Get a free audiobook
Lincoln in the Bardo
People who bought this also bought...
-
Washington Black
- Written by: Esi Edugyan
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When two English brothers arrive at a Barbados sugar plantation, they bring with them a darkness beyond what the slaves have already known. Washington Black - an 11-year-old field slave - is horrified to find himself chosen to live in the quarters of one of these men. But the man is not as Washington expects him to be. His new master is the eccentric Christopher Wilde - naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist - whose obsession to perfect a winged flying machine disturbs all who know him.
-
-
Awesome!
- By Louise White on 2018-11-13
-
Warlight
- Written by: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we hear the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends.
-
-
First Audible book.
- By Elizabeth on 2019-01-06
-
Calypso
- Written by: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
-
-
Sedaris at his best: older, warmer, more personal
- By Jennifer Tzivia MacLeod, author of the Seven Day Manuscript Machine and Writing the Bible for Kids on 2018-05-30
-
Becoming
- Written by: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.
-
-
I tried so hard to love this book...but couldn't..
- By Makizzo on 2019-01-28
-
Milkman
- Written by: Anna Burns
- Narrated by: Bríd Brennan
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes "interesting" - the last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed, and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is a story of inaction with enormous consequences.
-
Tenth of December
- Stories
- Written by: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, "Victory Lap", a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In "Home", a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned.
-
-
Good in pieces
- By BigAl on 2018-11-16
-
Washington Black
- Written by: Esi Edugyan
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When two English brothers arrive at a Barbados sugar plantation, they bring with them a darkness beyond what the slaves have already known. Washington Black - an 11-year-old field slave - is horrified to find himself chosen to live in the quarters of one of these men. But the man is not as Washington expects him to be. His new master is the eccentric Christopher Wilde - naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist - whose obsession to perfect a winged flying machine disturbs all who know him.
-
-
Awesome!
- By Louise White on 2018-11-13
-
Warlight
- Written by: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we hear the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends.
-
-
First Audible book.
- By Elizabeth on 2019-01-06
-
Calypso
- Written by: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
-
-
Sedaris at his best: older, warmer, more personal
- By Jennifer Tzivia MacLeod, author of the Seven Day Manuscript Machine and Writing the Bible for Kids on 2018-05-30
-
Becoming
- Written by: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.
-
-
I tried so hard to love this book...but couldn't..
- By Makizzo on 2019-01-28
-
Milkman
- Written by: Anna Burns
- Narrated by: Bríd Brennan
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes "interesting" - the last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed, and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is a story of inaction with enormous consequences.
-
Tenth of December
- Stories
- Written by: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, "Victory Lap", a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In "Home", a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned.
-
-
Good in pieces
- By BigAl on 2018-11-16
-
Educated
- A Memoir
- Written by: Tara Westover
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge.
-
-
A Memoir
- By Vicki Anderson on 2018-09-14
-
A Ladder to the Sky
- A Novel
- Written by: John Boyne
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent - but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war.
-
-
Worth Waiting For
- By Anonymous on 2019-01-04
-
The Summer I Met Jack
- A Novel
- Written by: Michelle Gable
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1950, a young, beautiful Polish refugee arrives in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, to work as a maid for one of the wealthiest families in America. Alicia is at once dazzled by the large and charismatic family, in particular the oldest son, a rising politician named Jack. Alicia and Jack are soon engaged, but his domineering father forbids the marriage.
-
Women Talking
- Written by: Miriam Toews
- Narrated by: Matthew Edison
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sun rises on a quiet June morning in 2009. August Epp sits alone in the hayloft of a barn, anxiously bent over his notebook. He writes quickly, aware that his solitude will soon be broken. Eight women - ordinary grandmothers, mothers, and teenagers; yet to August, each one extraordinary - will climb the ladder into the loft, and the day's true task will begin. This task will be both simple and subversive: August, like the women, is a traditional Mennonite, and he has been asked to record a secret conversation. They have 48 hours to make a life-altering choice on behalf of all the women and children in the colony.
-
-
Man reads "Women Talking"??!! - worst decision!
- By renee hope on 2018-10-22
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- Written by: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Juliet Armstrong is a dissatisfied radio producer in a 1950s London that is recovering from the war as much as she is. During World War Two, Juliet was conscripted into service, transcribing conversations between an MI5 agent and a ring of suspected German sympathizers. The seemingly dull work quickly plunged Juliet into a treacherous world of code words and secret meetings where Juliet herself was sent into the field. These moments of intrigue and romance feel like a lifetime ago. But as Juliet and the rest of London find ways to return to normal, her routine is upended by an encounter with a mysterious man from her past life.
-
-
Excellent
- By Anonymous User on 2018-10-17
-
Manhattan Beach
- A Novel
- Written by: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Norbert Leo Butz, Heather Lind, Vincent Piazza
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anna Kerrigan, nearly 12 years old, accompanies her father to the house of a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. Anna observes the uniformed servants, the lavishing of toys on the children, and some secret pact between her father and Dexter Styles. Years later her father has disappeared, and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men.
-
-
Totally Bored by this Book
- By Melanie O on 2018-04-30
-
Sing, Unburied, Sing
- A Novel
- Written by: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chris Chalk, Rutina Wesley
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural 21st-century America. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi's past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power - and limitations - of family bonds.
-
-
Too much
- By Kathy from Regina, SK on 2018-07-05
-
French Exit
- Written by: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit.
-
-
Not worth it
- By Audra Mitchell on 2018-10-26
-
A God in Ruins
- Written by: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. Her new novel tells the story of Ursula Todd's beloved younger brother, Teddy - would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband, and father - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is facing the difficulties of living in a future he never expected to have.
-
Less
- Written by: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: Your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all.
-
-
Fun and smart
- By Anonymous User on 2018-11-21
-
In a Free State
- Written by: V. S. Naipaul
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Neil Shah, Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a road trip through Africa, two English people - Bobby, a civil servant with a guilty appetite for African boys; and Linda, a supercilious "compound wife" - are driving back to their enclave after a stay in the capital. But in between lies the landscape of an unnamed country whose squalor and ethnic bloodletting suggest Idi Amin's Uganda. And the farther Naipaul's protagonists travel into it, the more they find themselves crossing the line that separates privileged outsiders from horrified victims.
-
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
- A Novel
- Written by: Gail Honeyman
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.
-
-
I think we all know an Eleanor Oliphant
- By Anonymous User on 2018-01-13
Audible Editor Reviews
Editors Select, February 2017 - Lincoln in the Bardo is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever listened to - and make no mistake, this one is meant to be listened to. One hundred and sixty-six individual narrators (led by Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, and the author George Saunders) came together to voice this wildly surreal audiobook. And while that might sound like a production stunt, the breadth of voices was necessary to create the immersive cacophony effect (almost a Greek chorus of Americana) - because Saunders' first full-length novel, a hugely ambitious work that delivers the most humbling and accurate portrait of grief I've ever encountered, is entirely voiced by ghosts. The listener finds himself in the Georgetown Cemetery, where young Willie Lincoln has been laid to rest and his grieving father (the president) keeps returning in a state of stumbling and stricken shambles, to the shocked confusion of the self-unaware dead. Perhaps most interestingly, the real events of the time (those things happening outside of the graveyard) are depicted entirely through historical snippets and citations so that the listener comes eventually to realize that these are also merely the impressions of the dead, even if not fictional. Emily, Audible Editor
Publisher's Summary
Winner, 2018 APA Audie Awards - Audiobook of the Year
Winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize
The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented.
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, is gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.
Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
The 166-person full cast includes, in order of their appearance:
Nick Offerman as HANS VOLLMAN
David Sedaris as ROGER BEVINS III
Carrie Brownstein as ISABELLE PERKINS
George Saunders as THE REVEREND EVERLY THOMAS
Miranda July as MRS. ELIZABETH CRAWFORD
Lena Dunham as ELISE TRAYNOR
Ben Stiller as JACK MANDERS
Julianne Moore as JANE ELLIS
Susan Sarandon as MRS. ABIGAIL BLASS
Bradley Whitford as LT. CECIL STONE
Bill Hader as EDDIE BARON
Megan Mullally as BETSY BARON
Rainn Wilson as PERCIVAL “DASH” COLLIER
Jeff Tweedy as CAPTAIN WILLIAM PRINCE
Kat Dennings as MISS TAMARA DOOLITTLE
Jeffrey Tambor as PROFESSOR EDMUND BLOOMER
Mike O’Brien as LAWRENCE T. DECROIX
Keegan-Michael Key as ELSON FARWELL
Don Cheadle as THOMAS HAVENS
and Patrick Wilson as STANLEY “PERFESSER” LIPPERT
with Kirby Heyborne as WILLIE LINCOLN,
Mary Karr as MRS. ROSE MILLAND,
and Cassandra Campbell as Your Narrator
More from the same
What members say
Average Customer Ratings
Overall
-
-
5 Stars40
-
4 Stars14
-
3 Stars5
-
2 Stars3
-
1 Stars5
Performance
-
-
5 Stars51
-
4 Stars7
-
3 Stars2
-
2 Stars1
-
1 Stars2
Story
-
-
5 Stars36
-
4 Stars11
-
3 Stars7
-
2 Stars5
-
1 Stars3
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeff
- 2018-02-14
A strange tale from purgatory
This is an unusual story that is focused on souls in the afterlife. It can be charming, crude or shocking - sometimes all at once. The author does examine and explore the idea of loss - both for the living and the dead - in great detail and in some interesting and surprising ways. If you enjoy reading/listening to books that are off the beaten path, then I recommend this book. At first I wasn't sure, but I really enjoyed this book by the end and will probably listen to it again.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- alex
- 2017-10-22
fustrating
could not get past the format, the multitude of quotations, with the verbal source references took away from the story - which i never got to. I could only stick with 1/2 hour before i wrote it off. might be good later but not going to get there.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Aisha
- 2019-02-19
Loved it!
It was hard to get into. I didn’t understand what was happening with the quotes, so read a bit of the book in print. I came back to the audiobook once I got the format and LOVED it! Listened to it twice in a row! Beautiful, touching,funny, engaging! Masterful performances!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Evin
- 2019-02-14
Meh
couldn't finish it, wasn't my style. might be better in physical form but not easy to follow
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JohnS
- 2018-11-28
Fantastical
No question about this G. Saunders creative outing, but a bit of a grunt to listen to... not because of the narrators, they were all excellent. The story simply was tortuous in places and the citations, although appropriate were distracting. I will read it and see if I feel better about the whole thing. My recommendation is: go ahead and give it a try. You may enjoy it a lot.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2018-07-12
Outstanding
Exceptional and full of heart. This story was not at all what I expected, in the very best way.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- BigAl
- 2018-05-28
Fantastic book
Very original and interesting book. Definitely a tearjerker in some parts. A meditation on the purpose of life and a creative interpretation of a possible afterlife. You also learn a bit about the Lincolns and the civil war.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Thomas More
- 2017-02-24
A Mixed Bag
I found the audiobook to be frustrating, to say the least. I love Saunders' work and know that the printed version of this novel is likely much better than this audiobook version indicates. As is, there are some good narrators (Nick Offerman), some decent ones (David Sedaris), and some utterly terrible ones, who feel like they are reading their lines with a gun to their heads. I think the stilted language of the 1860s was too much an impediment to some of these voices. Another problem is that the actors were not recording a shared experience - in other words, they were not together at the time and were not able to fully feed off each other's lines and work as a true ensemble. Few actors enjoy working under those conditions. The story rambles and ambles about, speakers are interrupted, and there is no cohesive emotional center sustained throughout. I felt at times that I was in the audience of a bad high school play. That said, there are some beautiful moments and funny moments, too. Too bad they're buried amidst the mess.
124 of 133 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Betty Vance
- 2017-10-02
George Saunders answer to Dante's Inferno
I've not listened to many books but it's hard to imagine one that could be more entertaining than Lincoln. The actors speaking for the characters make the story seem more like a play. A truly wonderful play.
The images that are conjured up by George Saunders are so vivid ,heartbreaking , and comical at the same time. This book found me when I was beginning my journey of grief over the sudden loss of my 35 year old disabled daughter. The scene in the beginning where the spirit of Willy is standing with his father with his arm around his him comforting him gave me comfort and made me feel that my daughter was sitting close to me with her arm around me.
It also gave me a glimmer of hope that if President Lincoln could endure this terrible loss and go on eventually with his life maybe so could I. It's been 6 months now and I've listened to the book gradually during these months and just finished it tonight. This book has been one of the most important pieces of my healing. My deepest thanks to George Saunders for this precious gift.
Betty Reardon Vance
122 of 132 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joe Faraci
- 2018-01-18
Difficult
There are just too many characters voiced by too many people and burdened by too many footnotes to follow. I found my attention wandering.
47 of 51 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Saman
- Houston, TX, United States
- 2018-01-11
Disappointment!
I wanted so much more from this book than I received. If I had known what “Bardo” meant prior to picking this up at Audible, I may have enjoyed the listen better. On many reviews of the book on-line, people state that it is not for all tastes. I can agree that it was not for me.
Centered around a cemetery, spirits, and Lincoln mourning the loss of his young son, the story is filled with what was and what could be. In between the spaces, multitude of period quotes are intertwined with the story to interject relevance, experience and fact. Characters, and there are many of them, narrate their own lives and how and why they seem to be trapped in this limbo state. Many fear the next state – moving on. All this can get quite confusing.
The production of this book is awful. There are long gaps of silence between some of the chapters that makes you think the audio has stopped working. It is almost impossible to know when a quote is delivered versus the actual narrative of a character. And there are so many readers. Its absurdly confusing.
How this won the Booker is a mystery to me.
31 of 34 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sharey
- 2017-09-04
Creative
I enjoyed the creativity of this book. I did not enjoy the constant interruptions citing references.
14 of 15 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mel
- 2017-02-17
"Where might God stand?"
I'll preface my review with some information that might be helpful to those struggling with the presentation of this little novel: Much has, and will be written about the style Saunders has chosen for this magnificent and ground breaking novel. In 1959, ( Mr. Sanders was 1 yr. old) neuroscientist/psychologist Bela Julesz had the idea that depth perception happened in the brain, and not in the eye itself and decided to test people’s ability to see in 3D. Thus was born the bane of the ocularly-challenged, the autostereogram: "a single-image stereogram, designed to create the visual illusion of a three-dimensional (3D) scene from a two-dimensional image"...consequently released to the public in the '90's as Magic Eye Pictures. You remember...you stared, crossed your eyes, fretted -- and then POP! The mysterious picture revealed itself hovering above a flat kaleidoscope of colors.
And so;
Earbuds secured, listening to the multi-cast presentation of this book, I thought of those pictures; waiting for the image to pop, ready to throw in the towel at the babble of voices and interjected references that flooded into my head. My mind felt 2 steps behind my ears...and then abruptly, the glorious pop and flow of clarity. Another dimension whirled around me and swept me into a story with dimensions I've never known before. Yes, it is a little reminiscent of the Greek chorus; a bit similar in effect to Scrooge standing with a spirit from another time, immersed in the gossamer voices and images while his head was still in the present. Point is...this series of incorporeal monologues works, be patient (no crossing your eyes needed). Even current-day biographer Doris Kearns Goodwins is represented, her book quoted by a graveyard spirit.
Where is The Bardo? You might ask. The bardo is a Tibetan term that refers to an in between state, a transitional state, and in the case of Lincoln at the Bardo, the state between life and death for Willie, the state of decision for a president to press on with a horrible civil war or choose to end that war whose body count in the first year was already into the thousands. Saunders, one of America's most acclaimed and intelligent writers, and a student of Buddhist philosophy, ponders: "What state of mind would a man be in at 12:45 a.m., on a cold February night, five minutes after he's seen and held his dead son's body?" [G. Saunders for TIME,Feb 16, 2017]
Willie, 11 yrs. old, has died of Typhoid fever. Lincoln's second child to pass away. At the foot of the "huge carved rosewood bed," [the *Lincoln Bed"] Elizabeth Keckly, a former slave who washed and dressed the little body, observed the gray-face President, "his tall frame convulsed with emotion. I shall never forget those solemn moments -- genius and greatness weeping over love's idol lost." The body was moved to the family vault of the clerk of the Supreme Court, William and wife Sallie Carroll. Alone, late at night after the funeral, the father lifts the coffin lid and puts his arms around the body of his dead son. Around him the Voices in utter surprise at this contact begin calling out to each other their monologues. The reader observes the scene, the voices coming in as if from a gauzy curtain in front of the tomb. Saunders' chorus of ghostly voices begin their requiem for Willie, and for Lincoln. *This is where the confusion, or frustration for some listeners, becomes a manner of sticking with it until the Magic Eyes picture appears and the voices flow in a smooth synchronicity with the story.
A word about the Voices. Saunders explained the process of producing the effect of the chorus in an interview with TIME. He and the Penguin Random House team auditioned and cast 166 actors for the parts needed to voice Lincoln at the Bardo for the audio version. BRAVO! to each and every one of them for their performance and unison of spirit. Each voice in this chorus is rich in character, the words chosen, the voice inflections, the way they embellish, their distractions and emotions all sketching in their character when they were alive. It's wonderful fun; it's heartbreaking. There's the lechers, the snobs, the criminals, the homosexual, and references to those who still cannot speak of the horrors that drove them to death, all caught in their own dialogues that keep them from passing into an afterlife. They recant the actual daily headlines and hearsay. Though sourced, the facts often contradict each other..."it was a clear sunny day"..."there was a violent storm"...""the president shook with agony..."was profoundly moved by his death, though he gave no outward sign of his trouble". In one passage that struck me, the spirits move through the body of Lincoln to pull him back to the Georgetown cemetery. An African American specter says that he [Lincoln] passed through her and she "was glad, his burden to hard to share" if she lingered there. The audio version is a rare gift to readers, a fuller experience than only reading the text. Even though, I immediately purchased the text. This story is at the same time agonizing, humorous, and beautifully wise.
Saunders is a joy to read; a writer's writer that can call out the harshest conflict with such compassion that he seems to be testifying this love for all of humanity like a loving and wise teacher. He fits into my consciousness like a crystalline tool, harmonizing my thoughts and my feelings with his perfect words. I must be a sight to see when I'm listening...my head shakes and nods, I smile, I wince, and sometimes I feel a tear, cold from it's travel down my cheek, drip onto my shoulder. His sophisticated prose unflinchingly captures the voice of our culture often soaring close to poetry. Lincoln at the Bardo has become my favorite book, right now at least, for the breadth of feelings it invoked in me. It is immersive and thoughtful..."pushing our aversions into the light" with grace and compassion for our human frailties. There are some that this won't appeal to, but for those that are considering this one...don't waste another second. This is epic.
These words and their message feel like they came from the heart of the man that wrote "Four score and seven years ago...." This kind of writing is why I read.
"His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact…We must try to see one another in this way…As suffering, limited beings…Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces…And yet…Our grief must be defeated; it must not become our master, and make us ineffective…We must, to do the maximum good, bring the thing to its swiftest halt and…Kill more efficiently…Must end suffering by causing more suffering…His heart dropped at the thought of the killing…"
278 of 322 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adele
- Evanston, IL USA
- 2017-09-19
A first-rate radio drama, not a mere audiobook
Would you consider the audio edition of Lincoln in the Bardo to be better than the print version?
Yes! Not that I've seen the print version, but the different voices for each character are a huge enhancement to a book with so many characters. Some chapters are composed of excerpts from historical sources, often from firsthand accounts, and these were also enhanced by being read in different voices.
What did you like best about this story?
The connection between Lincoln's personal grief and his empathy for the grief being faced by the nation, culminating in the epiphany that despite seeing this grief it was his duty to continue on with whatever brutality was required to win the war. His struggle, in turn, connects with that of the other characters, who are ghosts living in a form of purgatory, unable to move past life's disappointments into the "next place"; they are all helped along both by the president and his son.
What about the narrators’s performance did you like?
Really, this is more a first-rate radio drama than an audiobook. The actors make each character unique and relatable.
Who was the most memorable character of Lincoln in the Bardo and why?
I wouldn't want to pick one. The lead "ghosts" portrayed by Nick Offerman and David Sedaris were excellent. Probably the central portrait was of Lincoln himself, which we saw from many different perspectives including his own, his son's, and the ghosts (most of whom don't know at first that he is president.)
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maura Smith
- 2018-01-10
Could not listen to it
Would you try another book from George Saunders and/or the narrators?
Probably not.
Has Lincoln in the Bardo turned you off from other books in this genre?
I don't think this book even belongs to a genre. Too avant garde.
What aspect of the narrators’s performance would you have changed?
The narration of multiple voices was the least of the problems.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Confusion.
Any additional comments?
This book was too bizarre and hard to follow. I gave it two hours and deleted it.
30 of 35 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Y. Mim
- 2017-02-20
Ibits and Op Cits do not a story make.
Feels as though more than half of the story is made of quotes followed by endless citations. Many of these quotes are a sentence long, the citation longer than the quote. The cumulative effect is deadening, pun intended. What is the intent of this repetitious soporific except a plea to admire the author's research?
Even a lugubrious tale needs an interjection of humor; the contrast heightens the dolor. (Cf., Dante) None is to be found here unless your comic sense delights in woeful descriptions of flatulence and giant penises. Mine doesn't.
Slogging through this story suggests a better title: Readers in the Bardo.
85 of 101 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alison
- 2017-07-03
Odd, beautiful, and deeply humane
Where does Lincoln in the Bardo rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
One of the best I've heard. Story and performance are both superb.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Lincoln in the Bardo?
Each of the characters is so utterly distinct and consistent. I particularly loved Mr. Bevins' excursuses on the beauty of the quotidian world.
Which scene was your favorite?
Perhaps the airing of the grievances towards the end - each person's particular pain was so precisely described.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
More than I can count.
Any additional comments?
This book definitely won't be for everyone, and it takes a bit of patience to get oriented to the style and the story, but the writing is alternately perfectly vulgar and achingly poetic, the story moves effortlessly between glory and hilarity and grief, and Saunders seems to love each of his characters - and humanity - with the same kind of anguished adoration that motivated much of Vonnegut's work.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful