The Bell Jar
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 $29.01
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Maggie Gyllenhaal
-
By:
-
Sylvia Plath
About this listen
READ BY THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ACTRESS MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL
'A modern classic.' Guardian
'A near-perfect work of art.' Joyce Carol Oates
I was supposed to be having the time of my life . . .
Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esther's vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances . . .
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, is partially based on Plath's own life. It has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor sharp portrait of 1950s society, and has sold millions of copies worldwide.
ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'
'As clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.' New York Times Book Review
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
- By: Sylvia Plath, Karen V. Kukil - editor
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 30 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in their entirety, Sylvia Plath's journals provide an intimate portrait of the writer who was to produce in the last seven months of her life some of the most extraordinary poems of the 20th century. Faithfully transcribed from the 23 journals and journal fragments owned by Smith College, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath includes two journals that Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, unsealed just before his death in 1998.
-
-
narrator almost made me hate one of my favorites
- By Anonymous User on 09-02-20
By: Sylvia Plath, and others
-
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.
-
-
The narration changed my interpretation
- By jaspersu on 10-28-12
By: Shirley Jackson
-
The Bird's Nest
- By: Shirley Jackson, Kevin Wilson - foreword
- Narrated by: Linda Jones, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
-
-
Great audio version
- By jaspersu on 10-21-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
-
The Sirens of Titan
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course, there's a catch to the invitation....
-
-
Absolutely Outstanding
- By Robert on 01-07-12
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
-
WOW, WOW, WOW.
- By Amanda on 11-06-11
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
- By: Sylvia Plath, Karen V. Kukil - editor
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 30 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in their entirety, Sylvia Plath's journals provide an intimate portrait of the writer who was to produce in the last seven months of her life some of the most extraordinary poems of the 20th century. Faithfully transcribed from the 23 journals and journal fragments owned by Smith College, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath includes two journals that Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, unsealed just before his death in 1998.
-
-
narrator almost made me hate one of my favorites
- By Anonymous User on 09-02-20
By: Sylvia Plath, and others
-
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.
-
-
The narration changed my interpretation
- By jaspersu on 10-28-12
By: Shirley Jackson
-
The Bird's Nest
- By: Shirley Jackson, Kevin Wilson - foreword
- Narrated by: Linda Jones, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth is a demure 23-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother’s inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson’s characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl - but four separate, self-destructive personalities.
-
-
Great audio version
- By jaspersu on 10-21-21
By: Shirley Jackson, and others
-
The Sirens of Titan
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course, there's a catch to the invitation....
-
-
Absolutely Outstanding
- By Robert on 01-07-12
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
-
WOW, WOW, WOW.
- By Amanda on 11-06-11
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
In the Skin of a Lion
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Tom McCamus
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient.
-
-
superb
- By Joshua on 02-25-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
- By: Lewis Carroll
- Narrated by: Shelby Lewis
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Alice tumbles down, down, down a rabbit-hole one hot summer's afternoon in pursuit of a White Rabbit, she finds herself in Wonderland. And there begin the fantastical adventures that will see her experiencing extraordinary changes in size, swimming in a pool of her own tears, and attending the very maddest of tea parties.
-
-
American narrator all wrong for this book
- By A. J. Russell on 02-01-15
By: Lewis Carroll
-
Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
-
-
Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
-
A Rare Recording of Sylvia Plath Reading Her Best Poems
- By: Sylvia Plath
- Narrated by: Sylvia Plath
- Length: 16 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sylvia Plath born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, MA, was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), and also The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide on February 11, 1963. In this recording, Plath reads "Tulips," "Poppies In October," "Daddy," "Ariel," "Lady Lazarus," and "The Applicant."
-
-
This is pretty much a youtube short.
- By Chris on 01-02-25
By: Sylvia Plath
-
How to Be an Antiracist
- By: Ibram X. Kendi
- Narrated by: Ibram X. Kendi
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a “groundbreaking” (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves—now updated, with a new preface.
-
-
80% of the useful content is in the first 1-2 chapters
- By Anonymous User on 03-09-20
By: Ibram X. Kendi
-
The Vanishing Half
- A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.
-
-
Soap opera material
- By Sheila S on 06-06-20
By: Brit Bennett
-
The Rachel Incident
- A Novel
- By: Caroline O'Donoghue
- Narrated by: Tara Flynn
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.
-
-
Best narration
- By LG on 01-12-24
-
We Can Only Save Ourselves
- A Novel
- By: Alison Wisdom
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Lange’s neighbors are proud to know her - a high-achieving student, cheerleader, and all-around good citizen, she’s a perfect emblem of their sunny neighborhood. The night before she’s expected to be crowned Homecoming Queen, though, she commits an act of vandalism, then disappears, following a magnetic stranger named Wesley to a bungalow in another part of the state. There, he promises, Alice can be her true self, shedding the shackles of conformity.
-
-
Bold, original, mesmerizing...
- By Alex on 03-14-21
By: Alison Wisdom
-
Normal People
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another.
-
-
Difficult, but Worth It
- By kdiz on 04-03-20
By: Sally Rooney
-
Creatures of the Kingdom
- Stories of Animals and Nature
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: David Ackroyd
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 16 wonderful stories, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener burrows deep into the secret lives of animals and the hidden world of nature. Here he sheds light on nature's most awesome and beguiling handiwork, from the sublime shaping and reshaping of earth's lands and seas to a ridiculous armadillo's assault on a bit of Texas real estate that paid off handsomely.
-
-
Animals of the Kingdom
- By Greg on 02-04-24
-
Piranesi
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
-
-
Fascinating Social Study
- By Henry V on 02-26-21
By: Susanna Clarke
-
Red Pill
- A Novel
- By: Hari Kunzru
- Narrated by: Hari Kunzru
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of Red Pill arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches Blue Lives - a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life - and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all.
-
-
Paranoia justified
- By Daved Baker on 11-05-20
By: Hari Kunzru
Related to this topic
-
The Grandmother
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Anna Cordell, Max Dinnen
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.
-
-
Not too outlandish
- By Jackie H on 12-14-24
By: Jane E. James
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Good read with a not so good ending.
- By Katie A Scribner on 12-26-24
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
-
-
Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
-
The Grandmother
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Anna Cordell, Max Dinnen
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.
-
-
Not too outlandish
- By Jackie H on 12-14-24
By: Jane E. James
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Good read with a not so good ending.
- By Katie A Scribner on 12-26-24
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
-
-
Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
A Rare Recording of Sylvia Plath Reading Her Best Poems
- By: Sylvia Plath
- Narrated by: Sylvia Plath
- Length: 16 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sylvia Plath born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, MA, was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), and also The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide on February 11, 1963. In this recording, Plath reads "Tulips," "Poppies In October," "Daddy," "Ariel," "Lady Lazarus," and "The Applicant."
-
-
This is pretty much a youtube short.
- By Chris on 01-02-25
By: Sylvia Plath
-
The Bell Jar
- By: Sylvia Plath
- Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful but slowly going under - maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
-
-
A must-read for every woman
- By Julie W. Capell on 05-06-16
By: Sylvia Plath
-
Butcher’s Crossing
- By: John Williams
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1870s, Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek "an original relation to nature," drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. One of these men regales Will with tales of the immense buffalo herds hidden away in the Colorado Rockies and convinces him to join an expedition to track them down.
-
-
A Holocaust of Hides
- By Darwin8u on 11-13-15
By: John Williams
-
Molloy
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Dermot Crowley
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written initially in French, later translated by the author into English, Molloy is the first book in Dublin-born Samuel Beckett's trilogy. It was published shortly after WWII and marked a new, mature writing style, which was to dominate the remainder of his working life. Molloy is less a novel than a set of two monologues narrated by Molloy and his pursuer, Moran.
-
-
Nauseating, boring, hilarious, and magnificent
- By Gene on 02-21-05
By: Samuel Beckett
-
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
- By: Sylvia Plath, Karen V. Kukil - editor
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 30 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in their entirety, Sylvia Plath's journals provide an intimate portrait of the writer who was to produce in the last seven months of her life some of the most extraordinary poems of the 20th century. Faithfully transcribed from the 23 journals and journal fragments owned by Smith College, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath includes two journals that Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, unsealed just before his death in 1998.
-
-
narrator almost made me hate one of my favorites
- By Anonymous User on 09-02-20
By: Sylvia Plath, and others
-
White Nights
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“White Nights” tells the story of a lonely man who wanders the streets of St. Petersburg over the course of four nights, searching for an escape from his isolation.
-
-
Great Narrator
- By Anonymous User on 12-17-21
-
A Rare Recording of Sylvia Plath Reading Her Best Poems
- By: Sylvia Plath
- Narrated by: Sylvia Plath
- Length: 16 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sylvia Plath born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, MA, was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), and also The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide on February 11, 1963. In this recording, Plath reads "Tulips," "Poppies In October," "Daddy," "Ariel," "Lady Lazarus," and "The Applicant."
-
-
This is pretty much a youtube short.
- By Chris on 01-02-25
By: Sylvia Plath
-
The Bell Jar
- By: Sylvia Plath
- Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful but slowly going under - maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
-
-
A must-read for every woman
- By Julie W. Capell on 05-06-16
By: Sylvia Plath
-
Butcher’s Crossing
- By: John Williams
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1870s, Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek "an original relation to nature," drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. One of these men regales Will with tales of the immense buffalo herds hidden away in the Colorado Rockies and convinces him to join an expedition to track them down.
-
-
A Holocaust of Hides
- By Darwin8u on 11-13-15
By: John Williams
-
Molloy
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Dermot Crowley
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written initially in French, later translated by the author into English, Molloy is the first book in Dublin-born Samuel Beckett's trilogy. It was published shortly after WWII and marked a new, mature writing style, which was to dominate the remainder of his working life. Molloy is less a novel than a set of two monologues narrated by Molloy and his pursuer, Moran.
-
-
Nauseating, boring, hilarious, and magnificent
- By Gene on 02-21-05
By: Samuel Beckett
-
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
- By: Sylvia Plath, Karen V. Kukil - editor
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 30 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Published in their entirety, Sylvia Plath's journals provide an intimate portrait of the writer who was to produce in the last seven months of her life some of the most extraordinary poems of the 20th century. Faithfully transcribed from the 23 journals and journal fragments owned by Smith College, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath includes two journals that Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, unsealed just before his death in 1998.
-
-
narrator almost made me hate one of my favorites
- By Anonymous User on 09-02-20
By: Sylvia Plath, and others
-
White Nights
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“White Nights” tells the story of a lonely man who wanders the streets of St. Petersburg over the course of four nights, searching for an escape from his isolation.
-
-
Great Narrator
- By Anonymous User on 12-17-21
-
Anna Karenina
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Length: 35 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.
-
-
Need to Disclose and Highlight Name of Translator
- By Charles B on 08-27-18
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
The Idiot
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
- Length: 24 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin is one of the great characters in Russian literature. Is he a saint or just naïve? Is he an idealist or, as many in General Epanchin's society feel, an "idiot"? Certainly his return to St. Petersburg after years in a Swiss clinic has a dramatic effect on the beautiful Aglaia, youngest of the Epanchin daughters, and on the charismatic but willful Nastasya Filippovna. As he paints a vivid picture of Russian society, Dostoyevsky shows how principles conflict with emotions - with tragic results.
-
-
Moments of surprise.
- By Theo on 05-02-18
-
The Dharma Bums
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans - mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer - whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.
-
-
Lyrical Rendition
- By Michael E on 04-28-20
By: Jack Kerouac
-
The Luminaries
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 29 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1866 and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.
-
-
Not So Luminous
- By Mel on 11-10-13
By: Eleanor Catton
-
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.
-
-
The narration changed my interpretation
- By jaspersu on 10-28-12
By: Shirley Jackson
-
Middlemarch
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Maureen O'Brien
- Length: 32 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; and the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career.
-
-
Disappointed: this is not a never-ending story
- By M. Leavell on 01-23-16
By: George Eliot
-
Rebecca
- By: Daphne du Maurier
- Narrated by: Anna Massey
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.... The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives - presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.
-
-
Easily the best audiobook I have ever heard!
- By Kid at Heart on 11-10-18
-
The Sound and the Fury
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
-
-
Hang in
- By W.Denis on 07-11-05
By: William Faulkner
-
Bunny
- A Novel
- By: Mona Awad
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort—a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny", and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon"....
-
-
Chuck Palahniuk in Pearls and Ballet Flats
- By Arlis Dorne on 06-29-19
By: Mona Awad
-
The Charles Dickens Collection: 10 Novels
- Great Expectations; A Tale of Two Cities; Nicholas Nickleby; Oliver Twist; Bleak House; Our Mutual Friend; The Old Curiosity Shop; Dombey and Son; Little Dorrit; A Christmas Carol
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Mil Nicholson, Bob Neufeld
- Length: 264 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of 10 of Charles Dickens' great novels in one audiobook. The novels included here are A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Great Expectations, The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Our Mutual Friend, Little Dorrit, Dombey and Son and A Christmas Carol.
-
-
Excellent
- By Chad Walter on 06-13-22
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Kate Burton
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity.
-
-
Book: flawless. SKIP THE RECORDED INTRO!!
- By Wild Wise Woman on 09-04-11
By: Betty Smith
-
If We Were Villains
- A Novel
- By: M. L. Rio
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oliver Marks has just served 10 years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
-
-
Fake deep with a side of bland
- By Amazon Customer on 06-14-18
By: M. L. Rio
What listeners say about The Bell Jar
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RoniElayne
- 09-04-24
Dark
I didn’t realize the darkness of this book. Also, it was VERY descriptive and I was longing for more dialogue between characters but they were few and far between far between. The narrator was great but I was disappointed at the book. I guess I expected something different. If you’re okay with being sad and depressed at the end, then this book is for you.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L
- 01-05-23
A really interesting and moving piece.
Such a different read. Really interesting content- a bit morbid but gets you thinking. I enjoyed it a lot, read it in one sitting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Thanh
- 11-26-21
Beautiful and touching
Absolutely wonderful masterpiece by Sylvia Plath. As someone who has experienced mental illness myself, I find the main character/narrator highly relatable and compelling. Definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a nuanced fiction novel about the effects of depression, or anyone who just enjoys good writing and a great story.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maria B.
- 11-06-16
Great performance
Enjoyed the book and Maggie's voice is just perfect.
Definitely listening it again. Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-26-19
Loved it!
I absolutely loved this audiobook! The feelings of the main character are relatable to a lot of people, I think. Plath’s writing is beautiful and Gyllenhaal voicing the main character is a perfect match. After completing the novel I missed Gyllenhaal’s narration so much that I also purchased her take on the 35h Anna Karenina (which I just finished and loved). I warmly recommend this novel!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cindy
- 06-05-24
Intense
Very intense book from the person with mental illness.. well written though. Feels like if creepy!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sarah Jayne Fell
- 03-08-22
Wonderfully read by Maggie Gyllenhaal
You believe that Maggie is Plath, or Esther, she really does this important book justice.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jana
- 07-18-24
A classic narrated by a classic
Sylvia Plath has always been a love of mine and I have revisited The Bell Jar several times in my life. This is the first time I've listened in audiobook format and was so excited to see that Maggie Gyllenhaal narrated it. Her performance in Mona Lisa Smile, in specific, and her incredible voice acting skills lent itself so well to this book.
The Bell Jar is moving in its ability to pay attention to very small details and stitch those details together to tell a story of a life misunderstood, grief, abandonment, and daily life with Bipolar Disorder not only in the 1950s, but today, as well.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- ashton greenwood
- 10-22-24
Haunting and Beautiful
A haunting, yet beautiful exploration of mental health, female independence, and how to reconcile those things in the 1950s and today.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MGB
- 08-21-15
Esther whispering into your ear
I've always struggled to finish reading the Bell Jar, but this was disturbingly fascinating.
You are treated to Sylvia Plath's words, delivered flawlessly by Maggie Gyllenhaal, perfevt incarnation of Esther.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful