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The Dinner  By  cover art

The Dinner

By: Herman Koch,Sam Garrett - translator
Narrated by: Clive Mantle
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Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The darkly suspenseful tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one meal. Now a major motion picture.

“Chilling, nasty, smart, shocking, and unputdownable.”—Gillian Flynn, author of
Gone Girl

It’s a summer’s evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse—the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act—an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families.

As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

©2009 Herman Koch; Translation © 2012 by Sam Garrett (P)2013 AudioGO

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What listeners say about The Dinner

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

powerful novel

Challenging Moral questions - well worth the effort. Clive Mantle does a fine job balancing the tension.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • KP
  • 03-15-14

Not Your Usual Dinner Guests

This book was billed as a “European Gone Girl, “ and at first I could not see why. However, as the plot evolved and the dinner went on, the comparison became clear.


(Spoiler alert - this paragraph :)
As in Gone Girl, the narrator starts out innocently enough. It seems he doesn’t care much for his famous brother and he has lots of musings and philosophies that seem interesting and make it seem like his goal of being a happy family is an innocent one. However, again like Gone Girl, the plot seems to take a turn after one particular incident in the book, and then the narrator becomes more and more “unreliable.” Whatever disease or condition he has makes him crazy, basically. It was annoying to not ever know what the name of the condition was supposed to be. Also, the way that the narrator won’t reveal what was wrong with his wife when she was in the hospital is annoying, as well. I wanted to know more about his wife. By the end, she seems as crazy as he is, but it is not clear why. She seems the more logical of the two, but in the end, she is not. Her evolution to this state is too unclear, in my opinion.

The book was like a manual in how NOT to be a good parent that is for sure. This father did everything possible to screw up his son, and it worked!

I really liked the structure of the book. It was built around one particular dinner, but in fact the plot ranges far back before this dinner. With each course, more is revealed. It is tantalizing in that way, and interesting to see what will come next.

In both books, though, the extreme actions of the characters seemed unbelievable, as did the endings. Overall, though, The Dinner wasn’t quite as exciting, or edgy, as Gone Girl.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

frighteningly perverse

Turned around from page one, I couldn't stop listening and felt ashamed when I was done like I just watched some trashy reality tv show. Hard to explain but I loved this book, it is an acurate picture of parents today.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect narration

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

Absolutely. But I don't understand the comparisons to Gone Girl. This book was ten times better and much more realistic. You could actually put yourselves in the characters shoes and ask yourself what you would do

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Dinner?

When Paul is called to the principle's office.

What does Clive Mantle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

This was hands down the best narration of any audiobook I've ever listened too.

I listen to audio books while driving or doing things and then switch to the e book when I can sit down to read since its much faster to actually read it yourself. In this case I stopped reading and merely listened. The narration was perfection.

Any additional comments?

If you're looking for action/adventure/thriller this isn't the book for you. This is a people book. What do people do? What would I do? What in the world were they thinking? Reading this book you will know what at least one person was thinking, but you may never know exactly why he thought that way. I will think and wonder about the characters in this book for a long time.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Tedious

What disappointed you about The Dinner?

This book could have taken about 30 minutes but was 9 hours. Repeating the same story or the same sentence was to much.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

How a family dinner can make a very good story.

In Holland, 2 brothers and their wives meet for dinner in a posh restaurant to discuss problems with their childres. Told by a most unreliable narrator, one of the brothers, the story unfolds by course of the dinner. very satisfying story.

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

Wasn’t Overly Engaged

I wasn’t overly engaged with this story but it had some interesting ethics scenarios that were fun to explore. The ending was somewhat disappointing to me.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

I’m so confused

I’m two hours in and he’s spent the last 30 minutes telling an anecdote about Paris that has 1) nothing to do with the plot and is 2) incredible boring. Nothing has happened this entire book

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

good thriller

I couldn't put it down, I read it in one night. Some parts were horrific but not for the sake of shock.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Pretentious and Boring

Could not make it past chapter 9- it just reminded me of some thing my grandma would enjoy listening to

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