Preview

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Want Not

By: Jonathan Miles
Narrated by: Therese Plummer
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.95

Buy for $24.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A compulsively listenable, deeply human novel that examines our most basic and unquenchable emotion: want.

With his critically acclaimed first novel, Jonathan Miles was widely praised as a comic genius "after something bigger" (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) whose fiction was "not just philosophically but emotionally rewarding" (Richard Russo, New York Times Book Review, front cover).

Now, in his much-anticipated second novel, Want Not, Miles takes a giant leap forward with this highly inventive and corrosively funny story of our times, a three-pronged tale of human excess that sifts through the detritus of several disparate lives - lost loves, blown chances, countless words, and deeds misdirected or misunderstood - all conjoined in their come-hell-or-high-water search for fulfillment.

As the novel opens on Thanksgiving Day, listeners are telescoped into three different worlds in various states of disrepair - a young freegan couple living off the grid in New York City; a once-prominent linguist, sacked at midlife by the dissolution of his marriage and his father’s losing battle with Alzheimer’s; and a self-made debt-collecting magnate, whose brute talent for squeezing money out of unlikely places has yielded him a royal existence, trophy wife included.

Want and desire propel these characters forward toward something, anything, more, until their worlds collide, briefly, randomly, yet irrevocably, in a shattering ending that will haunt listeners long after the last lines.

With a satirist’s eye and a romantic’s heart, Miles captures the morass and comedy of contemporary life in all its excess. Bold, unblinking, unforgettable in its irony and pathos, Want Not is a wicked, big-hearted literary novel that confirms the arrival of a major voice in American fiction.

©2013 Jonathan Miles (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Want Not

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Book Club Worthy

We finished this book and haven’t stopped talking about it or making “inside joke” references ever since. The narrator really captures the sly, droll, profound tone of this book. So glad we listened instead of reading because

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Every human should read this

Beautifully written and narrated. This is the story of three very different scenarios (people in three very different places in life) - the story of humanity, as told through separate, yet equally textured, lives. I consumed this 17+ hour audiobook in just 5 days. Outstanding.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting, left me wanting more

Interesting book that connects 3 sets of disparate characters (eventually). I was a little disappointed in the ending which didn’t quite resolve everything. I guess I wanted more, wanted to see what would happen to the characters in the future, which I guess means it was a good book. Definitely kept my attention while I was listening to it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Unique

I was kind of surprised at my response to this book. It was a bit silly in parts, threatening to veer off into just plain corny, but it didn't. It would whip back in such a unique way that would grab my attention again, and sometimes my heart. At the same time, it didn't really pack in the message that it claimed in the little blurb about the book. And did I miss something? Because there was no "shattering ending" and I am not "haunted." I am, however, entertained and glad I listened to it. I might even listen again someday. The narrator, Therese Plummer, is one of the best narrators I've heard!

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
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

UP DOWN UP DOWN UP DOWN

2 1/2 stars maybe. I did like the book when it was good then had to suffer through a bunch of extra story line and info and blah blah blah. Narration was the best ever though. Won't be checking out this author again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!