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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,304
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,173
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Aaron Asher (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 123
Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A well-lubricated orgy of ideas
- By Darwin8u on 04-26-14
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The Joke
- By: Milan Kundera
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Adder Sowing Thorns in the Garden of the Soul
- By W Perry Hall on 02-28-17
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Life Is Elsewhere
- By: Milan Kundera, Aaron Asher (Translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 17
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story4 out of 5 stars 14
The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile!"), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud.
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Identity
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Linda Asher (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
There are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. This also happens with couples - indeed, above all with couples, because lovers fear more than anything else "losing sight" of the loved one. With stunning artfulness in expanding and playing variations on the meaningful moment, Milan Kundera has made this situation - and the vague sense of panic it inspires - the very fabric of this novel.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting
- By Jamy Bee on 12-16-18
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The Festival of Insignificance
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 29
Listeners who know Milan Kundera's earlier books know that the wish to incorporate an element of the "unserious" in a novel is not at all unexpected of him.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Review of Little Significance.
- By Darwin8u on 07-14-15
-
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,304
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,173
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
-
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Aaron Asher (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 123
Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A well-lubricated orgy of ideas
- By Darwin8u on 04-26-14
-
The Joke
- By: Milan Kundera
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Adder Sowing Thorns in the Garden of the Soul
- By W Perry Hall on 02-28-17
-
Life Is Elsewhere
- By: Milan Kundera, Aaron Asher (Translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 17
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 14
The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile!"), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud.
-
Identity
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Linda Asher (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
There are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. This also happens with couples - indeed, above all with couples, because lovers fear more than anything else "losing sight" of the loved one. With stunning artfulness in expanding and playing variations on the meaningful moment, Milan Kundera has made this situation - and the vague sense of panic it inspires - the very fabric of this novel.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting
- By Jamy Bee on 12-16-18
-
The Festival of Insignificance
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 29
Listeners who know Milan Kundera's earlier books know that the wish to incorporate an element of the "unserious" in a novel is not at all unexpected of him.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A Review of Little Significance.
- By Darwin8u on 07-14-15
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Rayuela (Spanish Edition)
- By: Julio Cortázar
- Narrated by: Leandro Schnitman
- Length: 44 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
En Rayuela (1963), Julio Cortázar supo condensar sus obsesiones estéticas, literarias y vitales a partir de un mosaico diverso, profundo, inagotable que, a su vez, refleja de forma maravillosa lo más esencial de su época. El amor turbulento de Oliveira y La Maga, los amigos del Club de la Serpiente, las impredecibles caminatas por París -la ciudad que promete el cielo pero puede conducir al infierno-, encuentran su contracara en la aventura protagonizada por Oliveira, Talita y Traveler en Buenos Aires.
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The Plague
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: James Jenner
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 740
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 577
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Story4 out of 5 stars 588
In the small coastal city of Oran, Algeria, rats begin rising up from the filth, only to die as bloody heaps in the streets. Shortly after, an outbreak of the bubonic plague erupts and envelops the human population. Albert Camus' The Plague is a brilliant and haunting rendering of human perseverance and futility in the face of a relentless terror born of nature.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Translator Please!
- By Plain English on 06-04-11
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The Trial
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 486
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 355
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Story4 out of 5 stars 359
If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent New Translation of a Classic Novel
- By Michael on 08-12-12
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Killing Commendatore
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 28 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,433
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,345
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,341
In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Masterpiece and A Good Novel To Start
- By Elif Kaya on 10-18-18
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,388
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,107
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat - and then for his wife as well - in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful book, flawed narration.
- By REBECCA on 02-08-14
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 414
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 376
Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws listeners into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly recommend
- By Amazon Customer on 07-23-18
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Remembrance of Things Past
- Swann's Way
- By: Marcel Proust, Scott Moncrieff - translator
- Narrated by: John Rowe
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 344
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 278
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 277
Swann's Way is Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece and the first part of the multivolume audiobook Remembrance of Things Past. In the opening volume, the narrator travels back in time to recall his childhood and to introduce the listener to Charles Swann, a wealthy friend of the family and celebrity in the Parisian social scene. He again travels back, this time to the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray, to tell the story of the love affair that took place before his own birth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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EXCELLENT!
- By Maggie on 08-18-10
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
- By: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,793
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,414
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,423
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding Audiobook!
- By Greg on 02-26-14
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Kafka on the Shore
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,811
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,565
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,561
With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love it!
- By bleadof on 10-04-16
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Colin Farrell
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 386
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 362
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Story4 out of 5 stars 358
This quintessential coming-of-age novel describes the early life of Stephen Dedalus. It is set in Ireland during the 19th century, which was a time of emerging Irish nationalism and conservative Catholicism. Highly autobiographical in nature, the work is also notable for its being the first one in which Joyce uses innovative “stream of consciousness” writing style. A Portrait... follows Stephen Dedalus from his babyhood into early adulthood.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Thank Goodness for Mr Farrell
- By Joanie on 02-25-19
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1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (translator), Philip Gabriel (translator)
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 8,286
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,418
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Story4 out of 5 stars 7,396
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
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5 out of 5 stars
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I've never read a book quite like this one
- By Joey on 04-23-12
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Ignorance
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Linda Asher (translator)
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 20
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 15
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 15
Irena and Josef meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned 20 years earlier. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match."
Publisher's Summary
Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera.
Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnes becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose: to explore thoroughly the great themes of existence.
Critic Reviews
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- Lafi
- 04-10-15
Amazing and unique.
Loved it. Didn't want it to end. interesting, deep, touching. Each character resembles a part of our personalities.
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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
- Viktória
- 12-10-16
Breathtakingly beautiful
Wonderful story, unique, relatable characters. I enjoyed it a lot. Love it and recommend it!
2 of 2 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
- Czarniecka
- 04-04-18
good but not my favourite by Kundera
I enjoyed the story and the performance but was somehow overwhelmed by the philosophical content of the novel. It's well crafted, funny at times, it has all the beauty and the depth of Kundera's style but it's not my favourite novel by him (which remains for the moment The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
1 of 1 people found this review helpful