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All That Man Is

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All That Man Is

By: David Szalay
Narrated by: Huw Parmenter, Mark Meadows, Sean Barrett
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016
An ingenious book from the exceptional Granta Best Young British Novelist

Nine men: each of them at a different stage of life, away from home, and striving - in the suburbs of Prague, in a cheap Cypriot hotel - to understand just what it means to be alive here and now.

Tracing an arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, All That Man Is brings these separate lives together to show us men as they are - ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable; vital, pitiable, hilarious, and full of heartfelt longing.

©2016 David Szalay (P)2016 W.F. Howes Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Emotionally Gripping Witty Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

"This feels like a great novel driven by its overarching theme: what is my life, here and now, all about? Rarely has it been so brilliantly and chillingly spelled out." (John Harding, Daily Mail)
"There is everything to relish about this intelligent, moving, thoroughly European search for the meaning of life.... It's hard to imagine listening a better audiobook this year." (Melissa Katsoulis, The Times)
All stars
Most relevant
Rather depressing and unusual stories ... Killing did say the human race has ab ugly face and it needs to be told maybe. The final story is the best...one can just imagine those old age feelings that so many people will eventually have. Sad but with a touch of humane kindness also shining through.

Mr Barretts charisma a d voice

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To call this book a novel is perhaps a bit of a stretch, many reviewers have called into question whether this is not rather a collection of short stories with a few recurring themes and loosely connecting threads and I would tend to agree with this.

What this book does well is describe, in often quite painfully poignant detail, the inner conversation of several men at different stages of their lives. There is little that is surprising in the short encounters we have with these men, but they are believable and though not always loveable, one cannot help empathising with the drama and struggles of their existence.

This book is bleak - perhaps overly - but as with all tragedy, it forces us to look deeper and question what it is that we hold dear and what is truly important.

Almost very good...

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The narratives are linked tenuously by theme, not by plot, and the book is essentially a compilation of individual short stories. The author writes exceptionally well, lacking pretension and with clarity, although little actually happens for the duration of the book. You get the impression that, for whatever reason, the author has presented us with some of the less interesting events of the characters' lives and whilst this approach goes some way to illustrating the overarching motif, it left me feeling cheated after each transition.

I've often thought it's a pity the review ratings don't separate narrative and literary ability, never more so than for this particular book.

Still, I did enjoy listening to such an accomplished presentation and the impressive narration together with the author's linguistic skills made it a four star for me.

Good, with reservations

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After reading flesh by the author I was expecting something as good but I was very disappointed by the various stories

Disappointing

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Makes you realise how few books you know where guys are relentlessly flawed and frail. Each story is like stepping into a nightmare in motion. With each main character imprisoned.

Woeful men on the edge of a nervous breakdown

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