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The Shawshank Redemption

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The Shawshank Redemption

By: Stephen King
Narrated by: Frank Muller
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About this listen

 #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King’s beloved novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award–nominee The Shawshank Redemption—about an unjustly imprisoned convict who seeks a strangely satisfying revenge, is available as a standalone book.

Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, Stephen King’s extraordinary novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, tells a powerful tale of crushing despair and liberating hope through the eyes of Ellis “Red” Redding. Red’s a guy who can get you whatever you want here in Maine’s corrupt and hard-edged Shawshank State Penitentiary (for a price, of course), but the one thing he doesn’t count on is an unexpected friendship forged with fellow inmate Andy Dufresne—an inscrutable one-time banker perhaps falsely convicted of brutal, calculated murder who will go on to transform everyone’s lives within these prison walls.

Originally published in the 1982 collection Different Seasons, it was adapted into the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this modern classic has become one of the most beloved films of all time. A mesmerizing work of unjust imprisonment and strangely satisfying revenge, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption remains one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic stories. Genre Fiction Horror Literary Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Suspense Thriller & Suspense Exciting
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It really was good. The film was better but the book was good too. Truly heartwarming to listen to.

It was good

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it was well read & a great story. surprisingly the film appears to have faithfully followed the plot

As good as the film

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Whilst I don't think it is as good as the film, the film does keep true to the book in a lot of ways. Excellent character development and a 'page turner' of a listen. Despite some of the troubling topics that are covered, reading the book felt like warm nostalgia.

A classic that is worth the read

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In my opinion, one of the best stories ever written. The narrator manages to make the story even more exciting and captivating.

Absolute classic

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For that what this novella has become, a classic, since its 1982 publication, under the unwieldy title, Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption.
And, much like its protagonist, Andy Dufresne, the story has matured and flourished in the imaginations of movie lovers everywhere, escaping the bindings of the page to become a film that earns its heraldry of, “classic,” despite an unpromising beginning, seeing only minor success before word of mouth and the video market elevated it to a wider audience.
The differences between the novella and the movie, though marked, are not significant enough to disappoint fans of the film, I believe.
And, for those coming to it afresh, they may well be taken aback by the fact that there is no, “horror,” to speak of in this tale, other than those more familiar horrors we might expect in a prison drama.
Yet, I cannot imagine any listener coming away from this unique and eloquently expressed story of hope unsatisfied.
Told from the point of view of Red, the prisoner serving a life sentence for murder and the inmate who befriended Andy Dufresne and penned his adventures, as witnessed from his vantage point, it is beautifully narrated by old hand, Frank Muller.
Muller’s voice is perfect for this material, being close enough to the movie’s narrator, Morgan Freeman, to satisfy those fans, whilst still being all his own and familiar to regular listeners of narrated classics.
King is a far better prose writer than his horror reputation gives him credit for. And this story is an example of what a master can do inside the small walls of a prison cell, with an, “imagination that’s been trained to misbehave,” as he puts it.
Well worth the price of admission . . . and then some.

Everything You Hope For In A Classic

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