The Beautiful Room Is Empty
A Novel
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
George Backman
-
By:
-
Edmund White
About this listen
When the narrator of White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel first embarks on his sexual odyssey, it is the 1950s, and America is "a big gray country of families on drowsy holiday." That country has no room for a scholarly teenager with guilty but insatiable stirrings toward other men. Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay uprising - and populated by eloquent queens, butch poseurs, and a fearfully incompetent shrink - The Beautiful Room is Empty conflates the acts of coming out and coming of age.
©1988 Edmund White (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Farewell Symphony
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover's death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man.
-
-
Tremendous book
- By William Thomas on 11-26-18
By: Edmund White
-
The City and the Pillar
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship.
-
-
Do not listen to the introduction!!!!!
- By Billmatto on 12-05-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
City of Night
- By: John Rechy
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When John Rechy's explosive first novel appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure in fiction, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Genet and Kerouac, even as Rechy was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers. Nevertheless, the book became an international best seller, and 50 years later, it has become a classic. Bold and inventive in style, Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling "youngman" and his search for self-knowledge.
-
-
A seminal classic
- By Robert Simmons on 09-22-19
By: John Rechy
-
Maurice
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Peter Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'Ah for darkness...not the darkness of a house which coops up a man among furniture, but the darkness where he can be free!' Maurice Hall knows he must choose between living life in the shadows or denying himself a chance at love and fulfilment. Aware of his attraction to the same sex, in a time where it was considered unlawful and immoral to have homosexual desires, Maurice must decide whether to battle or submit to a prejudiced 20th-century English society.
-
-
Finally!!! It's past time!
- By Christopher P. on 11-18-10
By: E. M. Forster
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
Red, White & Royal Blue
- A Novel
- By: Casey McQuiston
- Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
-
-
Almost shockingly wonderful.
- By Leon Miller on 03-21-20
By: Casey McQuiston
-
The Farewell Symphony
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover's death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man.
-
-
Tremendous book
- By William Thomas on 11-26-18
By: Edmund White
-
The City and the Pillar
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship.
-
-
Do not listen to the introduction!!!!!
- By Billmatto on 12-05-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
City of Night
- By: John Rechy
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When John Rechy's explosive first novel appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure in fiction, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Genet and Kerouac, even as Rechy was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers. Nevertheless, the book became an international best seller, and 50 years later, it has become a classic. Bold and inventive in style, Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling "youngman" and his search for self-knowledge.
-
-
A seminal classic
- By Robert Simmons on 09-22-19
By: John Rechy
-
Maurice
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Peter Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'Ah for darkness...not the darkness of a house which coops up a man among furniture, but the darkness where he can be free!' Maurice Hall knows he must choose between living life in the shadows or denying himself a chance at love and fulfilment. Aware of his attraction to the same sex, in a time where it was considered unlawful and immoral to have homosexual desires, Maurice must decide whether to battle or submit to a prejudiced 20th-century English society.
-
-
Finally!!! It's past time!
- By Christopher P. on 11-18-10
By: E. M. Forster
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
Red, White & Royal Blue
- A Novel
- By: Casey McQuiston
- Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
-
-
Almost shockingly wonderful.
- By Leon Miller on 03-21-20
By: Casey McQuiston
-
Dancer from the Dance
- A Novel
- By: Andrew Holleran
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now in audio for the first time! Award-winning actor and two-time Tony Award nominee David Pittu narrates one of the most influential books in gay literature. Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance defined gay life in late 1970s New York. Published in 1978, the novel captures the time post-Stonewall and pre-AIDS where sexual freedom was celebrated and the future appeared limitless.
-
-
Excellent
- By Charles Lloyd on 12-25-22
By: Andrew Holleran
-
Fellow Travelers
- By: Thomas Mallon
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a world of bare-knuckled ideology and secret dossiers, Timothy Laughlin, a recent college graduate and devout Catholic, is eager to join the crusade against Communism. An encounter with a handsome State Department official, Hawkins Fuller, leads to Tim's first job and, after Fuller's advances, his first love affair.
-
-
The tying together of the story threads at the end.
- By Oscar Davila on 12-29-23
By: Thomas Mallon
-
Young Mungo
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Chris Reilly
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds.
-
-
Suffering Sappho!
- By Richard Stewart on 04-12-22
By: Douglas Stuart
-
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style
- A Novel
- By: Paul Rudnick
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic. Together, the two embark on a unique romance that spans half a century.
-
-
Great audiobook
- By Ryan Macht on 11-30-23
By: Paul Rudnick
-
Blackouts
- A Novel
- By: Justin Torres
- Narrated by: Ozzie Rodriguez, Torian Brackett
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay—playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized—has a project to pass along. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried.
-
-
Disappointed
- By P. Thurman on 09-16-24
By: Justin Torres
-
We Could Be So Good
- A Novel
- By: Cat Sebastian
- Narrated by: Joel Leslie
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy. Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life.
-
-
Be still, my cynical heart.
- By Kelsey Riddle on 06-09-23
By: Cat Sebastian
-
The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle
- By: Matt Cain
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every day, Albert Entwistle makes his way through the streets of his small English town, delivering letters and parcels and returning greetings with a quick wave and a “how do?” Everyone on his route knows Albert, or thinks they do—a man of quiet routines, content to live alone with his cat, Gracie.
-
-
What a Treat!
- By C. Beaton on 06-24-22
By: Matt Cain
-
In Memoriam
- A Novel
- By: Alice Winn
- Narrated by: Christian Coulson
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting. Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle—an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood—without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return
-
-
Amazing
- By Henry on 03-21-23
By: Alice Winn
-
Love in the Time of Cholera
- By: Gabriel García Márquez
- Narrated by: Armando Durán
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds two people's lives together for more than half a century. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career, he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral....
-
-
When love is sick
- By Vira on 09-02-13
-
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat—and then for his wife as well—in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami’s most acclaimed and beloved novels.
-
-
Wonderful book, flawed narration.
- By REBECCA on 02-08-14
By: Haruki Murakami
-
Middlesex
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.
-
-
Anything but middle.
- By Michael on 05-04-03
-
Unorthodox
- The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
- By: Deborah Feldman
- Narrated by: Rachel Botchan, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. Yet in spite of her repressive upbringing, Deborah grew into an independent-minded young woman whose stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped her to imagine an alternative way of life among the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
-
-
Narrator Problem
- By Phyllis on 04-24-20
By: Deborah Feldman
Related to this topic
-
The Wife
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
-
-
A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
London Fields
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.
-
-
Big chewy novel, excellent narration
- By Sand on 08-21-14
By: Martin Amis
-
Marjorie Morningstar
- By: Herman Wouk
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 28 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marjorie Morningstar is a love story. It presents one of the greatest characters in modern fiction: Marjorie, the pretty 17-year-old who left the respectability of New York's Central Park West to join the theater, live in the teeming streets of Greenwich Village, and seek love in the arms of a brilliant, enigmatic writer.
-
-
Great story with really cheesy narration
- By James on 05-05-12
By: Herman Wouk
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
Some Girls
- My Life in a Harem
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. At 18, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman would pay pretty girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next 18 months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah....
-
-
Boring, Pretentious Book
- By Marcos on 04-23-11
By: Jillian Lauren
-
The Wife
- A Novel
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The moment Joan Castleman decides to leave her husband, they are 35,000 feet above the ocean on a flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph, is one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award, and Joan, who has spent 40 years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop.
-
-
A bit of a downer
- By Jody Cox on 08-01-18
By: Meg Wolitzer
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
London Fields
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.
-
-
Big chewy novel, excellent narration
- By Sand on 08-21-14
By: Martin Amis
-
Marjorie Morningstar
- By: Herman Wouk
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 28 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marjorie Morningstar is a love story. It presents one of the greatest characters in modern fiction: Marjorie, the pretty 17-year-old who left the respectability of New York's Central Park West to join the theater, live in the teeming streets of Greenwich Village, and seek love in the arms of a brilliant, enigmatic writer.
-
-
Great story with really cheesy narration
- By James on 05-05-12
By: Herman Wouk
-
Tiger, Tiger
- A Memoir
- By: Margaux Fragoso
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is 51. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
-
-
a weirdly loving diatribe against pervs.
- By Dane Flakeman on 05-21-11
By: Margaux Fragoso
-
Some Girls
- My Life in a Harem
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. At 18, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman would pay pretty girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next 18 months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah....
-
-
Boring, Pretentious Book
- By Marcos on 04-23-11
By: Jillian Lauren
-
I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
-
-
Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
-
Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
-
-
An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
-
-
Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
-
Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
-
-
This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
-
High Dive
- By: Jonathan Lee
- Narrated by: Doyle Gerard
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taking us inside one of the 20th century's most ambitious assassination attempts - "making history personal", as one character puts it - High Dive moves between the luxurious hospitality of a British tourist town and the troubled city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the armed struggle between the Irish Republican Army and those loyal to the UK government.
-
-
Humor? Not Funny.
- By W Perry Hall on 04-10-16
By: Jonathan Lee
-
Smashed
- Story of a Drunken Girlhood
- By: Koren Zailckas
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From earliest experimentation to habitual excess to full-blown abuse, 24-year-old Koren Zailckas leads us through her experience of a terrifying trend among young girls, exploring how binge drinking becomes routine, how it becomes "the usual". With the stylistic freshness of a poet and the dramatic gifts of a novelist, Zailckas describes her first sip at 14, alcohol poisoning at 16, blacked-out sexual experience at 19, and total disorientation after waking up in an unfamiliar New York City apartment at 22.
-
-
Smashed
- By John Riggs on 07-14-05
By: Koren Zailckas
-
Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
-
-
Grows Within You
- By Chris Reich on 08-06-11
By: Saul Bellow
-
Family Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Diane Randall’s jewelry business is a great success, her marriage is not, and she finds herself growing lonely as her children near adulthood. Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter Julia is falling dangerously in love, and Diane’s mother, Jean, is relishing her newfound freedom as a single woman in Europe. Distracted by their individual concerns, the three women are ill-prepared for the crisis that suddenly appears on Diane’s doorstep in the form of a handsome FBI agent asking about an explosive secret that’s laid buried for decades.
-
-
Nancy! Is there a sequel? What?
- By PattieLynn on 12-02-22
By: Nancy Thayer
-
Outside Looking In
- A Novel
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology PhD student, and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug’s possibilities such that their “research” becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a freewheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics, and communal living.
-
-
STORYTELLING AS CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
- By Christopher Meeks on 05-25-19
By: T. C. Boyle
-
Chelsea Girls
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Myles
- Narrated by: Eileen Myles
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms life into a work of art. Told in her audacious voice, made vivid and immediate in her lyrical language, Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles's 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed "lesbianity," and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.
-
-
fascinatingly skanky
- By Megon J. Walker on 07-15-16
By: Eileen Myles
-
Notes on a Banana
- A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression
- By: David Leite
- Narrated by: David Leite
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life, from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to "turn straight" through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his 23-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David's readers and listeners as "The One", which began with (what else?) food.
-
-
Finished it in a day!
- By Kathryn on 08-23-17
By: David Leite
-
City of Night
- By: John Rechy
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When John Rechy's explosive first novel appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure in fiction, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Genet and Kerouac, even as Rechy was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers. Nevertheless, the book became an international best seller, and 50 years later, it has become a classic. Bold and inventive in style, Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling "youngman" and his search for self-knowledge.
-
-
A seminal classic
- By Robert Simmons on 09-22-19
By: John Rechy
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
A Boy's Own Story
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The audiobook's unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace-and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality.
-
-
The upper middle class gay white man
- By Tuesdays music on 12-04-20
By: Edmund White
-
The Farewell Symphony
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover's death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man.
-
-
Tremendous book
- By William Thomas on 11-26-18
By: Edmund White
-
The Married Man
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Ken Kliban
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Austin Smith is pushing fifty, loveless and drifting, until one day he meets Julien, a much younger, married Frenchman. In the beginning, the lovers' only impediments are the comic clashes of culture, age, and temperament. Before long, however, the past begins to catch up with them. In a desperate quest to save health and happiness, they move from Venice to Key West, from Montreal in the snow to Providence in the rain. But it is amid the bleak, baking sands of the Sahara that their love is pushed to its ultimate crisis.
-
-
Keep away from this one
- By JEU on 08-21-19
By: Edmund White
-
The Humble Lover
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. And when he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him. Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually August starts bringing home other men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych's circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the enchanting young star.
-
-
What happened to white?
- By Clark Freshman on 01-31-24
By: Edmund White
-
City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
-
-
Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
-
Sacred Monsters
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edmund White is one of our most celebrated novelists. He is also a brilliant journalist and cultural commentator on the arts, contributing to publications as varied The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Washington Post, House and Garden, and The New York Review of Books. In Sacred Monsters, White collects more than 20 of his most recent writings on artists and authors, including John Cheever, Patti Smith, Henry James, Mary Cassatt, and many others.
-
-
No chapter headings make it an editorial mess
- By Francoise on 09-21-19
By: Edmund White
-
A Boy's Own Story
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. The audiobook's unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace-and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality.
-
-
The upper middle class gay white man
- By Tuesdays music on 12-04-20
By: Edmund White
-
The Farewell Symphony
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover's death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man.
-
-
Tremendous book
- By William Thomas on 11-26-18
By: Edmund White
-
The Married Man
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Ken Kliban
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Austin Smith is pushing fifty, loveless and drifting, until one day he meets Julien, a much younger, married Frenchman. In the beginning, the lovers' only impediments are the comic clashes of culture, age, and temperament. Before long, however, the past begins to catch up with them. In a desperate quest to save health and happiness, they move from Venice to Key West, from Montreal in the snow to Providence in the rain. But it is amid the bleak, baking sands of the Sahara that their love is pushed to its ultimate crisis.
-
-
Keep away from this one
- By JEU on 08-21-19
By: Edmund White
-
The Humble Lover
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. And when he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him. Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually August starts bringing home other men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych's circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the enchanting young star.
-
-
What happened to white?
- By Clark Freshman on 01-31-24
By: Edmund White
-
City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
-
-
Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
-
Sacred Monsters
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edmund White is one of our most celebrated novelists. He is also a brilliant journalist and cultural commentator on the arts, contributing to publications as varied The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Washington Post, House and Garden, and The New York Review of Books. In Sacred Monsters, White collects more than 20 of his most recent writings on artists and authors, including John Cheever, Patti Smith, Henry James, Mary Cassatt, and many others.
-
-
No chapter headings make it an editorial mess
- By Francoise on 09-21-19
By: Edmund White
What listeners say about The Beautiful Room Is Empty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pablo
- 03-28-23
Amazingly honest memoir/"novel". Best narrator.
Loved this book! Edmund White's narrative power is through the roof. The actual voice narration is also superb.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- CostarK
- 04-08-22
Great Book!
Tipical life of a gay man with wonderful sex scenes and very well written.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mrchuck2000
- 10-08-23
Edmund White is a Bearer of Gifts
Edmund White is a great, great writer (I’m reading everything he’s written now, after kind of forgetting about him for about twenty-five years). Odd that I can feel the greatness easier in an audiobook than I had done when reading his words in a book.
He is the smart, kind, generous gay uncle that I like to pretend I had to guide, explain, accept and welcome me as I grew up. He’s a witness.
The narrator is remarkably good, no small feat with this kind of eclectic writing style. He perfectly serves the writing.
I am now moving into The Farewell Symphony, and I’m already in tears.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-26-21
Socialist are pro Socialist until it hit them in the pocketbook
This was a good book mostly because it shows how realistic Socialist are until it hit them in the pocketbook.. the strongest storyteller I have heard in many months, had it not been for the teller I would have turned off the book.
I would recommend this to young men to read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrei
- 07-01-19
Well written
Why a good quasi-Christian like me would read a novel like this? I am sure that most of my co-religionists would be greatly confused and may be even disappointed in me (:. Plus take into account White's somewhat hostile attitude towards Christianity. To begin with...language. White's mastery of language is totally superb. Read it just for that. Honesty- this is a very honest book. This is what I am, White tells us- deal with it. May be occasionally too much of it but still kudos to White for doing so (I would not be able to write a book like this; sometimes however I wish- and if I were what would exactly happen to me? would I be disowned?). Compassionate treatment of people of different sexual orientation (I feel like I am on shaky ground right now- forgive me if I offend anyone). When I read the novel I was within a different world of different existence (different from mine, I mean). White, like Nabokov and Tolstoy (two of his favorites), knows how to write about complex matters with a light, exhilarating and humorous tone. He also manages to convey that being gay is a painful experience in the society that does not accept homosexuality. To his credit he is not in any way didactic about it. White has been called the voice of gay America. Is it the voice only for the gays? I doubt. All of us need to hear this voice. I enjoyed very much Backman's reading (contrary to some). It has a touch of neuroticism and urgency about it. He sings through the novel. Strongly recommended on all counts.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- escoocoo
- 03-09-18
ENJOYED IT!!
Very good book by a fine author. I didn’t realize that this is the second book in a trilogy, but I don’t think it matters what order they are read/listened to as I had no trouble following the story. I do plan on listening to the other books in the trilogy as well as a worthwhile endeavor. I think I recall a number of people “dissing” the narrator, but I thought the narrator was great(!!), and a good part of what made listening to this book so enjoyable.
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about the authentic gay male experience during the years prior to the explosion of the gay rights movement by someone who knows (the author, not me!) because he was there and actually went through it.
There are quite a few very graphic sexual scenes in this book. However, this was not the main thrust (so to speak!) of the book and, I thought, very much in context with the rest of the telling of the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about this topic by an intelligent and talented writer.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christopher
- 02-19-16
Awful Narration
Would you try another book from Edmund White and/or George Backman?
Yes for Edmund White ... No for George Backman
Do you think The Beautiful Room Is Empty needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Yes it needs a follow up, but I know what it will focus on. That will be AIDS unfortunately, for that was the gay communities plague in the US.
Any additional comments?
I had to end up playing this on 1.25 speed just to get to the end. The narrator is so slow and over the top it's extremely annoying.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- lazario
- 02-01-22
great book
narrator was good but he did stumble on a few possible words here and there
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- R.J. Schmigel
- 10-28-23
The Beautiful Room is Merely Pretty
I am a big Edmund White fan. I own many of his works; and now, because I am nearing 80, I wanted to hear them read aloud. This edition is good, but being the 2nd book in the trilogy, I find it to be more of a placeholder, than a standout. Still enjoyable, of course, because it’s Edmund White.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TDNYNJFL
- 10-30-23
not what i expected but great
wow totally unfiltered. reminded me of similar and now impossible situations of my past and city
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!