
Let the Great World Spin
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Richard Poe
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Gerard Doyle
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Carol Monda
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Johanna Parker
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Ramon De Ocampo
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By:
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Colum McCann
About this listen
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • Colum McCann’s beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire stunt, which is also depicted in the film The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people.
Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.
Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.”
A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.
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Critic reviews
“This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and it’s a damned lot of fun to read, too. Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York. There’s so much passion and humor and pure lifeforce on every page of Let the Great World Spin that you’ll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed.”—Dave Eggers
“In his own gritty and lyrical voice, Colum McCann has lifted up a handful of souls to the light in this big-hearted, adroit and probing novel, and brought forth a spectrum of the painful, the beautiful and the unexpected.”—Amy Bloom
“Every character grabs you by the throat and makes you care. McCann’s dazzling polyphony walks the high wire and succeeds triumphantly.”—Emma Donoghue, author of Room
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- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early years of the century, Nathan Walker leaves his native Georgia for New York City and the most dangerous job in America. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the tunnel that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Above ground, the sandhogs - black, white, Irish, Italian - keep their distance from each other until a spectacular accident welds a bond between Walker and his fellow diggers--a bond that will bless and curse the next three generations.
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Disappointing
- By Tom on 06-14-21
By: Colum McCann
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Thirteen Ways of Looking
- Fiction
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Colum McCann
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In such acclaimed novels as Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann has transfixed listeners with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first collection of short fiction in more than a decade, McCann charts the territory of chance and the profound and intimate consequences of even our smallest moments.
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Euphonies, Heartrending and Profound
- By W Perry Hall on 10-30-15
By: Colum McCann
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Zoli
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati, Colum McCann
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the traveling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as desire. As 1930s fascism spreads over Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romani harpists. Sharpened by the world of books, which is often frowned upon in the Romani tradition, Zoli becomes the poster girl for a brave new world. As she shapes the ancient songs to her times, she finds her gift embraced by the Gypsy people and savored by a young English expatriate, Stephen Swann.
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ENGROSSING!
- By Prof. Julie de Sherbinin on 11-03-20
By: Colum McCann
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Dancer
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the '80s, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn, and John Lennon.
By: Colum McCann
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Songdogs
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. The narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine to astonishing effect.
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A voyage into the River of Memory and the Eternal Quest for Truth.
- By Tom on 06-16-23
By: Colum McCann
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Fishing the Sloe-Black River
- Stories
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Colum McCann
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the Irishwoman who journeys through America in search of silence and solitude. But what is found in these stories, and discovered by these characters, is the astonishing poetry and peace found in the mundane: a memory, a scent on the wind, the grace in the curve of a street.
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Another chance to enjoy McCann’s reading his verses.
- By Tom on 11-17-23
By: Colum McCann
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The Gathering
- By: Anne Enright
- Narrated by: Terry Donnelly
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Regarded as one of her country's foremost voices, Irish author Anne Enright makes a fresh mark on a rich literary tradition. The Gathering is a deeply insightful family saga, steeped in secrets and intrigue, unfolding over three generations.
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Not For Everyone
- By Lori on 11-07-08
By: Anne Enright
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Girl, Woman, Other
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Anna-Maria Nabirye
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of Britain's most celebrated writers of color, Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of black British women. Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and short-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, Girl, Woman, Other paints a vivid portrait of the state of post-Brexit Britain, as well as looking back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
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smart, compassionate, confronting and enjoyable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
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The Imperfectionists
- By: Tom Rachman
- Narrated by: Christopher Welch
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English-language newspaper as they struggle to keep it - and themselves - afloat. This hilarious and poignant look at the struggles of print news will establish Rachman as one of the 21st century’s most perceptive talents.
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love it
- By Debra on 02-27-11
By: Tom Rachman
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Redeployment
- By: Phil Klay
- Narrated by: Craig Klein
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Phil Klay's Redeployment takes listeners to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. Redeployment has become a classic in the tradition of war writing. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: One of extremes and one of loss.
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A Must Read - Fantastic Heart Rendering Shorts
- By GH on 12-03-14
By: Phil Klay
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A Brief History of Seven Killings
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, and others
- Length: 26 hrs
- Unabridged
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Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.
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A Tough Read
- By KP on 05-07-16
By: Marlon James
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Tenth of December
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.
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Be prepared for something different...but good!
- By Mr. D on 02-21-14
By: George Saunders
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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, they create the Escapist.
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A World I DON'T Ever Want to Escape From.
- By Darwin8u on 06-12-12
By: Michael Chabon
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The Nix
- A Novel
- By: Nathan Hill
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 21 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson—college professor, stalled writer—has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn’t seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she’s re-appeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart.
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Is There An Editor In The House??
- By Sara on 11-03-16
By: Nathan Hill
What listeners say about Let the Great World Spin
Highly rated for:
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- Rose
- 06-20-16
A Masterpiece read by master story tellers...
I loved having this work of art read to me and relive it without straining my eyes..and realize the things I missed when I read it in 2009
it deserved The Pulitzer as we as the other awards it received that year.
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- hans sandberg
- 11-21-19
This what a great novel feels like
I picked it up by chance and eventually decided to give it a chance, a New York novel by an Irish transplant that I never heard of before. it didn't take long before McCann had pulled me in, and there was no way to let go. It's pure magic, reminding me of Dickens and Tolstoy. I'm amazed and mystified by the author's emotional depth and broad experience and knowledge. How was it possible for him to enter so many lives in such different groups and across generations?
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- Samantha
- 09-07-22
Expected better I guess
I guess I expected it to be more engrossing/interesting. Was a bit boring at parts and not all the characters intertwined (namely the Tagger), which is what I was waiting for the whole time. Some of the narrators were tough to listen to as well. Except Richard Poe- he is epic. I did not feel that the end pulled it all together.
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- narrowback slacker
- 02-23-17
Wish I'd chosen the book, rather than audio.
Parts of this book I loved, and parts I just wanted to get through... but I suspect my troubles with it were due to the uneven (and sluggish) performances in the audiobook. I generally prefer narration that disappears, when a single reader just reads the book in a lively voice (and PLEASE--don't "do" voices). When that's the case, the narrator essentially becomes my own voice internal reading the book, rather than a "performance" by a "cast." This story switches the POV frequently, and each time a new actor comes on to read--and I just found it distracting and annoying. Also, the narration was mind-numbingly slow. It's beautiful prose, but it's supposed to be set in New York, and no New Yorker speaks that slowly. (I had to listen to much of it on 1.5x just to make it sound normal).
It's a lovely story, though, with a diverse array of characters--some I would have like to have heard less from, some I wanted to know more about. It's beautifully written and captures a New York that I remember seeing, mostly out of my peripheral vision, when I was growing up along the city's edge.
I'd recommend the book, but not the audiobook. I found myself regretting choosing Audible for this one; I think this is just one that was meant to be read.
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12 people found this helpful
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- reader
- 09-13-19
wonderful book
read this book for a class. fascinating characters fascinating story that intertwines and eventually connects all characters together. will look four other books by same author
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- Rebecca Studer
- 03-18-21
a wide ranging story of lfe
another tour de force by Colum McCann. often grittyn depicting experiences few of us have lived. a masterful weaving of stories.
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- Laurie Ellington
- 04-14-17
Lushly written, intriguingly interwoven stories
I loved this book, and I am a picky listener. I loved the rich writing that made me stop occasionally to savor a turn of phrase. I loved the intertwined stories, although they did not go where I sometimes expected they would. The narration REALLY enhances the experience of the novel - hearing the various accents and voices really helped me see the kaleidoscopic nature of the story. Fabulous!
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10 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-01-15
Beautiful Narration of a Great Story
What did you love best about Let the Great World Spin?
The structure of the storytelling.
What did you like best about this story?
The multi-dimensionality of the story, constructed as it is, makes the whole greater than the sum of its individually-compelling parts.
Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The younger brother's unswerving compassion, throughout.
Any additional comments?
One of the few books that is better in audio form -- though I suspect it would be fantastic in print as well.
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5 people found this helpful
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- marsie80
- 05-17-19
great story
A lovely story with vibrant characters and unexpected turns- it carries you along seamlessly though the narrative
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-23-21
Engaging!
completely engaging. Each story simple humanity, a tug at my heart. A must read for everyone.
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