Shylock Is My Name
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice Retold: A Novel
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Shylock Is My Name
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Narrated by:
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Michael Kitchen
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By:
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Howard Jacobson
About this listen
Man Booker Prize-winner Howard Jacobson brings his singular brilliance to this modern re-imagining of one of Shakespeare’s most unforgettable characters: Shylock
Winter, a cemetery, Shylock. In this provocative and profound interpretation of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is juxtaposed against his present-day counterpart in the character of art dealer and conflicted father Simon Strulovitch. With characteristic irony, Jacobson presents Shylock as a man of incisive wit and passion, concerned still with questions of identity, parenthood, anti-Semitism and revenge. While Strulovich struggles to reconcile himself to his daughter Beatrice's “betrayal” of her family and heritage—as she is carried away by the excitement of Manchester high society, and into the arms of a footballer notorious for giving a Nazi salute on the field—Shylock alternates grief for his beloved wife with rage against his own daughter's rejection of her Jewish upbringing.
Culminating in a shocking twist on Shylock’s demand for the infamous pound of flesh, Jacobson’s insightful retelling examines contemporary, acutely relevant questions of Jewish identity while maintaining a poignant sympathy for its characters and a genuine spiritual kinship with its antecedent—a drama which Jacobson himself considers to be “the most troubling of Shakespeare’s plays for anyone, but, for an English novelist who happens to be Jewish, also the most challenging.”
©2016 Howard Jacobson (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost, and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate.
-
5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating plot, superb performance, psychological depth
- By Doctor George on 12-05-16
By: Javier Marias, and others
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Past Imperfect
- By: Julian Fellowes
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,033
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,025
Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern--his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Read Snobs instead
- By cristina on 02-14-13
By: Julian Fellowes
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The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,047
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 924
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 915
The Great War changed everything and everyone, and Larry Darrell is no exception. Though his physical wounds from the war heal, his spirit is changed almost beyond recognition. He leaves his betrothed, the beautiful and devoted Isabel; studies philosophy and religion in Paris; lives as a monk, and witnesses the exotic hardships of Spanish life. All of life that he can find - from an Indian Ashrama to labor in a coal mine - becomes Larry's spiritual experiment as he spurns the comfort and privilege of the Roaring 20s.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Classic of Love and the Desire for Meaning
- By Eric on 01-06-17
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Fraud
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Anna Massey
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
When Anna Durrant is reported missing her friends seem unconcerned at her disappearance. After all, her life has been one of concealment. For years Anna submitted to the protective dependence of her mother, and even after Amy Durrant’s death she simply conformed to the expectations of others. Increasingly, Anna feels herself trapped by these expectations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Top Shelf Brookner
- By David P on 09-15-15
By: Anita Brookner
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The End of the Affair
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Colin Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 11,463
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10,415
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Story4 out of 5 stars 10,367
Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Colin Firth Kills It
- By Em on 05-09-12
By: Graham Greene
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More Die of Heartbreak
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Kenneth Trachtenberg, an eccentric and witty native of Paris, travels to the Midwest to spend time with his famous American uncle, a world-renowned botanist and self-described "plant visionary". After numerous affairs and failed relationships, the restless Uncle Benn seeks a settled existence in the form of marriage - but tying the knot again opens the door to a host of new torments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A great book
- By John A. on 03-16-22
By: Saul Bellow
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The Adolescent
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a naive 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Oft-Forgotten Dostoevsky Gem
- By Ben on 02-09-20
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
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Of Human Bondage
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 28 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 418
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 371
Of Human Bondage is one of the greatest novels of modern times, and it is certainly Maugham's greatest achievement. It was published in 1914, when Maugham was at the height of his creative powers. The story concerns Philip Carey, afflicted at birth with a club foot, and his passionate search for truth in a cruel world. We follow his growth to manhood, his educational progress, his first loves, and the wrenching tragedies and disappointments that life has in store for him. In some of the finest prose of the 20th century, Maugham has presented us with the timeless story of one man's search for the meaning of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Greatly Unsettling
- By Michael on 10-04-14
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The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
- By: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
- Narrated by: Edoardo Camponeschi
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4 out of 5 stars 32
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was the greatest writer ever to come from Brazil and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction. Susan Sontag calls him "the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America", surpassing even Borges. Harold Bloom says that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date". And Allen Ginsburg calls him "another Kafka". And The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is his masterpiece, a dazzling, tragic, and profound novel that belongs next to the greatest works of his contemporaries Melville and Dostoevsky.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A hidden masterpiece
- By C. Park on 08-09-18
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The Sunday Philosophy Club
- An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 932
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 608
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Story4 out of 5 stars 602
New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, winner of the first-ever Saga Award for Wit, has entertained millions with his beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries. Now this phenomenally popular author introduces a fresh series, brimming with the charm and humor his stable of dedicated fans can't get enough of.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Advice For Prospective Listeners
- By DCinMI on 02-18-13
![The Idiot [Blackstone] Audiobook By Fyodor Dostoevsky cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41XO98tJ7HL._SL320_.jpg)
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The Idiot [Blackstone]
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 22 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,094
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 812
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Story4 out of 5 stars 820
Prince Myshkin, is thrust into the heart of a society more concerned with wealth, power, and sexual conquest than the ideals of Christianity. Myshkin soon finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections. Extortion, scandal, and murder follow, testing the wreckage left by human misery to find "man in man."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Intense and painfully sad
- By Tad on 04-27-12
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A Closed Eye
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Prunella Scales
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 36
Born to elegant but frivolous parents, Harriet grows up ignored and unguided, and retains a curious innocence that neither her marriage to Freddie Lytton, nor her friendship with the beautiful Tessa can dispel. Freddie is far older than she is - a companion rather than a lover - and slightly disapproving of Tessa and her irresponsible, attractive husband, Jack. Yet all four are bound together: by their backgrounds, their children, by Harriet’s unspoken feelings for Jack and by the tragedy that lies in wait for all of them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Late Great Ms. Brookner
- By David P on 05-15-16
By: Anita Brookner
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The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4 out of 5 stars 31
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
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2 out of 5 stars
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SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
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A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 286
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 250
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 249
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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Fury
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 150
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4 out of 5 stars 91
The world renowned author of The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie is a Whitbread Award winner and recipient of the Booker Prize. His first truly American novel, Fury is a metaphorically rich black comedy that reflects the pressure-cooker of modern life. Malik Solanka, irascible doll-maker and retired historian of ideas, suffers the pain of wanting without knowing exactly what it is he wants.
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5 out of 5 stars
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surprisingly good
- By David on 11-21-07
By: Salman Rushdie
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Kokoro
- By: Natsume Soseki
- Narrated by: Matt Shea
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 491
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 427
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 427
The subject of Kokoro, which can be translated as 'the heart of things' or as 'feeling,' is the delicate matter of the contrast between the meanings the various parties of a relationship attach to it. In the course of this exploration, Soseki brilliantly describes different levels of friendship, family relationships, and the devices by which men attempt to escape from their fundamental loneliness. The novel sustains throughout its length something approaching poetry, and it is rich in understanding and insight.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Heart Of Things, Relationships & Feelings
- By Sara on 04-27-15
By: Natsume Soseki
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Middlemarch
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 35 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,163
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,678
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,641
Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best Audible book ever
- By Molly-o on 12-25-11
By: George Eliot