What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Audiobook By Raymond Carver cover art

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
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.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

By: Raymond Carver
Narrated by: Norman Dietz
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $12.03

Buy for $12.03

Get 3 months for $0.99 a month

In his second collection, including the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman, Raymond Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated short-story writers in American literature. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one's way through the dark.

©1981 Raymond Carver (P)2017 Tantor
Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories Inspiring
All stars
Most relevant
The stories and conversations are beautiful examples of love, lust, and loss. I enjoyed listening to them, and everyone can relate to at least once of them!

This book really captures the nuances of love.

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

These are my most favorite short stories to listen to again and again. Carver is a brilliant and talented writer.

Classic shorts

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

Carver is a genius...

but this reading was so difficult to listen to that I bought the book twice so I could have a different narrator. Evanson's performance is lovely. Sooo skip this one. Find the other.

get version read by Brian Evanson

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

The performance was fine and these are good examples of literature of their time. But they are almost all just drenched in despair. Apparently love is inconsiderate and dead end and consistently disappointing. No wonder the divorce rate was so high in the 70s.

My God These Are Depressing

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

Testimonial-like tales of murder, failed love, & alcoholism.
This collection contains one of Carver's best stories, So Much Water So Close To Home.
I found I prefer reading Carver to listening to Dietz's reading. Though Dietz excels at novels with a rural feel, and Carver's stories have fishermen, hunters, and the like, there's more bitterness and despair in the writing than comes across in Dietz's vocal performance.

Bleak but unflinchingly honest.

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

What a great treat. Thank you Raymond Carver, and whatever sacrifices you had to make to get this written and published.

Fabulous stories, writing and performance

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

I love Raymond Carver -- his stories are quiet yet heartbreaking and powerful. But Norman Dietz's flat, robotic performance ruins this anthology. I'm disappointed that he was chosen to read all of Carver's work, as I would have liked to hear these stories narrated by someone who understands the material and has much more life in their voice.

Great stories, awful performance

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

There's a reason Carver is considered the master of the literary short form. These stories are simply as real and human as it gets. Each one paints a complete picture of a life in the simplest of terms, and cuts to the bones of the human experience. Heart rending and powerful. Beautiful and blunt.

Masterful

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

I actually think the narrator does a good job of reflecting the tone of these stories. All of these are fantastic short stories by one of the very best.

Fantastic

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

Carver deserves better than this awful lifeless monotone narrator. It's a shame that he narrates all of his books.

Awful narration.

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

See more reviews