-
Wonderful Town
- New York Stories from The New Yorker
- Narrated by: Tyne Daly, Timothy Jerome, Joe Morton, Maria Tucci
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
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 $13.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
New York City is not only The New Yorker magazine's place of origin and its sensibility's lifeblood, it is the heart of American literary culture. Wonderful Town, an anthology of superb short fiction by many of the magazine's most accomplished contributors, celebrates the 75-year marriage between a preeminent publication and its preeminent context with this collection of 44 of its best stories from (so to speak) home.
East Side? Philip Roth's chronically tormented alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, has just moved there, in "Smart Money". West Side? Isaac Bashevis Singer's narrator mingles with the customers in "The Cafeteria" (who debate politics and culture in four or five different languages) and becomes embroiled in an obsessional romance. And downtown, John Updike's Maples have begun their courtship of marital disaster, in "Snowing in Greenwich Village".
Wonderful Town touches on some of the city's famous places and stops at some of its more obscure corners, but the real guidebook in and between its lines is to the hearts and the minds of those who populate the metropolis built by its words. Like all good fiction, these stories take particular places, particular people, and particular events and turn them into dramas of universal enlightenment and emotional impact. Each life in it, and each life in Wonderful Town, is the life of us all.
Including these stories from the magazine's most iconic writers:
"The Five-Forty-Eight" by John Cheever
"Distant Music" by Ann Beattle
"Sailor off the Bremen" by Irwin Shaw
"Physics" by Tama Janowitz
"The Whore of Mensa" by Woody Allen
"What It Was Like, Seeing Chris" by Deborah Eisenberg
"Drawing Room B" by John O’Hara
"A Sentimental Journey" by Peter Taylor
"The Balloon" by Donald Barthelme
"Another Marvelous Thing" by Laurie Colwin
"The Failure" by Jonathan Franzen
"Apartment Hotel" by Sally Benson
"Midair" by Frank Conroy
"The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber
"I See You, Bianca" by Maeve Brennan
"You’re Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore
"Signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov
"Poor Visitor" by Jamaica Kincaid
"In Greenwich, There Are Many Graveled Walks" by Hortense Calisher
"Some Nights When Nothing Happens Are the Best Nights in this Place" by John McNulty
"Slight Rebellion off Madison" by J. D. Salinger
"Brownstone" by Renata Adler
"Partners" by Veronica Geng
"The Evolution of Knowledge" by Niccolo Tucci
"The Way We Live Now" by Susan Sontag
"Do the Windows Open?" by Julie Hecht
"The Mentocrats" by Edward Newhouse
"The Treatment" by Daniel Menaker
"Arrangement in Black and White" by Dorothy Parker
"Carlyle Tries Polygamy" by William Melvin Kelley
"Children Are Bored on Sunday" by Jean Stafford
"Notes from a Bottle" by James Stevenson
"Man in the Middle of the Ocean" by Daniel Fuchs
"Me Spoulets of the Splendide" by Ludwig Bemelmans
"Over by the River" by William Maxwell
"Baster" by Jeffrey Eugenides
"The Second Tree from the Corner" by E. B. White
"Rembrandt’s Hat" by Bernard Malamud
"Shot: A New York Story" by Elizabeth Hardwick
"A Father-to-Be" by Saul Bellow
"Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer" by S. J. Perelman
"Water Child" by Edwidge Danticat
"The Smoker" by David Schickler
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The John Cheever Audio Collection (Unabridged Stories)
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep, George Plimpton, others
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.
-
-
A mere fraction
- By T. McG. on 02-22-18
By: John Cheever
-
Fresh Complaint
- Stories
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Eugenides, Ari Fliakos, Cynthia Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in Fresh Complaint explore equally rich—and intriguing—territory. Ranging from the bitingly reproductive antics of “Baster” to the dreamy, moving account of a young traveler’s search for enlightenment in “Air Mail” (selected by Annie Proulx for Best American Short Stories), this collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people’s wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art founder under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood.
-
-
You’ll love this book if you love hearing about bodily fluids on a regular basis.
- By Cynthia C. Stellar on 11-13-17
-
Zero Gravity
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal has been savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with 11 written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration.
-
-
Where’s the rest of the book?
- By Brett Dewing on 12-26-22
By: Woody Allen
-
Parker: Selected Stories
- By: Dorothy Parker
- Narrated by: Elaine Stritch
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Parker's quips and light verse have embedded themselves in the American literary landscape, but it was her prose that proved her star and demonstrated her talent as extending far beyond her time. In her fiction, she not only brought to life the urban milieu that was her bailiwick, but lay bare the uncertainties of ordinary people living ordinary lives, all told in her unflinching and deeply personal voice. In these selected stories, read for you by Elaine Stritch, we have the chance to draw upon her insight into the social and emotional realities of human nature.
-
-
Very good/very depressing
- By Rodney Wines on 11-26-18
By: Dorothy Parker
-
Apropos of Nothing
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.
-
-
Totally Woody
- By Ronald R. Kubiak on 04-19-20
By: Woody Allen
-
Selected Shorts
- Timeless Classics
- By: James Thurber, Edith Wharton, Jack London, and others
- Narrated by: Maria Tucci, Charles Keating, James Naughton
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Selected Shorts is an award-winning series of classic and contemporary short fiction read by acclaimed actors. The readings are recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City. The Selected Shorts radio series is a co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC, New York Public Radio, and is heard on public radio stations nationwide.
-
-
first rate
- By S. Lewis on 03-04-06
By: James Thurber, and others
-
The John Cheever Audio Collection (Unabridged Stories)
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep, George Plimpton, others
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.
-
-
A mere fraction
- By T. McG. on 02-22-18
By: John Cheever
-
Fresh Complaint
- Stories
- By: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Eugenides, Ari Fliakos, Cynthia Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in Fresh Complaint explore equally rich—and intriguing—territory. Ranging from the bitingly reproductive antics of “Baster” to the dreamy, moving account of a young traveler’s search for enlightenment in “Air Mail” (selected by Annie Proulx for Best American Short Stories), this collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people’s wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art founder under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood.
-
-
You’ll love this book if you love hearing about bodily fluids on a regular basis.
- By Cynthia C. Stellar on 11-13-17
-
Zero Gravity
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal has been savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with 11 written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration.
-
-
Where’s the rest of the book?
- By Brett Dewing on 12-26-22
By: Woody Allen
-
Parker: Selected Stories
- By: Dorothy Parker
- Narrated by: Elaine Stritch
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Parker's quips and light verse have embedded themselves in the American literary landscape, but it was her prose that proved her star and demonstrated her talent as extending far beyond her time. In her fiction, she not only brought to life the urban milieu that was her bailiwick, but lay bare the uncertainties of ordinary people living ordinary lives, all told in her unflinching and deeply personal voice. In these selected stories, read for you by Elaine Stritch, we have the chance to draw upon her insight into the social and emotional realities of human nature.
-
-
Very good/very depressing
- By Rodney Wines on 11-26-18
By: Dorothy Parker
-
Apropos of Nothing
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.
-
-
Totally Woody
- By Ronald R. Kubiak on 04-19-20
By: Woody Allen
-
Selected Shorts
- Timeless Classics
- By: James Thurber, Edith Wharton, Jack London, and others
- Narrated by: Maria Tucci, Charles Keating, James Naughton
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Selected Shorts is an award-winning series of classic and contemporary short fiction read by acclaimed actors. The readings are recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City. The Selected Shorts radio series is a co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC, New York Public Radio, and is heard on public radio stations nationwide.
-
-
first rate
- By S. Lewis on 03-04-06
By: James Thurber, and others
-
The Dorothy Parker Audio Collection
- By: Dorothy Parker
- Narrated by: Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Alfre Woodard, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author, poet, screenwriter, and outstanding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker was known for her quick wit, keen observations, and remarkable insight into the human condition. Regarded as brilliant, but known to be an alcoholic and often depressed, Parker’s work pushes all buttons at once: humor, anger, love, pity, and everything in between...she pulled no punches, writing with pure, unadulterated passion; her work is timeless and as pertinent to today’s society as it was to that of the time she wrote.
-
-
These are wonderful
- By RueRue on 04-17-19
By: Dorothy Parker
-
The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story
- By: John Freeman - editor
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the past 50 years, the American short story has changed dramatically. New voices, forms, and mixtures of genres have brought this unique US genre a thrilling burst of energy. This rich anthology celebrates this avalanche of talent. Beginning in 1970, it culls together a half century of powerful American short stories from all genres, including - for the first time in a literary anthology - science fiction, horror, and fantasy.
-
-
Too dark for my taste
- By Lazy Chicken on 10-03-22
-
The James Thurber Audio Collection
- Fables and Selected Stories by James Thurber
- By: James Thurber
- Narrated by: Keith Olbermann
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"My father was in the hospital and every night when I visited him, I read aloud to him. James Thurber. And one night he said, 'You really should do that on your show,' and I said, 'Dad, it’s a television newscast. I’d love to, but how could it possibly fit?' And he said, 'How often have I ever suggested anything for your shows?' And I remembered that he never had. But I also reminded him that there were things like copyrights and bills, to which he said, 'Try it. You never know.'"
-
-
James Thurber and Keith Olbermann? Wonderful!!!
- By Kristi R. on 11-30-11
By: James Thurber
-
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
-
The Wapshot Chronicle
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.
-
-
Beautiful 1950s Great Expectations-like Novel
- By Darwin8u on 05-31-13
By: John Cheever
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
BBC Classics: Ultimate Story Collection
- 90 Unmissable Tales
- By: Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, and others
- Narrated by: Sam Dale, Joseph Ayre, Carolyn Pickles, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A treasure chest of timeless short stories by some of the world's greatest authors.
-
-
These are not full cast audio dramas
- By Mollie on 03-25-23
By: Oscar Wilde, and others
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
-
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
- By: Fran Lebowitz
- Narrated by: Fran Lebowitz
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life—its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Fran Lebowitz is always wickedly entertaining.
-
-
Wonderful in her own voice.
- By Sue C on 11-07-12
By: Fran Lebowitz
-
Selected Readings from The Portable Dorothy Parker
- By: Edited by Marion Meade
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to expressing the pleasure and pain of being just a touch too smart to be happy, Dorothy Parker is still the champion. Along with Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, she dominated American popular literature in the 1920s and 1930s. This collection of more than 30 short stories and poems is essential for any Parker fan and an excellent way for new listeners to make the acquaintance of one of the 20th century's most quotable authors.
-
-
Oh, she's good!
- By Benedict on 05-07-07
-
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
-
Themes and Variations
- An Essay
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dismissed by a bored author at a book signing, a betrayed young man named David Sedaris made a vow. Someday, when it was his turn at the table, he’d connect with his readers. The experience has been even more revealing than he’d hoped.In this hilarious and perceptive essay, the celebrated humorist reflects on the unusual patterns of forced socialization between author and audience, and the obligations and sometimes surprising returns of not-so-chance encounters with strangers: jokes, secrets, insights, and even charity.
-
-
It’s true!
- By N. Charest on 04-28-20
By: David Sedaris
Critic reviews
"Wonderfully rich and textured." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"An anthology that makes] you remember why the magazine has long had a reputation for literary excellence." (Chicago Tribune)
"Smart, well-written, and emotionally resonant, while possessing a high entertainment value." (The Plain Dealer (Cleveland))
Related to this topic
-
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
-
Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
-
-
Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
-
-
Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
-
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
-
Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
-
-
Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
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
-
Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
-
-
Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
-
-
Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
-
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
-
Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
-
-
Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
-
Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
-
-
A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
Chanel Bonfire
- By: Wendy Lawless
- Narrated by: Wendy Lawless
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time Wendy Lawless turned 17, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.... Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She went through men like Kleenex, and didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.
-
-
Not an Engaging Listen
- By Sobriquet on 03-13-13
By: Wendy Lawless
-
One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
-
-
Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
-
-
The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
-
The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
-
-
Patchett Has It
- By Pamela Harvey on 06-10-08
By: Ann Patchett
-
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
-
Boy, Snow, Bird
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett, Carra Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.
-
-
For Literary Lovers
- By M. Shipe on 04-25-14
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
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
-
Our Story Begins
- New and Selected Stories
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.
-
-
Great
- By chris on 04-11-08
By: Tobias Wolff
-
The Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
-
-
I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
-
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
-
Wind/Pinball
- Two Novels
- By: Haruki Murakami, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels—Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973—that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age—the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat—are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami’s later books, and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase, of the trilogy of the Rat.
-
-
FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY: Extra Ball at 600,000 points
- By Darwin8u on 08-12-15
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
Koko
- Blue Rose Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
KOKO. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They are Vietnam vets — a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York.
-
-
7 hours in and I am done
- By bionichands on 01-26-12
By: Peter Straub
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Life Stories
- Profiles from The New Yorker
- By: Truman Capote, Ian Frazier, Susan Orlean
- Narrated by: Philip Bosco, Amy Irving, Alton Fitzgerald White
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker magazine has met this challenge more often and more successfully than any other modern American journal. Starting with its light fantastic evocations of the glamorous and the idiosyncratic in the '20s and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Marlon Brando and Richard Pryor, The New Yorker's Profiles have presented readers with a vast and brilliant portrait gallery.
-
-
Exceptional writing makes this a fascinating read
- By Jody R. Nathan on 08-25-04
By: Truman Capote, and others
-
Apropos of Nothing
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.
-
-
Totally Woody
- By Ronald R. Kubiak on 04-19-20
By: Woody Allen
-
A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker
- 1925-2025
- By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, Deborah Treisman - editor
- Length: 23 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is simply no A-Z like the alphabet of fiction writers who have appeared in the pages of The New Yorker in the last hundred years. The book boasts inarguable classics like Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” alongside stunners to be rediscovered. Some stories defined a moment or a now-lost world (Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “The Cafeteria”); others showed us a whole new way fiction could sound and feel (“The Red Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid).
By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, and others
-
The James Thurber Audio Collection
- Fables and Selected Stories by James Thurber
- By: James Thurber
- Narrated by: Keith Olbermann
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"My father was in the hospital and every night when I visited him, I read aloud to him. James Thurber. And one night he said, 'You really should do that on your show,' and I said, 'Dad, it’s a television newscast. I’d love to, but how could it possibly fit?' And he said, 'How often have I ever suggested anything for your shows?' And I remembered that he never had. But I also reminded him that there were things like copyrights and bills, to which he said, 'Try it. You never know.'"
-
-
James Thurber and Keith Olbermann? Wonderful!!!
- By Kristi R. on 11-30-11
By: James Thurber
-
Zero Gravity
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal has been savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with 11 written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration.
-
-
Where’s the rest of the book?
- By Brett Dewing on 12-26-22
By: Woody Allen
-
Essays of E. B. White
- By: E. B. White
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.
-
-
E.B. White writes honestly, fearlessly and clearly
- By Bonny on 09-03-17
By: E. B. White
-
Life Stories
- Profiles from The New Yorker
- By: Truman Capote, Ian Frazier, Susan Orlean
- Narrated by: Philip Bosco, Amy Irving, Alton Fitzgerald White
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker magazine has met this challenge more often and more successfully than any other modern American journal. Starting with its light fantastic evocations of the glamorous and the idiosyncratic in the '20s and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Marlon Brando and Richard Pryor, The New Yorker's Profiles have presented readers with a vast and brilliant portrait gallery.
-
-
Exceptional writing makes this a fascinating read
- By Jody R. Nathan on 08-25-04
By: Truman Capote, and others
-
Apropos of Nothing
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.
-
-
Totally Woody
- By Ronald R. Kubiak on 04-19-20
By: Woody Allen
-
A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker
- 1925-2025
- By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, Deborah Treisman - editor
- Length: 23 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is simply no A-Z like the alphabet of fiction writers who have appeared in the pages of The New Yorker in the last hundred years. The book boasts inarguable classics like Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” alongside stunners to be rediscovered. Some stories defined a moment or a now-lost world (Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “The Cafeteria”); others showed us a whole new way fiction could sound and feel (“The Red Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid).
By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, and others
-
The James Thurber Audio Collection
- Fables and Selected Stories by James Thurber
- By: James Thurber
- Narrated by: Keith Olbermann
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"My father was in the hospital and every night when I visited him, I read aloud to him. James Thurber. And one night he said, 'You really should do that on your show,' and I said, 'Dad, it’s a television newscast. I’d love to, but how could it possibly fit?' And he said, 'How often have I ever suggested anything for your shows?' And I remembered that he never had. But I also reminded him that there were things like copyrights and bills, to which he said, 'Try it. You never know.'"
-
-
James Thurber and Keith Olbermann? Wonderful!!!
- By Kristi R. on 11-30-11
By: James Thurber
-
Zero Gravity
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal has been savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with 11 written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration.
-
-
Where’s the rest of the book?
- By Brett Dewing on 12-26-22
By: Woody Allen
-
Essays of E. B. White
- By: E. B. White
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.
-
-
E.B. White writes honestly, fearlessly and clearly
- By Bonny on 09-03-17
By: E. B. White
What listeners say about Wonderful Town
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Alison
- 09-08-04
Great stories and readers, but technically sloppy
There are some fantastic stories in this selection, and I really love the way they span the decades from the early 1940s to the present day. New York itself is peripheral to some stories but central to others. The stories are often poignant and sometimes funny. The readers are excellent.
One thing that really irked me about the selection, though, is that between stories there is no pause. As soon as the last word of a story is spoken, they are introducing the next one. It happens before I can grab my player and hit pause so that I can savor what I've just heard.
Also, although the book is divided into two parts, there are no electronic stops in between. If you lose your place, it's very hard to scroll through all of that stuff to find where you left off. This is a general criticism of I have of many Audible books, but in this one it's particularly bad because there are so many obivous places that pauses could have been inserted.
Nevertheless, I highly recommend this selection.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
49 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Howard B Goldstein MD
- 12-22-13
Wonderful stories from the NewYorker
Would you listen to Wonderful Town again? Why?
the stories are brilliantly crafted and so well read
What did you like best about this story?
the variety of story types
Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?
not applicable to a group of short stories
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
a range of emotions from joy to deep quiet reflection
Any additional comments?
I would have liked to have even more stories included in this recording
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
- Jane
- 05-22-15
A wonderful assortment
Laugh. Cry. Love. You will be intrigued and uplifted by the collection of brilliant stories contained in this well curated and performed collection. A chocolate box.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C.Z.S.
- 06-18-21
Excellent!
These well crafted stories are a time capsule and a wonderful textured anthology. If you love short fiction, and/or love New York City, this is the book for you. (I listened to it on a long drive and it was a delightful companion on the road.) If you're a reader, you may have already read some of these stories, but they're great to revisit.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- DJ
- 04-20-23
Some Great Stories, but a Bit Uneven
This collection of stories from the New Yorker, covering the period from the 1940s through the 1990s, is a solid read (and an excellent listen), but it's a bit uneven. Some of the stories (such as Dorothy Parker's "Arrangement in Black and White") seem rather dated. Still, the collection introduced me to writers I did not know previously, such as Hortense Calisher and her excellent "In Greenwich, There Are Many Gravelled Walks."
The performances are excellent across the board.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephanie Laffont
- 10-24-23
The Susan Sontag is the best
Glad I read it . I don’t think I would have , we’re it not for this collection.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Dylan W.
- 05-22-05
Only mildly interesting ...
After almost every story, I had the same thought: why was this story even accepted for publication? The stories are, for the most part, about mildly interesting people in in mildly interesting situations. The story about the pregnant woman is a perfect example - woman is a few weeks from giving birth, woman has minor birthing complications in the hospital, baby is born fine, end of story. Nothing particularly gripping, nothing particularly insightful. So it goes, for the most part, with this entire collection.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
11 people found this helpful