Ishmael

A Novel

By: Daniel Quinn

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Morgan Freeman

One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author.
 
“A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.”—The New York Times Book Review

Teacher Seeks Pupil.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world.
Apply in person.

It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime.

So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla—a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankind’s place in it.
 
In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves?
 
Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy, available on audio:
ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B

Praise for Ishmael

“As suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.”—The Austin Chronicle

“Before we’re halfway through this slim book . . . we’re in [Daniel Quinn’s] grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet from ourselves. We want to change our lives.”—The Washington Post

“Arthur Koestler, in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of the dinosaur, formulated what he called the Dinosaur’s Prayer: ‘Lord, a little more time!’ Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time.”—Los Angeles Times

Critic reviews

“A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.”—The New York Times Book Review

“[Quinn entraps] us in the dialogue itself, in the sweet and terrible lucidity of Ishmael’s analysis of the human condition. . . . It was surely for this deep, clear persuasiveness of argument that Ishmael was given its huge prize.”—The Washington Post

“It is as suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction book you are likely to read this or any other year.”—The Austin Chronicle

“Deserves high marks as a serious—and all too rare—effort that is unflinchingly engaged with fundamental life-and-death concerns.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ishmael

Piercing through the mind and back out to the world where we get our cultural identity and experience. Consumerism is the prison and the thoughtful and exceedingly patient gorilla is the teacher. I will read again and highly recommend it. So rich with the truths of how we live life and how to save our planet from environmental catastrophe.
Read abs read again- I am starting the next book of the trilogy.

Taker or Leaver?

Will the human race survive? Will they ever learn? This book/series, like so many others have said, should be required reading. But to say that would mean it would be forced, and that is not the intent. My hope is that everyone would ‘want’ to read it.

Read, learn, embrace and share.

The gorilla

Loved it!! It really makes you think about the future we are being left with and the past that causes this.

Best book of all time

You will see why. Just read this book- you will not have a single regret.

I had no idea what to expect

The very best listen that I can recall. Every moment requires the listener to question their own life and how we treat each other, including other animals, and the planet.