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Tenth of December
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It plunges under your skin and invades you.
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Overall
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Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other, for no one but Saunders could conceive it. February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery.
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Mistake
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A collection of 98 enthralling and pulse-quickening stories, spanning five decades, venerates the remarkable imagination of J. G. Ballard. With a body of work unparalleled in twentieth-century literature, J. G. Ballard is recognized as one of the greatest and most prophetic writers in the world. With the much-hailed release of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard, readers now have a means to celebrate the unmatched range and mesmerizing cadences of a literary genius.
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Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life - a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us - blazingly - about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege.
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The planet Athshe was a paradise whose people were blessed with a mystical awareness of existence. Then the conquerors arrived and began to rape, enslave, and kill humans with a flicker of humanity. The athseans were unskilled in the ways of war, and without weapons. But the gentle tribesmen possessed strange powers over their dreams. And the alien conquerors had taught them how to hate....
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Story
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Wonderful narration lifted the whole work.
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Summary
Winner: The Folio Prize 2014
From the undisputed master of the short story comes a dazzling and disturbing new collection. A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for all occasions; Divisional Director Todd Birnie sends round a memo to employees he thinks need some inspiration; and in an auction of local celebrities Al Roosten hides his own internal monologue behind a winning smile. Although, as a young boy discovers, sometimes the voices fade and all you are left with is a frozen hill on a cold day in December...
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- Suswati
- 21-11-17
Dark, disturbing and satirical
This collection of short stories cannot be pigeon-holed. In this oddly disjointed, surreal collection, the underlying issues in modern American culture are loudly explored. George Saunders' breathless writing style floods over terrible realities and hard truths, leaving the reader gasping in its wake.
Tenth of December handles its running themes in a poignant, individual and certainly irreverent way. Narcissistic ideas of charity stems from trivial competition, while sheer denial is shown in the face of true poverty. Generations breed generations, passing on corrupted ideals and traumatic examples. Paedophilia, racism, poverty: nothing is safe from these chastising, powerful stories.
Saunders leaves an expunged, brutally telling view of the American dream. In his futuristic imaginings, he exaggerates the failings of Western consumerism, yet ultimately his message is clear: When one tries to have it all, they're left with nothing.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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- Texnik
- 27-11-17
Good stories; very hard to follow
I think I'll get a refund, having read the summaries of the stories I've listened to so far. Apparently I listened to 3 stories and not 2. Thanks Wikipedia.
See... as far as short real-world stories go, these were quite good so far. I'll probably add the book to my ever-growing Kindle list.
I'm also of the opinion that there's no reason to be very critical of short audiobooks, (since they're such a small time investment) but in this case I am afraid that the narration will ruin/spoil them for me. Maybe their style just makes them unsuitable for medium-budget narration. The narrator is clearly not a voice actor and these stories all but demand voice acting.
The first 3 stories are streams of consciousness with dialogue and action. The narrator did his best to differentiate between the characters, but that led to akthenths that are hahther to undethtand. There's also no redundancy in the stories. Miss something and you'll be lost for a few minutes. I missed half of the plot, according to Wikipedia. The transition between stories is also just one word in a sea of words, usually. I still don't quite remember what the second story was.
The tone is very light, but these stories aren't light listens. I'd have to pay closer attention than what I can afford right now. I hope they're better when I'm the one reading them.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- Rob
- UK
- 12-01-16
Why?
What would have made Tenth of December better?
Why is this audiobook, made up of short stories, downloaded as if it was a single file? No way of easily skipping to a particular short story! Very annoying.
Who might you have cast as narrator instead of George Saunders?
Just about anyone else
Any additional comments?
Audible, why?
1 of 9 people found this review helpful