
Appointment in Samarra
Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
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Narrated by:
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Christian Camargo
About this listen
One of the great novels of small-town American life, Appointment in Samarra is John O'Hara's crowning achievement.
In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.
Brimming with wealth and privilege, jealousy and infidelity, O'Hara's iconic first novel is an unflinching look at the dark side of the American dream - and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence of a major American writer.
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A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement
- By: Anthony Powell
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
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Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.
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It is no good being a beauty alone...
- By Darwin8u on 02-24-16
By: Anthony Powell
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The Wings of the Dove
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Milly Theale is a young, beautiful, and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems: materialism, romance, self-delusion, and ultimately fatal illness insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.
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Not an easy read but SO worth it!
- By Julie Gray on 10-31-17
By: Henry James
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The Adventures of Augie March
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 22 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Augie is a poor but exuberant boy growing up in Chicago during the Depression. While his friends all settle into chosen professions, Augie demands a special destiny. He tests out a wild succession of occupations, proudly rejecting each as too limiting - until he tangles with the glamorous perfectionist Thea.
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THAT part of the Universe visible from Chicago!
- By Darwin8u on 05-09-12
By: Saul Bellow
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The Wapshot Chronicle
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.
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Beautiful 1950s Great Expectations-like Novel
- By Darwin8u on 05-31-13
By: John Cheever
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Revolutionary Road
- By: Richard Yates
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Perhaps Frank and April Wheeler married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is about to unravel. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.
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Movie vs Book
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Richard Yates
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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
- By: Carson McCullers
- Narrated by: Cherry Jones
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.
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Do yourself a favor
- By Barbara on 06-08-05
By: Carson McCullers
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Ragtime
- By: E. L. Doctorow
- Narrated by: E. L. Doctorow
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears.
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too good for words
- By connie on 10-05-08
By: E. L. Doctorow
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Darkness at Noon
- By: Arthur Koestler
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A fictional portrayal of an aging revolutionary, this novel is a powerful commentary on the nightmare politics of the troubled 20th century. Born in Hungary in 1905, a defector from the Communist Party in 1938, and then arrested in both Spain and France for his political views, Arthur Koestler writes from a wealth of personal experience.
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Literature as the ‘living memory’ of nations
- By ESK on 01-23-13
By: Arthur Koestler
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Play It as It Lays
- A Novel (FSG Classics)
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Joan Didion's Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the listener. Set in a place beyond good and evil—literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul—it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis.
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Didion is a genius
- By Rogue415 on 04-09-25
By: Joan Didion
What listeners say about Appointment in Samarra
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- ebbes bruk
- 10-14-18
one of my favorite books from college
it's still a favorite. loved to listen to it, o'hara's ear into how people speak is such a pleasure to hear, Samarra lends itself well to reading aloud. and I loved this narrator, everything about his reading was just perfectly done. jazzy, yet not too much. Camarga is and will forever be Julian English.
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- Mike Henderson
- 11-21-16
Unexpected pleasure...
Reading 100 Modern Novels, so probably wouldn't have come across this otherwise...Although a dated setting, the characters pop off the page..Some storylines, especially Al Greco, were left hanging, but life doesn't always tie off neatly...
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- A Carmack
- 07-27-18
Narrator is terrible
I guess I got so spoiled by (and/or used to) Scott Aiello's narration of O'Hara's 'Ten North Frederick' that when I listened to Camargo's hurried, uninterested narration of 'Appointment in Samarra' I couldn't stand in and didn't want to invest any time in it. He reads it too quickly, and sometimes slurs words together so that they are incomprehensible. I tried listening at a reduced speed on the Audible App but most the time I listen on PC, which doesn't offer reduced speeds. But the speed was not the only problem. The narrator also sounds uninterested in what's he reading so that not only does he want to finish as quickly as possible he shows no interest in what he's reading. I couldn't listen to much of this story: I have given the narrator a 1, the story a 4 (based on what I know of O'Hara from "Ten North" and "New York Stories'). I will limit myself to reading this work in print, where I can enjoy it.
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- Max
- 01-27-25
It was ok.
Obviously, takes a little bit to get used to a story from the 1920s. I found this in a book called "Jackets Required" about the artwork on Dust Jackets from 1920-2950. I try not to aquire books I haven't read, though, because that can get expensive. Especially antique or vintage in very good shape. This is about an alcoholic. There's going to be some derogatory terms and such, so be ready for that. One was "wop-dego." Which I found kind of funny because my family used to tell jokes about that, once we weren't all that welcome coming from the old country. I wasn't that bothered by it, due to its age.
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- LizzyBethC
- 11-06-18
Not sure yet...
Just finished and I'm a little stunned. Felt like I was finally figuring it out and it ended. It starts with many character, introduced quickly, then narrows it down to a manageable few. Still, I wasn't prepared for the end at all.... Narration was excellent and the author captured the times and society so well, I always liked forward to my next listen.
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- green ice cream garden
- 04-07-17
Didn't think I'd like it
This was a surprise. Another one from the classic 100 a friend challenged me to read. It was fun to go back in this time and try to understand the hip lingo. More important though is the portryal of the wealthy, their vices, vanity, and shortcomings. Scary that I don't believe much has changed.
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- Darryl
- 12-29-13
excellent & a bit existentialist & Hemingway-esque
very nice writing. nice period detail. a bit Gatsby-ish but written with Hemingway-esque tone, and with the "lost generation" themes running through it, some aimless, drunken living, frank detail and again i think very existentialist feeling.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Stephen
- 06-29-14
Appointment in Samarra
Story: Not much of a story but it is interesting background and writing. It was slowed in the middle but then came to a quick ending.
Production: The reader was excellent and the effects were good.
Overall, I would recommend to buy but do not make it an urgent buy.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Autodidact
- 11-02-16
I adore John O Hara
Mr. O'Hate skewers all with his biting, funny, poignant, heartbreaking social observations
A-1 read. I am reading all of his writing. Brilliant
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- Eileen N. Wagner
- 08-23-15
Not up to my memory of O'Hara's work.
I stopped listening at the end chapter 6 and finished reading the text silently to myself.
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