Herman Koch has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 100 ratings. The most-rated is The Dinner.
The Dinner
Summary
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse - the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a 15-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love. Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
©2009 Herman Koch; Translation © 2012 by Sam Garrett (P)2013 AudioGO
Summer House with Swimming Pool
Summary
The blistering new novel from Herman Koch, author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Dinner.
When a medical procedure goes horribly wrong and famous actor Ralph Meier winds up dead, Dr. Marc Schlosser needs to come up with some answers. After all, reputation is everything in this business. Personally, he’s not exactly upset that Ralph is gone, but as a high-profile doctor to the stars, Marc can’t hide from the truth forever.
It all started the previous summer. Marc, his wife, and their two beautiful teenage daughters agreed to spend a week at the Meiers’ extravagant summer home on the Mediterranean. Joined by Ralph and his striking wife, Judith, her mother, and film director Stanley Forbes and his much younger girlfriend, the group settles in for days of sunshine, wine tasting, and trips to the beach. But when a violent incident disrupts the idyll, darker motivations are revealed, and suddenly no one can be trusted. As the ultimate holiday soon turns into a nightmare, the circumstances surrounding Ralph’s later death begin to reveal the disturbing reality behind that summer’s tragedy.
Featuring the razor-sharp humor and acute psychological insight that made The Dinner an international phenomenon, Summer House with Swimming Pool is a controversial, thought-provoking novel that showcases Herman Koch at his finest.
©2011 Herman Koch (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Translation © 2014 by Sam Garrett
Dear Mr. M
Summary
The tour-de-force, hair-raising new novel from Herman Koch, New York Times bestselling author of The Dinner and Summer House with Swimming Pool.
Once a celebrated writer, M's greatest success came with a suspense novel based on a real-life, unsolved disappearance. It told the story of a history teacher who went missing one winter after his brief affair with a stunning pupil. Upon publication, M.'s novel was a bestseller, one that marked his international breakthrough.
That was years ago, and now M.'s career is almost over as he fades increasingly into obscurity. But not when it comes to his bizarre, seemingly timid neighbor who keeps a close eye on him. Why?
From various perspectives, Herman Koch tells the dark tale of a writer in decline, a teenage couple in love, a missing teacher, and a single book that entwines all of their fates. Thanks to M's novel, supposedly a work of fiction, everyone seems to be linked forever, until something unexpected spins the "story" off its rails.
With racing tension, sardonic wit, and a world-renowned sharp eye for human failings, Herman Koch once again spares nothing and no one in his gripping new novel, a barbed tour de force suspending listeners in the mysterious literary gray space between fact and fiction.
©2014 Herman Koch. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Originally published in Dutch in the Netherlands as Geachte heer M. by Ambo Anthos, Amsterdam, in 2014. Translation © 2016 Sam Garrett. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Charlie MacPherson for permission to reprint an excerpt from The Black Box by Malcolm MacPherson, © 1998 by Malcolm MacPherson. Used by permission.
![Cover art for La cena [Dinner]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41U76hyhV9L._SL500_.jpg)
La cena [Dinner]
Summary
Ácida y provocadora, apunta sin miramientos a una clase social acomodada de Europa, instalada en una inercia de autosatisfacción y complacencia. ¿Hasta dónde es capaz de llegar un padre para encubrir a un hijo que comete un delito injustificable? ¿Debe prevalecer el instinto de protección paterna, o la lealtad a unas normas sociales que garantizan la coherencia y la fortaleza del grupo? Estas y otras preguntas de igual calibre surgen como dardos durante la lectura de La cena. Dos parejas se han citado a cenar en un moderno y exclusivo restaurante de Ámsterdam. Mientras saborean el aperitivo y charlan con aparente despreocupación sobre la última película de moda y sus planes para las vacaciones, son conscientes de que, tarde o temprano, deberán abordar el incierto y acuciante asunto que los ha llevado a reunirse: el futuro de Michel y Rick, sus hijos de quince años, que según algunos indicios podrían estar envueltos en un caso de violencia grave. Así pues, tras los postres, cuando la cena llegue a sus últimos compases, la tensión entre los comensales habrá alcanzado su punto culminante y la cadena de secretos y revelaciones confluirán en un final dramático en el que nadie podrá esgrimir su inocencia. Tras cosechar un éxito inmediato y arrollador en Holanda -copó las listas de bestsellers, y ya ha vendido más de 340 mil ejemplares-, La cena ganó el Premio del Público y fue declarado Libro del Año 2009. Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2009 Herman Koch (P)2019 Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, S.A.U.