Howard Jacobson has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 7 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.1★ across 173 ratings. The most-rated is Great Expectations.
Great Expectations
Summary
In this Audible Exclusive performance by Matt Lucas of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens demonstrates that conscience, loyalty and empathy are virtues far more valuable than intellect, wealth and social standing. First published in Dickens’ own periodical, All the Year Round, the novel was divided into nine monthly instalments, from December 1860 to August 1861. Unsurprisingly, it was an instant success and managed to sell over 100,000 copies per week. Though written at a challenging time in Dickens’ life, when the impending breakdown of his marriage loomed over him, Great Expectations proves to be one of his most optimistic, comical and romantic novels. This exclusive recording of Great Expectations starts with a unique introduction written and narrated by Howard Jacobson, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Finkler Question, in which he explains why Great Expectations is his favourite Dickens title. About the book Through a rich first-person narrative, listeners are introduced to the character of young Pip as he visits the tombstones of his beloved parents. Unexpectedly confronted by the dark and mysterious Magwitch, a convict in desperate need of food, Pip must decide whether to aid or impede the stranger standing in front of him - a decision which will shape the course of his life. Introducing some of the most iconic, Gothic and comically repulsive literary characters of all time, from the vengeful Miss Havisham, torn apart by a man she once loved, to her beautiful yet seemingly impenetrable ward, Estella, the listener is propelled through a wonderfully Dickensian world. About the author Much like Pip, Charles Dickens was born into poverty. In his case, it was due to the incarceration of his father, and Dickens was forced to set aside his education in order to work at a nearby factory. Amazingly, this did not deter the young Dickens from rising above his station, and he went on to publish 15 novels, various articles, five novellas and hundreds of short stories. He lectured and campaigned for fair treatment of the lower classes as well as for children’s rights and education. About the narrator British comedian, actor and screenwriter Matt Lucas is best known for the television show Little Britain as well as playing both Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee in Alice in Wonderland and his role as Nardole in the 10th series of Doctor Who. Able to embody so many characters with just his voice, Lucas is a perfect fit for Great Expectations.
Public Domain (P)2018 Audible, Ltd
Whole
Summary
What happens when you eat an apple? The answer is vastly more complex than you imagine. Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants whose names, beyond a few like vitamin C, are unfamiliar to us, and each of these powerful chemicals has the potential to play an important role in supporting our health. They impact thousands upon thousands of metabolic reactions inside the human body. But calculating the specific influence of each of these chemicals isn’t nearly sufficient to explain the effect of the apple as a whole. Because almost every chemical can affect every other chemical, there is an almost infinite number of possible biological consequences - and that’s just from an apple. Nutritional science, long stuck in a reductionist mindset, is at the cusp of a revolution. The traditional gold standard of nutrition research has been to study one chemical at a time in an attempt to determine its particular impact on the human body. These sorts of studies are helpful to food companies trying to prove there is a chemical in milk or prepackaged dinners that is "good" for us, but they provide little insight into the complexity of what actually happens in our bodies or how those chemicals contribute to our health. In The China Study, T. Colin Campbell revolutionized the way we think about our food with the evidence that a whole food, plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat. Now, in Whole, he explains the science behind that evidence, the ways our current scientific paradigm ignores the fascinating complexity of the human body, and why, if we have such overwhelming evidence that everything we think we know about nutrition is wrong, our eating habits haven’t changed. Whole is an eye-opening, paradigm-changing journey through cutting-edge thinking on nutrition, a scientific tour de force with powerful implications for our health and for our world.
©2013 T. Colin Campbell (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Experience and Education
Summary
Experience and Education is the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education (Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received. Analyzing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.
©1938 Kappa Delta Pi (P)2013 Redwood Audiobooks
Finkler Question
Summary
Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2010 The Finkler Question is a scorching story of friendship and loss and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best. Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now all three are recently widowed, in their own way, and spend sweetly painful evenings together reminiscing. Until an unexpected violent attack brings everything they thought they knew into question.
©2010 Howard Jacobson (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC
The Swag Man
Summary
A hilarious and moving true story by Man Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson about the greatest "swag man" in the history of Manchester. A charming, brazen salesman of genius, Frankie Cohen rises from selling cheap gewgaws, known as swag, for Jacobson's father in the rough market streets of the Northern English city, to buying and selling some of the world's greatest artworks. Jacobson's tale of a poor Jewish kid who becomes a friend of Dukes and Duchesses is the story of a man who succeeds not by changing his accent or clothes, but by being himself regardless of where he is or who he is with - which Jacobson comes to understand is how a truly sophisticated man behaves. An unusually poignant memoir of Jewish life in Manchester, The Swag Man is also a funny, fantastical meditation on how we define ourselves, how our roots do and don't define us, and the pleasures and perils of assimilation in a modern multi-ethnic society.
©2014 Howard Jacobson (P)2014 Audible Studios
Kalooki Nights
Summary
Two young friend, Max Glickman and Manny Washinski, get together in an abandoned air-raid shelter and create a comic-book history of Jewish suffering. Years later, Manny is in jail for a horrible crime and Max is a comic book artist. After Manny's release from prison decades later, the two meet again when Max is hired by a production company to write a film treatment based on Manny's life.
©2007 Howard Jacobson (P)2007 Recorded Books
The Dog's Last Walk (and Other Pieces)
Summary
Hilarious, heart-breaking, provocative and affecting, Howard Jacobson's irresistible journalism reveals the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist in all his humanity. From the tiniest absurdities to the most universal joys and desolations, Jacobson writes with a thunder, passion and wit unmatched. Just as did his previous volume, Whatever It Is I Don't Like It, this glorious collection will delight, entertain, challenge and move.
©2017 Howard Jacobson (P)2017 W.F. Howes Ltd