Solar
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Narrated by:
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Roger Allam
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By:
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Ian McEwan
About this listen
Features the author in converstation with his editor, Dan Franklin.
Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming.
A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: she is having the affair, and he is still in love with her.
When Beard’s professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for him to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career, and save the world from environmental disaster.Ranging from the Arctic Circle to the deserts of New Mexico, Solar is a serious and darkly satirical novel, showing human frailty struggling with the most pressing and complex problem of our time. A story of one man’s greed and self-deception, it is a profound and stylish new work from one of the world’s great writers.
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Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
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The Ghost Writer
- A Novel
- By: Robert Harris
- Narrated by: Roger Rees
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Adam Lang has been Britain’s longest serving—and most controversial—prime minister of the last half century. As pressure mounts for Lang to complete this memoirs, he hires a professional ghostwriter to finish the book. As he sets to work, the ghostwriter discovers many more secrets than Lang intends to reveal, secrets with the power to alter world politics - secrets with the power to kill.
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Too close to the truth?
- By carl801 on 11-24-07
By: Robert Harris
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White Noise
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event", a lethal black chemical cloud floats over the Gladneys' lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys - radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings - pulsing with life yet suggesting something ominous.
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Designed to be analyzed by an English class
- By RI in Canada on 10-15-16
By: Don DeLillo
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Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
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Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
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The spy who came back to the bank
- By Darwin8u on 03-12-14
By: John le Carré
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The Chronoliths
- By: Robert Charles Wilson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past-and soon to be haunted by the future. In early 21st-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter.
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A haunting, beautiful work...
- By M. Stephenson on 11-20-09
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Ordinary Thunderstorms
- A Novel
- By: William Boyd
- Narrated by: Gideon Emery
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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One May evening in London, Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, is feeling good about the future as he sits down for a meal at a little Italian bistro. He strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterward. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents, through which Adam loses everything—home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, cell phone—never to get them back.
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Amazing Story Teller
- By Dorothy on 09-07-14
By: William Boyd
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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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House of Meetings
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Martin Amis at the height of his powers; wonderous
- By Todd on 06-16-15
By: Martin Amis
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Stand on Zanzibar
- By: John Brunner, Bruce Sterling - foreword
- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 21 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
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perfect audio experience
- By Darryl on 03-24-14
By: John Brunner, and others
What listeners say about Solar
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Cliente Amazon
- 07-25-17
entretenida e interesante novela ficción
el personaje en sí ya es un cierto perfil que resulta interesante de seguir. por otra parte, va bien para saber ... me surgió un rechazo de partida al personaje.
lo recomiendo por entretenido e i teresante además de ser un tema contemporáneo
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- paul margiotta
- 09-23-24
Such a good reading. Absorbing and wicked.
The pace and humanity deliver the science in such a mouth watering way. Mcewan at his darkest comedic best.
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- Philip
- 08-05-10
One of the best Ian McEwan novels!
"Solar" far exceeded my high expectations. I consider myself an experienced reader of McEwan's novels, having gone through the excellent "Amsterdam", "Enduring Love" and "Saturday". In my opinion, "Solar" is the best among this impressive peer group of novels. I might be prejudiced, as green technology is one of my areas of interest, but it is not just the excellent insights on technology that make this book truly Great. Professor Michael Beard's character is a dramatic one, at times reminding me of tragic Shakespearean protagonists.
Beard is a man with a cognitive claim to fame (his Nobel Prize) that is quickly gathering dust, and who more than offsets this achievement by pretty much screwing up everything else in his life: obesity, lack of social intelligence, marriages and breakups, cover-ups of his vile deeds, general "untidyness", etc.
As usual (he's done similar things in earlier novels), McEwan introduces a dramatic plot turn that is defining the rest of the novel. After that, the decay of Michael Beard seems to accelerate.
A great novel with a nice structure incorporating flashbacks, well narrated in the audiobook version, and ending with an insightful interview with the author.
I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Prue
- 06-13-10
Squeamishly entertaining
And I'm clearly not talking about blood and guts here. Solar sits you down and serves you scotch in the mind's armchair of Prof. Michael Beard, Nobel Prize winning scientist, opportunist and everyday scoundrel. Entertaining because it's funny - he is a true rogue and gentleman, and squeamish because despite your better judgement you'll be on Beard's side. Mostly because you've silently recognised the rogue in yourself. Surely that's not just me?
There are those who call this the most self concious novel in a string of particularly successful books and perhaps there's truth to that. But Solar is well written, well read, and will in parts raise more than a smile.
Blurring the boundaries between fiction, hearsay and fact, there's plenty to sink your teeth (ears?) into. Thoroughly modern, thoroughly enjoyable.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Lisa
- 03-18-13
What a horrible man.
Would you listen to Solar again? Why?
Yes. I enjoyed the very descriptive details of the main characters thoughts.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Solar?
I did laugh out loud a number of times at how awful he was.
What do you think the narrator could have done better?
He spoke just the way I imagined a larger man who beleived he was superior to those around him would speak.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I laughed a lot in this book. He really was so awful a man.
Any additional comments?
Do men really think as this main character does?
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1 person found this helpful
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- Marjorie
- 04-03-13
Good plot idea, disapointing in execution
What was most disappointing about Ian McEwan’s story?
The amount of irrelevant detail and focus on sexually explicit aspects of the story that had nothing to do with the actual plot, was distracting, and ultimately off-putting. I could not even plow through it to the end.
What about Roger Allam’s performance did you like?
The narration was clear, excellent and provided a quality listening experience.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Solar?
90% of the sexual references.
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Overall
- Steven
- 04-16-10
Disappointing - at best
What a disappointment!
McEwan either has a brilliant vocabulary or a well-thumbed thesaurus; maybe both. Many passages in Solar seemed only to exist to give the author an excuse to show-off his vocab, and served no purpose to progress or enhance the storyline. Too often nine words are used when three would have been sufficient, similarly, often a long word is chosen when a short one would have done the job. There are way too many "creative" metaphors: All making many stretches of Solar ponderous. The writing style is simply pretentious, not art - simply bad writing.
The character of Michael Beard is strong and interesting if not the slightest bit likeable, but that's ok, because at least he is unique and complex. His lack of attractiveness and personality quirks make him colourful and he almost carries what is a fairly disappointing plot.
In the publicity for Solar there were several descriptions of it being a dark satirical novel. The two problems are firstly, it's not very funny or secondly, particularly dark. The satirical elements are few and far between, and the humour is clunky and incredibly predictable: as is much of the plot. You can see the next twist coming a mile-off; with the exception of the polar bear rug incident.
Solar is well research, almost educational on the sciences of physics and climate, and the author is clearly an intelligent guy, judging by the interview with his editor - who is maybe the one who should carry the blame for this novel being so poor. The story was hard to follow at times as it jumped around alot in time, and often it took me paragraph or two to work out where we were in the story.
The narrator did a very good job. His Oxbridge accent added to the pretentious feel of the writing, but he performed the various accents well, and was easy to listen to.
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7 people found this helpful