Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

By: Tom Robbins

Narrated by: Barry Bostwick

Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Imagine this: When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you, an ambitious broker, not overly successful or ethical, know you're facing the Weekend from Hell. With only 72 hours to scheme and scramble your way out of this nightmare, you find yourself confronted with a 300-pound psychic, a tattooed stranger, African rituals, legendary amphibians, outer space, and your own sexuality. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, the highly praised novel from Tom Robbins, places the listener at the center of a wildly psychotic journey. When it is over, will you - and the world - be wiser, sadder, better in some way? Or merely possessed of a complete understanding of the surprisingly serious phrase, "half asleep in frog pajamas?"

©1994 by Tom Robbins (P)1995 by Dove Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Trying to describe a Tom Robbins novel by summarizing its plot is like pointing to a snowflake and asking someone to grasp the concept of downhill skiing." (The Los Angeles Times)

Another Great Robbins Novel

It's a tough call, but I think I actually liked this book more than "Fierce Invalids..." It was fun and certainly had me laughing out loud in places. I'd listen to this book a second time.

Excellent from all perspectives

It was hard to tell which was better: the writting or the delivery. The book itself was fantasticaly funny and enjoyable, but we think it was the reading of it which made it so much fun. Lots of times we broke into gaffaws, others we sat in the car in a parking space waiting for a particular good passage to end. We were sad when it ended and haven't found a good one to replace it yet.

Writing is genius

Any additional comments?

It's written like nothing else. The writing is so beautiful but intense and sometimes hard to follow auditorally. And the ending was disappointing and unclear.

Decent and witty

The story is just so so but the character development is fantastic. This is my second Tom Robbins book and it draws some similarities to Invalids but it not anywhere near the wild adventure of that story. Still worth a listen

robbins' later books are not good

the protagonist was monolithic and unrelatable. the plot was unreliable and boring. but the reading of the book was pretty good overall

Fun Read

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

i often don't like the way male narrators do female voices, and this was no exception. The story itself was so wacky, though, that a little more weirdness just added to the craziness of the story.

Could you see Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

This could be a great short movie - there is barely enough here to fill 90 minutes.

Any additional comments?

This book has a lot of elements of the typical Murakami book, without the elegance.

Interesting read, poor audio quality

At the time I downloaded this book only Format 3 was available, which is a big step down in audio quality from other audiobooks in my Library. Eventually, I got used to the muffled sounds, but it is far from ideal.


Minor Spoiler Alert:
Tom Robbins develops interesting, believable characters and amusing situations in Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, my first Robbins read, and he has a knack for churning out unexpectedly clever metaphors. I love the second person narration. But, about 3/4 of the way through the book, he uses the characters as mouthpieces to lecture on ridiculous theories of aliens and ancient civilization. This dialogue seemed forced, and my interest in the book waned, but I have stuck with it.

Simply one of the best audio book performances ever!

Barry Bostwick gives a brilliant performance in this hilarious book where everything goes comically wrong for our heroine...or does it?

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wonderful narration

great story, great narrator! very highly recommended! quirky weirdness and psychedelia abound! definitely going to look for more narrated by this guy too!