Download the Best Full Audiobooks in Fiction, Literary

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Title: Dept. of Speculation

Author: Jenny Offill

Narrator: Jenny Offill

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-31-14

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 488 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Jenny Offills heroine, referred to in these pages as simply the wife, once exchanged love letters with her husband postmarked Dept. of Speculation, their code name for all the uncertainty that inheres in life and in the strangely fluid confines of a long relationship. As they confront an array of common catastrophes - a colicky baby, a faltering marriage, stalled ambitions - the wife analyzes her predicament, invoking everything from Keats and Kafka to the thought experiments of the Stoics to the lessons of doomed Russian cosmonauts. She muses on the consuming, capacious experience of maternal love, and the near total destruction of the self that ensues from it as she confronts the friction between domestic life and the seductions and demands of art. With cool precision, in language that shimmers with rage and wit and fierce longing, Jenny Offill has crafted an exquisitely suspenseful love story that has the velocity of a train hurtling through the night at top speed. Exceptionally lean and compact, Dept. of Speculation is a novel to be devoured in a single sitting, though its bracing emotional insights and piercing meditations on despair and love will linger long after the last page.

Critic Reviews:

"Clever, subtle, and rife with strokes of beauty, this book is both readable in a single sitting and far ranging in the emotions it raises.... Offill has equal parts cleverness and erudition, but its her language and eye for detail that make this a must-read." (Publishers Weekly )

"Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation resembles no book I've read before. If I tell you that it's funny, and moving, and true; that it's as compact and mysterious as a neutron; that it tells a profound story of love and parenthood while invoking (among others) Keats, Kafka, Einstein, Russian cosmonauts, and advice for the housewife of 1896, will you please simply believe me, and read it?" (Michael Cunningham)

"Dept. of Speculation is gorgeous, funny, a profound and profoundly moving work of art. Jenny Offill is a master of form and feeling, and she gets life on the page in new, startling ways." (Sam Lipsyte)

Members Reviews:

Profoundly human

This is not a fluffy feel good book. However, it is an enjoyable read with an autobiographical tone. I found it to be refreshingly real and insightful.

Offill. Truly awful.

Narcissistic, self-absorbed prattle. I'm amazed I listened to it all. The high praise this book has received (not earned) is indicative of the publishing world's infatuation with itself.

I found the Heroine dislikable

I think the main character needed better support; that her physicians, and the people before that who helped form her philosophy, let her down. She seemed too constantly terrorized by unfulfilled ambitions and desires, and she was a wreck on drugs.

Jeff

certainly not 'clever'

After the first hour I had to quit. There was no plot, no point to the stories, they didn't flow, nothing she said was remarkable in any way. very disappointed.

Similar to a highly polished Moth reading

Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation is a tight, compact collection of letters written to her husband. I listened to the work as an audiobook. I felt as if I were hearing someone read intimate journal entries. I was reminded of a really long but highly polished Moth reading.

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Title: The Guts

Author: Roddy Doyle

Narrator: Laurence Kinlan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-23-14

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 43 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments returns in the triumphant new novel from the Booker Prizewinning author.

The distinct wit and lively, authentic dialogue that are the hallmarks of Roddy Doyles fiction are on a full display as he reintroduces Jimmy Rabbitte in this follow-up to his beloved debut novel, The Commitments.

In the 1980s Jimmy Rabbitte formed the Commitments, a ragtag, blue-collar collective of Irish youths determined to bring the soul music stylings of James Brown and Percy Sledge to Dublin. Time proves a great equalizer for Jimmy as hes now approaching 50 with a loving wife, four kids, and a recent cancer diagnosis that leaves him feeling shattered and frightened.

Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle - his new thing is finding old bands and then finding the people who loved them enough to pay for their resurrected albums. As he battles his illness on his path through Dublin, Jimmy manages to reconnect with his own past, most notably Commitments guitarist Liam "Outspan" Foster and the still-beautiful backup vocalist Imelda Quirk. Jimmy also learns the trumpet, reunites with his long-lost brother, and rediscovers the joys of fatherhood.

An immensely funny and poignant novel, The Guts captures friendship, family, the power of music, the specter of death, and the zeal for life. Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments returns in the triumphant new novel from the Booker Prizewinning author.

Critic Reviews:

"Doyles Jimmy Rabbitte reappears, dealing with cancer, mortality, and love...I was undone by the emotional clarity of the writing itself, and by the calm, but never static, way Doyle has of presenting a scene." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Its rare to read about a mans midlife crisis...and burst out laughing. Yet acclaimed Irish author Doyle pulls it off...there are plenty of poignant moments among the laughs, too...this work is too good to miss." (Library Journal)

"[A] hilarious and tender sequel to The Commitments...Doyles witty and lively ninth novel captures much of the fun of The Commitments, even as the Commitments themselves struggle with a notably more sobering world around them." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Best audiobook since Wolf Hall

A terrific Roddy Doyle -- heartbreaking and hilarious. The reader was one of the best audiobook readers I've heard. I often return books because I don't like the reader. Please, Laurence Kinlin, record more books!

Narrator Makes the Story

I truly love the way Roddy Doyle's characters are so true to life. They are just regular people and so easy to relate to.

The narrator on this book is superb! He absolutely makes this book so much fun to listen to.

Another great book!

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Title: Broken Verses

Author: Kamila Shamsie

Narrator: Tania Rodrigues

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-21-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 25 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Fourteen years ago Aasmaani's mother, Samina, a blazing beauty and fearless activist, walked out of her house and was never seen again. Aasmaani refuses to believe she is dead and still dreams of her glorious return. Now grown up and living in Karachi, Aasmaani receives what could be the longed-for proof that her mother is still alive. As she comes closer to the truth she is also irresistibly drawn to Ed, her ally and sparring partner, and the only person who can understand the profound hurt - and the profound love - that drives her.

Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Pakistan. She is the author of five novels: In the City by the Sea, Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Salt and Saffron, Broken Verses, and Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the 2009 Orange Prize). In 1999 she received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature and in 2004 the Patras Bokhari Award - both awarded by the Pakistan Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie lives in London.

Critic Reviews:

"A compassionate book, which intelligently discusses the dilemmas of educated woman in Pakistan." (Joanna Kavenna, Times Literary Supplement)

Members Reviews:

Beautiful story, not for audio

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book in print to a friend but the audio doesn't quite work. I think it may be the narrator, to several passages of interviews. But the author had a beautiful way of expressing herself.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Tania Rodrigues?

Possibly. I think her voice was just too soothing for this book. The book move along beautifully, but the reader was so well modulated that I found myself zoning out.

Any additional comments?

Beautiful book, but it is more well suited to print. The narrator is good, but for a book like this, she needs a bit more expression.

Compelling & electric

I loved this beautiful story of loss & healing in the world of contrasts that in Karachi.

engaging

such a fantastic story. I did find the story a bit depressing. the narrator create a sense that you are in Karachi.

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Title: The Liar

Author: Tobias Wolff

Narrator: Anthony Heald

Format: Unabridged

Length: 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-19-13

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

One of Tobias Wolff's classic tales, The Liar is the story of a deceitful teenage boy and his religious, resolute mother.

James is a liar. He enjoys inventing fantastic stories about his family, particularly his mother. Margaret is orderly, stubborn, and judgmental - a woman who throws rocks at hungry bears and never misses four o'clock Mass. She loves her children but has always struggled with James. Like his deceased father, he's fascinated by the darker aspects of life - car crashes, illness, and crime. Dr. Murphy, the family physician who dabbles in psychiatry, believes that James' lying is harmless. His mother, however, thinks otherwise.

Written with candor and humor, The Liar is a meditation on one of the most pervasive characteristics of human nature.

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Titel: Honig

Autor:: Ian McEwan

Erzähler: Eva Mattes

Format: Unabridged

Spieldauer: 12 hrs and 52 mins

Sprache: Deutsch

Veröffentlichungsdatum: 11-14-13

Herausgeber: Diogenes Verlag AG

Bewertung: 4 von 5 von 1 Stimmen

Kategorien: Fiction, Literary

Zusammenfassung des Herausgebers:

Serena Frome ist schön, klug und schließt gerade ihr Mathematik-Studium in Cambridge ab - eine ideale Rekrutin für den MI5, den britischen Inlandsgeheimdienst. Man schreibt das Jahr 1972. Der Kalte Krieg ist noch lange nicht vorbei, und auch die Sphäre der Kultur ist ein umkämpftes Schlachtfeld: Der MI5 will Schriftsteller und Intellektuelle fördern, deren politische Haltung der Staatsmacht genehm ist. Die Operation trägt den Codenamen "Honig". Serena, eine leidenschaftliche Leserin, ist die perfekte Besetzung, um den literarischen Zirkel eines aufstrebenden jungen Autors zu infiltrieren. Zunächst liebt sie seine Erzählungen. Dann beginnt sie, den Mann zu lieben. Wie lange kann sie die Fiktion ihrer falschen Identität aufrechterhalten? Und nicht nur Serena lügt wie gedruckt.

©2013 Diogenes Verlag (P)2013 Diogenes Verlag

Kritik Bewertungen:

Kein zeitgenössischer Schriftsteller ist so fasziniert von dem, was im Schädel der Menschen vor sich geht, wie Ian McEwan. "Honig" überschreitet wieder und wieder Genre-Grenzen und geht Risiken ein. Dieser scharfsichtige, geistreiche Roman reiht sich auf wunderbar clevere Weise ein in McEwans fiktionale Erkundung des menschlichen Geistes.

-- Times

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Title: Ship of Theseus

Author: V.M. Straka

Narrator: Graeme Malcolm

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-12-13

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 74 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Please note: In S., J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst conceived of a multi-layered novel-within-a-novel that involves handwritten notes in the margins and physical objects slipped between the pages. Because an audio edition is unable to recreate those innately visual pieces of the story and the intended experience of S., the text of Ship of Theseus has been recorded here. Award-winning actor Graeme Malcolm reads the work of an incendiary novelist who may never have existed at all.

What is Ship of Theseus, and who is its mysterious author V.M. Straka? Conceived by filmmaker J.J. Abrams and written by acclaimed novelist Doug Dorst, Ship of Theseus is the central novel within the experience that is S., a multi-faceted narrative of love and mystery. Ship of Theseus is at its core and is the final book written by a man shrouded in deception and violence.

It tells the mystical adventure of an equally mysterious figure, who is struggling to discover his own identity. Abducted onto the eponymous ship, the main character is swept into a story that spans oceans and ports, mountains and caves, capitals and citadels. Two things sustain him: his lifelong search for his love, Sola; and the infernal purpose of the ship and its crew. Equal parts Kafka and Lovecraft, Ship of Theseus is both a frightening adventure and a philosophical treasure hunt.

Members Reviews:

What did I just read????

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If the story had any plot with continuity. I kept listening, thinking there had to be a story tying all the chapters together. Nah.

What was most disappointing about V.M. Strakas story?

It had no cohesive story to it. It made absolutely no sense to me. I even went back and listened to the first Audible part of the download, and it still gave me a "So what?" feeling at the end. Very tiresome. I have only asked for a refund twice in over 25 years of Books-0n-Tapes. This will make the third.

You didnt love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No. Trying to be way too cosmic to be an enjoyable listen.

Infuriating story; couldn't wait to finish

What did you like best about Ship of Theseus? What did you like least?

I liked that this book was turned into an audiobook. I purchased S. and thought it might be fun to listen to Ship of Theseus as an audiobook, so I could make it easier to read the margin story. Unfortunately the book is one big infuriating story of confusion. Every time the main character asks a question, he's met with coy, condescending double-speak from every single character. No one will give him a straight answer to anything, which means you as the reader, are totally in the dark the vast majority of the book. You don't know what time period it is until half way through the book. You have no clue who the main character, or really ANY of the characters are until 3/4 of the book through, and it's just frustrating as can be. It's as if the author, and all the characters, are playing one big joke on the reader.

In short, I really disliked the book. Best of all? You NEVER find out who the main character is. You never even learn who the other characters are. They come and go so randomly, without purpose, and seemingly without future. If this had not been the platform for S. I would've returned it.

If only Doug Dorst and JJ Abrams had chosen a better book, something in the public domain, to base S.

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Titel: Der Schatten des Windes (Friedhof der vergessenen Bücher 1)

Autor:: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Erzähler: Uve Teschner

Format: Unabridged

Spieldauer: 16 hrs and 14 mins

Sprache: Deutsch

Veröffentlichungsdatum: 09-26-13

Herausgeber: Argon Verlag

Bewertung: 5 von 5 von 4 Stimmen

Kategorien: Fiction, Literary

Zusammenfassung des Herausgebers:

An einem dunstigen Sommermorgen des Jahres 1945 wird der junge Daniel Sempere von seinem Vater an einen geheimnisvollen Ort in Barcelona geführt - den Friedhof der Vergessenen Bücher. Dort entdeckt Daniel den Roman eines verschollenen Autors für sich, er heißt "Der Schatten des Windes", und er wird sein Leben verändern...

©2013 Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main. Die Originalausgabe erschien 2001 unter dem Titel "La sombra del viento" bei Editorial Planeta S.A., Barcelona. Copyright Carlos Ruiz Zafón, 2001. Für die Übersetzung: Copyright Insel Verlag, Berlin 2003 (P)2013 Argon Verlag GmbH, Berlin

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Title: Bleeding Edge

Author: Thomas Pynchon

Narrator: Jeannie Berlin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-17-13

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 183 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Thomas Pynchon brings us to New York in the early days of the Internet. It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there's no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what's left.

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics - carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts - without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom - two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood - till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler's aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.

With occasional excursions into the Deep Web and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the Internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we've journeyed to since.

Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?

Hey. Who wants to know?

Members Reviews:

A fine wine in a dirty and cracked glass

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Ever since V in 1963 Thomas Pynchon has written superb novels and Bleeding Edge does not disappoint in anyway. He spins a dazzling web of a plot populated with engaging characters and conveying a powerful message for our times. An excellent read

How could the performance have been better?

Its hard to imagine a worse selection of narrator than this. She was presented with excellent material to perform but delivers it in a croaking monotone with no discernible sensitivity for timing or inflection rendering a fine novel almost unbearable. Its hard to understand how this performance escaped the studio. This narration made me buy my first hard copy novel for years.

Genuinely unlistenable

What didnt you like about Jeannie Berlins performance?

Well, obviously, I didn't read the reviews before downloading this...and, I still haven't read the book, so those ratings are purely notional. (Though I will certainly read it, having read all Pynchon's other novels.) All I can say is that, after 15 minutes, I decided that the reader was utterly insufferable.

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Title: The Longest Ride

Author: Nicholas Sparks

Narrator: January LaVoy, Ron McLarty

Format: Abridged

Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-17-13

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 186 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

Ira Levinson is in trouble. At 91 years old, in poor health, and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: His beloved wife, Ruth, who passed away nine years ago.

Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together - how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families. Ira knows that Ruth can't possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving the sorrows and everyday joys that defined their marriage.

A few miles away, at a local rodeo, a Wake Forest College senior's life is about to change. Recovering from a recent break-up, Sophia Danko meets a young cowboy named Luke, who bears little resemblance to the privileged frat boys she has encountered at school. Through Luke, Sophia is introduced to a world in which the stakes of survival and success, ruin and reward - even life and death - loom large in everyday life. As she and Luke fall in love, Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans - a future that Luke has the power to rewrite...if the secret he's keeping doesn't destroy it first.

Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common, and who are separated by years and experience. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.

Members Reviews:

love the romance

took me 25 chapters to figure it out. A great love story across time and life.

good

A great read. A story about true love. It made me smile, laugh and cry.

really good book

I loved it. I'M GOING TO READ THIS AGAIN AFTER I WATCH THE MOVIE. !

Excellent book

It was well written. However I felt it started off slow and jumped back and forth too much

love it.

I love the story and the natarror voice too. Even though the chapter were incomple.

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Title: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Author: Haruki Murakami

Narrator: Patrick Lawlor, Ellen Archer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-03-13

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 73 votes

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

From the best-selling author of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles comes this superb collection of 24 stories that generously expresses Murakami's mastery of the form.

From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami's characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.

Critic Reviews:

A true miscellany [or] more like one of those overstuffed, career-spanning CD box sets[But] the tales seem to speak with one, very seductive, voice. That voice, in each of these wildly varied excursions into the strange, dim territory of the self, says that someone named Haruki Murakami is still looking, quixotically, for something less fragile, less provisional than the usual accommodations we make do with on the road. (Terrence Rafferty, New York Times Book Review)

"A virtuosic demonstration of Murakami's incredible range . . . thrilling, funny, sad, moving, scary--all at once. Since 1980, the year Haruki Murakami wrote his first short story, the Japanese author has been a walking definition of genius . . . He is a master of tone, and can manipulate a reader's curiosity at will, [and he] approaches the large subjects indirectly, through mood and bizarre occurrences, and always trusts his reader to be moved." (John Freeman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"In this extraordinary new story collection by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, reality is ever in danger of breaking loose of its moorings . . . The inconsequential registers as significant in these wonderful stories as people struggle to figure out how to be, and what 'normal' means, if anything." (Joan Mellen, Baltimore Sun)

Members Reviews:

Fantastic, just like how all Murakami books are

Amazing collection of short stories. While I prefer his novels, simply because I love his writing so much that I love the fact I can stay longer in a novel's unique reality than in a short story's, it must be said that these short stories were also a fantastic experience.

What fantastic voyages! What surreal experiences intertwined with moments that are instantly relatable! I find Murakami extremely brilliant and quotable, I have made countless Facebook status updates that are just quotes from his works. This short story collection is no exception, with plenty poignantly worded quotes that speak to me.

Those who have read Murakami's novels will recognize that one of the short stories is almost like an excerpt from one of his novels... I didn't look at publication years but I assume this short story collection came first. Perhaps the short story is what inspired the novel to come to be? If so, I wonder if any of the other short stories will blossom into full length novels someday.