-
Kalooki Nights
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $31.60
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The End of the Affair
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Colin Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.
-
-
Excellent performance of Graham Greene classic
- By Doggy Bird on 04-14-13
By: Graham Greene
-
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Diaz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
-
-
Wondrous Book!!!
- By Robert on 06-22-12
By: Junot Diaz
-
The Heart's Invisible Furies
- A Novel
- By: John Boyne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
-
-
Outstanding. A Must listen.
- By Keith G on 09-04-17
By: John Boyne
-
American Pastoral
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philip Roth presents a vivid portrait of an innocent man being swept away by a current of conflict and violence in his own backyard - a story that is as much about loving America as it is hating it. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous heir of his father's Newark glove factory comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even a most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall ... a strong, confident man, a master of social equilibrium, overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful living out life in rural Old Rimrock in his 170 year-old stone farmhouse with his pretty wife (his college sweetheart and Miss New Jersey of 1949) and his lively albeit precocious daughter, the apple of his eye ... that is until she grows up to become a revolutionary terrorist.
-
-
Relentless
- By Jeff on 12-29-04
By: Philip Roth
-
The Valley of Amazement
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
-
-
Amy Tan Does It Again
- By MLK on 01-28-15
By: Amy Tan
-
We Need to Talk About Kevin
- A Novel
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of a boy who ends up murdering seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his 16th birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage, in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.
-
-
A smart, chilling story. Told in a very unique way
- By aaron on 01-09-12
By: Lionel Shriver
-
The End of the Affair
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Colin Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.
-
-
Excellent performance of Graham Greene classic
- By Doggy Bird on 04-14-13
By: Graham Greene
-
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Diaz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
-
-
Wondrous Book!!!
- By Robert on 06-22-12
By: Junot Diaz
-
The Heart's Invisible Furies
- A Novel
- By: John Boyne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
-
-
Outstanding. A Must listen.
- By Keith G on 09-04-17
By: John Boyne
-
American Pastoral
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philip Roth presents a vivid portrait of an innocent man being swept away by a current of conflict and violence in his own backyard - a story that is as much about loving America as it is hating it. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous heir of his father's Newark glove factory comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even a most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall ... a strong, confident man, a master of social equilibrium, overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful living out life in rural Old Rimrock in his 170 year-old stone farmhouse with his pretty wife (his college sweetheart and Miss New Jersey of 1949) and his lively albeit precocious daughter, the apple of his eye ... that is until she grows up to become a revolutionary terrorist.
-
-
Relentless
- By Jeff on 12-29-04
By: Philip Roth
-
The Valley of Amazement
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
-
-
Amy Tan Does It Again
- By MLK on 01-28-15
By: Amy Tan
-
We Need to Talk About Kevin
- A Novel
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of a boy who ends up murdering seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his 16th birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage, in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.
-
-
A smart, chilling story. Told in a very unique way
- By aaron on 01-09-12
By: Lionel Shriver
-
Purity
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Dylan Baker, Robert Petkoff
- Length: 25 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother - her only family - is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she'll ever have a normal life.
-
-
4.64 stars....another excellent novel from Franzen
- By james on 01-02-18
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Vipers' Tangle
- By: Francois Mauriac
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkable novel, Mauriac brings his extraordinary talent for probing the inmost core of the human character to what is arguably the most exciting theme in the world: the battle for the human soul. In all of literature there can be few more appalling studies of a soul devoured by pride and avarice, corroded by hatred.
-
-
those nasty rich men
- By h and l on 02-09-10
By: Francois Mauriac
-
The Bonesetter's Daughter
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan, Joan Chen
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".
-
-
A Touching Story
- By Casey Keller on 11-02-06
By: Amy Tan
-
White Teeth
- A Novel
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Lenny Henry, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Ray Panthaki, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them.
-
-
4.68 stars....a modern classic
- By james on 06-06-18
By: Zadie Smith
-
The Counterlife
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies. Wherever they may find themselves, the characters of The Counterlife are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate. Illuminating these lives in transition and guiding us through the book's evocative landscapes, familiar and foreign, is the mind of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman.
-
-
Eros, Thanatos, and the Male Yenta
- By G. Benett on 10-03-19
By: Philip Roth
-
Fifth Business
- The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Robertson Davies
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first novel in The Deptford Trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way.
-
-
Been waiting for this
- By Vinity on 12-10-11
By: Robertson Davies
-
The Professor of Desire
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a student in college, David Kepesh styles himself "a rake among scholars, a scholar among rakes." Little does he realize how prophetic this motto will be - or how damning. For as Philip Roth follows Kepesh from the domesticity of childhood into the vast wilderness of erotic possibility, from a ménage a trios in London to the throes of loneliness in New York, he creates a supremely intelligent, affecting, and often hilarious novel about the dilemma of pleasure.
-
-
Excellent
- By Enrique on 03-04-13
By: Philip Roth
-
Everything Is Illuminated
- By: Jonathan Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man - also named Jonathan Safran Foer - sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
-
-
movie and book
- By nora on 10-21-21
-
Unraveling Oliver
- A Novel
- By: Liz Nugent
- Narrated by: Sam O'Mahony
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children's books; their life together is one of enviable privilege and ease - until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious and subsequently beats her into a coma.
-
-
Portrait of a sociopath
- By RueRue on 10-19-17
By: Liz Nugent
-
Talking It Over
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey, Alex Jennings, Clare Higgins
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Introducing Stuart, Gillian and Oliver. One by one they take their turn to speak straight out to the camera - and give their side of a contemporary love triangle. What begins as a comedy of misunderstanding slowly darkens and deepens into a compelling exploration of the quagmires of the heart.
-
-
The Narrative Gimmick Works
- By Alan on 11-22-11
By: Julian Barnes
-
The Brooklyn Follies
- By: Paul Auster
- Narrated by: Paul Auster
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, estranged from his only daughter, the retired life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Nathan finds his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, working in a local bookstore, a far cry from the brilliant academic career he'd begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the charismatic Harry Brightman, whom fate has also brought to the "ancient kingdom of Brooklyn, New York".
-
-
Brooklyn IS Still the World
- By Roni on 04-12-07
By: Paul Auster
-
The Golden House
- A Novel
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our guide to the Goldens' world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down.
-
-
Amazing.
- By Garrett on 10-13-17
By: Salman Rushdie
Publisher's Summary
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Kalooki Nights
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bette
- 06-27-12
Laugh-Out-Loud Seriousness
In a Guardian interview, Howard Jacobson said this was his favorite of his novels. Its depth of character and ideas make his choice understandable. Jacobson's topic is serious and some of the details are horrifying, BUT much of this books is extremely funny, particularly in Tom Stechschulte's excellent reading of the author's witty way with words, ironic situations and ideas. As a British Jew, the author and his narrator "sound" a little different than the stereotypical American Yiddish humorist.
His narrator, a Jewish cartoonist, remembers several time periods, his childhood with friends and family, his marriages, his adult life with friends and his memory of reading about the holocaust. Although the time periods are jumbled, they are easy to follow because of the literary devices of repetition of words and themes.
For example, "Kalooki" is one of those repetitions; it is a card game similar to gin. The narrator at one point says that "not playing Kalooki is how I learned to understand I wasn't my mother." Other repetitions include his childhood "jew-jew-jew-jew" which his relatives thought was his attempt to imitate a train (choo-choo), which of course ties well to the story of Nazi transport of European Jews and the angst of his struggle with group identity.
Early, Jacobson's narrator explains that his parents are in the "in-between" generation, between those who want to forget (those who experienced the holocaust) and those who know they must not forget (the narrator). He explores the ramifications of group identity brought by being a Jew whether religious or not. At one point he says that "To a Jew there is no acceptable way of being a Jew. Every other Jew has got it wrong." So he struggles to understand his own identification, his judgment of Jews and non-Jews, as well as their judgments of him.
This book offers the opportunity to better understand individuals who struggle with being part of a group by birth.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AMEDEO
- 06-03-18
A very jewish book
Full of hilarious contradictions, this book is also erudite about jewish culture providing quite scholarly details.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert
- 12-29-11
Membership in the tribe is necessary to absorbthis
What would have made Kalooki Nights better?
Less inwardly focused on tribal jokes, stories, habits,
Has Kalooki Nights turned you off from other books in this genre?
No
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
I suppose. My sympathies to the narrator.
You didn???t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
None that I could discern
Any additional comments?
As an amazon reviewer said,
-
Overall
- Joel
- 02-21-11
A great book, superbly read
I’ve never read or listened to any novel simultaneously quite so horrifying and quite so hilarious. Even halfway through I couldn’t have anticipated how moving the conclusion would be. I would make myself sound silly if I tried to say how much I admire the novel’s structure, which is extraordinarily intricate but never confusing. I can't vouch for the accuracy of Tom Stechschulte's accents (Manchester, London, Home Counties, Manchester-inflected Yiddish), but his voice sounded to my ears just right for every character. A very funny, very disturbing, very affecting and very well-written and -read novel, unlike anything you've encountered before.