Sinclair Lewis has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 14 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 16 ratings. The most-rated is It Can't Happen Here.
It Can't Happen Here
Summary
First published in 1935, when Americans were still largely oblivious to the rise of Hitler in Europe, this prescient novel tells a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy and offers an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.
©1935 Sinclair Lewis. © renewed 1963 by Michael Lewis (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Elmer Gantry
Summary
Audie Award, Literary Fiction, 2009 Elmer Gantry is the portrait of a silver-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church, yet lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence. The title character starts out as a greedy, shallow, philandering Baptist minister, turns to evangelism, and eventually becomes the leader of a large Methodist congregation. Throughout the novel, Gantry encounters fellow religious hypocrites. Although often exposed as a fraud, Gantry is never fully discredited. Elmer Gantry is considered a landmark American novel and one of the most penetrating studies of hypocrisy in modern literature. It portrays the evangelistic activity that was common in 1920s America as well as attitudes toward it.
©1954 Michael Lewis (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Main Street
Summary
Widely hailed as a milestone in American literature, Sinclair Lewis' Main Street vividly describes a country on the verge of massive change, with traditional values being threatened by progress. The novel's heroine, Carol Milford, is a highly educated, ambitious woman who plans to join a newly enlightened society. But after marrying a small-town doctor, she finds herself trapped in the role of a dutiful wife. Carol's desires for social change conflict with the security of her comfortable married life, as she struggles to understand the cost of conformity...and rebellion. As relevant today as it was upon its 1920 publication, Main Street is both a masterful piece of writing and a fascinating microcosm of America's social evolution.
Public Domain (P)1996 Recorded Books
NBC University Theater: Dodsworth
Summary
NBC University Theater initially started in Chicago with a remit to bring adaptations of classic novels, usually Anglo-American, to a radio audience. Additionally, if listeners signed up, they received college credit to a radio-assisted correspondence course. A study guide, The Handbook of the World's Great Novels, was available for 25 cents. In its later years, it also included short stories and plays and went on to win the distinguished Peabody award. Unlike many other radio shows, University Theater did not pursue glamorous stars for its productions but instead relied on excellent distillations of the novels and first-class acting alongside high production values. But now it is time to enjoy these timeless novels. Let’s begin.
©2019 Deadtree Publishing (P)2019 Copyright Group
Main Street
Summary
This famous satire of life on Main Street, Gopher Prairie, mirrors with devastating honesty life on Main Streets from Albany to San Diego.
©2010 Tantor
Babbitt (Dramatized)
Summary
This epic of the booming 20's captures the relentless culture of American business. A classic novel about conformity in small town America - celebrated for its comic tone, statire, and vivid dialogue. L.A. Theatre Works, then a fledgling radio theatre company, completed Babbitt in 1989. This production was so well received that L.A. Theatre Works has since become the world's premiere radio theatre company. Ed Asner as Babbitt leads this all star cast, which includes Ted Danson, Marsha Mason, Helen Hunt, John Lithgow, Stacy Keach, Richard Dreyfuss, Amy Irving, Ally Sheedy and many more. Babbitt was previously unreleased on CD and digital formats.
©2002 Sinclair Lewis (P)2008 L.A. Theatre Works