Darkness at Noon
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
Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Frank Muller
-
By:
-
Arthur Koestler
About this listen
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.
Imprisoned by the political party to which he has dedicated his life, Nicolas Rubashov paces his prison cell, examining his life and remembering his tempestuos career. As the old intelligentsia is eradicated to make way for the new, he is psychologically tortured and forced to confess to preposterous crimes. Comparing himself to Moses, led to the Promised Land but refused entry, he sees only darkness at the end of his life, where once he saw such promise for humanity.Frank Muller's narrative expertise is perfect for this haunting work. Rubashov's personal agony becomes Muller's as he presents Koestler's relevant and important questions.
©1968 Mrs. F.H.K. Henries (P)1999 Recorded Books, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Sound and the Fury
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
-
-
Hang in
- By W.Denis on 07-11-05
By: William Faulkner
-
The Captive Mind
- By: Czeslaw Milosz, Jane Zielonko - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. Written in the early 1950s, when Eastern Europe was in the grip of Stalinism and many Western intellectuals placed their hopes in the new order of the East, this classic work reveals in fascinating detail the often beguiling allure of totalitarian rule to people of all political beliefs and its frightening effects on the minds of those who embrace it.
-
-
Every U.S. citizen should read this.
- By Tim Christenson on 09-27-20
By: Czeslaw Milosz, and others
-
Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
-
-
The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
The Way of All Flesh
- By: Samuel Butler
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler threw a subversive brick at the smug face of Victorian domesticity. Published in 1903, a year after Butler's death, the novel is a thinly disguised account of his own childhood and youth "in the bosom of a Christian family." With irony, wit, and sometimes rancor, he savaged contemporary values and beliefs, turning inside-out the conventional novel of a family's life through several generations.
-
-
poor narrator
- By Marjorie on 08-11-12
By: Samuel Butler
-
The Good Soldier
- By: Ford Madox Ford
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Handsome, wealthy, and a veteran of service in India, Captain Edward Ashburnham appears to be the ideal "good soldier" and the embodiment of English upper-class virtues. But for his creator, Ford Madox Ford, he also represents the corruption at society's core. Beneath Ashburnham's charming, polished exterior lurks a soul well-versed in the arts of deception, hypocrisy, and betrayal.
-
-
A tragic, dramatic classic
- By Adeliese Baumann on 10-24-13
By: Ford Madox Ford
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Sound and the Fury
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
-
-
Hang in
- By W.Denis on 07-11-05
By: William Faulkner
-
The Captive Mind
- By: Czeslaw Milosz, Jane Zielonko - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. Written in the early 1950s, when Eastern Europe was in the grip of Stalinism and many Western intellectuals placed their hopes in the new order of the East, this classic work reveals in fascinating detail the often beguiling allure of totalitarian rule to people of all political beliefs and its frightening effects on the minds of those who embrace it.
-
-
Every U.S. citizen should read this.
- By Tim Christenson on 09-27-20
By: Czeslaw Milosz, and others
-
Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
-
-
The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
The Way of All Flesh
- By: Samuel Butler
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler threw a subversive brick at the smug face of Victorian domesticity. Published in 1903, a year after Butler's death, the novel is a thinly disguised account of his own childhood and youth "in the bosom of a Christian family." With irony, wit, and sometimes rancor, he savaged contemporary values and beliefs, turning inside-out the conventional novel of a family's life through several generations.
-
-
poor narrator
- By Marjorie on 08-11-12
By: Samuel Butler
-
The Good Soldier
- By: Ford Madox Ford
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Handsome, wealthy, and a veteran of service in India, Captain Edward Ashburnham appears to be the ideal "good soldier" and the embodiment of English upper-class virtues. But for his creator, Ford Madox Ford, he also represents the corruption at society's core. Beneath Ashburnham's charming, polished exterior lurks a soul well-versed in the arts of deception, hypocrisy, and betrayal.
-
-
A tragic, dramatic classic
- By Adeliese Baumann on 10-24-13
By: Ford Madox Ford
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Trial
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript.
-
-
We are all the straw that breaks a camel's back
- By Dan Harlow on 10-14-13
By: Franz Kafka
-
Catch-22
- By: Joseph Heller
- Narrated by: Jay O. Sanders
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22.
-
-
Stop randomly adding music
- By Kenneth S. Clark on 08-31-18
By: Joseph Heller
-
It Can't Happen Here
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.
-
-
The Rise of American Authoritarianism
- By David S. Mathew on 11-21-16
By: Sinclair Lewis
-
When Christmas Comes
- By: Andrew Klavan
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colorful Christmas lights dapple the family homes in the idyllic lakeside town of Sweet Haven when Jennifer Dean, a young librarian at the local elementary school, is brutally murdered. There are witnesses and her boyfriend Travis Blake confesses to the crime...but something doesn't quite add up. Blake is a third generation Army Ranger, awarded the Silver Star for his heroism in Afghanistan - how could a beloved son of this tight-knit burgh commit such a grisly deed?
-
-
Klavan is genius and powerful communicator
- By The Wirths on 10-27-21
By: Andrew Klavan
-
All Quiet on the Western Front
- By: Erich Maria Remarque
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paul Bäumer is just 19 years old when he and his classmates enlist. They are Germany’s Iron Youth who enter the war with high ideals and leave it disillusioned or dead. As Paul struggles with the realities of the man he has become, and the world to which he must return, he is led like a ghost of his former self into the war’s final hours. All Quiet is one of the greatest war novels of all time, an eloquent expression of the futility, hopelessness and irreparable losses of war.
-
-
My Choice for Frank Muller's Best
- By Alan on 10-13-12
-
Train to Pakistan
- By: Khushwant Singh
- Narrated by: Paul Thottam
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mano Majra is a place, Khushwant Singh tells us at the beginning of this novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the "ghost train" arrives, a silent funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refuges, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war.
-
-
the scenes of war are unforgettable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
By: Khushwant Singh
-
Animal Farm
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture, quoted so often that we tend to forget who wrote the original words! This must-read is also a must-listen!
-
-
If you hate spoilers, save the intro for last.
- By Dusty on 02-18-11
By: George Orwell
-
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
- By: Slavenka Drakulic
- Narrated by: Lesa Lockford
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This essay collection from renowned journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic, which quickly became a modern (and feminist) classic, draws back the Iron Curtain for a glimpse at the lives of Eastern European women under Communist regimes. Provocative, often witty, and always intensely personal, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed cracks open a paradoxical world that through its rejection of capitalism and commoditization ends up fetishizing both.
-
-
Ideology's Influence on Reality
- By Hamilton Miller on 01-22-23
-
Brave New World
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.
-
-
Michael York should stick to the stage and leave narration to the pros.
- By SD on 08-21-19
By: Aldous Huxley
-
Witness
- By: Whittaker Chambers
- Narrated by: John MacDonald
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1952, Witness came on the heals of America's trial of the century, in which Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss, a full-standing member of the political establishment, of spying for the Soviet Union. In this penetrating philosophical memoir, Chambers recounts the famous case as well as his own experiences as a Communist agent in the United States, his later renunciation of communism, and his conversion to Christianity.
-
-
Great history about Communism
- By Susan on 03-04-10
-
The Orphan Master's Son
- A Novel
- By: Adam Johnson
- Narrated by: Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.
-
-
The most compelling listen I've ever owned
- By Lisa on 01-27-12
By: Adam Johnson
-
A Clockwork Orange
- By: Anthony Burgess
- Narrated by: Tom Hollander
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A vicious 15-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic, a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. In Anthony Burgess' nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology.
-
-
Great book, great narration, but not for everyone
- By Steve on 06-28-09
By: Anthony Burgess
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
The Traitor
- By: V.S. Alexander
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, as war rages across Europe, a series of anonymous leaflets appears around the University of Munich, speaking out against escalating Nazi atrocities. The leaflets are hidden in public places, or mailed to addresses selected at random from the phone book. Natalya Petrovich, a student, knows who is behind the leaflets - a secret group called the White Rose, led by siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends. As a volunteer nurse on the Russian front, Natalya witnessed the horrors of war first-hand. She willingly enters the White Rose's circle....
-
-
Not all the Germans are guilty.
- By Judy Harley on 09-18-20
By: V.S. Alexander
-
In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
-
-
One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
-
The Ventriloquists
- A Novel
- By: E. R. Ramzipoor
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 20 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy and selling copies of the country’s most popular newspaper, Le Soir, now turned into Nazi propaganda. Helene’s entire world changes when she befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network that publishes dissident underground newspapers. The Nazis track down Aubrion’s team and give them an impossible choice: Turn the resistance newspapers into a Nazi propaganda bomb that will sway public opinion against the Allies, or be killed.
-
-
Too much love story for me
- By Melissa on 01-04-21
By: E. R. Ramzipoor
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
A Magical Journey
- By Paul on 08-20-20
By: Thomas Mann
-
A Rising Man
- By: Abir Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. He is immediately overwhelmed by the heady vibrancy of the tropical city, but with barely a moment to acclimatize or to deal with the ghosts that still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that threatens to destabilize a city already teetering on the brink of political insurgency.
-
-
Warning - Same book was issued May 5, 2016
- By Katharine on 07-04-17
By: Abir Mukherjee
-
The Traitor
- By: V.S. Alexander
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, as war rages across Europe, a series of anonymous leaflets appears around the University of Munich, speaking out against escalating Nazi atrocities. The leaflets are hidden in public places, or mailed to addresses selected at random from the phone book. Natalya Petrovich, a student, knows who is behind the leaflets - a secret group called the White Rose, led by siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends. As a volunteer nurse on the Russian front, Natalya witnessed the horrors of war first-hand. She willingly enters the White Rose's circle....
-
-
Not all the Germans are guilty.
- By Judy Harley on 09-18-20
By: V.S. Alexander
-
In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
-
-
One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
-
The Ventriloquists
- A Novel
- By: E. R. Ramzipoor
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 20 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy and selling copies of the country’s most popular newspaper, Le Soir, now turned into Nazi propaganda. Helene’s entire world changes when she befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network that publishes dissident underground newspapers. The Nazis track down Aubrion’s team and give them an impossible choice: Turn the resistance newspapers into a Nazi propaganda bomb that will sway public opinion against the Allies, or be killed.
-
-
Too much love story for me
- By Melissa on 01-04-21
By: E. R. Ramzipoor
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
A Magical Journey
- By Paul on 08-20-20
By: Thomas Mann
-
A Rising Man
- By: Abir Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. He is immediately overwhelmed by the heady vibrancy of the tropical city, but with barely a moment to acclimatize or to deal with the ghosts that still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that threatens to destabilize a city already teetering on the brink of political insurgency.
-
-
Warning - Same book was issued May 5, 2016
- By Katharine on 07-04-17
By: Abir Mukherjee
-
House of Meetings
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There were conjugal visits in the slave camps of the USSR. Valiant women would travel continental distances, over weeks and months, in the hope of spending a night with their particular enemy of the people, in the House of Meetings. The consequences of these liaisons were almost invariably tragic. House of Meetings is about one such liaison.
-
-
Martin Amis at the height of his powers; wonderous
- By Todd on 06-16-15
By: Martin Amis
-
The Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
-
-
Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
-
The Royal Game
- A Chess Story
- By: Stefan Zweig
- Narrated by: Dan Mellins-Cohen
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fame of the The Royal Game is evident in the number of translations. The last work of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig can be read today in over 60 languages. The first translation into English appeared in New York in 1944. In Germany, the book has become a constant bestseller. The first-person narrator learns of the presence of the world chess champion Mirko Czentovic on a boat trip from New York to Buenos Aires. Together with his acquaintance Mc Connor and other chess players, the first-person narrator manages to challenge the world champion to a game of chess.
-
-
Brief but wonderful
- By Cat S. on 02-17-21
By: Stefan Zweig
-
Nausea (New Directions Paperbook)
- By: Jean-Paul Sartre
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sartre's greatest novel and existentialism's key text, now introduced by James Wood, and read by the inimitable Edoardo Ballerini. Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form, he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation.
-
-
Glad to have existed to enjoy reading this book!
- By mohammed on 08-11-21
By: Jean-Paul Sartre
-
A Most Clever Girl
- A Novel of an American Spy
- By: Stephanie Marie Thornton
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year 1963: Reeling from the death of her mother and President Kennedy’s assassination, Catherine Gray shows up on Elizabeth Bentley’s doorstep demanding answers to the shocking mystery she just uncovered about her family. What she doesn’t expect is for Bentley to ensnare her in her own story of becoming a controversial World War II spy and Cold War informer.
-
-
Loved it
- By Jasper Van Wyk on 10-20-21
-
Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar
- By: Maurice Leblanc
- Narrated by: Walter Covell
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maurice Leblanc, a writer of detective fiction during the same period as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, created Arsene Lupin, a sort of French Robin Hood. An inventive genius, a master of disguise, and an accomplished actor, Lupin operates in the choice chateaux and salons. He scorns sham and with great disdain leaves his card in a baron's residence. The card reads, "Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."
-
-
An Old Favorite Made Better
- By Donna Marie on 08-09-07
By: Maurice Leblanc
-
The Collaborator
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1944 in Budapest, and the Germans have invaded. Miklos Nagy risks his life and confronts the dreaded Adolf Eichmann in an attempt save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. But no one could have foreseen the consequences.... It is 2005 in Sydney, and Annika Barnett sets out on a journey that takes her to Budapest and Tel Aviv to discover the truth about the mysterious man who rescued her grandmother in 1944.
-
-
Ruined by the reader
- By Hayworth on 02-24-20
By: Diane Armstrong
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
Monday Starts on Saturday
- By: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Andrew Bromfield - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional institute involve all sorts of magical beings - a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, and many more.
-
-
Maybe I should have read this one.
- By M. Gage on 08-08-18
By: Arkady Strugatsky, and others
-
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim - translator
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
-
-
Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
By: Milan Kundera, and others
-
The Wall
- By: John Hersey
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 29 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riveting and compelling, The Wall tells the inspiring story of 40 men and women who escape the dehumanizing horror of the Warsaw ghetto. John Hersey's novel documents the Warsaw ghetto both as an emblem of Nazi persecution and as a personal confrontation with torture, starvation, humiliation, and cruelty - a gripping and visceral story, impossible to pause.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Phil on 06-14-21
By: John Hersey
-
Story of a Secret State
- Penguin Modern Classics
- By: Jan Karski
- Narrated by: Janusz Guttner
- Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I do not pretend to have given an exhaustive picture of the Polish Underground, its organisation and its activities. Because of our methods, I believe that there is no one today who could give an all-embracing recital...This book is a purely personal story, my story. Jan Karski's Second World War memoir is a heroic act of witness: the courageous testimony of a man who risked everything for his country. First published in 1944, the book became an instant bestseller in the US while the war still raged in Europe.
-
-
Outstanding
- By David on 10-20-11
By: Jan Karski
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Thirteenth Tribe
- By: Arthur Koestler
- Narrated by: J. R. Moorland
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Koestler points out, the Khazars were the Third World of their day. They chose a surprising method of resisting both the Western pressure to become Christian and the Eastern to adopt Islam. Rejecting both, they converted to Judaism. Mr. Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces detailed research to support a theory which could make the term 'anti-Semitism' become void of meaning.
-
-
Poor storyline
- By Happy Customer 90% of the time on 06-29-24
By: Arthur Koestler
-
Nostromo
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.
-
-
Wow!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-03
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Way of All Flesh
- By: Samuel Butler
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This brilliant satirical novel, tracing the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex, has continued in popularity since its original publication in 1903. Every generation finds in The Way of All Flesh a reaffirmation of youth's rightful struggle against the tyranny of harsh parents and its admirable will for freedom of personal expression.
-
-
classic satire- would make Jon Stewart laugh
- By Connie on 06-04-08
By: Samuel Butler
-
Sons and Lovers
- By: D. H. Lawrence
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.
-
-
Momma's Boy (The Dangers of Overbearing Parenting)
- By W Perry Hall on 02-01-14
By: D. H. Lawrence
-
All the King's Men
- By: Robert Penn Warren
- Narrated by: Michael Emerson
- Length: 20 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fictionalized account of Louisiana's colorful and notorious governor, Huey Pierce Long, All the King's Men follows the startling rise and fall of Willie Stark, a country lawyer in the Deep South of the 1930s. Beset by political enemies, Stark seeks aid from his right-hand man Jack Burden, who will bear witness to the cataclysmic unfolding of this very American tragedy.
-
-
Beautifully presented
- By Cheimon on 10-12-08
-
Coldheart Canyon
- A Hollywood Ghost Story
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hollywood has made a star of Todd Pickett. But time is catching up with him. After plastic surgery goes awry, Todd needs somewhere to hide away for a few months while his scars heal. As Todd settles into a mansion in Coldheart Canyon - a corner of the city so secret it doesn't even appear on a map - Tammy Lauper, the president of his fan club, comes to the City of Angels determined to solve the mystery of Todd's disappearance.
-
-
loved it & love Frank Muller (RIP)
- By waterlilyxx9 on 01-10-15
By: Clive Barker
-
The Thirteenth Tribe
- By: Arthur Koestler
- Narrated by: J. R. Moorland
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Koestler points out, the Khazars were the Third World of their day. They chose a surprising method of resisting both the Western pressure to become Christian and the Eastern to adopt Islam. Rejecting both, they converted to Judaism. Mr. Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces detailed research to support a theory which could make the term 'anti-Semitism' become void of meaning.
-
-
Poor storyline
- By Happy Customer 90% of the time on 06-29-24
By: Arthur Koestler
-
Nostromo
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.
-
-
Wow!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-03
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Way of All Flesh
- By: Samuel Butler
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This brilliant satirical novel, tracing the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex, has continued in popularity since its original publication in 1903. Every generation finds in The Way of All Flesh a reaffirmation of youth's rightful struggle against the tyranny of harsh parents and its admirable will for freedom of personal expression.
-
-
classic satire- would make Jon Stewart laugh
- By Connie on 06-04-08
By: Samuel Butler
-
Sons and Lovers
- By: D. H. Lawrence
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.
-
-
Momma's Boy (The Dangers of Overbearing Parenting)
- By W Perry Hall on 02-01-14
By: D. H. Lawrence
-
All the King's Men
- By: Robert Penn Warren
- Narrated by: Michael Emerson
- Length: 20 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fictionalized account of Louisiana's colorful and notorious governor, Huey Pierce Long, All the King's Men follows the startling rise and fall of Willie Stark, a country lawyer in the Deep South of the 1930s. Beset by political enemies, Stark seeks aid from his right-hand man Jack Burden, who will bear witness to the cataclysmic unfolding of this very American tragedy.
-
-
Beautifully presented
- By Cheimon on 10-12-08
-
Coldheart Canyon
- A Hollywood Ghost Story
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hollywood has made a star of Todd Pickett. But time is catching up with him. After plastic surgery goes awry, Todd needs somewhere to hide away for a few months while his scars heal. As Todd settles into a mansion in Coldheart Canyon - a corner of the city so secret it doesn't even appear on a map - Tammy Lauper, the president of his fan club, comes to the City of Angels determined to solve the mystery of Todd's disappearance.
-
-
loved it & love Frank Muller (RIP)
- By waterlilyxx9 on 01-10-15
By: Clive Barker
-
Berlin Alexanderplatz
- By: Michael Hofmann - Translated by, Michael Hofmann - Afterword by, Alfred Döblin
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin Alexanderplatz, the great novel of Berlin and the doomed Weimar Republic, is one of the great books of the 20th century, gruesome, farcical, and appalling, word drunk, pitchdark. In Michael Hofmann's extraordinary new translation, Alfred Döblin's masterpiece lives in English for the first time.
-
-
Stephen Dadelus Has Nothing on Franz Biberkopf
- By Quijotic on 04-16-20
By: Michael Hofmann - Translated by, and others
-
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s startling book led, almost 30 years later, to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the "Fall of the Wall". One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brilliantly portrays a single day, any day, in the life of a single Russian soldier who was captured by the Germans in 1945 and who managed to escape a few days later. Along with millions of others, this soldier was charged with some sort of political crime, and since it was easier to confess than deny it and die, Ivan Denisovich "confessed" to "high treason" and received a sentence of 10 years in a Siberian labor camp.
-
-
Non Soviet Citizens, You Need To Know This!
- By MyKidsMom on 08-23-18
-
Under the Volcano
- A Novel
- By: Malcolm Lowry
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the Day of the Dead, in 1938, Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic and ruined man, is fatefully living out his last day, drowning himself in mescal while his former wife and half-brother look on, powerless to help him. The events of this one day unfold against a backdrop unforgettable for its evocation of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.
-
-
Excellent...but not for everyone
- By Melinda on 12-07-10
By: Malcolm Lowry
-
In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
-
-
One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
-
Bait
- By: Kenneth Abel
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With some of the most spine-chilling scenes in modern suspense fiction, Bait guarantees the listener a roller coaster ride with a hero not afraid to cross the line. Life for narcotics detective Jack Walsh is one continuous drunken binge - until one blurry night when his car veers into an oncoming car, killing the son of Boston’s premier crime boss. Now Jack must decide if he wants to hide from D’Angelo’s vengeful compatriots or reclaim his life.
-
-
A fantastic story, told by the Master.
- By Richard Delman on 02-12-12
By: Kenneth Abel
-
The Idiot
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 27 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Idiot, Prince Myshkin possesses a childlike innocence and trusting nature that leave him vulnerable to abuse by those around him. Returning to St. Petersburg to collect an inheritance, Myshkin realizes he is a stranger in a society obsessed with wealth, manipulation and power.
-
-
Avoid Constance Garnett
- By Anthony on 04-09-17
-
Nights at the Circus
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Audible Exclusive recording of Angela Carter's iconic novel, Nights at the Circus, is brought to you by celebrated actress and voice artist, Adjoa Andoh. It is described by Carter herself as a 'psychedelic Dickens.' A compelling and thought provoking novel which heralds a new age, we're introduced to the unique and mesmerizing character of Sophi Fevvers and her illustrious wings....
-
-
acid trip
- By Adrienne Lewis on 04-19-21
By: Angela Carter
-
Pastoral
- By: Nevil Shute
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She was from the hills of Yorkshire, country born and bred. He was a city boy. By the stream where they fished they were two young people falling in love. Overhead, the bombers roared, threatening to blow their idyllic world, so young, so fresh, to smithereens.
-
-
Historical romance set in WWII England.
- By Stan on 06-19-12
By: Nevil Shute
-
The Aeneid
- By: Virgil, Robert Fitzgerald - translator
- Narrated by: Christopher Ravenscroft
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Profoundly poetic yet gloriously accessible, this is the best way to experience a work that has remained a centerpiece of Western civilization for 2,000 years. Fitzgerald's rendering speaks directly to the modern listener, inviting us to share the excitement, adventure, and human tears as Aeneas, the warrior hero, escapes from the burning city of Troy, embarks on a long and perilous journey, and eventually, triumphantly establishes a new nation: Rome.
-
-
Not complete
- By Martin E Sargent on 04-16-16
By: Virgil, and others
-
Main Street
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This famous satire of life on Main Street, Gopher Prairie, mirrors with devastating honesty life on Main Streets from Albany to San Diego.
-
-
Timely and timeless
- By Kindle Customer on 05-17-18
By: Sinclair Lewis
-
Lord Jim
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his many years on the high seas as a mariner, mate, and captain, Joseph Conrad created unique works, including Heart of Darkness, that have left an indelible mark on world literature. First published in 1899, his haunting novel Lord Jim is both a riveting sea adventure and a fascinating portrait of a unique outcast from civilization.
-
-
The exact description of the form of a cloud
- By Dan Harlow on 11-17-13
By: Joseph Conrad
-
The Great Railway Bazaar
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's account of his epic journey by rail through Asia. Filled with evocative names of legendary train routes - the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Hikari Super Express to Kyoto, and the Trans-Siberian Express - it describes the many places, cultures, sights and sounds he experienced and the fascinating people he met.
-
-
Just about as good as it gets...
- By david d. on 03-27-11
By: Paul Theroux
What listeners say about Darkness at Noon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- BikeMeister
- 12-28-15
Masterpiece-- Koestler and Muller
This story haunts me, both from the writing by Arthur Koestler and the telling by Frank Muller. It is a political and historical must-read, but with frank Muller narrating.... The best.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TJ
- 05-20-20
an amazing glimpse into the human condition
Frank Mueller once again brings a timeless classic even higher. the rhythm of this dark tale is incredible
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- GR
- 08-06-18
Beautifully Written, Terrifying Story
Beautifully written book with a thread of terror weaved throughout. The story makes you feel as if you're in cell with the protagonist. There are glimmers of hope for the said character, will he get out alive, will he not? Koestler is a master story teller.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam C.
- 02-05-18
very good
tells the tale of an imprisoned political leader and the danger of totalitarianism. uses a fictional story to describe paralleled events in the early to mid 20th century.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brendan Martino
- 01-14-24
A True Masterpiece!!
Having now read it multiple times, Koestler's book is quickly becoming one of my favorite stories of all time. Set during the great Stalin purges of 1937-40, we follow N.S. Rubashov, an allegorical amalgamation of the old Bolshevik guard, from his arrest at home in the middle of the night to imprisonment and interrogation. Koestler is a master story teller and clearly draws on his own lived experience of being imprisoned. The scenes of Rubashov's discussions with the adjacent cell mate Number 402 through tap code are particularly enjoyable. The best scenes however were those of the intellectual duels between Rubashov and Ivanov and later Gletkin during interrogation. It is during these scenes that Koestler is able to vividly portray Marxist thinking and how in the pursuit of "socialist utopia" anything is permissible. Truth becomes irrelevant and is often a stumbling block to the construction of the perfect society. Ironically, we ultimately see a man brought down by the very ideology he fought so hard to triumph and now must clearly and unambiguously confront the consequences of his life's work before it brings his own life to an end. Cannot recommend highly enough!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dmksoci
- 04-04-21
Oh, but for a narrator!
This novel is a classic by any measure, and yet the audiobook is brought low by the narration, a breathy repetitive monotone which inexplicably dives a few notes at the end of EVERY SENTENCE. It is really quite distracting, maddening even. I found that dropping the speed to .8 helped some. A different narrator would have helped A LOT. Please try a sample first so you will know what I mean.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- justin
- 09-29-17
Very interesting
The pace started, what felt a little slow, but I came to appreciate it. Wonderfully narrated. Thought-provoking story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David C.
- 01-28-18
"Man counted in years, history in generations"
In all honesty, I had no awareness of "Darkness at Noon" until noting it at #8 of the 100 best modern novels. In time, I can likely see this among my all-time favorites.
"Darkness at Noon" is set during the 1938 Moscow Show Trials as Stalin was on a campaign to purge many of his co-founders of the Bolshevik Revolution. Though no names are
used- the USSR is merely referred to as The Party, Stalin as Number One and Hiltler as The Dictator- the characters are clear. Protagonist Nicholas Rubashov, Number Two of The Party, is arrested and interrogated at the direction of Number One under suspicion of conspiring with Western oppositional powers against The Party and The State. While the irony of being caught up in a byzantine prosecutorial system much of his own making isn't lost on him, Rubashov finds that his writings of the system's evolution as it passes from one generation to the next places himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to ascertain the most important role he can play to perpetuate a Party which he has dedicated the last 40 years of his life.
Written in 1940 while he was residing in Paris, Arthur Koestler was intimate with the story and circumstances on which the novel is based. Hungarian born and German raised, Koestler had been part of the Communist Party of Germany during the rise of Adolph Hitler. As Stalin and Hitler contested for control of Europe with competing totalitarian ideologies, Stalin's purges prompted Koestler to disavow the Communist Party and authoritarianism of which "Darkness at Noon" manifested. Originally written in German, its critical reception and timeliness led to global translation and blockbuster sales. Joining the French Foreign Legion after the Nazis invaded France but deserted and eventually made his way to England where he became a celebrated author made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire(CBE) in 1972.
While not previously familiar with Koestler his influence was obvious on the likes of Oriana Fallaci in her novel "A Man" about the prison ordeal of Greek resistance fighter Alexander Panagouli which is one of my all-time favorites. I plan to add "The Gladiators" and "Arrival and Departure" which bookend a trilogy along with "Darkness at Noon."
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- PJay II
- 05-28-24
Insightful picture of the cycle of corruption
This book portrays the dilemma of those caught in the grip of corrupt and brutal totalitarian rule but it is a brilliant platform for The insightful analysis of the cycles of modern civilization. Stick with it. As always, Frank Muller does a masterful job with the narration!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael
- 11-07-14
Darkly Uplifting
In one sense, this is just another dystopian novel about the historical abuses of the now defunct Soviet Union, in another sense; it describes the essential folly of man through the disillusioning of a true believer. The novel presents a believable character, a fearless communist intellectual that fought passionately for the cause and rose to the elite in the party, so far as to be colleges with Stalin. We watch as the protagonist’s friends do what is expedient by betraying him as the party devolves towards totalitarianism and barbarism.
Although this is not a cheerful story I found it uplifting and strangely positive, as the protagonist cleanly faces the truth of the dark side of his friends and the communist movement. While reading Darkness at Noon I could not help but think that, although the Soviet Union is now defunct, the Soviet era totalitarians are still in control of Russia, and the lies and oppression continue. Just watch Russian News (RT) for a while and count the number of negative Putin stories (generally zero).
The narration was excellent, matching the tone and spirit of the book remarkably well.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
13 people found this helpful