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Stoner

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Stoner

Written by: John Williams
Narrated by: Robin Field
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William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a "proper" family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

John Williams's luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

©1965 John Williams (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Marriage
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What the critics say

“A perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, it takes your breath away." (Morris Dickstein, New York Times Book Review )
“A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man.” ( New Yorker)
“An exquisite study, bleak as Hopper, of a hopelessly honest academic at a meretricious Midwestern university. I had not known…that the kind of unsparing portrait of failed marriage shown in Stoner existed before John Cheever.” ( Los Angeles Times)
All stars
Most Relevant
I heard about this book through a recommendation. I was caught by the author’s use of deep honest truths throughout the novel, and I found that the premise - the life story of an wholly unremarkable man - to be a brilliant backdrop to illuminate this aspect of the author’s writing.

Just a remarkable novel, and a beautiful telling of an otherwise mundane man.

Beautiful story

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So deeply moving . It will take you with him into a ordinary life with all the disappointments....

Amazing book

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The Jeselnik Rosenthal Vanity Project podcast recommended this, suggesting Stoner to be their top recommendation for getting feedback from the listeners. I'm so glad I listened, it's been a ravenous experience, I've listened voraciously every moment I've been able to since I started. It does not disappoint.

JRVP recommended

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Stoner is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. I took the first half of the book for granted, not realizing that I was reading a modern masterpiece. The last few chapters of the book were sad but relatable. The writing is superb. I will definitely read this book again in the future.

Beautifully Written

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what a great book...nothing really happens just life...but it captures you from beginning to end...a true masterpiece....

amazing

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