Audiobooks by Simon Van Booy

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth. 'Language is a map leading to a place not on the map,' announces a young writer lying in a hospital bed at the beginning of The Presence of Absence. As he contemplates his impending physical disappearance and the impact on his beloved wife, he realizes, 'Life doesn't start when you're born . . . it begins when you commit yourself to the eventual devastating loss that results from connecting to another person.' Infused with poetic clarity and graced with humor, Simon Van Booy's innovative novella asks us to find beauty-even gratitude-in the cycle of birth and death. Stripped of artifice, The Presence of Absence is a meditation between the writer and the reader, an imaginative work that challenges the deceit of written words and explores our strongest emotions. Simon Van Booy is not only a master storyteller but a writer whose fiction is rich with philosophical insights into things both mapped and undiscovered. The Presence of Absence parts the darkness to reveal what has been just out of sight all along.

Simon Van Booy (Author), Philip Battley (Narrator)

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The Sadness of Beautiful Things: Stories

An exquisite new collection of short stories from award-winning author Simon Van Booy. Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people's stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes readers into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor, to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these masterfully written tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives, but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better. "Van Booy's stories are somehow like paintings the characters walk out of, and keep walking." -Los Angeles Times 'Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of the human heart.' --Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain Audiobook Table of Contents: A Sacrifice, read by Alana Kerr Collins The Green Blanket, read by James Fouhey Playing with Dolls, read by Simon van Booy The Pigeon, read by Giordan Diaz The Hitchhiker, read by Alana Kerr Collins Not Dying, read by Darren Burrows The Saddest Case of True Love, read by Simon van Booy The Doorman, read by James Fouhey

Simon Van Booy (Author), , Alana Kerr Collins, Darren Burrows, Giordan Diaz, James Fouhey, Simon Van Booy (Narrator)

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Gertie Milk and the Keeper of Lost Things

Award-winning author Simon Van Booy introduces readers to a magical, whimsical world, perfect for fans of Circus Mirandus and Serafina and the Black Cloak. When twelve-year-old Gertie Milk washes up on the island of Skuldark, she finds that all of her memories are gone. Home to helpful Slug Lamps, delicious moonberries, and a ferocious Guard Worm, the island is full of oddities, including a cozy cottage containing artifacts from every corner of history. It is there that Gertie discovers she has been chosen as the next Keeper of Lost Things, tasked with the mission of returning objects to history's most important figures right when they need them most. With the help of a time machine disguised as a vintage sports car and the guidance of her fellow Keeper, Kolt, Gertie dodges an elephant army in ancient Alexandria, crashes a 1920s flapper party, and battles a ruthless Zhou Dynasty king. But soon, Gertie encounters an enemy that threatens everything the Keepers stand for: The Losers, villains who don't want to keep order but destroy it. Now, Gertie must uncover the truth of her own past if she wants to stop the Losers and set history back in place.

Simon Van Booy (Author), Miriam Margolyes (Narrator)

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Father's Day: A Novel

When devastating news shatters the life of six-year-old Harvey, she finds herself in the care of a veteran social worker, Wanda, and alone in the world save for one relative she has never met-a disabled felon, haunted by a violent past he can't escape. Moving between past and present, Father's Day weaves together the story of Harvey's childhood on Long Island and her life as a young woman in Paris. Written in raw, spare prose that personifies the characters, this novel is the journey of two people searching for a future in the ruin of their past. Father's Day is a meditation on the quiet, sublime power of compassion, and the beauty of simple, everyday things-a breakthrough work from one of our most gifted chroniclers of the human heart.

Simon Van Booy (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Everything Beautiful Began After: A Novel

Rebecca is young, lost, and beautiful. A gifted artist, she seeks solace and inspiration in the Mediterranean heat of Athens'trying to understand who she is and how she can love without fear. George has come to Athens to learn ancient languages after growing up in New England boarding schools and Ivy League colleges. He has no close relationships with anyone and spends his days hunched over books or wandering the city in a drunken stupor. Henry is in Athens to dig. An accomplished young archaeologist, he devotedly uncovers the city's past as a way to escape his own, which holds a secret that not even his doting parents can talk about. ...And then, with a series of chance meetings, Rebecca, George, and Henry are suddenly in flight, their lives brighter and clearer than ever, as they fall headlong into a summer that will forever define them in the decades to come

Simon Van Booy (Author), Simon Van Booy (Narrator)

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