I don't review books, but this one I felt compelled to because it was a great story that made you feel like you were there, The performance was excellent, I even LOL'd. I didn't want it to end. Just gotta read....

Bruce as a little boy was my favorite character because he reminded me of my brother's when we were young and made me remember our young imaginations.

Mark Bramhall made you feel each character, just wish there would have been more about Laura and the baby.

but it's still brilliant work from Stegner -- who is certainly one of America's finest 20th century authors.

While this might be semi-autobiographical, it will get you thinking about more than Stegner's early life. It's really about all those dreamers you've ever known -- the people for whom daily life is just never enough. I am never disappointed with a Stegner book. Rather, I end it and wonder what to read next that will even be half as good.

If you have ever lived with someone with a hair-trigger temper, this book may be hard for you to listen to. Several times I had to just turn it off for a while. There was "impending doom" through much of the book. Still, it was interesting and a good, well-written story.

This is a superbly written, powerfully emotional story about a man and a woman who begin their lives at the beginning of the last century. They are an unlikely couple. She is a decent, caring woman, and her new husband is a bad-tempered man who is looking for the “big rock candy mountain,” yet they both love and support each other through their lives.

The emotional punch here is so strong I had to put the ‘pod down for a day a couple of times just so I could go on with it.

I have just finished Madame Bovary by Flaubert. I wonder if both these novels deserve to be called masterpieces. The writing in each, but particularly with Big Rock, is most clearly perfect “chiseled” English with every word meaning something.

The narration is superb and, as I sometimes remark, it makes those of us who listen to books happy we have found this medium.

I gave this 3 stars, although I never was able to listen to the book, unfortunately. I really disliked the narrator in the flat voice who spoke so fast it took away any depth of feeling that I like to feel when listening.

I just finished listening to Mark Bramhall's narration of The Big Rock Candy Mountain, and Wallace Stegner has done the miraculous: through his writing, reached through the years and grabbed my soul. Would I recommend this to a friend? Absolutely!I truly wish I knew someone these days who has a deep and abiding love of great fiction, AND the willingness to take the time: for this is it!

I feel to tell which one would be too much of a spoiler.

Hmmm...I guess it has to be Harry Mason. However, he did a most remarkable job narrating all the characters, regardless of age or gender.

Nay nay...25 hours is too much...however I was always reluctant to pause it at the conclusion of my day's commute.

Stegner's insights into the American pioneer psyche were profoundly moving, and rang true all the way to the deepest part of the quest to undertand complex characters. Stegner does not disappoint the avid reader with tidy, saccharine endings.

Yes, if they are interested in how people lived in the 1900's.

Realistic characters

Chet climbing on the rafters

Home is Wherever You Are

It is very long, so be prepared to do a lot of stopping and picking it back up again!

This was a good listen, but at times you just wanted to reach in there and tell the woman that she needed to "Run, Save yourself!"

I enjoyed this story, it wasn't great but it was good. The characters were well drawn but I never REALLY cared about any of them. Perhaps this was the narration, I am not sure, but I tend to think it is the writing. But it for all of that I enjoyed the story in the vain of most family sagas.

Yes, not my favorite narrator or author but I would give each another listen.

I have not.

If I wanted to hear another book because of the story but not just because of his narration, it's kind of dull.

Maybe, because it would have to be shorter than this drawn out version! The story is potentially an interesting one but it goes on and on with more and more bad luck for this poor family due to (the father) Bo's inability to stay in one place and his compulsion for trying get rich quick schemes one after the other. I got a little exasperated with the mother character for sticking with him, (and standing up for him and going along with him etc.) but I suppose it was a different time in history and women were supposed to "stand by their man". It's apparent the mother feels she made the decision to be with Bo and now she has to live with that decision but that got a bit tiresome after his continual behavior and cycles of bad temper and uprooting the family again and again for some unrealistic money making scheme.

I think the length, (and I usually like long audio books) paired with this narrator's voice makes this book hard to stick through to the end. I remember thinking in the first third of the book "There's two more sections to go?" I think it should have and could have been shortened and it would have been just as good if not better and all the important things could have been retained.