The Book of Jonah

A Novel

By: Joshua Max Feldman

Narrated by: David Pittu

Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

A major literary debut, an epic tale of love, failure, and unexpected faith set in New York, Amsterdam, and Las Vegas.

The modern-day Jonah at the center of Joshua Max Feldman's brilliantly conceived retelling of the book of Jonah is a young Manhattan lawyer named Jonah Jacobstein. He's a lucky man: healthy and handsome, with two beautiful women ready to spend the rest of their lives with him and an enormously successful career that gets more promising by the minute. He's celebrating a deal that will surely make him partner when a bizarre, unexpected biblical vision at a party changes everything. Hard as he tries to forget what he saw, this disturbing sign is only the first of many Jonah will witness, and before long his life is unrecognizable. Though this perhaps divine intervention will be responsible for more than one irreversible loss in Jonah's life, it will also cross his path with that of Judith Bulbrook, an intense, breathtakingly intelligent woman who's no stranger to loss herself.

As this funny and bold audiobook moves to Amsterdam and then Las Vegas, Feldman examines the way we live now while asking an age-old question: How do you know if you're chosen?

DAVID PITTU is a two-time Tony Award nominee, as well as the award-winning narrator of countless audiobooks, ranging in genre from young adult (Scholastic’s 39 Clues series) to spy fiction (Olen Steinhauer’s The Last Tourist and Milo Weaver series) to the contemporary fiction of authors such as Jeffrey Eugenides (The Marriage Plot) and Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch) and many more.

Pittu received the Audie Award for Best Male Solo Narration for The Goldfinch, which also received the Audie for Best Literary Fiction.

Not only a veteran theater actor, he works regularly in film and television. He lives in New York City.

©2014 Joshua Max Feldman (P)2013 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Feldman’s expansive tale offers an invigorating, timeless exploration of existential crises within a contemporary world." ( Booklist)

"Feldman is clever in his use of the Jonah story, and his novel is of the same strange and enigmatic quality as the original." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"David Pittu is one of those expert narrators who disappear into a story. You don't hear him interpreting it, or commenting on it; he becomes part of it.... Pittu puts you inside Jonah, makes you feel what he feels.... a bravura performance." ( AudioFile)

What a horrible book

All I can say is this book must have a great title because that's all there is to it.
It is one of the worst messes I have ever stumbled through and made myself to finish.
The narrator is absolutely fantastic.

Not about Religion

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I was really disappointed in this book. It isn't that the story lacked, it was just not what I expected at all. I thought this book was about Faith and Religion. In a very far, round about way, I guess you could say it was, but I didn't think so.

What about David Pittu’s performance did you like?

I thought David Pittu's performance was grand.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Sadness and very much disappointment.

wish i'd LEFT this BEHIND

Did anyone else get the notice that this was one of Amazon's Best Books of February; the monthly e-mail from Audible stating that this was one of the new releases they were most excited about? I am flummoxed, seriously baffled. I would have just requested a refund, but I kept listening, trying to assure myself that I wasn't crazy. I'm still concerned about that status.

Let me just warn those of you that like an occasional cataclysmic thriller with a biblical twist, 'Flee for your lives! Don't look back...' There is no flood, no water, no Armeggedon, and no freakin' whale. I would continue with: no plot, horrible writing; but, the fact that Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, even Amazon/Audible found this praiseworthy...I must have lost my mind. If this really is good, I'm going out to look for four guys on different colored horses, 'human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!'