The Forty Rules of Love Audiobook by Elif Shafak

https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/audiobook/79/ to download full audiobooks of your choice for free. Title: The Forty Rules of Love Subtitle: A Novel of Rumi Author: Elif Shafak Narrator: Laural Merlington Format: Unabridged Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins Language: English Release date: 03-04-10 Publisher: Tantor Audio Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 467 votes Genres: Fiction, Literary Publisher's Summary: In this follow-up to her acclaimed 2007 novel The Bastard of Istanbul, Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives---one contemporary and the other set in the 13th century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz---that together incarnate the poet's timeless message of love. Ella Rubenstein is 40 years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams' search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, which offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mirrors her own and that Zahara---like Shams---has come to set her free. Editorial Reviews: Laural Merlingtons talent for vocal transformation makes The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi by best-selling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak a spellbinding experience. Merlington deftly and clearly moves between American characters living in Northampton, MA, in 2008 and 13th-century townspeople of Konya, Turkey, giving all depth, emotion, and personality. The Forty Rules of Love jumps back and forth between the two time periods as Ella, a 40-year-old American housewife and mother of three, begins to wade back into the work force by taking a job reading manuscript submissions for a literary agency. Her first assignment, a story of the relationship between the mysterious 13th-century Sufi, Shams of Tabriz, and the Islamic scholar, Jalal al-Din Rumi (now world renown as the Sufi poet Rumi), becomes the catalyst for changes well beyond Ellas desire to work outside the home. Ella finds herself drawn to the manuscripts author, Aziz Zahara, a peripatetic Scottish photographer and Sufi, seeking out the author through email. As the online friendship between Ella and Aziz escalates, the manuscript Aziz has written begins to shake Ella loose from the conventional moorings that she has, for decades, assured herself complete her life. While Merlington easily gives voice to Ellas snarky teen-aged children and distant husband, her talents shine as she moves to the books characters from 13th-century Turkey. The listening experience borders on magical as Jackal Head, a mercenary assassin, Desert Rose, a young woman forced into prostitution, and Suleiman, the village drunk, share their stories. However, it is the depiction of Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish searching the land for his souls companion, and Rumi, the scholar blindsided by this itinerant spiritual seeker, that shapes the rich world of The Forty Rules of Love. There is bewilderment in the voice of Jalal al-Din Rumi as he attempts to reconcile his connection to the dervish who has entered the scholars well-ordered world.