-
The Small Bachelor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cecil
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.48
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
In Prohibition-era America, young George Finch is setting out as an artist - without the encumbrance of a shred of talent. He falls in love with Molly, but Molly's imperious stepmother is having none of it. Poor George doesn't seem to stand a chance.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Hot White Heist 2
- By: Adam Goldman
- Narrated by: Bowen Yang, Jane Lynch, Cynthia Nixon, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years after successfully melting down the top secret sperm bank under the Space Needle, the CLITO collective (Community of Lesbians Inclusive To Others) is thriving on their newly acquired private island, Lesbos 2. All is well in their queer utopia. Or is it? Investigative reporter Sarah Keebler (Sarah Steele) is piecing together the crew's previous heist for her bombshell true-crime podcast–and getting dangerously close to the truth.
-
-
AS FUN AS SEASON1
- By Robert on 03-07-24
By: Adam Goldman
-
Heads Will Roll
- By: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne
- Narrated by: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne, Tim Gunn, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heads Will Roll is an Audible Original from Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon and her cocreator/costar (and real-life sister) Emily Lynne. Produced by Broadway Video, this is not an audiobook - it’s a 10-episode, star-studded audio comedy that features performances from Meryl Streep, Tim Gunn, Peter Dinklage, Queer Eye’s Fab Five, and so many more. Please note: This content is not for kids.
-
-
More like this please
- By Anon893 on 05-03-19
By: Kate McKinnon, and others
-
Napoleon's Hemorrhoids…And Other Small Events That Changed History
- By: Phil Mason
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason's many revelations, you'll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel. You'll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's painful hemorrhoids prevented him from mounting his horse to survey the battlefield.
-
-
They just throw the facts too fast
- By Concerned_llama on 12-11-20
By: Phil Mason
-
Green Wing: Resuscitated
- By: Victoria Pile, James Henry, Oriane Messina, and others
- Narrated by: Oliver Chris, Olivia Colman, Pippa Haywood, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They’re back! The all-star cast multi-award-winning cult hit comedy returns, with more surreal goings-on in the lives and loves of the doctors and staff at East Hampton Hospital (warning: contains very little medical content).
-
-
Wonderful to hear these voices again
- By LucilleB on 05-03-24
By: Victoria Pile, and others
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Hot White Heist 2
- By: Adam Goldman
- Narrated by: Bowen Yang, Jane Lynch, Cynthia Nixon, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years after successfully melting down the top secret sperm bank under the Space Needle, the CLITO collective (Community of Lesbians Inclusive To Others) is thriving on their newly acquired private island, Lesbos 2. All is well in their queer utopia. Or is it? Investigative reporter Sarah Keebler (Sarah Steele) is piecing together the crew's previous heist for her bombshell true-crime podcast–and getting dangerously close to the truth.
-
-
AS FUN AS SEASON1
- By Robert on 03-07-24
By: Adam Goldman
-
Heads Will Roll
- By: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne
- Narrated by: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne, Tim Gunn, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heads Will Roll is an Audible Original from Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon and her cocreator/costar (and real-life sister) Emily Lynne. Produced by Broadway Video, this is not an audiobook - it’s a 10-episode, star-studded audio comedy that features performances from Meryl Streep, Tim Gunn, Peter Dinklage, Queer Eye’s Fab Five, and so many more. Please note: This content is not for kids.
-
-
More like this please
- By Anon893 on 05-03-19
By: Kate McKinnon, and others
-
Napoleon's Hemorrhoids…And Other Small Events That Changed History
- By: Phil Mason
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason's many revelations, you'll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel. You'll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's painful hemorrhoids prevented him from mounting his horse to survey the battlefield.
-
-
They just throw the facts too fast
- By Concerned_llama on 12-11-20
By: Phil Mason
-
Green Wing: Resuscitated
- By: Victoria Pile, James Henry, Oriane Messina, and others
- Narrated by: Oliver Chris, Olivia Colman, Pippa Haywood, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They’re back! The all-star cast multi-award-winning cult hit comedy returns, with more surreal goings-on in the lives and loves of the doctors and staff at East Hampton Hospital (warning: contains very little medical content).
-
-
Wonderful to hear these voices again
- By LucilleB on 05-03-24
By: Victoria Pile, and others
What listeners say about The Small Bachelor
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hilary
- 01-22-12
Pure joy and laughter
To me the wonderful stories of P G Wodehouse are the ultimate in "comfort" fiction and always leave me smiling. This particular book is one of my firm favourites.
The concept of a little studio flat on the roof of the apartment block, with a fire escape running down to a convenient speak-easy called "The Purple Chicken", has to abound with comedy complications.
Among the characters are Officer Garroway the policeman poet, Mullett the Butler, George Finch the artist with no talent, kindly J Hamilton Beamish, who makes a successful living by writing all those "How to become...." books and, of course, the beautiful love interest Molly Waddington, with her ghastly mother and downtrodden father, and many other lovely incidental characters that pop in and out at times.
This is a non stop joyful romp of a book and I recommend it gladly.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 03-25-15
Small Bachelor, Large Laughs
If there hadn’t been a P. G. Wodehouse, where would we be? I’m assuming there were authors like P. G. Wodehouse who wrote books that resembled the ones P. G. Wodehouse wrote—the closest one being, perhaps, Thorne Smith. I’ve tried reading Topper, but was put off by a sort of simmering cynicism that I sensed lurking at the root of that book. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I just pined for the deft, affable, humane hand of P. G. Wodehouse. Which gets back to my original question: where would we be if there had never been a P. G. Wodehouse?
He is funny without ever being nasty or bitter (even the gentle swipes at A. A. Milne, who attacked Wodehouse for his World War II broadcasts, can raise a benign smile as you leaf through The Mating Season). Certain of his women are horrible, but their creator stands clear of the popular and over-used charge of misogyny. He is romantic without being erotic. And for all the screwball comedy, he can turn around and touch the heart in the most poignant ways (just look at the last sentence of Summer Moonshine).
If there had never been a P. G. Wodehouse, we wouldn’t have books like Summer Moonshine. Or The Mating Season. Or The Small Bachelor. I’ll use a word I often use when discussing Wodehouse: romp. Small Bachelor is definitely that, made even more enjoyable by Jonathan Cecil’s wonderful performance. Of course, he has plenty to work with here.
J Hamilton Beamish, efficiency expert and author of a seemingly endless series of helpful booklets, is pompous but essentially likeable.
George Finch, his friend and the eponymous bachelor of the title, is a talentless artist and a shy lover with whom you sympathize from page one.
Mullet, his man, is an ex-con who has given up his former ways and given his heart to Fanny Welch, his pickpocket fiancée.
Molly Waddington is “cuddly”, which is all we can reasonably ask of any heroine.
Her father, Sigsbee H., is a downtrodden middle-aged married male, a stock Wodehouse character whom he always manages to make fresh in every new incarnation (this time by giving him a mania for the fiction and films of the Great American West).
Molly’s stepmother is also a standard Wodehouse type, the domineering, social climbing female who gets her long overdue comeuppance. But even when she does, Sigsbee H’s triumph is more about raising himself up than putting his wife down. He doesn’t leave her. Rather, he insists on her accompanying him out to the great open spaces “where men are men”. Having turned some worthless stock into a major fortune, he feels entitled. Beneath this plot twist lurks the brutal truth that, in most marriages, the one who has the money welds the power. But the fact that chinless, feckless Sigsbee H. is doing the wielding makes that truth a lot less brutal. Certainly his regime will be scads more benevolent than that of his wife.
Having also just finished Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, a book about a man who loathes the ordinariness, the “everydayness” of life, I think I have a new line on Wodehouse’s charm. Molly Waddington is, as we have seen, “cuddly”. George Finch is unremarkable. Sigsbee H. is, until the end of the book, a cypher in the home. All these characters are just as “everyday” as the “everyday” world Binx Bolling abhors. But what Binx flees from Wodehouse dives into. Much of his humor derives from the attempts of these unremarkable people to do remarkable things. Officer Garraway wants to write poetry. Sigsbee H. wants to ride the open range. His wife wants to mix with only the best people. George Finch wants to be an artist. Only Sigsbee H. succeeds—but the failure of the other characters is not a cause for bitterness or existential angst on their part. Nor do we mock them for their failures. Rather, we delight in the story Wodehouse has penned and see our own “ordinary” lives by the gently humorous light it casts.
If there had never been a P. G. Wodehouse, where would we be indeed?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful