• A Hologram for the King

  • By: Dave Eggers
  • Narrated by: Dion Graham
  • Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
  • 3.4 out of 5 stars (425 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
A Hologram for the King  By  cover art

A Hologram for the King

By: Dave Eggers
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.19

Buy for $17.19

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy’s gale-force winds.

This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment - and a moving story of how we got here.

©2012 Dave Eggers (P)2012 Recorded Books

What listeners say about A Hologram for the King

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    87
  • 4 Stars
    133
  • 3 Stars
    115
  • 2 Stars
    63
  • 1 Stars
    27
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    133
  • 4 Stars
    150
  • 3 Stars
    64
  • 2 Stars
    27
  • 1 Stars
    14
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    75
  • 4 Stars
    107
  • 3 Stars
    104
  • 2 Stars
    66
  • 1 Stars
    34

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Subtle Paean to Emptiness, Failure & Loneliness

Sad and beautiful. Eggers captures the pain, fear and insecurity of a maturing, outsourced economy and an aging, disappointed businessman. Set in the KSA, this novel reminded me of Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' and Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' if both had been written by a Hemingway or Mailer. 'Hologram for the King' stands as a subtle paean to the emptiness, failure, loneliness, and slow economic decay (and death) we ALL experience eventually. The best parts of this novel, for me, were the interactions Alan (the protagonist) has with his Saudi driver and his female doctor. Alan's experiences with the foreign and the exotic other illuminate just how similar we are, and how absurd our self-made mental prisons appear to those we interact with. But still -- we can't help but wait for the King and hope.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A deeply enjoyable man vs world story

Too many Man vs. World stories rely on characters who lack flaws. Characters who would be perfectly great at everything if the world would stop keeping them down.

Alan, our lead in Hologram, is a deeply flawed man. He is jealous and fearful, watching his life and dreams fade away and out of his grasp.

Alan wants to play by the rules, all the rules, but the rules refuse to stand still. He wants to do the right thing, but the right thing is never clear. He makes good decisions that go bad and bad decisions that work out just fine.

He is a sympathetic man, immanently relatable. This is good, because the story itself, when considered from afar, is quite boring. The journey of an interesting character struggling in an interesting location is enough for Dave Eggers to have a winner.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Reader, Great Read

You hear people say, "(blank) novel haunted me." But dig a little deeper, and it's usually some writer's trick of outrageous violence (or some other offense against humanity) at the center of the sentiment. Yet here's a book that's been haunting me for months now, and it didn't contain a single scene of murder, rape or torture to do it.

How? It's a very spare book--an "easy" listen. But each scene is drawn with purpose and originality. I didn't expect to like the setting in Saudi Arabia--but Eggers skips the easy exoticisms and creates a world at once unlike anything I expected, yet totally recognizable.

At the center of it all is a tale of the decline and dissolution of Schwinn Bicycles (yes!). It's a "backstory" item, but Eggers returns to it again and again--the whole book's really a rumination on just what the heck went wrong, and what such failures of modernization/corporatization/globalization/etc. mean for a man trying to survive in the world today, (and so we return to the question of murder, rape and torture...).

Now THAT'S haunting.

All this is accomplished without being preachy, or prescriptive. Just perceptive.

Also, the reader Dion Graham really is superlative--I bought the book on a Salon recommendation that praised his ability to capture in his read the way an Eggers page is "composed" (with eccentric spacing, elisions, etc.). Thought this would make for a sort of avant-garde, "performance art" experience. Not at all--it was like being inside someone else's train-of-thought, but without the claustrophobia. Incredible vocal characterizations. No way I would've gotten as much out of text on a page!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Quite a bizarre tale of monotonous triviality.

What are we working for?
What are we achieving?
Is it all for naught?

Likely.

Relationships matter. Little else does.

Everything else is just a hologram. Here one minute, so real as if you can reach out and touch it. Just another of life's near misses the next minute.

Love Eggars. Not my favorite of his works though.

I think I get it, just wasn't that into it.

Grippingly mundane.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Willie Loman goes to Saudi Arabia

Any additional comments?

Narrator Dion Graham makes this an enjoyable read, combined with the all-too-human failings of the main character Alan. He has loser and winner characteristics that make him likable. Combine that with the sheer unfamiliarity of Saudi Arabia, deftly portrayed through Alan's reactions and thoughts, and I got something out of the ordinary that I hadn't expected. I tend to listen to books on dog walks, and I can tell you the dog got a lot of exercise in the two days it took me to listen to this. So perhaps it can be said that "I couldn't put it down." I plan on reading more Dave Eggers books as a result.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Willie Loman for the 21st Century

Where does A Hologram for the King rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This book holds no surprises; you can see exactly where the characters are going. You cringe for the principal character as he mismanages every situation, but had he been brilliant, the mission would still have failed. Its outcome foreordained. It is an advance look at our own self portrait. The willful tossing aside of the shredded social contract(s) that used to cushiion our lives, and the hinted at future that awaits us behind the next "free trade act".

Which scene was your favorite?

The three Chinese vans parked outside the Vendors tent. Precious. Arrogance vs preparation.

If you could take any character from A Hologram for the King out to dinner, who would it be and why?

The Saudi doctor. She was the only person in the book that displayed any humanity. Also, very sexy.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

simple yet engaging

What did you love best about A Hologram for the King?

I lived the deep description of everything and the authors ability to transform a mundane moment into a humorous emotion filled event.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

His daughter

Which scene was your favorite?

At the hotel when he observes the life coaching class

If you could rename A Hologram for the King, what would you call it?

The desert

Any additional comments?

Good book, story wasn't as impressive as the writing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Vivid, thoughtful, moody. Couldn't put it down.

What did you love best about A Hologram for the King?

The narration sweeps you along. You enter a desert setting for a life that hovers on the edge of disappointment, reflecting the downward spiral of western aspiration . . . yet the character's American optimism flickers again. The people are beautifully drawn and you can care about them even as all the answers aren't clear.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the character goes to the mountains with his driver friend, and rides out into the night to help hunt a wolf.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The price paid for capitalism

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. The effects of capitalism across 3 generations is a great story.

What did you like best about this story?

Many people can relate to dreams falling short and temptations that should be avoided.

What about Dion Graham’s performance did you like?

His presentation is honest and earnest, strait forward. I like the way he represents men and women in his auditory style.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes!

Any additional comments?

I kept thinking back to my Dad, his career in metallurgy, and the way he was against America's economy being service based versus manufacturing based.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Fabulous performance!

I am not sure if it wasn't for the great performance by Dion Graham whether the story can stand by itself. However, I got to say that I was yearning to go back to hear the remainder of the story between intervals of work :) My problem with the story is that it is depiction of what is wrong with current day America with lots of symbols (specially when Allen was with Youssef trying to hunt a wolf!) but overall it lacked a catharsis.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful