Audiobooks by Jane Christmas

Open House: A Life in Thirty-Two Moves Audiobook

Moving house has never flustered author Jane Christmas. She loves houses: viewing them, negotiating their price, dreaming up interior plans, hiring tradespeople to do the work and overseeing renovations. She loves houses so much that she’s moved thirty-two times. There are good reasons for her latest house move, but after viewing sixty homes, Jane and her husband succumb to the emotional fatigue of an overheated English housing market and buy a wreck in the town of Bristol that is overpriced, will require more money to renovate than they have and that neither of them particularly like. As Jane’s nightmare renovation begins, her mind returns to the Canadian homes where she grew up with parents who moved and renovated constantly around the Toronto area. Suddenly, the protective seal is blown off Jane’s memory of a strict and peripatetic childhood and its ancillary damage—lost friends, divorces, suicide attempts—and the past threatens to shake the foundations of her marriage. This latest renovation dredges a deeper current of memory, causing Jane to question whether in renovating a house she is in fact attempting to renovate her past. With humour and irreverence, Open House reveals that what we think we gain by constantly moving house actually obscures the precious and vital parts of our lives that we leave behind. This is a memoir that will appeal to anyone whose pulse quickens at the mere mention of real estate.

Jane Christmas (Author), Dawn Harvey (Narrator)

Audiobook

What the Pilgrim Told the Psychic

"Impulse is intuition on Crack. If Intuition is the prudent angel who carefully directs your spirit, then Impulse is its mischief-making twin. The "imp in impulse." And thus begins Jane Christmas's second book chronicling a walk a very long walk taken to celebrate her 50th birthday and face the challenges of mid-life. From a chance encounter, Jane Christmas is inspired to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a goal she mentioned in a CBC radio interview. That casual mention insipired others, too, and Christmas finds herself "leader" of 14 women who have all signed on to hike the Camino with her. Before leaving, a psychic warns her of catfights, death, and a sexy, fair-haired man. Udaunted, Christmas soldiers on. In vivid, irreverant style, she recounts the joys and struggles she encountered on this challenging pilgrimage - her battles with loneliness, group dynamics, and exhaustion, and more. What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim is one trip neither the author or listener will forget.

Jane Christmas (Author), Jane Christmas (Narrator)

Audiobook

And There Were Nuns

Jane Christmas takes a decidedly unconventional journey to find out whether she is, as she puts it, "nun material". This is no carefree adventure. The call toward a religious vocation has beckoned Jane since she was a teenager, and now in her fifties she decides to explore it in earnest. Meanwhile, her long-term partner Colin, previously disinterested in marriage, springs a surprise marriage proposal on her unaware of what she is about to tell him. Jane, however, decides not to allow her monastic dreams to be interrupted. She sets off on an extraordinary and intense year-plus journey that takes her to four religious communities—one in Canada and three in the UK—and in the course of her immersion provides a seldom-seen glimpse inside modern cloistered life. The book lacks none of the bursts of candor or unrestrained humor that have made her books so popular and relatable (this one is sure to ruffle a few starched clerical collars), but And Then There Were Nuns comes with a darker side as the author comes to terms with a traumatic event from her past.

Jane Christmas (Author), Elizabeth Wiley (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Pelee Project: One Woman's Escape from Urban Madness

Back in 2000, Jane Christmas was, like millions of others, an exhausted single working mother with a punishing agenda of work, domestic, and parenting duties. Weekdays were an urban triathlon, weekends evaporated into mile-long to-do lists. Jane found herself drained, living beyond her means emotionally, physically, and financially. She dreamed of a simpler life, but, like everyone else, worried about the consequences of disconnecting from the frenetic working world. A highway accident changed all that. After walking away from a crash that should have killed her, she did the unthinkable and booked a three-month leave of absence from her job, put her home up for sale, and moved with her 10-year-old daughter to Pelee Island, a remote community of 180 in the middle of Lake Erie. Does the absence of a pedal-to-the-metal schedule freak her out, or does it transform her from den mother to Zen mother? Jane published a 15-part series about her sabbatical in the National Post, and her adventure caused an immediate and huge buzz. Readers were captivated by someone who had the nerve to put the brakes on life. The Pelee Project is Jane's full memoir of her hilarious faux pas, anecdotes, and epiphanies on the island, all told in that refreshingly honest voice that attracted so many to her columns. The Pelee Project is an inspiring tale of personal transformation and self-discovery.

Jane Christmas (Author), Elizabeth Wiley (Narrator)

Audiobook

Incontinent on the Continent: My Mother, Her Walker, and Our Grand Tour of Italy

In this travelogue of self-discovery, Jane Christmas brings her wickedly irreverent style to a new mother-daughter experience. Since the beginning of time, mothers and daughters have had notoriously fraught relationships. "Show me a mother who says she has a good or great relationship with her daughter," Jane Christmas writes, "and I'll show you a daughter who is in therapy trying to understand how it all went so horribly wrong." To smooth over five decades of constant clashing, Christmas takes her arthritic, incontinent, and domineering mother, Valeria - a cross between Queen Victoria and Hyacinth Bucket of the British comedy Keeping Up Appearances - on a tour of Italy. Neither has been to Italy before, but both are fans of ancient art, architecture, and history. Will gazing at the fruits of the Italian Renaissance be enough to spark a renaissance in their relationship? As they wander along the winding Amalfi Coast, traverse St. Peter's Square in Rome, and sample the wines of Tuscany - walkers, biscuits, shawls, and medications in tow - they revisit the bickering and bitterness of years past and reassess who they are and how they might reconcile their differences. Unflinching and frequently hilarious, Incontinent on the Continent will speak to all women who have tried to make friends with their mothers. "Her style is equal parts Nora Ephron and Bill Bryson." - Quill and Quire.

Jane Christmas (Author), Eileen Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook