The History of Living Forever

A Novel

By: Jake Wolff

Narrated by: Maxwell Glick

Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

A chemistry student falls for his teacher and uncovers a centuries-old quest for the Elixir of Life

Conrad Aybinder is a boy with a secret; 16 and ready for anything. A chemistry genius, he has spent the summer on an independent-study project with his favorite teacher, Sammy Tampari. Sammy is also Conrad’s first love. But the first day of senior year, the students are informed that Mr. Tampari is dead. Rumors suggest an overdose. How can it be? Drugs are for unhappy people, Conrad is sure, not for people who have fallen in love.

Soon, though, it is clear that Sammy had a life hidden even from Conrad, evidenced by the journals he left for Conrad to discover after his death. The journals detail 20 years of research aimed at creating recipes for something called the Elixir of Life. Sammy has left Conrad a mystery and a scientific puzzle, but also, it seems, the chance to cure his father’s terminal illness. Conrad must race against time and other interested parties to uncover the missing piece of the recipe. What will he do to discover the formula?

Spanning centuries of scientific and alchemical inquiry, ranging from New York to Romania to Easter Island, featuring drug kingpins, Big Pharma flunkies, centenarians, and a group of ambitious coin collectors, Jake Wolff’s The History of Living Forever is equal parts thrilling adventure and meditation on mortality, thoughtful investigation of mental illness, and a reminder to be on the lookout for magic in science and life.

©2019 Jake Wolff (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Great story with flawed recording.

Lovely, complex story. The downside is that this recording was not thoroughly edited. The are at least three moments in which the narrator repeats a sentence (took a break and repeated the last line he read), which should have been edited out. There is also a loud pop at one point, as though the narrator dropped something just before pausing the recording, yet the sound wasn’t removed. It’s an unfortunate treatment of this otherwise great story and good narrator.

The Book Goes On Forever and Gets Nowhere

What I liked about THOLF: I like the narrator and I like first person narrative.

What I didn't like about THOLF: The story does not develop characters that I can glum onto, except maybe the neighbor kid.
The development of the elixir of life falls short of being vaguely interesting. The history of alchemy is fascinating. How did the author manage not to capitalize on it?
The juggling of three different time periods felt haphazard and often confusing. And I'm comfortable with this literary device.
The sex was...well, really there wasn't any to write about.

Did I say the narrator was good? Well, Maxwell Glick single-handedly kept me from returning this book.

Audiobook needs more careful editing!

I'm halfway through the book and I am loving the story itself, however the production of the audiobook feels rushed. There are moments of obvious slip ups by the narrator which were not edited out, starting lines over (at one point even an audible snap when he messed up, as in "oh shoot!"). There are also some pronunciation errors which makes me wonder if the author had any kind of say in approving the final product. The book itself is wonderful so far, just hoping that Audible can step up the production on their end so as not to distract from something so otherwise enjoyable!

Good story, terrible recording.

The story was interesting if a bit hard to follow because of all of the time jumps and tense shifts. Having two readers would probably help this. The the recording was terrible the the reader does not have the ability to do any voices other than high or low versions of his own and it appears this was published without any type of editing at all. There are an endless amount of text mistakes, mispronunciations and times when you can actually hear the reader say he made a mistake. While I'd recommend reading the book I would definitely not recommend getting the audible of this particular production.