A Christmas Story

The Book That Inspired the Hilarious Classic Film

By: Jean Shepherd

Narrated by: Dick Cavett

Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

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 audio production 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 snow 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.

©2003 The Estate of Jean Shepherd (P)2004 Random House Inc. Random House Audio, a divison of Random House, Inc.

humorous

I wanted to hear the source material for the classics Christmas move. it was a fun story. I liked how much more of the hillbilly neighbors there were. It was a ham in the book and not a turkey. Either way funny stuff.

Very Enjoyable

A fun read. Any fan of the movie should read this. It is a collection of short stories that aren't all Christmas stories. Most were woven into the movie though. Dick Cavett was masterful as the narrator.

A Christmas Story Doesn't Disappoint

These stories are familiar to anyone who loves the movie of "A Christmas Story", but what's really great about the audio book is that we find out a lot of back story for the characters and situations that were combined for the screenplay to make a 2-hour movie. Some of the original stories take place at times other than Christmas, but the screenwriter did a great job picking situations that could fit into the Christmastime storyline and adapting them; hearing them more fleshed-out enriched our memory of the movie. The long story about the Bumpasses was really fun and rather un-PC. We learn more about the background of the Dad and how he won the Major Award. It was exactly the right length for a drive down from Seattle to Portland on Christmas Day (3 hrs, 20 m), so it was perfect for us. We really enjoyed hearing it and we could run the movie in our heads. Although it's too bad there was no recording of Jean Shepherd reading it, Dick Cavett was a very good substitute.

Disappointed

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this set of stories. Dick Cavet was awful. He was dull and boring. Unlike the movie the stories were disjointed. One can clearly understand why the movie group joined the stories into one. It is much more entertaining. To be honest I long for someone to do a remake that adds more of the books to a movie. But doesn’t lose the overall sense of the original movie. Meaning they don’t get stupid and ruin it like several remakes of classics have done. Examples include the absolute horror show of the Carey version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His version of a Christmas Carol. There is a cartoon version of The Grinch that while doesn’t follow the original is acceptable. Back to this book Cavet simply ruins a good story with his flat unexcited reading. Look elsewhere for a better narration.

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.

Many laughs for Christmas.

Would you listen to A Christmas Story again? Why?

Perhaps next Chritmas would be a good time to hear it again.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ralphie is the central character, of course; but the "old man" steals a lot of scenes.

Have you listened to any of Dick Cavett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I had not heard Cavett before on Audible. He did a good job, but Jean Shepherd's narration in the movie is hard to beat.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, but I like to spread Audible books out over a few days.

Any additional comments?

It's hard to stop smiling (or laughing out loud) from start to finish.

A Christmas Story

as memorable as the movie. as good as I hoped it would be. dick cavett is one of the better narrarators I've listened to. nice length.

Completely Hilarious

Dick Cavert's is brilliant as the narrator, with his dry wit. I absolutely loved listening while on my commute to & from work with a smile on my face and an occasional yelp of laughter!