![The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History | [Jonathan Franzen]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jsoyY4QlL._SL175_.jpg "The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History | [Jonathan Franzen]")
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
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- Regular Price :$20.97Special Offer: Learn how to get this for $7.49 !
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Average Customer Rating
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LENGTH6 hrs and 4 mins
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RELEASE DATE09-21-06
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AUDIO FORMATS
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Program TypeAudiobook
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PUBLISHER
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Publisher's Summary
The story Franzen tells here draws on elements as varied as the explosive dynamics of a Christian youth fellowship in the 1970s; the effects of Kafka's fiction on his protracted quest to lose his virginity; the elaborate pranks that he and his friends orchestrated from the roof of his high school; his self-inflicted travails in selling his mother's house after her death; and the web of connections between his all-consuming marriage, the problem of global warming, and the life lessons to be learned from watching birds.
These chapters of a Midwestern youth and a New York adulthood are warmed by the same combination of comic scrutiny and unqualified affection that characterize Franzen's fiction, but here the main character is the author himself. Sparkling, daring, arrestingly honest, The Discomfort Zone narrates the formation of a unique mind and heart in the crucible of an everyday American family.
©2006 Jonathan Franzen; (P)2006 HighBridge Company
What the Critics Say
"Wonderful." (Publishers Weekly)
"[A] gratifyingly unpredictable and finely crafted collection." (Booklist)
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What Members Say
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Beth Glen Ridge, NJ, United States 05-30-08 Member Since 2001I am a voracious reader with fairly eclectic taste. I like both fiction and non-fiction, biography, history and current events. I like well written mysteries and suspense and I love 19th and 20th century classical literature as well as modern fiction. My favorite author is Philip Roth but I also love Trollope, Hardy, Jonathan Franzen, Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. My favorite biographer is Robert Caro.
- HELPFUL VOTES
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- REVIEWS
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- 74
"Good narration, like some essays more than others"
Although I did not like every essay as much as I liked the first, I found this audiobook very satisfying and engaging. I didn't expect to want to listen to the whole thing, I just chose it in my ipod as a time filler after finishing another book on my commute home, but it held my attention and invited me back every time I entered the car. After purchasing the audiobook I had read a bad book review and hadn't expected to enjoy the book so much. Jonathan Franzen is an intelligent and thoughtful writer, and a surprisingly good narrator. For those who appreciate biographical essays, this is an enjoyable choice.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful -
"Not for the Christmas season"
My advice is to read Wendy Spero and Bill Bryson instead.
3 of 17 people found this review helpful
