My Mother and I: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

My Mother and I, credited to Elizabeth Gertrude Stern, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of My Mother and I by Elizabeth Gertrude Stern. Read in English by Sue Anderson Elizabeth Stern was two and a half years old, when her family emigrated from Poland to Pittsburgh. My Mother and I is the story of Stern's Americanization and how it ultimately alienated her from her parents. Stern's father had been a small village rabbi. Strict and traditional in his views, he sends Elizabeth to learn Hebrew at age four, so she can fulfill her destiny "as the wife of a rabbi or scholar," but he opposes letting her attend high school. Stern's mother tries fitfully to pry open doors for her daughter. When Stern's father finds Elizabeth reading a secular book, and, in a fit of rage, flings the offending novel onto the top of a tall bookcase, her mother climbs on a chair and retrieves it for her. But Stern's mother never learns English even as it becomes her daughter’s primary language--and she is burdened by endless pregnancies (she ultimately bears 11 children, only the first 4 of whom survive). Stern's relationship with her mother is loving, but when Elizabeth goes to college, they draw apart. Her mother becomes a "shadowy figure," standing with "questioning, puzzled eyes", eyes in which there is love, "but no understanding, and always an infinite loneliness." - Summary by Sue Anderson

Recording facts

• Recording title: My Mother and I
• Author credits: Elizabeth Gertrude Stern
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 11
• Listed recording duration: 3:36:31

Catalogue topics

• judaism
• emigration

Track guide

1. 01 - Foreward, The Kitchen — 23:24
2. 02 - Playing Was Forbidden, Letters to Home — 23:50
3. 03 - The American Flag, A Baby Sister — 20:29
4. 04 - The Little Grey House, Little Women — 20:53
5. 05 - Girls Don't Go To High School — 24:31
6. 06 - A Sabbath Room — 21:55
7. 07 - College and the Cost of Dowries — 19:08
8. 08 - A 21st Birthday Party — 14:54
9. 09 - Leaving Home — 18:33
10. 10 - New York, Marriage — 16:46
11. 11 - Mother Visits Her Grandson — 12:08

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.