My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs
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 members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs
Buy for $15.15
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kazuo Ishiguro
-
By:
-
Kazuo Ishiguro
About this listen
Delivered in Stockholm on 7 December 2017, My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs is the lecture of the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro. A generous and hugely insightful biographical sketch, it explores his relationship with Japan, reflections on his own novels and an insight into some of his inspirations, from the worlds of writing, music and film. Ending with a rallying call for the ongoing importance of literature in the world, it is a characteristically thoughtful and moving piece.
©2018 Kazuo Ishiguro (P)2018 Faber & FaberListeners also enjoyed...
-
Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,303
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,227
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8,240
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Be patient; it will pay off
- By Kc on 05-23-05
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
An Artist of the Floating World
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 322
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 276
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 273
This is the story of an artist as an aging man, struggling through the wreckage of Japan's World War II experience. Ishiguro's first novel.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
An incongruous reader
- By Emeritus on 11-03-17
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Remains of the Day
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,719
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,331
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,318
This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful and ever relevant
- By bbots on 07-04-20
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Nocturnes
- Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne, Lincoln Hoppe, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 203
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 153
An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed works of fiction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wow!
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 11-29-09
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Buried Giant
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,987
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,673
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,676
"You've long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it's time now to think on it anew. There's a journey we must go on, and no more delay..." The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years. Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The beauty of the reveal
- By Anonymous User on 03-17-15
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
When We Were Orphans
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 836
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 637
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 634
Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Just short of 5 stars
- By Everett Leiter on 05-26-06
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,303
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,227
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8,240
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Be patient; it will pay off
- By Kc on 05-23-05
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
An Artist of the Floating World
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 322
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 276
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 273
This is the story of an artist as an aging man, struggling through the wreckage of Japan's World War II experience. Ishiguro's first novel.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
An incongruous reader
- By Emeritus on 11-03-17
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Remains of the Day
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,719
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,331
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,318
This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful and ever relevant
- By bbots on 07-04-20
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Nocturnes
- Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne, Lincoln Hoppe, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 203
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 153
An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed works of fiction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wow!
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 11-29-09
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Buried Giant
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,987
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,673
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,676
"You've long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it's time now to think on it anew. There's a journey we must go on, and no more delay..." The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years. Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The beauty of the reveal
- By Anonymous User on 03-17-15
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
When We Were Orphans
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 836
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 637
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 634
Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Just short of 5 stars
- By Everett Leiter on 05-26-06
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Klara and the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,064
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,616
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8,583
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well Worth Having Waited For!
- By otherdeb on 03-04-21
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,001
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 869
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 863
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Magical Journey
- By Paul on 08-20-20
By: Thomas Mann
-
The Magician
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 930
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 807
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 801
The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Terrific listening experience
- By M. Mead on 09-17-21
By: Colm Toibin
-
The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 617
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 535
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 530
Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent novel
- By ALG on 11-09-21
By: Damon Galgut
-
A Room with a View
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Joanna David
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 284
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 242
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 247
The story of a young and affluent middle-class girl, Lucy Honeychurch is wooed by George Emerson and Cecil Vyse whilst vacationing in Italy. Though attracted to George, Lucy becomes engaged to Cecil despite twice turning down his proposals. On hearing of the news, George confesses his love, leaving Lucy torn between marrying the more socially acceptable Cecil, or George, the man she knows would bring her true happiness.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
One Italian Spring
- By Joseph R on 04-22-10
By: E. M. Forster
-
Hitch-22
- A Memoir
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Christopher Hitchens
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,395
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,956
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,940
Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Truth, the whole truth and nothing but.
- By Laura on 08-23-10
-
The View from the Cheap Seats
- Selected Nonfiction
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,477
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,346
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,332
An inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman, Neil Gaiman has long been celebrated for the sharp intellect and startling imagination that informs his fiction. Now The View from the Cheap Seats brings together, for the first time ever, more than 60 works of his outstanding nonfiction on topics and people close to his heart.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The very best View is from the Cheap Seats
- By Jessica on 06-20-16
By: Neil Gaiman
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,066
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 940
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 934
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- By: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - translator
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 707
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 623
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 624
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Lucidity whilst Civilization reverts to barbarism
- By none on 06-25-17
By: Stefan Zweig, and others
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Euridite Bromance
- By Dale C. on 08-08-24
By: Paul Auster, and others
Related to this topic
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,066
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 940
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 934
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
Manifesto
- On Never Giving Up
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Bernardine Evaristo
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
From the best-selling and Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir of her own life and writing, and her manifesto on unstoppability, creativity, and activism.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Glorious performance and inspiring story
- By Maggi Morehouse on 01-25-22
-
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
- By: Gerald Martin
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great content, somewhat disappointing narrator.
- By Paola Herrington on 01-08-13
By: Gerald Martin
-
Process
- The Writing Lives of Great Authors
- By: Sarah Stodola
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Ernest Hemingway, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, Franz Kafka, David Foster Wallace, and more. In Process, acclaimed journalist Sarah Stodola examines the creative methods of literature's most transformative figures. Each chapter contains a mini biography of one of the world's most lauded authors, focused solely on his or her writing process.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent!
- By Davina Rush on 04-10-15
By: Sarah Stodola
-
The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 50
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,066
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 940
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 934
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
Manifesto
- On Never Giving Up
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Bernardine Evaristo
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
From the best-selling and Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir of her own life and writing, and her manifesto on unstoppability, creativity, and activism.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Glorious performance and inspiring story
- By Maggi Morehouse on 01-25-22
-
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
- By: Gerald Martin
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great content, somewhat disappointing narrator.
- By Paola Herrington on 01-08-13
By: Gerald Martin
-
Process
- The Writing Lives of Great Authors
- By: Sarah Stodola
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Ernest Hemingway, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, Franz Kafka, David Foster Wallace, and more. In Process, acclaimed journalist Sarah Stodola examines the creative methods of literature's most transformative figures. Each chapter contains a mini biography of one of the world's most lauded authors, focused solely on his or her writing process.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent!
- By Davina Rush on 04-10-15
By: Sarah Stodola
-
The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 50
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
-
Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Metaphysical Animals
- How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life
- By: Clare Mac Cumhaill, Rachae Wiseman
- Narrated by: Alex Dunmore
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
The history of European philosophy is usually constructed from the work of men. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compelling alternative. In the mid-twentieth century Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch were philosophy students at Oxford when most male undergraduates and many tutors were conscripted away to fight in the Second World War. Together, these young women, all friends, developed a philosophy that could respond to the war’s darkest revelations.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Book about nothing
- By Gerardo Naranjo Gonzalez on 06-14-22
By: Clare Mac Cumhaill, and others
-
Known and Strange Things
- Essays
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
With this collection of more than 50 pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. Minute after minute, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Book that Teaches and Shares
- By Carolyn J. on 10-08-17
By: Teju Cole
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
A Life Observed
- A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis
- By: Devin Brown
- Narrated by: Jon Gauger
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A beautifully written remembrance
- By Rob on 02-06-18
By: Devin Brown
-
American Philosophy
- A Love Story
- By: John Kaag
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 481
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 425
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 426
In American Philosophy, John Kaag - a disillusioned philosopher at sea in his marriage and career - stumbles upon a treasure trove of rare books on an old estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. The library includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As he begins to catalog and preserve these priceless books, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Awesome Book! But..
- By Kye Sonne on 04-02-17
By: John Kaag
-
Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
-
The Great Escape
- Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early 20th century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
very interesting, well-narrated
- By D. Littman on 12-17-06
By: Kati Marton
-
Looking for Lorraine
- The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 166
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 141
Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work—until now.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Radiant
- By Rose Brookins on 03-20-19
By: Imani Perry
-
Existentialism and Excess
- The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
a capitalista biography of Sartre
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-20
By: Gary Cox
-
Ayn Rand and the World She Made
- By: Anne C. Heller
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 339
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 209
Ayn Rand is the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a right-wing cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and '70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a "capitalist virtue" have permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great history of both Rand and her era
- By Mark on 08-07-10
By: Anne C. Heller
-
C. S. Lewis - A Life
- Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
- By: Alister E. McGrath
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 409
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 376
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 369
In honor of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death, celebrated Oxford don Dr. Alister McGrath presents us with a compelling and definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis, the author of the well-known Narnia series. For more than half a century, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series has captured the imaginations of millions. In C. S. Lewis - A Life, Dr. Alister McGrath recounts the unlikely path of this Oxford don, who spent his days teaching English literature to the brightest students in the world and his spare time writing.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Awakening my curiosity and desire to read more!
- By Pearl Glacier on 03-13-13