prosperous India. An ambitious Muslim teenager, Abdul, sees riches beyond his wildest dreams in the recyclable trash thrown away by the wealthier. Asha has mapped out her path to the middle class through political corruption. If all goes well, her daughter will become the first woman in Annawadi to graduate college. Even Kalu, a teenage scrap metal thief, feels that the good life is within reach.

But soon tragedy strikes Abdul, and the city is shaken by the global financial crisis. Tensions over power, sex, caste, religion and financial envy, suppressed in times of prosperity, are suddenly unleashed. As powerful global realities clash with the most fragile of human dreams, the hope and bravery of the Annawadians is revealed, along with the hardest truths about life in a competitive era.

With Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Boo, best known for chronicling the struggles of America's poor, shifts her insightful focus to India, paints a vivid picture of unforgettable people living in a time of violent change.

"totally drawn in by this story and these characters. I have always loved how Katherine Boo explains the underlying economics of poverty and things that seem like "bad judgment" or "bad morals" or "she doesn't know any better" at first blush become perfectly obvious choices when all is explained and exposed."
— Kerry (4 out of 5 stars)

Publisher Summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE “Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.”—People “A tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.”—Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • USA Today • New York • The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds—and into the hearts of families impossible to forget. WINNER OF: The PEN Nonfiction Award • The Los Angeles Times Book Prize • The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award • The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • People • Entertainment Weekly • The Wall Street Journal • The Boston Globe • The Economist • Financial Times • Foreign Policy • The Seattle Times • The Nation • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Denver Post • Minneapolis Star Tribune • The Week • Kansas City Star • Slate • Publishers Weekly

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Quotes

“Extraordinary…Moving…Like the best journeys, Boo’s book cracks open our preconceptions and constructs an abiding bridge—at once daunting and inspiring—to a world we would never otherwise recognize as our own.”
— National Geographic Traveler
“Behind the Beautiful Forevers offers a rebuke to official reports and dry statistics on the global poor…Boo is one of few chroniclers providing this picture. She’s a moral force and…an artist of reverberating power.”
— American Prospect
“Seamless and intimate…A scrupulously true story…It’s tempting to compare [Behind the Beautiful Forevers] to a novel, but…that would hardly do it justice.”
—
“The most riveting Indian story since Slumdog Millionaire—except hers is true.”
— Marie Claire
“An unforgettable true story, meticulously researched with unblinking honesty…Pure, astonishing reportage with as unbiased a lens as possible.”
— Christian Science Monitor
“A mind-blowing read.”
— Redbook
“Moving…A humane, powerful, and insightful book…A book of nonfiction so stellar it puts most novels to shame.”
— Boston Globe
“Gripping…A brilliant novelistic narration.”
— Wall Street Journal
“A shocking—and riveting—portrait of life in modern India…This is one stunning piece of narrative nonfiction…Boo’s prose is electric.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine
“A tough-minded, inspiring, and irresistible book…Boo’s extraordinary achievement is twofold. She shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as importantly, she makes us care.”
— People (starred review)
“Riveting, fearlessly reported…[Beautiful Forevers] plays out like a swift, richly plotted novel. That’s partly because Boo writes so damn well. But it’s also because over the course of three years in India she got extraordinary access to the lives and minds of the Annawadi slum, a settlement nestled jarringly close to a shiny international airport and a row of luxury hotels.”
— Entertainment Weekly
“A jaw-dropping achievement, an instant classic of narrative nonfiction…With a cinematic intensity…Boo transcends and subverts every cliché, cynical or earnest, that we harbor about Indian destitution and gazes directly into the hearts, hopes, and human promise of vibrant people whom you’ll not soon forget.”
— Elle
“Boo creates an intimate, unforgettable portrait of India’s urban poor…The best book yet written on India in the throes of a brutal transition.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“This is an astonishing book…on several levels: as a worm’s-eye view of the ‘undercity’ of one of the world’s largest metropolises; as an intensely reported, deeply felt account of the lives, hopes, and fears of people traditionally excluded from literate narratives; as a story that truly hasn’t been told before, at least not about India and not by a foreigner…[Behind the Beautiful Forevers] is a searing account, in effective and racy prose, that reads like a thrilling novel but packs a punch Sinclair Lewis might have envied.”
— Washington Post
“[An] exquisitely accomplished first book. Novelists dream of defining characters this swiftly and beautifully, but Ms. Boo is not a novelist. She is one of those rare, deep-digging journalists who can make truth surpass fiction, a documentarian with a superb sense of human drama. She makes it very easy to forget that this book is the work of a reporter…Comparison to Dickens is not unwarranted.”
— New York Times

Awards

Winner of the 2012 Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest
A New York Times bestseller
A 2012 Washington Post Top 10 Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 USA Today Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 San Francisco Chronicle Best Book for Nonfiction
Newsday’s Favorite Books of the Year for Nonfiction, 2012
A 2012 People Magazine Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Entertainment Weekly Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Economist Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Financial Times Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction
A 2012 Seattle Times Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Kansas City Star Top 100 Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Slate Magazine Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Publishers Weekly Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 Guardian First Book Award Finalist
A 2012 Barnes & Noble Best Book for Nonfiction
A 2012 New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year
A 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction Nominee
A 2012 Wall Street Journal Best Book
A 2012 New Yorker’s Best Books
A 2012 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book
A 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for General Nonfiction
A 2012 Salon Magazine Best Book
A Time Magazine Top 10 Book of the Decade in Nonfiction

Behind the Beautiful Forevers Listener Reviews

Overall Performance:

(3.96)

5 Stars: 8

4 Stars: 9

3 Stars: 4

2 Stars: 1

1 Stars: 1

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Overall Performance:
" More impressive when you realize in the acknowledgements that it's based on real, observed events! A fascinating look at poverty in the slums of India; definitely puts life in perspective. The only detraction is the story doesn't follow a central character; more a collection of stories. "
— Ranjini, 2/20/2014
Overall Performance:
" This was excellent...if you truly want to be depressed about the human condition. Shook the way I think about human nature. The "hope" part of the title wasn't very evident to me. "
— Kyla, 2/19/2014
Overall Performance:
" This was a difficult book to read due to its content. These poor people faced challenges that i could never imagine. They were so poor and no matter how they tried to better themselves they were trapped by a very corrupt government. My heart broke for them. "
— Maryann, 2/7/2014
Overall Performance:
" A good read. I would like to have read the Author's Note (at the end) first because it informed my view of this story in a more compassionate way. "
— Jeanne, 1/27/2014
Overall Performance:
" Both painful and moving. It reads like a novel, making it that much ore powerful when you realize that these events actually happened. "
— Magee, 1/10/2014
Overall Performance:
" This NF book reads like a novel! You have to remind yourself that it is about real lives. In this way you enter the community and develop empathic understanding from the perspective of the residents. It is at once heart- wrenching and beautiful. It binds people across cultures. "
— Barb, 1/7/2014
Overall Performance:
" If you are tempted to visit India, or romanticize it, this book ought to cure you. Boo's discerment of ambition and realism amongst the dump-pickers and scavengers living near Mumbai Airport is fascinating. "
— Ka, 1/5/2014
Overall Performance:
" Remarkably good journalistic account of a Mumbai slum. "
— Tim, 1/4/2014
Overall Performance:
" I love the narrative approach of this non-fictional account of slum life in contemporary Mumbai. My book club reads mainly fiction, nevertheless we voted this our best choice for 2012! If you enjoyed 'Nothing to Envy' about life in North Korea you should definitely take a look at this book. "
— Maureen, 1/1/2014
Overall Performance:
" This book is so good, but so depressing. If you want more journalistic literature about Mumbai, I also recommend Maximum City. "
— Jessica, 12/13/2013
Overall Performance:
" Wonderful book. A real and sympathetic insight into the lives of people that otherwise would have remained hidden 'behind the beautiful forev ers' "
— Karen, 12/8/2013
Overall Performance:
" Appalling, very sad, unbelievable, and only slightly manipulative (but given the weight of the tale, the author is forgiven). The scenes of poverty are heartbreaking; the scenes of "justice" and corruption are downright horrifying. A gripping piece of nonfiction. "
— Charity, 12/7/2013
Overall Performance:
" Didn't see Slumdog Millionaire so read this from the library. Eye opening look at life in Mumbai India slums and how people cope with everyday life and relations in a level of poverty that can only be described as not fit for man or beast yet much of the worlds people live like this. "
— Steve, 10/12/2013
Overall Performance:
" I stopped reading at page 43. "
— Kirstin, 9/13/2013
Overall Performance:
" Boo's writing is a vivid portrait of ordinary people living in extraordinary conditions of poverty and further marginalized by corruption. It's a tough read in many spots. Weary-making, but high quality writing. "
— Susan, 9/12/2013
Overall Performance:
" Incredibly descriptive and moving account of life in the slums of Mumbai....superb "
— Tina, 5/14/2013
Overall Performance:
" Read too much like a novel; couldn't get into it. "
— Karrie, 4/25/2013
Overall Performance:
" What an amazing book. Katherine Boo's reporting and account of life in a Mumbai slum is genius. It was a hard book to put down and I'm sure will make a lasting impression on whoever reads it! "
— Autumn, 1/1/2013
Overall Performance:
" A wonderful book about a country I love. I had a rough idea of what life might be like in the slums you see from the plane as you fly in and out of Mumbai, but this book puts it all out there in every bit of frustrating detail. "
— Dawn, 10/27/2012
Overall Performance:
" This was a good book. It wasn't as good as I expected it to be, but it was good. "
— Tiffoknee, 9/15/2012
Overall Performance:
" One of the best books I've read in a long time. Hard to believe it's nonfiction. Haunting. "
— Stephanie, 6/23/2012
Overall Performance:
" there are reasons why people win Pulitzers "
— Paul, 4/25/2012
Overall Performance:
" Interesting book, sad book in a way that makes you think about poverty a little differently than you might have. There is some hard language used in the book. "
— Charles, 1/29/2012

About Katherine Boo

Katherine Boo is a staff writer at the New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for the Washington Post. Her reporting has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur “Genius” grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. For the last decade, she has divided her time between the United States and India.

About Sunil Malhotra

Sunil Malhotra is an actor and voice artist. His film credits include Dude, Where’s the Party?, Call Center, 24, ER, Cold Case, and The West Wing. On stage, he has performed on Broadway and at East West Players. He has also worked as a writer, producer, and director, and his audiobook narrations have won three AudioFile Earphones Awards.