
Barney's Version
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 $29.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Graham Abbey
-
By:
-
Mordecai Richler
About this listen
Barney Panofsky - Canadian expat, wily lover of women, writer, television producer, raconteur - is finally putting pen to paper so he can rebut the charges about him made in his rival’s autobiography. Whether it’s ranting about his bohemian misadventures during the 1950s in Paris, his tumultuous three marriages, or his successful trashy TV company, Totally Unnecessary Productions, he quickly proves that his memory may be slipping, but his bile isn’t. But when he’s charged with the murder of his own best friend - caught in bed with the second Mrs. Panofsky - Barney’s version of things might not be enough to keep him out of trouble.
©1997 Mordecai Richler (P)2014 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Kafka on the Shore
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
What's better than Murakami? More Murakami
- By Dr. Curmudgeon on 04-11-14
By: Haruki Murakami
-
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
- By: Mordecai Richler
- Narrated by: David Julian Hirsh
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Duddy - the third generation of a Jewish immigrant family in Montreal - is combative, amoral, scheming, a liar, and totally hilarious. From his street days tormenting teachers at the Jewish academy to his time hustling four jobs at once in a grand plan to "be somebody", Duddy learns about living - and the lesson is an outrageous roller-coaster ride through the human comedy.
-
-
OK but a bit disappointing; weak narration
- By Merlin on 05-12-17
By: Mordecai Richler
-
Solomon Gursky Was Here
- By: Mordecai Richler
- Narrated by: Colm Feore
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the age of 11, Moses Berger has been obsessed with the Gursky clan, an insanely wealthy, profoundly seductive family of Jewish-Canadian descent. Now a 52-year-old alcoholic biographer, Berger is desperately trying to chronicle the stories of their lives, especially that of the mysterious Solomon Gursky, who may or may not have died in a plane crash.
-
-
Fabulous writing, terrific story
- By Leslie on 12-14-22
By: Mordecai Richler
-
The Black Dahlia
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
-
-
Great naration
- By Grasshopper.Craig on 09-10-06
By: James Ellroy
-
Lucky Jim
- By: Kingsley Amis
- Narrated by: James Lailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the audience through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.
-
-
Satisfactory, but a Bit Stale
- By SandyK on 07-18-23
By: Kingsley Amis
-
Breakfast of Champions
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: John Malkovich
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
-
-
Kurt Was Right to Grade This a C
- By Dubi on 01-10-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Kafka on the Shore
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
What's better than Murakami? More Murakami
- By Dr. Curmudgeon on 04-11-14
By: Haruki Murakami
-
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
- By: Mordecai Richler
- Narrated by: David Julian Hirsh
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Duddy - the third generation of a Jewish immigrant family in Montreal - is combative, amoral, scheming, a liar, and totally hilarious. From his street days tormenting teachers at the Jewish academy to his time hustling four jobs at once in a grand plan to "be somebody", Duddy learns about living - and the lesson is an outrageous roller-coaster ride through the human comedy.
-
-
OK but a bit disappointing; weak narration
- By Merlin on 05-12-17
By: Mordecai Richler
-
Solomon Gursky Was Here
- By: Mordecai Richler
- Narrated by: Colm Feore
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the age of 11, Moses Berger has been obsessed with the Gursky clan, an insanely wealthy, profoundly seductive family of Jewish-Canadian descent. Now a 52-year-old alcoholic biographer, Berger is desperately trying to chronicle the stories of their lives, especially that of the mysterious Solomon Gursky, who may or may not have died in a plane crash.
-
-
Fabulous writing, terrific story
- By Leslie on 12-14-22
By: Mordecai Richler
-
The Black Dahlia
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
-
-
Great naration
- By Grasshopper.Craig on 09-10-06
By: James Ellroy
-
Lucky Jim
- By: Kingsley Amis
- Narrated by: James Lailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the audience through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.
-
-
Satisfactory, but a Bit Stale
- By SandyK on 07-18-23
By: Kingsley Amis
-
Breakfast of Champions
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: John Malkovich
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
-
-
Kurt Was Right to Grade This a C
- By Dubi on 01-10-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
A Town Like Alice
- By: Nevil Shute
- Narrated by: Robin Bailey
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle. While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result.
-
-
An all time favorite I have read many times...
- By Peyton on 03-16-10
By: Nevil Shute
-
On the Road
- 50th Anniversary Edition
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “beat” and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that “set them free”.
-
-
My Favorite Narration and a Wonderful Book
- By Guillermo on 09-17-09
By: Jack Kerouac
-
Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
-
-
An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Heartburn
- By: Nora Ephron
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
-
-
Be the Heroine , Not the Victim
- By Cynthia on 07-12-13
By: Nora Ephron
-
Worlds of Exile and Illusion
- Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume—Rocannon's World; Planet of Exile; City of Illusions
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three remarkable journeys into the stars: Worlds of Exile and Illusion includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space.
-
-
Well and Beautifully Told
- By K.E.H. on 04-07-25
-
The Stranger
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Albert Camus' The Stranger is one of the most widely read novels in the world, with millions of copies sold. It stands as perhaps the greatest existentialist tale ever conceived, and is certainly one of the most important and influential books ever produced. Now, for the first time, this revered masterpiece is available as an unabridged audio production.
-
-
Is amorality bad?
- By Rolando on 03-10-14
By: Albert Camus
-
The Sun Also Rises
- By: Ernest Hemingway, Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: William Hurt
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, The Sun Also Rises introduces two of Hemingway’s most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. In his first great literary masterpiece, Hemingway portrays an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions.
-
-
Great actor, terrible reader, kills classic
- By Kerry on 09-14-14
By: Ernest Hemingway, and others
-
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....
-
-
Narrator - Authentic as it can get!
- By Chris on 09-03-19
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Tar Baby
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Desiree Coleman
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jadine Childs is a Black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a Black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between Blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.
-
-
So good that I'm writing my first Audible review!
- By BL on 12-10-11
By: Toni Morrison
-
A Fine Balance
- By: Rohinton Mistry
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers—a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village—will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
-
-
Read this book if your heart is made of steal
- By Amazon Shopper on 03-23-08
By: Rohinton Mistry
-
The Corrections
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
-
-
"Grandly Entertaining"? Really?
- By Georgia Burns on 10-08-13
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
When We Cease to Understand the World
- By: Benjamin Labatut, Adrian West - translator
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger - these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.
-
-
the true heir w.g. sebald
- By Thomas on 12-23-21
By: Benjamin Labatut, and others
Wow
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
great satirical book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Mispronounced words
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I don't know much about the production of audiobooks, but there is usually a producer listed, and I imagine it's the producer's job to proofread, or proof-listen, or whatever you call it. In a book with a heavy sprinkling of foreign-language words, it's essential to find out how these words are pronounced, and to let your actor/narrator know when he's made an error. If you want help with this, in all of the languages covered by the book, call me. (I'm not looking for work, really, but would like my Audiobooks not to be ruined by sloppy production). Otherwise, please find a way to correct these errors. Audible usually gets this right, but not here.
I look forward to listening to more books read by Mr. Abbey, who has beautiful English diction. But he needs help here!
Who proofreads these productions?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A Jew who grew up in Canada and went to Paris in the 1950s to immerse himself in the Left Bank arts scene, Barney has his memories.
Now he is sharing with us in a first person voice (think Philip Roth doing an extended late night stand up routine) that maintains a sameness and soon courts boredom. Witty he is not. Deft, no. Interesting? Only in a desultory sort of way.
Sameness and boredom
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
A narrator who actually has heard anyone from Montreal talk and pronounce French names.Being a Montrealler myself, I winced each time he would try say any Quebec place name or person's name.It was very distracting.
Would you be willing to try another book from Mordecai Richler? Why or why not?
Yes, by a different narrator.Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Graham Abbey?
Someone who knows Montreal and knows how it's Jewish community speaks.Any additional comments?
I'm going to get the paper book version and read it.Narration ruins it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.