Pastoralia Audiobook By George Saunders cover art

Pastoralia

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pastoralia

By: George Saunders
Narrated by: George Saunders
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.75

Buy for $15.75

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

A stunning collection including the story "Sea Oak", from the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.

Includes an original song by the author.

"Pastoralia" was written and performed by George Saunders, and recorded, mixed, and mastered by Peter Coleman at Indigital Studios in Santa Cruz, California.

©2000, 2001 George Saunders (P)2019 Random House Audio
Anthologies Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Psychological Short Stories Witty Funny
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"Artful and sophisicated... truly unusual. Imagine Lewis's Babbitt thrown into the backseat of a car going cross-country, driven by R. Crumb, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Harvey Pekar, or Spike Jonze." (The New York Times)

"Saunders is a provocateur, a moralist, a zealot, a lefty, and a funny, funny writer, and the stories in Pastoralia delight. We're very luck to have them." (Esquire)

“Dazzling...Saunders’s misfits confront their degradations with heroic optimism; rarely have the comic nuances of suffering been tracked with such precision. These stories, injected with Saunders’s highly original blend of irony and tenderness, ride you down spirals of the absurd and fling you back to your own life, startled.” (Men’s Journal)

What listeners say about Pastoralia

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    127
  • 4 Stars
    60
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    141
  • 4 Stars
    22
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    99
  • 4 Stars
    45
  • 3 Stars
    17
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Saunders es un genio

No sólo porque el autor lee sus cuentos, y lo hace de la manera más inmersiva posible, sino que también graba la música que aparece engrelas historias. Una verdadera joya.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

He’s brilliant. The narrative perspective is fantastic.

I love the brutally honest and flawed and real and crazy narrative inner stream of consciousness.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So talented

George Saunders, writer, voice talent and musician. Its hard to imagine that reading these stories myself would have been nearly as entertaining. Great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Greatest living short story author reads own work.

Saunders is a national treasure. His readings of his own work are funny, touching, edgy. Treat yourself to this marvelous book. It’s short but you will listen to it many times.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Thoughtfully funny, clever, and sincere

An unexpected pleasure with a new author to me. This one came as a fill-in choice in a bogo deal, but I'll definitely be spending time with Mr. Saunders other work shortly. I found myself pulled in quickly to the stories, relating with the characters, and laughing out loud. Truly a fun and often thought provoking work where we get to examine ourselves through a different, though sometimes not so different prism of experience.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Our thoughts are our life

Strangeness, not to mention weirdness and the bizarre, presents at almost every corner in this collection of stories by George Saunders.

Titillation for jaded hipsters? Yes, they are... But they are also so much more because they are not two dimensional. These excursions into florid imaginings are darkly funny, solemn and so expressive of life. Our thoughts are often strange and our thoughts are our life. Is that a learning to take from the stories. Maybe.

As might have been expected, Saunders reading his own work is a pleasure to experience.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Brilliant but depressing

Great performance and sometimes brilliant writing but most of the characters lead sad and empty lives, so it’s best to listen to these stories in small chunks.

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Horror of Consciousness

Saunders meanders through the moment to moment consciousness of ordinary schlubs with humor, sympathy, and yes horror. The comprehensible James Joyce I've been looking for all my reading life.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So wonderful

This book is one of unique and poetic short stories. They are sad, beautiful, funny, and often unapologetically vulgar. The author has a one-of-a-kind style that also feels familiar, and he reads with sincerity and well-timed wit. It's truly wonderful. So, so, so, so wonderful.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good writing, pointless stories

Sorry. I just don’t get the great rep Saunders has. Lincoln in the Bardo was a total mystery so I tried this collection. Not impressed.

The satire is very obvious, so there’s no anticipation. An essay would have been more effective. I think either marketing or Academia are responsible for the acclaim. His work is lost on me.

Three stars for well written sentences.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful