-
Tenth of December
- Stories
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND BUZZFEED • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • The New York Times Magazine • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • New York • The Telegraph • BuzzFeed • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage • Shelf Awareness
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet.
In the taut opener, “Victory Lap,” a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In “Home,” a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.
Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.
Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov’s dictum that art should “prepare us for tenderness.”
GEORGE SAUNDERS WAS NAMED ONE OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD BY TIME MAGAZINE
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- Stories and a Novella
- By: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris - introduction
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’ debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world.
-
-
>>BUCKLE. UP.<<
- By Mary K Foster on 05-23-21
By: George Saunders, and others
-
Pastoralia
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
-
-
Greatest living short story author reads own work.
- By Spam on 08-25-19
By: George Saunders
-
Liberation Day
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Tina Fey, Michael McKean, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “best short story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By REBECCA on 10-18-22
By: George Saunders
-
The Braindead Megaphone
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the listener across the rocky political landscape of modern America.
-
-
George Saunders is a genius!
- By caitlyngarofolo on 05-31-20
By: George Saunders
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
-
-
"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
-
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.
-
-
An innovative and fresh listening experience
- By Scott Garrioch on 01-14-21
By: George Saunders
-
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- Stories and a Novella
- By: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris - introduction
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’ debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world.
-
-
>>BUCKLE. UP.<<
- By Mary K Foster on 05-23-21
By: George Saunders, and others
-
Pastoralia
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
-
-
Greatest living short story author reads own work.
- By Spam on 08-25-19
By: George Saunders
-
Liberation Day
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Tina Fey, Michael McKean, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “best short story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By REBECCA on 10-18-22
By: George Saunders
-
The Braindead Megaphone
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the listener across the rocky political landscape of modern America.
-
-
George Saunders is a genius!
- By caitlyngarofolo on 05-31-20
By: George Saunders
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
-
-
"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
-
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.
-
-
An innovative and fresh listening experience
- By Scott Garrioch on 01-14-21
By: George Saunders
-
Fox 8
- A Story
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fox 8 has always been known as the daydreamer in his pack, the one his fellow foxes regarded with a knowing snort and a roll of the eyes. That is, until Fox 8 develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak Yuman by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children’s bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people - even after danjer arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack.
-
-
Sly Foxes, Wise Owls, Mean Dudes
- By Mel on 05-28-13
By: George Saunders
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
In Persuasion Nation
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables - all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Cynthia on 06-14-21
By: George Saunders
-
Congratulations, by the Way
- Some Thoughts on Kindness
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three months after George Saunders gave a graduation address at Syracuse University, a transcript of that speech was posted on the website of The New York Times, where its simple, uplifting message struck a deep chord. Within days, it had been shared more than one million times. Why? Because Saunders’ words tap in to a desire in all of us to lead kinder, more fulfilling lives. Powerful, funny, and wise, Congratulations, by the Way is an inspiring message from one of today’s most influential and original writers.
-
-
Great Speech
- By Lucas Samples on 09-23-20
By: George Saunders
-
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 2 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a profoundly strange country called Inner Horner, large enough for only one resident at a time, citizens waiting to enter the country fall under the rule of the power-hungry and tyrannical Phil, setting off a chain of injustice and mass hysteria. An Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone.
-
-
4.0 stars
- By ibillinsly@gmail on 06-04-19
By: George Saunders
-
Exit West
- A Novel
- By: Mohsin Hamid
- Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet - sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors - doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice.
-
-
Where to Live?
- By David on 04-04-17
By: Mohsin Hamid
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
A Visit from the Goon Squad
- By: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Roxana Ortega
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the listener does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
-
-
Deep and dazzling novel, brilliantly read!
- By J. W. Coop on 06-29-19
By: Jennifer Egan
-
Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
-
-
Anything but middle.
- By Michael on 05-04-03
-
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat—and then for his wife as well—in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami’s most acclaimed and beloved novels.
-
-
Wonderful book, flawed narration.
- By REBECCA on 02-08-14
By: Haruki Murakami
-
This Is How You Lose Her
- By: Junot Díaz
- Narrated by: Junot Díaz
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care.
-
-
Yes, he lost her. So deservedly.
- By McSue on 10-16-12
By: Junot Díaz
-
East of Eden
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
-
-
Why have I avoided this Beautiful Book???
- By Kelly on 03-25-17
By: John Steinbeck
Critic reviews
“A feat of inventiveness . . . This eclectic collection never ceases to delight with its at times absurd, surreal, and darkly humorous look at very serious subjects. . . . George Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time.” (Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner)
“The best short-story writer in English—not ‘one of,’ not ‘arguably,’ but the Best.” (Mary Karr, Time)
“A visceral and moving act of storytelling . . . No one writes more powerfully than George Saunders about the lost, the unlucky, the disenfranchised.” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)
Related to this topic
-
The World's Largest Man
- A Memoir
- By: Harrison Scott Key
- Narrated by: Harrison Scott Key
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.
-
-
I laughed every day to and from work. Loved it!
- By KufRN on 06-06-18
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
-
-
Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
-
Learning to Die in Miami
- Confessions of a Refugee Boy
- By: Carlos Eire
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carlos Eire's story of a boyhood uprooted by the Cuban Revolution quickly lures us in, as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother Tony touch down in the sun-dappled Miami of 1962 - a place of daunting abundance where his old Cuban self must die to make way for a new, American self waiting to be born. In this enchanting new work, narrated in Eire's inimitable and lyrical voice, young Carlos adjusts to life in his new country.
-
-
Excellent memoir of a forgotten time in history
- By BRB on 03-23-15
By: Carlos Eire
-
Fragile Beasts
- A Novel
- By: Tawni O'Dell
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Laural Merlington
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When their hard-drinking but loving father dies in a car accident, teenage brothers Kyle and Klint Hayes face a bleak prospect: leaving their Pennsylvania hometown for an uncertain life in Arizona with the mother who ran out on them years ago. But in a strange twist of fate, their town's matriarch, an eccentric, wealthy old woman whose family once owned the county coal mines, hears the boys' story and takes them in.
-
-
Tawni O'Dell Fan
- By bette on 09-20-10
By: Tawni O'Dell
-
An Abundance of Katherines
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has $10,000 in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines.
-
-
struggled to finish listening
- By Daniel on 03-11-20
By: John Green
-
The World's Largest Man
- A Memoir
- By: Harrison Scott Key
- Narrated by: Harrison Scott Key
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.
-
-
I laughed every day to and from work. Loved it!
- By KufRN on 06-06-18
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
-
-
Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
-
Learning to Die in Miami
- Confessions of a Refugee Boy
- By: Carlos Eire
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carlos Eire's story of a boyhood uprooted by the Cuban Revolution quickly lures us in, as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother Tony touch down in the sun-dappled Miami of 1962 - a place of daunting abundance where his old Cuban self must die to make way for a new, American self waiting to be born. In this enchanting new work, narrated in Eire's inimitable and lyrical voice, young Carlos adjusts to life in his new country.
-
-
Excellent memoir of a forgotten time in history
- By BRB on 03-23-15
By: Carlos Eire
-
Fragile Beasts
- A Novel
- By: Tawni O'Dell
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Laural Merlington
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When their hard-drinking but loving father dies in a car accident, teenage brothers Kyle and Klint Hayes face a bleak prospect: leaving their Pennsylvania hometown for an uncertain life in Arizona with the mother who ran out on them years ago. But in a strange twist of fate, their town's matriarch, an eccentric, wealthy old woman whose family once owned the county coal mines, hears the boys' story and takes them in.
-
-
Tawni O'Dell Fan
- By bette on 09-20-10
By: Tawni O'Dell
-
An Abundance of Katherines
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has $10,000 in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines.
-
-
struggled to finish listening
- By Daniel on 03-11-20
By: John Green
-
Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
-
-
Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
-
Please Ignore Vera Dietz
- By: A. S. King
- Narrated by: Lynde Houck
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone - the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: Smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.
-
-
Moving, disturbing, and humorous
- By Julie on 08-26-11
By: A. S. King
-
Every Anxious Wave
- By: Mo Daviau
- Narrated by: Zach Villa
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why would we need music if our lives were exactly as we wanted them to be? Karl Bender is a quiet guy who lives in three places: his bar, his apartment, and the cheap Mediterranean place on the corner that keeps him well fed with his daily portion of hummus and chicken shwarma. But that's all about to change. When he stumbles upon a time-traveling wormhole, Karl develops a business selling access to people who want to go back in time to hear their favorite bands.
-
-
Frustrating
- By Brit N Jonn Designs on 03-31-16
By: Mo Daviau
-
She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
-
-
Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
-
Kissing Games of the World
- By: Sandi Kahn Shelton
- Narrated by: Myra Platt
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if the one person you can't bear to be with is also the one person you can't bear to be without? Jamie McClintock is a free-spirited artist and single mother who has at last found peace and freedom sharing a farmhouse with an elderly man and his young grandson. But when the old man dies suddenly her idyllic country life comes to a halt as the old man's estranged son, Nate, returns to claim the house and his child.
-
-
Great Writer, Great Narrator ! Loved it!
- By Ms. Critic on 05-30-09
-
Guys Read: Funny Business
- By: Jon Scieszka, Adam Rex, Christopher Curtis, and others
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman, Kate DiCamillo, John Keating, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else? - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and the Guys Read Library, you already know what you’re in store for: 10 hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; and more.
-
-
Awesome super funny
- By sacha on 10-03-16
By: Jon Scieszka, and others
-
The Secret Side of Empty
- By: Maria E. Andreu
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What's it like to be undocumented? High school senior M.T. knows all too well. With graduation and an uncertain future looming, she must figure out how to grow up in the only country she's ever called home... a country in which she's "illegal". M.T. was born in Argentina and brought to America as a baby without any official papers. And as questions of college, work, and the future arise, M.T. will have to decide what exactly she wants for herself, knowing someone she loves will unavoidably pay the price for it.
-
-
Heavy topics handled well but just fell short 4 me
- By AudioBookHoe on 07-30-17
By: Maria E. Andreu
-
True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness
- A Feminist Coming of Age
- By: Christine Lahti
- Narrated by: Christine Lahti
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades, actress and director Christine Lahti has captivated the hearts and minds of her audience through iconic roles in Chicago Hope, Running on Empty, Housekeeping, And Justice for All, Swing Shift, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, God of Carnage, and The Blacklist. Now, in True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness, this acclaimed performer channels her creativity inward to share her own story for the first time.
-
-
Christine Lahti, Actress, Activist and A+ Author!
- By L. Cat Schultz on 10-26-18
By: Christine Lahti
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
Miss Fortune
- Fresh Perspectives on Having It All from Someone Who Is Not Okay
- By: Lauren Weedman
- Narrated by: Lauren Weedman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lauren Weedman is not okay. She's living what should be the good life in sunny Los Angeles. After a gig as a correspondent with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she scored parts in blockbuster movies, which led to memorable recurring roles on HBO's Hung and Looking. She had a loving husband and an adorable baby boy. In these comedic essays, she turns a piercingly observant, darkly funny lens on the ways her life is actually not okay.
-
-
Good
- By Ajules29 on 04-02-16
By: Lauren Weedman
-
Wildflower
- By: Drew Barrymore
- Narrated by: Drew Barrymore
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences of her earlier years. It includes tales of living on her own at 14 (and how laundry may have saved her life), getting stuck in a gas station overhang on a cross-country road trip, saying good-bye to her father in a way only he could have understood, and many more adventures and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy, and healthy place she is today.
-
-
Hold the shrieking !
- By Dawne on 11-27-15
By: Drew Barrymore
-
The Hour I First Believed
- A Novel
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When high-school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed. Miraculously, she survives. But when Caelum and Maureen flee to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family's Connecticut farm, they discover that the effects of chaos are not easily put right.
-
-
excellent all around yarn
- By G. on 01-10-09
By: Wally Lamb
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Liberation Day
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Tina Fey, Michael McKean, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “best short story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By REBECCA on 10-18-22
By: George Saunders
-
Vladimir
- A Novel
- By: Julia May Jonas
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own.
-
-
Please do not judge this book by its cover
- By Sabrina N. Frang on 02-18-22
By: Julia May Jonas
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
-
-
"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
-
Pastoralia
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
-
-
Greatest living short story author reads own work.
- By Spam on 08-25-19
By: George Saunders
-
10:04
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
-
-
A novel worth reading
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 01-29-15
By: Ben Lerner
-
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- Stories and a Novella
- By: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris - introduction
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’ debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world.
-
-
>>BUCKLE. UP.<<
- By Mary K Foster on 05-23-21
By: George Saunders, and others
-
Liberation Day
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Tina Fey, Michael McKean, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “best short story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By REBECCA on 10-18-22
By: George Saunders
-
Vladimir
- A Novel
- By: Julia May Jonas
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own.
-
-
Please do not judge this book by its cover
- By Sabrina N. Frang on 02-18-22
By: Julia May Jonas
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”
-
-
"Where might God stand?"
- By Mel on 02-17-17
By: George Saunders
-
Pastoralia
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
-
-
Greatest living short story author reads own work.
- By Spam on 08-25-19
By: George Saunders
-
10:04
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
-
-
A novel worth reading
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 01-29-15
By: Ben Lerner
-
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- Stories and a Novella
- By: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris - introduction
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’ debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world.
-
-
>>BUCKLE. UP.<<
- By Mary K Foster on 05-23-21
By: George Saunders, and others
-
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.
-
-
An innovative and fresh listening experience
- By Scott Garrioch on 01-14-21
By: George Saunders
-
Congratulations, by the Way
- Some Thoughts on Kindness
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three months after George Saunders gave a graduation address at Syracuse University, a transcript of that speech was posted on the website of The New York Times, where its simple, uplifting message struck a deep chord. Within days, it had been shared more than one million times. Why? Because Saunders’ words tap in to a desire in all of us to lead kinder, more fulfilling lives. Powerful, funny, and wise, Congratulations, by the Way is an inspiring message from one of today’s most influential and original writers.
-
-
Great Speech
- By Lucas Samples on 09-23-20
By: George Saunders
-
Train Dreams
- A Novella
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West—its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders—this extraordinary novella poignantly captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life. It tells the story of Robert Grainer, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world.
-
-
2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist
- By Louis on 06-20-12
By: Denis Johnson
-
Veronica
- By: Mary Gaitskill
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a teenager on the streets of San Francisco, Alison is discovered by a photographer and swept into the world of fashion-modeling in Paris and Rome. When her career crashes and a love affair ends disastrously, she moves to New York City to build a new life. There she meets Veronica: an older wisecracking eccentric with her own ideas about style, a proofreader who comes to work with a personal "office kit" and a plaque that reads "Still Anal After All These Years".
-
-
Everything is baroque-en
- By Eric on 12-14-06
By: Mary Gaitskill
-
Runaway
- Stories
- By: Alice Munro
- Narrated by: Kymberly Dakin
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three stories concern the same woman - in the first, she escapes from teaching at a girls' school into a wild love affair; in the second, she returns with her child to the home of her parents, whose marriage she finally begins to examine; and in the last, her vanished child turns up caught in the grip of a religious cult. In these and other stories Alice Munro's understanding of the people about whom she writes makes their lives as real as our own.
-
-
Poor Audio Quality
- By David on 04-02-10
By: Alice Munro
-
In Persuasion Nation
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables - all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Cynthia on 06-14-21
By: George Saunders
-
A Mercy
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady." Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.
-
-
Great book
- By Pablo Tebas on 01-18-09
By: Toni Morrison
-
Excavations
- A Novel
- By: Kate Myers
- Narrated by: Joy Nash
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a remote archeological site in Greece, the mythic home of the first Olympics, four women discover an unusual artifact. It’s a piece of history that definitely shouldn’t exist. And for the head archaeologist in charge, a relic himself, it means something’s gone horribly wrong.
-
-
Book club worthy!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-09-23
By: Kate Myers
-
We the Animals
- By: Justin Torres
- Narrated by: Frankie J. Alvarez
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three brothers tear their way through childhood—smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times.
-
-
I want my credit back!
- By Van Gilder on 09-02-11
By: Justin Torres
-
Pulphead
- Essays
- By: John Jeremiah Sullivan
- Narrated by: John Jeremiah Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us - with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own - how we really (no, really) live now.
-
-
Interesting Perspectives
- By Nancy on 09-05-24
-
2666
- By: Roberto Bolaño
- Narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, and others
- Length: 39 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa - a fictional Juárez - on the U.S.-Mexico border.
-
-
The Best Book I Read or Listened to in 2009
- By William on 01-05-10
By: Roberto Bolaño
-
A Brief History of Seven Killings
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, and others
- Length: 26 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.
-
-
A Tough Read
- By KP on 05-07-16
By: Marlon James
What listeners say about Tenth of December
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Judith Myers
- 06-19-17
Gets you thinking! You're out of your comfort zone
If you could sum up Tenth of December in three words, what would they be?
Fascinating, weird, challenging.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Tenth of December?
The last story, inside a person who realized that his suicide attempt was the wrong action and what he was going to miss.
Any additional comments?
It's been a few weeks since I listened to this on a cross country trip. Will listen to it again as there was a lot of detail that I slept through (I sleep when I'm not the driver). 10th of December really gets you thinking, thinking deeper. The author did a great job reading.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ross Blanchard
- 09-06-17
More, please.
Would you listen to Tenth of December again? Why?
I'd listen to certain stories over again. I've read most of this book, but Saunders' readings add a new dimension to the stories. He's very good at distinguishing characters from one another.
Have you listened to any of George Saunders’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I've listened to Saunders on the radio before. I wish his earlier works were available in audio book format.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr. D
- 02-21-14
Be prepared for something different...but good!
Any additional comments?
An excellent collection of short stories.
I won't get into the details of the book. There are plenty of reviews that do that. I would like to say that if you have never read George Saunders, his writing style is very unique. He is fresh and original. On paper I would image he may be a little hard to follow. Read out loud though and you get the full effect of his writing. He writes much like people talk and that doesn't always translate into the best reading experience. Because his writing is like no one else, intelligently written and unafraid to go where others fear, it is hard not to like him. All that is required is an open mind.
The author did a good job narrating. Yes, someone else may have done better but his performance didn't hurt the listening experience. Listen to a sample and judge for yourself. I gave him 3 stars but 3 1/2 would be more accurate.
The only problem I have with the book is the poor job Random House Audio did in dividing out the chapters. Often it doesn't matter but with a short story collection it is helpful if the audio book chapters line up with the book chapters. They do not. Someone at Random House needs to find a new profession. I found one story I could not finish (The Semplica Girl Diaries). I spent god knows how long trying to find the end of the story. It is harder than you think. I didn't know if I was still in the same story or if I had jumped into the next. It was a real pain. Some of these stories should be listened to again and again. Being able to find them easily is something Random House should have considered. I took the time to locate the chapter start times.
Victory Lap 00:00
Sticks 33:55
Puppy 36:03
Escape From Spiderhead 53:20
Exhortation 1:41:25
Al Roosten 1:50:52
The Seplica Girl Diaries 2:15:17
Home 3:51:43
My Chivalric Fiasco 4:32:13
The Tenth of December 4:48:52
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
98 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 02-17-13
Captures depth/vibrations of America's Tragicomedy
I'm late to the George Saunders fan club, but Tenth of December was amazing. Belongs on the same shelf as Pynchon, McCarthy and DFW in the pantheon of amazing American writers. He has a voice that captures the depth and vibrations of America's modern tragicomedy. He dances on the same ground as David Foster Wallace. The sophistication of his prose is amazing. He writes on a tightrope of madness and morality. There were a couple stories that were objectively only four stars, but emotionally, I wanted to finish this collection of short stories and run out and buy, beg or steal all Saunders other work. If that isn't a reason to give a book five stars, well my whole system of celestial ratings is completely F-ed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
41 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Molly-o
- 03-18-13
I could never have known
I suppose for some, these kind of edgy stories might be commonplace, but, honestly, I have never read anything like this book. I am used to going from point A to point B with all of the numerous offshoots that an author can muster but I just had to hold on with this journey. The stories are complex, strange and wonderfully buoyant. They are beautifully written so I never let go of where Saunders chose to take me - I loved this read. One needs to be pushed off one's assumptions every once in a while.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
23 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dorothy
- 01-17-13
Stunning, worth a re-listen
What made the experience of listening to Tenth of December the most enjoyable?
Saunders has a unique writing style that is perfectly expressed by his own narration. It's not always a good idea for an author to read his/her own works---narration is usually better left to the professionals---but in this case it works. I can't imagine these stories in anyone else's voice. This is a mind-blowing work worthy of the praise he's getting, such as the New York Times already naming this the best book of the year.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michele Kellett
- 08-21-13
Head and Heart
Saunders is a formalist who loves to play with form. He is also funny, also witty. His characters are put through excruciating trials. They are often not bright. They are very earnest. Their relatives and bosses are often not bright, and are often also earnest. Everyone in these stories is suspended somewhere below the middle of a brutal pecking order.
But unlike other sardonic cool guys who are better and smarter than their characters (I'm looking at you, Sam Lipsyte), Saunders is not cruel. In fact, these stories are suffused with empathy and tenderness. Even while admiring some amazing feat of form or concept, I often found myself, halted on my morning walk, in tears for these characters.
I've only read Saunders in the occasional story he publishes in the The New Yorker, and have always relished their strange richness. A whole book of these stories is quite a bit more rich, and strange, so I listened to just one or two at a time. Not just because there's a lot to think about, but because there's also a lot to feel about.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ellen
- 04-28-13
Wonderful and memorable stories, awful narration
What did you like best about Tenth of December? What did you like least?
The stories were very compelling and memorable - Tenth of December (the last story) was truly a great story. I wasn't as fond of the stories that were more science fiction in nature.
How could the performance have been better?
Some authors should NOT narrate their own work and George Saunders is one of them. While the voice he used for some of the characters was adequate, his narrations of female characters were truly annoying. Moreover, his diction is horrendous. I found myself having to rewind and replay passages several times so that I could understand the words. Right after finishing this audible book I listened to two other books with professional narrators and the difference was astonishing.
Could you see Tenth of December being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
Yes.
Any additional comments?
This is a great book and worth the literary hype, but better to read than to listen to. Another suggestion is to redo this as an audio book with a professional narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jan
- 10-25-14
There's Something About George...
The Short Story is not my thing. Actually, there are a lot of "not my things" in regards to reading. I am so picky, and demand so much in an author, that I embarrass myself. It is apparent by the reviews that I am not the only one who notes that Saunders writes in a way that captivates most audiences. Similar to the way that Stephen King captures his readers, Saunders takes the naked word and strings them together with simplicity and a uniqueness that reaches a wide span of readers. In The Tenth of December, this talent shines through as Saunders donates "slices of life" to the reader. He has the ability, during the course of a ten minute short story, to introduce, evolve, and bring closure to his characters within their moment in time. The first selection, for example, addresses the most intense and sensitive subject out there. Yet, Saunders somehow manages to amuse the reader while maintaining reverance to the subject matter, and allows the characters we have grown to love (in 10 minutes!) to triumph in the end.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tennie
- 07-26-13
My new favorite short story collection/author
Would you listen to Tenth of December again? Why?
Yes! The stories are so distilled in such a smart way and reveal things often in non chronological order, so I feel like listening to them again would lead to new insights.
What did you like best about this story?
I love the way that Saunders writes sci fi that seems wholly believable in the context of his "real world", which at times is magical with no fantasy element at all. His writing is concise and witty, and all of the stories are fast paced and felt fully formed, even though I would have loved to have read a novel-length version of ANY of them. You definitely get a sense of Saunders' technical past in his writing, although, while everything was smart and complex, nothing ever seemed overly complex at all.
Which scene was your favorite?
The title story was BEAUTIFUL, and I loved The SG Diaries and Escape from Spiderhead.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Escape from Spiderhead totally captivated me. It makes huge statements as well as tiny, personal ones about the ways that humans fool ourselves into believing we are autonomous at all.
Any additional comments?
I really can't imagine that anybody would hate listening to this... It's funny, tragic, smart and strange. Probably one of my favorite short story collections ever!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful