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All That Man Is
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Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
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On Battersea Reach, a mixed bag of the temporarily lost and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the tide of the Thames. There is good-natured Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by chance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, an ex-navy man whose boat, much like its owner, dominates the Reach.
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A woman strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to her on a plane after some turbulence. He returns home to tragic news that has also impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. Her life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very well-written, however....
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 80
Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak.
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i LOVED this book
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Older And ?Wiser
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Offshore
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
On Battersea Reach, a mixed bag of the temporarily lost and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the tide of the Thames. There is good-natured Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by chance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, an ex-navy man whose boat, much like its owner, dominates the Reach.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wanted the story to keep going
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,259
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,176
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,173
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes "interesting" - the last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed, and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is a story of inaction with enormous consequences.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Like the writing, not the audio issues
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This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
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Elegant and elusive
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Transported from the mid-twentieth century to New York City in the year 1882, Si Morley walks the fashionable "Ladies' Mile" of Broadway, is enchanted by the jingling sleigh bells in Central Park, and solves a 20th-century mystery by discovering its 19th-century roots. Falling in love with a beautiful young woman, he ultimately finds himself forced to choose between his lives in the present and the past. A story that will remain in the listener's memory, Time and Again is a remarkable blending of the troubled present and a nostalgic past....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best time travel novel; my very favorite audiobook
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Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old son’s diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart. Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seema - a driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealth - has her own demons to face.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Really can't stand Arthur Morey's reading
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In Praise of Shadows
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In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Through architecture, ceramics, theatre, food, women, and even toilets, Tanizaki explains the essence of shadows and darkness, and how they are able to augment beauty. He laments the heavy electric lighting of the West and its introduction to Japan, and shows how the artificial, bright, and polished aesthetic of the West contrasts unfavorably with the moody and natural light of the East.
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White is Bret Easton Ellis's first work of nonfiction. Already the bad boy of American literature, from Less Than Zero to American Psycho, Ellis has also earned the wrath of right-thinking people everywhere with his provocations on social media, and here he escalates. Eschewing convention, he embraces views that will make many in literary and media communities cringe, as he takes aim at anti-Trump fixation, coastal elites, corporate censorship, Hollywood, identity politics, Generation Wuss, "woke" cultural watchdogs, and more.
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From America's most inventive novelist, Jonathan Lethem, comes this compelling and compulsive riff on the classic detective novel. Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable.
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Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
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In December 1972, Jean McConville, a 38-year-old mother of 10, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as "The Troubles". Everyone in the neighborhood knew the IRA was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother.
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Spectacular
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 260
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 243
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Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites. Admired and detested, he was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America's greatest diplomatic achievement in the post-Cold War era. His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A riveting story about an imperfect diplomat
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 405
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 368
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 364
Italo Calvino imagines a novel capable of endless mutations in this intricately crafted story about writing and readers. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but 10, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The position of the feet during reading...
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One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls - sisters, eight and 11 - go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The setting is completely unique!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,193
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Behold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle. Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Reader / Listener Beware
- By K. Agricola on 12-23-17
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Behold the Dreamers (Oprah's Book Club)
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,495
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,207
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself; his wife, Neni; and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty - and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Story About Life
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Publisher's Summary
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016
An ingenious book from the exceptional Granta Best Young British Novelist
Nine men: each of them at a different stage of life, away from home, and striving - in the suburbs of Prague, in a cheap Cypriot hotel - to understand just what it means to be alive here and now.
Tracing an arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, All That Man Is brings these separate lives together to show us men as they are - ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable; vital, pitiable, hilarious, and full of heartfelt longing.
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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A Person
- 03-29-17
Full of empathy
Wonderful writing full of empathy for the flawed and unglamorous protagonists and their friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Often very moving and occasionally very funny. Acutely observant of the human condition.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- joanjava
- 11-08-16
Woeful men on the edge of a nervous breakdown
Makes you realise how few books you know where guys are relentlessly flawed and frail. Each story is like stepping into a nightmare in motion. With each main character imprisoned.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 06-22-18
Almost very good...
To call this book a novel is perhaps a bit of a stretch, many reviewers have called into question whether this is not rather a collection of short stories with a few recurring themes and loosely connecting threads and I would tend to agree with this.
What this book does well is describe, in often quite painfully poignant detail, the inner conversation of several men at different stages of their lives. There is little that is surprising in the short encounters we have with these men, but they are believable and though not always loveable, one cannot help empathising with the drama and struggles of their existence.
This book is bleak - perhaps overly - but as with all tragedy, it forces us to look deeper and question what it is that we hold dear and what is truly important.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Niall Marshall
- 01-17-18
Absorbing stories about modern man
Really absorbing, separate stories about men at different stages in their lives. Each is about man's challenges to fit into his world or to deal with his declining role. Each is philosophical and deep and sometimes comical.
The narrators are excellent. Great voices.
A strange but reflective and philosophical set of small stories. Note it's not a novel.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- ANNABEL
- 10-11-17
Boring, predictable
When I read the summary of his book, I thought it might be interesting. It was not.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Miss S T Chapman
- 09-02-17
Dull
If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?
If you aren't looking for much plot or anything that moves at a pace, you may like this.
What was most disappointing about David Szalay’s story?
It was boring.
What three words best describe the narrators’s performance?
The narrator did an OK job, he just does' t have much to work with.
What character would you cut from All That Man Is?
It has left me cold. No character is a better description.
Any additional comments?
I am confused as to how it got such a high rating.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Joakim Hermansson
- 08-26-17
writing for the end
much like the main character I mostly waited for the End but was kept by the long line of promising incidents.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Lauenna
- 08-13-17
Good in a different way
I struggle with short stories and always feel disappointed when they end as I want depth! But somehow these stories about different men aren't really separate. It's more like looking at a series of paintings. It's very good. I find the change of narrators a little distracting.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anders
- 06-14-17
boring, predictable and boring
Gave up after 2/3. All stories is about people having problems dealing with sex but the stories are not adding any new understanding or even interesting development. After few paragraphs you know the short-story to the end and do not get any surprise at all.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- david dodson (purple triangle ltd)
- 05-29-17
The most depressing book ever
I have given up on this book after 5 chapters which is very unlike me, I will usually keep going. However this has got to be the most boring book I have ever read. It is so depressing. I felt so fed up after listening to this. All it did was focus on all the negatives of the men. The stories were boring will sadness interjected into them. The endings were as though the author just got bored.
Also the narrator didn't help I felt as his voice was very flat and level.
Maybe I am missing the point as it's an award willing book but I just found it utterly depressing and cannot recommend to anyone I am afraid.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Judy
- 06-19-17
insightful
Any additional comments?
The book consists of a series of vignettes of different men through progressive life stages, from teenagers to a man stuggling with ageing. In this fashion, David Szalay has assembled a line-up of right proper bastards, every one of them! Motivated by little more than sex, money and power. The book deals with the meaning of life, but it's message is ultimately nihilistic. Still I found this book very enjoyable, for it's clever writing, rich insights and humour. I'm still thinking about it days later and suspect it's uncomfortably close to the truth.