A Christmas Story

The Book That Inspired the Hilarious Classic Film

De: Jean Shepherd

Narrado por: Dick Cavett

A beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana—the book that inspired the equally classic Yuletide film and the live musical on Fox.

The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family’s typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

This edition of A Christmas Story gathers together in one hilarious volume the gems of autobiographical humor that Jean Shepherd drew upon to create this enduring film. Here is young Ralphie Parker’s shocking discovery that his decoder ring is really a device to promote Ovaltine; his mother and father’s pitched battle over the fate of a lascivious leg lamp; the unleashed and unnerving savagery of Ralphie’s duel in the show with the odious bullies Scut Farkas and Grover Dill; and, most crucially, Ralphie’s unstoppable campaign to get Santa—or anyone else—to give him a Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle. Who cares that the whole adult world is telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid”?

The pieces that comprise A Christmas Story, previously published in the larger collections In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, coalesce in a magical fashion to become an irresistible piece of Americana, quite the equal of the film in its ability to warm the heart and tickle the funny bone.© Jean Shepherd; (P)2004 Random House Inc. Random House Audio, a divison of Random House, Inc.

A must read for fans of the movie

As is usually true, this book is better than the classic movie. This collection of short stories is not what I expected; but, is better than I could have imagined.

The performance is a perfect match of voice and story. But, my rating (3 of 5 stars) reflects my frustration with what is my only negative critique. The audiobook chapters (3) are not matched to the end of each chapter is the book (5). In my opinion, a below-average finished product deserves a below average rating.

Perfect reading of great stories.

Extremely well done and enjoyable. Great reminder of a simpler time in our crazy word. Truly delightful.

Chapters aren’t synced

The book only shows 3 chapters, each about an hour long. These chapters don’t coincide with the actual book chapters which is annoying and makes the end of chapter option worthless for this book. Apart from that, I enjoyed it. Not quite what I was expecting but fun.

Christmas time in NWI

After growing up with the movie I had to read the book. it was very good. The movie does the book justice. I just kinda feel it doesn't have a definitive ending. It's him looking back while in modern day.

Listen

If you like the movie this will be a great change of pace and give a bit insight into some of the tales.