11.22.63

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Craig Wasson

Length: 30 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

What if you could go back in time and change the course of history? What if the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless....

King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life - a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

With extraordinary imaginative power, King weaves the social, political and popular culture of his baby-boom American generation into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense.

©2011 Stephen King (P)2011 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

“This new epic from Stephen King rates among the best he’s written – no small praise for the man who wrote Carrie, It, The Stand and Under the Dome.” ( Trucking News)

My new benchmark for audio books

I'm quite new audio book listener but i just feel that everything else after this is going to disappoint!

Great story

A great story let down by the reader's inconsistent tone of voice. I can understand if the tone changes with twists in the story, but here and there, I came across sudden changes in the reader's voice. Probably caused in post production

A satisfying time-travel tale.

A great time-travel story with a solid premise that lays the groundwork for a gripping narrative. The characters are well sketched and their relationships have depth, dimensions, and complexity. Jake Epping is a very relatable protagonist and the narrator of the audio book does a stellar job with the accents and colloquialisms, suggesting the dread, fear, and excitement of its characters.

Its pace slumps to a crawl sometimes, especially in the middle, dividing it almost into two distinct narrative halves, and the writing gets overly expository and descriptive on occasion; however, the characters, premise, and the great voice work of the narrator are solid enough overall to keep you listening till the end.

King on form

I like this book. So much so I bought it twice (after losing an iTunes audiobook copy). It's not King's best work, but only because he has written so many other fantastic books (Duma Key, Cell, The Stand - too many to list); it's way better than the best of most authors, even very good ones. Being super-critical it slows slightly in the middle, but it picks up again. The performance is excellent, the characters are developed beautifully and it's an involving and well thought out story. Epic but so worth it.

A great take on time travel

Any additional comments?

For those other reviewers who really liked the book, I agree with their comments. All in all a really great book and a wonderful narrator.

But one of the other great aspects of the book that doesn't seem to be covered by others is that, at its heart, it is actually a time travel book about how time travel might be possible and what it's implications may be. Everything else, including the assassination of JFK (although King has a great interest in that event), are just vehicles to explore that time travel theory.

This was really refreshing as I've grown a little tired of having to take a deep breath before diving into time travel books that do not waste even a single a sentence on trying to grapple with the fundamental problem with the concept. (e.g. If I go back in time and shoot my grandfather, it would mean that I could not have existed in the present time in order to go back in time to shoot my grandfather. The old paradox). Stephen King tries to address this directly and I think draws on the latest thoughts of top physicists in this area. For that alone, it was really interesting.

Having said all that, I really appreciated the significant research that King undertook to set out a huge amount of detail surrounding the life of Lee Harvey Oswald leading up to the day of the shooting. It really brought Oswald to life in a way that few other books have done.

Too slow and I lost interest

I have really enjoyed Stephen King audiobooks in the past, including The Shining and Under the Dome (which is one of my all -time favorite audiobooks). But 11.22.63 was too long-winded for me. It started well with an interesting situation and I had high hopes. However, about half way through the book, I lost interest and gave up. The story did not move fast enough for me. I say, however, that Craig Wasson is a good narrator.

Sink your teeth in!

Thoroughly enjoyed this listen! I was engrossed from the start. I especially enjoyed bumping into our friends in Derry!

sorry when it finished

king is a great storyteller and the narrator made it even better. I was really sorry when the book ended, and I did not expect the outcome which was sad and a bit of a surprise.

Loved It!

Really enjoyed this one, was a bit different from some of his other stuff, if ur a King fan like me, get it you wont be disappointed!

Soda shop extravaganza

Mr. King is a brilliant writer and this was the first time I've heard one of his books in this format. He did a fantastic job of supplying the listener with incredible visuals of an age long gone, good and bad.
The story itself was good, but not great. It comprises of 2 parts sci-fi and 8 parts history lesson of life in the 50's/60's..... For 30 hours.
Overall I give it 4 stars, the reader did an outstanding job and completely owned his character. I would have only rated this book 3 stars but Craig Wasson made it come alive!!! I hope or hear more books read by him.