-
Disgrace
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Michael Cumpsty
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $29.90
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Great first listens
![The Housemaid Audiobook By Freida McFadden cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51+UxIo+YNL._SL240_.jpg)
![Listen for the Lie Audiobook By Amy Tintera cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51zllGBPiuL._SL240_.jpg)
![Project Hail Mary Audiobook By Andy Weir cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51b6fvQr1-L._SL240_.jpg)
![The Housemaid's Secret Audiobook By Freida McFadden cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51WR3i5EfIL._SL240_.jpg)
![Kingdom of Ash Audiobook By Sarah J. Maas cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51r5TOoIdRL._SL240_.jpg)
![Tower of Dawn Audiobook By Sarah J. Maas cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51JhJaNpMWL._SL240_.jpg)
![A Court of Thorns and Roses (Part 2 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation) Audiobook By Sarah J. Maas cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vJxchNsxL._SL240_.jpg)
![Verity Audiobook By Colleen Hoover cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511i1nvprYL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Duke and I Audiobook By Julia Quinn cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51XnZ3udYnL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Nightingale Audiobook By Kristin Hannah cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51lJVAGTuNL._SL240_.jpg)
![Words of Radiance Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51yEEt2q0vL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Way of Kings Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hAwcG3oNL._SL240_.jpg)
![An Offer from a Gentleman Audiobook By Julia Quinn cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51qhFc8LJqL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Final Empire Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61rYqiz8yJL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Inmate Audiobook By Freida McFadden cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ORE1dbOaL._SL240_.jpg)
![Fourth Wing (Part 1 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation) Audiobook By Rebecca Yarros cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61i95pK0DoL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Idea of You Audiobook By Robinne Lee cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41-CB3k8DrL._SL240_.jpg)
![James Audiobook By Percival Everett cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31FeDPikCWL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Serpent and the Wings of Night Audiobook By Carissa Broadbent cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61VDeWSV8iL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Viscount Who Loved Me Audiobook By Julia Quinn cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/515SoOHheML._SL240_.jpg)
![The Perfect Son Audiobook By Freida McFadden cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510Bt0n2r-L._SL240_.jpg)
![Break Me Audiobook By K. A. Tucker cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/512TJtt1MlL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Well of Ascension Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61jTUT0xfCL._SL240_.jpg)
![We Are Legion (We Are Bob) Audiobook By Dennis E. Taylor cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51rt2pFIW7L._SL240_.jpg)
![Oathbringer Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51fKpuTPMdL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Great Alone Audiobook By Kristin Hannah cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51NeDaxcJwL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Hero of Ages Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/611IBQxExyL._SL240_.jpg)
![The Mountain Is You Audiobook By Brianna Wiest cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jiySKmibL._SL240_.jpg)
![Dawnshard Audiobook By Brandon Sanderson cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51oUwcEc9UL._SL240_.jpg)
![Unfu*k Yourself Audiobook By Gary John Bishop cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51l9kZheEAL._SL240_.jpg)
Publisher's summary
Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 1999
Set in post-apartheid South Africa, Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee's searing novel tells the story of David Lurie, a twice divorced 52-year-old professor of communications and Romantic Poetry at Cape Technical University.
Lurie believes he has created a comfortable, if somewhat passionless, life for himself. He lives within his financial and emotional means. Though his position at the university has been reduced, he teaches his classes dutifully; and while age has diminished his attractiveness, weekly visits to a prostitute satisfy his sexual needs. He considers himself happy. But when Lurie seduces one of his students, he sets in motion a chain of events that will shatter his complacency and leave him utterly disgraced.
Lurie pursues his relationship with the young Melanie - whom he describes as having hips "as slim as a 12-year-old's" - obsessively and narcissistically, ignoring, on one occasion, her wish not to have sex. When Melanie and her father lodge a complaint against him, Lurie is brought before an academic committee where he admits he is guilty of all the charges but refuses to express any repentance for his acts. In the furor of the scandal, jeered at by students, threatened by Melanie's boyfriend, ridiculed by his ex-wife, Lurie is forced to resign and flees Cape Town for his daughter Lucy's small holding in the country.
Written with the austere clarity that has made J. M. Coetzee the winner of two Booker Prizes, Disgrace explores the downfall of one man and dramatizes, with unforgettable, at times almost unbearable, vividness the plight of a country caught in the chaotic aftermath of centuries of racial oppression.
Critic reviews
“Disgrace is not a hard or obscure book - it is, among other things, compulsively readable - but what it may well be is an authentically spiritual document, a lament for the soul of a disgraced century.” (The New Yorker)
“A subtly brilliant commentary on the nature and balance of power in his homeland.... Disgrace is a mini-opera without music by a writer at the top of his form.” (Time)
“Mr. Coetzee, in prose lean yet simmering with feeling, has indeed achieved a lasting work: a novel as haunting and powerful as Albert Camus’s The Stranger.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Related to this topic
-
The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
-
-
SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Keys to the Street
- By: Ruth Rendell
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.
-
-
Mystery with humor and insight
- By Ida Hagman on 10-02-12
By: Ruth Rendell
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
-
-
SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Keys to the Street
- By: Ruth Rendell
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.
-
-
Mystery with humor and insight
- By Ida Hagman on 10-02-12
By: Ruth Rendell
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
The Door
- By: Magda Szabó, Len Rix - translator
- Narrated by: Siân Thomas
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Intense, brilliant and moving, The Door is a compelling story about the relationship between two women of opposing backgrounds and personalities: one, an intellectual and writer; the other, her housekeeper, a mysterious, elderly woman who sets her own rules and abjures religion, education, pretense and any kind of authority. Beneath this hardened exterior of Emerence lies a painful story that must be concealed.
-
-
Challenging, but an engrossing, literary work.
- By Earnest on 09-05-17
By: Magda Szabó, and others
-
The Vagrants
- By: Yiyun Li
- Narrated by: Jackie Chung
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yiyun Li is the winner of the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The Vagrants, set in 1979 China, is the story of those affected by the execution of a 28-year-old counterrevolutionary. Though suffering, Li's characters nevertheless struggle to maintain hope amid cruel circumstance.
-
-
Lovely prose, good story, deadly narration
- By Athene on 05-10-13
By: Yiyun Li
-
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
- By: Fay Weldon
- Narrated by: Gemma Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In New York Magazine, Rhoda Koenig calls The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, "...a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
-
-
Sweet, brutal, and over the top revenge!!
- By Wayne on 04-10-17
By: Fay Weldon
-
The Damnation Game
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marty Strauss, a gambling addict recently released from prison, is hired to be the personal bodyguard of Joseph Whitehead, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The job proves more complicated and dangerous than he thought, however, as Marty soon gets caught up in a series of supernatural events involving Whitehead, his daughter (who is a heroin addict), and a devilish man named Mamoulian, with whom Whitehead made a Faustian bargain many years earlier, during World War II.
-
-
Damned If You Do
- By Wag The Fox on 04-05-14
By: Clive Barker
-
Winter Journey
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Halina Shore is a Polish born forensic dentist living in Australia. When she travels to Poland to take part in the investigation of a war crime, she finds herself at the center of a bitter struggle in a community that has been divided by a grim legacy. As the investigation proceeds, her professional assignment becomes a confronting personal odyssey as the truth about her own past begins to emerge.
-
-
Historical Story Marred by Unnecessary Fluff
- By Debbie on 11-30-15
By: Diane Armstrong
-
Asylum
- By: Patrick McGrath
- Narrated by: Sir Ian McKellen
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1959 Stella Raphael joins her psychiatrist husband, Max, at his new posting - a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Stella soon falls under the spell of Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor who has been confined to the hospital for murdering his wife in a psychotic rage. But Stella's knowledge of Edgar's crime is no hindrance to the volcanic attraction that ensues -a passion that will consume Stella's sanity and destroy her and the lives of those around her.
-
-
So enjoyed this book!
- By Mebythesea on 10-07-08
By: Patrick McGrath
-
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
-
-
Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
-
Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
-
-
A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
-
Hum If You Don't Know the Words
- By: Bianca Marais
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a 10-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising.
-
-
Completely wrong accents
- By Debbie on 02-12-22
By: Bianca Marais
-
A Spear of Summer Grass
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savanna manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Vinity on 07-13-13
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
-
-
Grows Within You
- By Chris Reich on 08-06-11
By: Saul Bellow
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Waiting for the Barbarians
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
-
-
An Interesting Read For The Current Times
- By Jen on 04-05-20
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Pole
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Exacting yet unpredictable, pithy yet complex, J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, extravagantly white-haired pianist and interpreter of Chopin who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish Spanish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his concert in Barcelona. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold and his “gleaming dentures,” she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world.
-
-
Sad but beautiful
- By federico on 05-28-24
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
-
-
SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Late Essays
- 2016-2017
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J.M. Coetzee is not only one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in the world, he is also an accomplished and insightful literary critic. In Late Essays, a thought-provoking collection of 22 pieces, he examines the work of some of the world's greatest writers - from Daniel Defoe and Samuel Beckett to Irene Nemirovsky and Goethe. Challenging yet accessible, literary master Coetzee writes these essays with great clarity and precision, offering listeners an illuminating and profound analysis of a remarkable list of writers and their works.
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Here and Now
- Letters (2008–2011)
- By: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee had been reading each other’s books for years, the two writers did not meet until February 2008. Not long after, Auster received a letter from Coetzee, suggesting they begin exchanging letters on a regular basis and, “God willing, strike sparks off each other.” Here and Now is the result of that proposal: the epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friends. Over three years their letters touched on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, film festivals to incest, philosophy to politics....
-
-
Euridite Bromance
- By Dale C. on 08-08-24
By: Paul Auster, and others
-
The Sea
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife’s death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child—a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time.
-
-
OVERWHELMINGLY FINE
- By Karen on 07-20-07
By: John Banville
-
Waiting for the Barbarians
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
-
-
An Interesting Read For The Current Times
- By Jen on 04-05-20
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Pole
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Exacting yet unpredictable, pithy yet complex, J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, extravagantly white-haired pianist and interpreter of Chopin who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish Spanish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his concert in Barcelona. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold and his “gleaming dentures,” she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world.
-
-
Sad but beautiful
- By federico on 05-28-24
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
-
-
SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Late Essays
- 2016-2017
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J.M. Coetzee is not only one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in the world, he is also an accomplished and insightful literary critic. In Late Essays, a thought-provoking collection of 22 pieces, he examines the work of some of the world's greatest writers - from Daniel Defoe and Samuel Beckett to Irene Nemirovsky and Goethe. Challenging yet accessible, literary master Coetzee writes these essays with great clarity and precision, offering listeners an illuminating and profound analysis of a remarkable list of writers and their works.
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Here and Now
- Letters (2008–2011)
- By: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee had been reading each other’s books for years, the two writers did not meet until February 2008. Not long after, Auster received a letter from Coetzee, suggesting they begin exchanging letters on a regular basis and, “God willing, strike sparks off each other.” Here and Now is the result of that proposal: the epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friends. Over three years their letters touched on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, film festivals to incest, philosophy to politics....
-
-
Euridite Bromance
- By Dale C. on 08-08-24
By: Paul Auster, and others
-
The Sea
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife’s death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child—a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time.
-
-
OVERWHELMINGLY FINE
- By Karen on 07-20-07
By: John Banville
-
The Death of Jesus
- A Novel
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Estrella, David has grown to be a tall 10-year-old who is a natural at soccer, and loves kicking a ball around with his friends. His father Simón and Bolívar the dog usually watch while his mother Inés now works in a fashion boutique. David still asks many questions, challenging his parents, and any authority figure in his life. In dancing class at the Academy of Music he dances as he chooses. He refuses to do sums and will not read any books except Don Quixote.
-
-
Well-written simple story of an uninteresting Family Life
- By Tom on 10-20-23
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Famished Road
- By: Ben Okri
- Narrated by: Hugh Quarshie
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use. He is born into a world of poverty, ignorance and injustice, but Azaro awakens with a smile on his face. Despite belonging to a spirit world made of enchantment, where there is no suffering, Azaro chooses to stay in the land of the Living: to feel it, endure it, know it and love it. This is his story.
-
-
Too many supernatural elements for my taste
- By Merlin on 10-08-22
By: Ben Okri
-
Cry, the Beloved Country
- By: Alan Paton
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the most distinguished novel that has come out of South Africa in the 20th century, and it is one of the most important novels of the modern era. Cry, the Beloved Country is in some ways a sad book; it is an indictment of a social system that drives native races into resentment and crime; it is a story of Fate, as inevitable, as relentless, as anything of Thomas Hardy's. Beautifully wrought with high poetic compassion, Cry, the Beloved Country is more than just a story, it is a profound experience of the human spirit.
-
-
A word painting: gripping, breathtaking & moving
- By Jacobus on 10-04-12
By: Alan Paton
-
Oscar and Lucinda
- By: Peter Carey
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 20 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees. Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. In the early parts of this lushly written audiobook, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces.
-
-
A book to wade in, submerge into.
- By Darwin8u on 10-25-15
By: Peter Carey
-
True History of the Kelly Gang
- By: Peter Carey
- Narrated by: Gianfranco Negroponte
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ned Kelly's name resonates in Australia the same way the name Jesse James does in America. Was he a crusading folk hero or murderous horse thief and bank robber? Who was the real Ned Kelly? As the impoverished son of an Irish convict, Kelly was cheated, lied to, and abused by the English. Committed to fighting back against oppression, Kelly and his gang of outlaws eluded police for nearly two years.
-
-
An 'adjectival' masterpiece of 'effing' prose.
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: Peter Carey
-
Possession
- By: A. S. Byatt
- Narrated by: Virginia Leishman
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a pair of young scholars research the lives of two Victorian poets, they uncover their letters, journals, and poems and track their movements from London to Yorkshire - from spiritualist seances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany. What emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passion and ideas.
-
-
Absolutely Excellent
- By Loujujoe on 05-12-09
By: A. S. Byatt
-
Nostromo
- A Tale of the Seaboard
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the greatest political novels in any language, Nostromo reenacts the establishment of modern capitalism in a remote South American province locked between the Andes and the Pacific. In Sulaco, a harbor town in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguana, a vivid cast of characters is caught up in a civil war to decide whether its fabulously wealthy silver can be preserved from the hands of venal politicians.
-
-
Page-turning masterpiece garbled by narrator
- By Thomas M on 03-22-21
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Troubles
- By: J. G. Farrell
- Narrated by: Kevin Hely
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland - to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancée he acquired on a rash afternoon's leave three years ago. Despite her many letters, the lady herself proves elusive, and the Major's engagement is short-lived. But he is unable to detach himself from the alluring discomforts of the crumbling hotel. Ensconced in the dim and shabby splendour of the Palm Court, surrounded by gently decaying old ladies and proliferating cats, the Major passes the summer.
-
-
Absolutely delightful read
- By E. Kim on 02-25-20
By: J. G. Farrell
-
Disgrace
- By: Brittainy C. Cherry
- Narrated by: Amanda Leigh Cobb, James Cavenaugh
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Each day I prayed for my husband to love me again. After 15 years together, he walked away from me, and into the arms of another. I didn’t know how to cope. I didn’t know my worth. I didn’t know how to exist without him by my side. All I wanted was for him to come back to me. Then, Jackson Emery appeared. He was supposed to be a distraction for my mind. A summer fling. A confidence boost to my bruised heart. We were perfect for one another, because we both knew we wouldn’t last. Jackson didn’t believe in commitment, and I no longer believed in love.
-
-
✫✫ 4 Stars ✫✫
- By ❤️Cyndi Marie❤️🎧Audiobook Addicts🎧 on 10-11-18
-
The White Tiger
- A Novel
- By: Aravind Adiga
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life - having nothing but his own wits to help him along. Through Balram's eyes, we see India as we've never seen it before: the cockroaches and the call centers, the prostitutes and the worshippers, the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger.
With a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create morality and money doesn't solve every problem.
-
-
Entertaining, thought-provoking, darkly funny
- By Mark P. Furlong on 05-29-08
By: Aravind Adiga
-
The Golden Notebook
- By: Doris Lessing
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.
-
-
Transcendent narration of a masterpiece.
- By @vmarinelli on 07-03-12
By: Doris Lessing
-
The Good Soldier
- Penguin Classics
- By: Ford Madox Ford
- Narrated by: David Shaw-Parker, Billy Howle
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone's honesty is in doubt.
-
-
Humorous Take on Conceptually Tragic Circumstance
- By noah on 09-19-23
By: Ford Madox Ford
What listeners say about Disgrace
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TF
- 09-29-23
Essential reading
Or listening…a work that transcends time and place, though it also helps the reader understand South Africa and that time. A work very much deserving of its acclaim.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Reader
- 07-22-09
Intense
I now want to read everything this author has written. Superb, but challenging
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Will Cathcart
- 08-15-20
Nabokov Raised by Wolves
This is a masterpiece that shreds you up inside. If Donna Tartt, Ann Patchett, and Nabokov had threesome that produced a love child which they abandoned in South Africa and Cormac McCartney raised her in a garage full of wolves, classic works, and opera playing 24/7 on surround sound— that would this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- thawstone
- 01-04-10
Amazing Story
It's hard to believe this book is fiction. It would seem the author would have to have lived this life in order to write such a convincing portrait.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Benedict
- 02-20-11
Understanding South Africa
There are two great books that I know of about life in South Africa: This one and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (also on Audible.com and a terrific listen).
This is a powerful book, at some points I wanted to quit it because it was quite an emotional experience. But I am happy, very happy I kept with it.
I would say this book had great emotional impact as I have mentioned, plus it gave me an education on the people of the groups of South Africa and their character. Not always the pretty sight. I wonder if South Africa will ever "work".
The author is a Nobel prize winner for Literature in 2003. I learned a lot about him otherwise in the Wikipedia article on him, and highly recommend it. I believe part of the excellence of this book is the portrayal of life as it is in such a way that it could not be communicated in any other medium. Quite an achievement.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- GJ
- 05-25-20
Hmm, it’s hard to rate this. Bleak but essential.
Some themes: Desire, Loss, Justice, Transitions, Death
I would recommend this book to those who are okay with very bleak/sad endings. This book might also be for you if you are okay with flawed and unlikable characters.
Something I can say that is easy about the book is that it is easy to read...it’s a page-turner, as they say.
The voice actor does a good job throughout the audiobook. Two thumbs up there.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael E Harn
- 09-30-22
Shockingly Readable
A dark, dark book full of depressing characters and topics with some triggering events, yet I couldn't stop listening and didn't regret my time in this book. Recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- JOHN
- 07-18-10
Great book - aptly named
"Disgrace" - That pretty much says it all, and such is the fate of the main character, professor David Lurie.
I read this book years ago, before it was available on Audible. Brought to life by the reader Michael Cumpsty this audio version is just as satisfying, if not more than the written version.
It is virtually impossible to empathize with David Lurie, who's narcissistic and selfish behavior make him his own worst enemy. Yet J.M. Coetzee offers no excuses for Lurie. He is simply a very flawed man, aging against his will, resigned to act according to life's forces that direct him to his own demise.
On it's face, the story is simple. However there are many complexities that weave throughout: Lurie's relationship with his daughter Lucy, his avocational project on Byron, his checkered past with females, his interaction with Lucy's neighbors, his reluctant volunteering at an animal clinic.
The story and writing are as stark as the arid South African landscape where it is situated. This concise book is brutally straightforward and masterfully crafted.
Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Ian
- 03-01-11
A Great Work of Literature
Clear and easy to follow, but ultimately profoundly ambiguous and thought provoking. The novel is beautiful despite being hopeless and dispairing in the end. It is anti-romantic and reminded me of Unbearable Lightness of Being turned on its head. Incredibly vivid despite sparse, understated language. The ending scene was literally stunning and I wasn't able to process it fully emotionally until the following day. One of the top ten novels I've read (listened) to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeff Lacy
- 03-16-21
A haunting story, well performed
Michael Cumpsty’s performance lends the edge to this haunting novel. He adds layers to the story contributing to a greater appreciation of the story (this is one of those novels to which reading and listening is valuable). With a well constructed plot, well developed characters, tight writing, the story propels forward compellingly. One draws its meaning as in a poem, profoundly. In the end, one feels viscerally the daunting significance in the silence, the emptiness
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!