Golden Age
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Lorelei King
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By:
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Jane Smiley
About this listen
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: the much-anticipated final volume, following Some Luck and Early Warning, of her acclaimed American trilogy—a richly absorbing new novel that brings the remarkable Langdon family into our present times and beyond
A lot can happen in one hundred years, as Jane Smiley shows to dazzling effect in her Last Hundred Years trilogy. But as Golden Age, its final installment, opens in 1987, the next generation of Langdons face economic, social, political—and personal—challenges unlike anything their ancestors have encountered before.
Michael and Richie, the rivalrous twin sons of World War II hero Frank, work in the high-stakes world of government and finance in Washington and New York, but they soon realize that one’s fiercest enemies can be closest to home; Charlie, the charming, recently found scion, struggles with whether he wishes to make a mark on the world; and Guthrie, once poised to take over the Langdons’ Iowa farm, is instead deployed to Iraq, leaving the land—ever the heart of this compelling saga—in the capable hands of his younger sister.
Determined to evade disaster, for the planet and her family, Felicity worries that the farm’s once-bountiful soil may be permanently imperiled, by more than the extremes of climate change. And as they enter deeper into the twenty-first century, all the Langdon women—wives, mothers, daughters—find themselves charged with carrying their storied past into an uncertain future.
Combining intimate drama, emotional suspense, and a full command of history, Golden Age brings to a magnificent conclusion the century-spanning portrait of this unforgettable family—and the dynamic times in which they’ve loved, lived, and died: a crowning literary achievement from a beloved master of American storytelling.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2015 Jane Smiley (P)2015 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“The thought of writing a series that spans a century with each chapter representing a year might sound daunting to some authors. Jane Smiley, however, is not just any author . . . Golden Age takes readers from 1987 up to 2020, lending a prophetic eye to the world beyond the pages. There’s much to admire: Smiley’s attention to detail in each and every year; her knowledge of politics, environmentalism, and genetics; her humor; her stripped back prose. On the farm, descriptions of the land put you right in the heart of a place that is rapidly disappearing . . . Smiley chronicles 20th-century life like few have, with the same scope and fastidiousness of Phillip Roth, Saul Bellow, and John Updike. After reading about five generations of a family, wars, financial crises, global warming, and the rise of the technological age, it makes you stop and think about how much has changed—and yet how little has changed at the same time [in] this place we call the US.” —Dana De Greff, Miami New Times
“[In] Smiley’s ambitious project of covering 100 years in the life of an Iowa family, the Langdon offspring travel across the country, across the world, even. Members of three different generations find themselves fighting in wars overseas. There are marriages that last and unions that fail. There are sublime moments of peace and contentment and sudden tragedies that knock the survivors (and readers) back a step. But death in a family is inevitable, especially over the lifetimes of many characters . . . The power of memory and nostalgia fuels the trilogy.” —Connie Ogle, Miami Herald
“Jane Smiley has such a clear, strong, American voice, there is no mistaking her work for any other. She’s my favorite kind of writer, mingling vivid plots with ingenious characters with subtle, nuanced interiority. She writes with such generous heaps of humor and grief, you feel a little richer and keener for reading her books.” —Diana Abu-Jaber [as quoted in the Miami Herald]
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- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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The Lost Husband
- By: Katherine Center
- Narrated by: Amy Rubinate
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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"Dear Libby, It occurs to me that you and your two children have been living with your mother for - Dear Lord! - two whole years, and I'm writing to see if you'd like to be rescued." The letter comes out of the blue, and just in time for Libby Moran, who - after the sudden death of her husband, Danny - went to stay with her hypercritical mother. Now her crazy Aunt Jean has offered Libby an escape: a job and a place to live on her farm in the Texas Hill Country.
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wonderful story. narrator kind of a sad sack.
- By Susan Reynolds on 07-24-19
By: Katherine Center
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Deep in the Valley
- Grace Valley, Book 1
- By: Robyn Carr
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Grace Valley, California - where blood runs thicker…ties are stronger…and love is all the more sweet. Visitors to the town often remark about the valley's peace and beauty - both of which are plentiful. Unlocked doors, front porches, pies cooling in the windows - this is country life at its finest. But visitors don't always see what lies at the heart of a community. Or just beyond.… June Hudson grew up in Grace Valley, the daughter of the town doctor. Leaving only to get her medical training, she returned home and followed in her father's footsteps.
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A Marriage Made in Heaven
- By Robbie on 04-16-13
By: Robyn Carr
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The Hour I First Believed
- A Novel
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When high-school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed. Miraculously, she survives. But when Caelum and Maureen flee to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family's Connecticut farm, they discover that the effects of chaos are not easily put right.
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excellent all around yarn
- By G. on 01-10-09
By: Wally Lamb
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Lavender Morning
- By: Jude Deveraux
- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Jocelyn Minton is a woman torn between two worlds. Her mother grew up attending private schools and afternoon teas, but she married the local handyman. After her mother died when Joce was only five years old, her father remarried into his own class, and Joce became an outsider - until she met Edilean Harcourt. Although she was sixty years Joce's senior, Miss Edi was a kindred soul who understood her like no one else ever had. When Miss Edi passes away, she leaves Joce all her worldly possessions, including an eighteenth-century house and a letter with clues to a mystery that began in 1941.
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should have been book #2.
- By sandy on 07-05-14
By: Jude Deveraux
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Breakwater Bay
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Preservationist Meri Hollis loves her latest project, restoring one of Newport's forgotten Gilded Age mansions. And with summer approaching, she'll be able to spend more time with her Gran on the Rhode Island shore. She has a great job, a loving family and she's pretty sure her boyfriend is going to propose on her thirtieth birthday. But everything Meri believes about family, happiness, truth, and love is shattered when her family's darkest secret is exposed.
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Wasted Potential
- By Rusty on 03-15-15
By: Shelley Noble
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Vegas Rich
- Vegas, Book 1
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 21 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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With a heart full of dreams, Sallie Coleman leaves Texas and heads west determined to get as far from the squalor of her dirt poor beginnings. With its shifting sands, smoky saloons, and bingo palaces, Las Vegas seems like a paradise. A paradise where an extraordinary twist of fate makes Sallie the most powerful businesswoman in Nevada.
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Get this booK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-26-10
By: Fern Michaels
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Herons Landing
- By: JoAnn Ross
- Narrated by: Ashley Klanac
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Working as a Las Vegas concierge, Brianna Mannion is an expert at making other people’s wishes come true. It’s satisfying work, but a visit home to scenic Honeymoon Harbor turns into a permanent stay when she’s reminded of everything she’s missing: the idyllic small-town charm; the old Victorian house she’d always coveted; and Seth Harper, her best friend’s widower and the neighborhood boy she once crushed on - hard. After years spent serving others, maybe Brianna’s finally ready to chase dreams of her own.
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Fair
- By F. Tague on 11-13-23
By: JoAnn Ross
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The Wanderer
- Thunder Point, Book 1
- By: Robyn Carr
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Nestled on the Oregon coast is a small town of rocky beaches and rugged charm. Locals love the land’s unspoiled beauty. Developers see it as a potential gold mine. When newcomer Hank Cooper learns he’s been left an old friend’s entire beachfront property, he finds himself with a community’s destiny in his hands. Cooper has never been a man to settle in one place, and Thunder Point was supposed to be just another quick stop. But Cooper finds himself getting involved with the town. And with Sarah Dupre, a woman as complicated as she is beautiful.
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4.5 The Wanderer Stars
- By whatcha.listening.to on 11-09-17
By: Robyn Carr
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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Wedding Ring
- A Shenandoah Album Novel
- By: Emilie Richards
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Needing time to contemplate her troubled marriage, Tessa MacRae agrees to spend the summer helping her mother and grandmother clean out the family home in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. But the three women have never been close.
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Loved it All Over Again
- By Kathryn @theBookDate on 03-26-16
By: Emilie Richards
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Nearly Normal
- Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
What listeners say about Golden Age
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jean Tepperman
- 12-17-15
brilliant and moving masterpiece
The whole trilogy gives a brilliant, incisive, sympathetic, unflinching, and amazingly complex picture of white middle class America from 1920 to 2020. The characters are fully drawn and engaging. The personal lives and varied journeys of four generations of a family starting on an Iowa farm present a panoramic and developmental account of social, economic, political, and cultural history. The story ends just a little farther down the road than we are now, brilliantly detailing how we arrived at our current economic, political, and environmental peril. At the same time the exquisitely sensitive descriptions of life stages -- infancy, adolescence, marriage, work, and old age -- are deeply moving. This is trilogy makes me wish I was still a teacher. I would love to teach a full-year course on the history of the last 100 years using this as the main text with student reports on what she left out (mainly the experiences of people of color and working class, also a little of conventional "history" thrown in). I can't remember reading anything I thought was this great, at least not for a long time
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5 people found this helpful
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- Disappointed Customer
- 01-13-19
excellent read
Excellent read from Jane Smiley. Finishes her trilogy. You do need to read/listen to the first two volumes. The cast of characters is very large in this volume. We listened to the audio book for all three volumes. The reader was excellent.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-01-16
Little hard to follow all the characters.
Where does Golden Age rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I would rank it near the middle 50%. Perhaps if I had listened to the earlier works, it would have been easier to follow.
Would you recommend Golden Age to your friends? Why or why not?
I would recommend reading the book, rather than just listening to it. There are so many characters, I needed to draw up my own family chart.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, this is a really long saga. I listened to it over about 10 days.
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- Sarah Steinberg
- 04-22-16
Epic storytelling.
I binge-listened to Jane Smiley's trilogy, beginning with "Some Luck." I feel as if I lived with her finely wrought characters and will miss them very much. What an accomplishment, to write a family saga that is both vast and intimate.
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- Sue Loberger
- 03-17-16
Borin
What disappointed you about Golden Age?
I really did try to like this book because I did like the first two in the series. However, after listening to it for over 2 hours, I could take it no more. The story was disjointed, boring, tedious.
What could Jane Smiley have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Written a more entertaining story.
How could the performance have been better?
Learn how to pronounce cities (Peshtigo), names (Alicia) etc. Stop reading the book and give some life to the performance. Be spontaneous. Add some life to your voice.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
No.
Any additional comments?
Would like my money back. Very disappointing. I've only returned 1 book in many years of listenership. This is the 2nd one.
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