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The Winter of Our Discontent cover art

The Winter of Our Discontent

Written by: John Steinbeck
Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
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Publisher's Summary

The final novel of one of America’s most beloved writers - a tale of degeneration, corruption, and spiritual crisis.

A Penguin Classic In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American". Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of Steinbeck’s last novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With Ethan no longer a member of Long Island’s aristocratic class, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards. Set in Steinbeck’s contemporary 1960 America, the novel explores the tenuous line between private and public honesty, and today ranks alongside his most acclaimed works of penetrating insight into the American condition. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction and notes by leading Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw.

For more than 70 years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.

©1961, 1989 John Steinbeck (P)2012 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about The Winter of Our Discontent

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Great story...albeit a bit depressing.

The story really captures you and exposes the reader to the sad realities of life and human nature.

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Sometimes hard to follow

I listened it because for some reason it was one of favorites of my mother. Not an easy book and it takes hours before important events of the story even start. Sometimes it was difficult to understand who was speaking.

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On par with animal farm by Orwell

A political fiction masterpiece that stabs at the flaws of capitalism. A read for reflection not a read for pleasure. Amazing performance, I felt that the narrator of the story was reading the book.

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To me, this is a masterpiece

I first read this book when I was around 14 years old, and it introduced me to the world of Steinbeck. Since then I have always felt a sense of being truly at home when I open his books and begin to read.
This book moved me the first time I read it, and it does so every time I read it. It is a poignant and sad story about the inner conflict of a good man as he begins to unravel the strings of his own morality and begins to consider the truth of his position in life, his relationships with those who love him, and the unsettled emotions that begin to arise as he begins to consider the roots of his discontentedness.
This story has a way of burrowing deep inside you, and with each reading it will not fail to touch another raw nerve and show a different side of itself to a different side of yourself.

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