Jane Smiley has 11 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 7 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 7 ratings. The most-rated is A Thousand Acres.
A Thousand Acres
Summary
Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Jane Smiley's spellbinding novel also headed best-seller lists for many months. A Thousand Acres is the powerful, mythic story of an American farm family and the land that nourishes and consumes its members. Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach. The Cook family, and the farm community around them, are part of a mosaic that is as enduring as the fences and fields of the broad midwestern landscape. But this endurance exacts an immense price from them in return. You will find that this nationally-acclaimed, breathtaking story, in a stirring narration by C. J. Critt, is an unforgettable listening experience.
©1991 Jane Smiley (P)1996 Recorded Books
The Greenlanders
Summary
Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders is an enthralling novel in the epic tradition of the old Norse sagas. Set in the 14th century in Europe's most farflung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, blasting winds, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark mountains, The Greenlanders is the story of one family - proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable audiobook. Jane Smiley takes us into this world of farmers, priests, and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and long-standing feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real but dear to us.
©1988 Jane Smiley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Georges and the Jewels
Summary
A Pulitzer Prize winner makes her debut for young listeners. Abby Lovitt has been riding horses for as long as she can remember, but Daddy hasn't let her name a single one. He calls all their geldings George and their mares Jewel and warns her not to get attached. The horses are there on the ranch to be sold, plain and simple. But with all the stress at school (the Big Four - Linda, Mary A., Mary N., Joan - have turned against her) and home (nothing feels right with her brother, Danny, gone), Abby can't help but seek comfort in the Georges and the Jewels, who greet her every day with soft nickers. Except for one: the horse who won't meet her gaze, the horse who bucks her off, the horse Daddy insists she ride and train. Abby knows not to cross her father, but she knows, too, that she can't get back on Ornery George. And suddenly the horses seem like no refuge at all. From Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley comes an emotionally charged and action-filled novel for young listeners, set in the vibrant landscape of 1960s California horse country.
©2009 Jane Smiley (P)2014 Recorded Books
Early Warning
Summary
The second novel in the dazzling Last Hundred Years trilogy, from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It's 1953. When a funeral brings the Langdon family together once more, they little realize how much, over the coming years, each of their worlds will shift and change. For now Walter and Rosanna's sons and daughters are grown up and have children of their own. Frank, the eldest - restless, unhappy - ignores his troubled wife and instead finds himself distracted by a face from the past. Lillian must watch as her brilliant, eccentric husband, Arthur, is destroyed by the guilt arising from his secretive government work. Claire, too, finds that marriage is not quite what she expected it to be. In Iowa, where the Langdons began, Joe sees that some aspects of life on the farm never change while others are unrecognizable. And though a few members of the family remain mired in the past, others will attempt to move beyond the lives they have always known, and some will push forward as never before. The dark shadow of the Vietnam War hangs over every one.... In sickness and health, through their best and darkest times, the Langdon family will live and love and suffer against the broad, merciless sweep of American history. Moving from the 1950s to the 1980s, Early Warning is epic storytelling at its most wise and compelling from a writer at the height of her powers.
©2015 Jane Smiley (P)2015 Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
Early Warning
Summary
From the best-selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize: a riveting, emotionally engaging journey through mid-century America, as lived by a remarkable family with roots in the heartland of Iowa. Early Warning opens in 1953 with the Langdon family at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch Walter, who with his wife Rosanna, sustained their farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children, now adults, looking to the future. Only one will remain in Iowa to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, D.C., California, and everywhere in between. As the country moves out of post-World War II optimism through the darker landscape of the Cold War and the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and '70s, and then into the unprecedented wealth - for some - of the early 1980s, the Langdon children each follow a different path in a rapidly changing world. And they now have children of their own: twin boys who are best friends and vicious rivals; a girl whose rebellious spirit takes her to the notorious Peoples Temple in San Francisco; and a golden boy who drops out of college to fight in Vietnam - leaving behind a secret legacy that will send shock waves through the Langdon family into the next generation. Capturing a transformative period through richly drawn characters we come to know and care deeply for, Early Warning continues Smiley's extraordinary epic trilogy, a gorgeously told saga that began with Some Luck and will span a century in America. But it also stands entirely on its own as an engrossing story of the challenges - and rewards - of family and home, even in the most turbulent of times, all while showcasing a beloved writer at the height of her considerable powers. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2015 Jane Smiley (P)2015 Random House Audio
Golden Age
Summary
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: the much-anticipated final volume, following Some Luck and Early Warning, of her acclaimed American trilogy - a richly absorbing new novel that brings the remarkable Langdon family into our present times and beyond. A lot can happen in 100 years, as Jane Smiley shows to dazzling effect in her Last Hundred Years trilogy. But as Golden Age, its final installment, opens in 1987, the next generation of Langdons face economic, social, political - and personal - challenges unlike anything their ancestors encountered before. Michael and Richie, the rivalrous twin sons of World War II hero Frank, work in the high-stakes world of government and finance in Washington and New York, but they soon realize that one's fiercest enemies can be closest to home; Charlie, the charming, recently found scion, struggles with whether he wishes to make a mark on the world; and Guthrie, once poised to take over the Langdons' Iowa farm, is instead deployed to Iraq, leaving the land - ever the heart of this compelling saga - in the capable hands of his younger sister. Determined to evade disaster for the planet and her family, Felicity worries that the farm's once-bountiful soil may be permanently imperiled by more than the extremes of climate change. And as they enter deeper into the 21st century, all the Langdon women - wives, mothers, daughters - find themselves charged with carrying their storied past into an uncertain future. Combining intimate drama, emotional suspense, and a full command of history, Golden Age brings to a magnificent conclusion the century-spanning portrait of this unforgettable family - and the dynamic times in which they've loved, lived, and died: a crowning literary achievement from a beloved master of American storytelling. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2015 Jane Smiley (P)2015 Random House Audio
Some Luck
Summary
Longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize: a powerful, engrossing new novel - the life and times of a remarkable family over three transformative decades in America. On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different children: from Frank, the handsome, willful first born, and Joe, whose love of animals and the land sustains him, to Claire, who earns a special place in her father’s heart. Each chapter in Some Luck covers a single year, beginning in 1920, as American soldiers like Walter return home from World War I, and going up through the early 1950s, with the country on the cusp of enormous social and economic change. As the Langdons branch out from Iowa to both coasts of America, the personal and the historical merge seamlessly: One moment electricity is just beginning to power the farm, and the next a son is volunteering to fight the Nazis; later still, a girl you’d seen growing up now has a little girl of her own, and you discover that your laughter and your admiration for all these lives are mixing with tears. Some Luck delivers on everything we look for in a work of fiction. Taking us through cycles of births and deaths, passions and betrayals, among characters we come to know inside and out, it is a tour de force that stands wholly on its own. But it is also the first part of a dazzling epic trilogy - a literary adventure that will span a century in America: an astonishing feat of storytelling by a beloved writer at the height of her powers. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2014 Jane Smiley (P)2014 Random House Audio
Golden Age
Summary
The third novel in the dazzling Last Hundred Years trilogy from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It's 1987. A visit from a long-lost relative brings the Langdons together again on the family farm - a place almost unrecognisable from the remote Iowan farmland Walter and Rosanna once owned. Whilst a few have stayed, most have spread wide across the US, but all are facing social, economic and political challenges unlike anything their ancestors encountered. Richie Langdon, finally out from under his twin brother's shadow, finds himself running for Congress almost unintentionally and completely underprepared for the world-changing decisions he will have to make. Charlie, the charmer, recently found, struggles to find his way. Jesse's son, Guthrie, set to take over the family farm, is deployed to Iraq, leaving it in the hands of his younger sister, Felicity, who must defend the land from more than just the extremes of climate change. Moving through the 1990s to our own moment and beyond, this last instalment sees the final repercussions of time on the Langdon family. After a hundred years of personal change and US history, filled with words unsaid and moments lost, Golden Age brings to a magnificent conclusion the century-long portrait of one unforgettable family.
©2015 Jane Smiley (P)2015 Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The Hillside
Summary
After bringing Earth to ruin, the age of humans is over. It is a blessing for some in this tender and tragic cautionary fable from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres. Now the Congress of Animals is in control, unforgiving, and debating the fate of the planet’s most reviled species. The popular ruling: exterminate humankind without exception. But a curious mare, coming of age, is making a case for a seemingly gentle person she longs to save - a wish for mercy that could once again unbalance the new and righteous nature of the world. Jane Smiley’s The Hillside is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.
©2018 Jane Smiley (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
March Sisters
Summary
For the 150th anniversary of the publication of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong, lifelong personal engagement with Alcott's novel - what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes as her subject one of the four March sisters, reflecting on their stories and what they have to teach us about life. Kate Bolick finds parallels in oldest sister Meg's brush with glamour at the Moffats' ball and her own complicated relationship with clothes. Jenny Zhang confesses to liking Jo least among the sisters when she first read the novel as a girl, uncomfortable in finding so much of herself in a character she feared was too unfeminine. Carmen Maria Machado writes about the real-life tragedy of Lizzie Alcott, the inspiration for third sister Beth, and the horror story that can result from not being the author of your own life's narrative. And Jane Smiley rehabilitates the reputation of youngest sister Amy, whom she sees as a modern feminist role model for those of us who are, well, not like the fiery Jo. These four voices come together to form a deep, funny, far-ranging meditation on the power of great literature to shape our lives.
©2019 Kate Bolick (“Meg’s Frock Shock”); copyright 2019 by Jenny Zhang (“Does Genius Burn, Jo?”); copyright 2019 by Carmen Maria Machado (“A Dear and Nothing Else”); copyright 2019 by Jane Smiley (“I Am Your ‘Prudent Amy’”) (P)2019 Tantor
Perestroika in Paris
Summary
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years Trilogy, a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals - and a young boy - whose lives intersect in Paris. Paras, short for "Perestroika", is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. One afternoon at dusk, she finds the door of her stall open and - she's a curious filly - wanders all the way to the City of Light. She's dazzled and often mystified by the sights, sounds, and smells around her, but she isn't afraid. Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthair pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city's lush green spaces, nourished by Frida's strategic trips to the vegetable market. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks and an opinionated raven. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly 100-year-old great-grandmother live in seclusion. As the cold weather and Christmas near, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom. But how long can a runaway horse stay undiscovered in Paris? How long can a boy keep her hidden and all to himself? Jane Smiley's beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity, ingenuity, and the desire of all creatures for true love and freedom.
©2020 Jane Smiley (P)2020 Recorded Books