Tobias Wolff has 8 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 9 narrators, with an average listener rating of 3.5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is This Boy's Life.
This Boy's Life
Summary
First published in 1989, this scarifying memoir has become a classic of the genre, as notable for its artful structure and finely wrought prose as for the events it describes. The book essentially launched the memoir craze that has been going strong ever since. It was made into a movie in 1993. The story is pretty grim: teen-aged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed. Deception, disguise, and illusion are the weapons the young man learns to employ as he grows up, not bad training for a writer-to-be. Somber though this tale of family strife is, it is also darkly funny and so artistically satisfying that listeners come away exhilarated.
©1989 Tobias Wolff (P)2010 HighBridge Company
Say Yes
Summary
Ann's friends envy her. None of their husbands even lift a finger to help with the household chores. Ann's husband is different, though. Then a simple hypothetical conversation while they wash and dry the dishes causes Ann to see her husband in a different light - and causes him to rethink the way two people can know each other.
©1985 Tobias Wolff (P)2013 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Cross Country Runner
Summary
The Cross Country Runner brings together The Last Worthless Evening, Andre Dubus' fifth collection of short stories and novellas, and Voices from the Moon, his longest, most masterful novella, along with previously uncollected stories and a new introduction by PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author Tobias Wolff. "'It's divorce that did it,' his father had said last night." So begins Voices from the Moon, the novella that shows Dubus at the height of his empathetic powers. Alternating between the viewpoints of Richie Stowe, a serious 12-year-old who plans to become a priest, and the five other members of his family, the story takes place over the course of a single day. The four novellas and two stories of The Last Worthless Evening range further than those of any previous Dubus collection - racial tension in the Navy, a detective-story homage, a Hispanic shortstop, the unlikely pairing of an 11-year-old kid and a dangerous Vietnam vet. This third volume in the series also draws together for the first time many of Dubus' previously uncollected stories, including work from the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. The earliest story appearing here in audiobook form for the first time is "The Cross Country Runner", which was originally published in the long-defunct Midwestern University Quarterly in 1966 when Dubus was 30 years old and only recently graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The final story - the Western-themed "Sisters" - is the last piece of fiction Dubus was working on when he died suddenly in 1999 at just 63 years old.
©2018 David R Godine (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Our Story Begins
Summary
Tobias Wolff's first two books proved how the short story can "provoke our amazed appreciation" ( New York Times Book Review). Now he returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket. In this potent new collection, the first in over a decade, Wolff displays his mastery over a quarter century, once again proving himself "a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve." (Los Angeles Times)
©2008 Tobias Wolff (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Firelight
Summary
A mother and her son dream of a life beyond their means in this classic short story by Tobias Wolff. "Firelight" tells the story of a mother and her son who are spending the afternoon viewing apartments on a chilly day in Seattle, Washington. The two have no intention of renting one - they can only afford to live in a meager boarding house. Nevertheless, they spend every Saturday wandering through apartments and department stores, dreaming of a different life. On this particular afternoon, their last stop is a beautiful Victorian home - far beyond anything they could ever afford. And for the first time, wishful thoughts blur with harsh reality as the son becomes entranced by the apartment and the life it represents.
©2008 Tobias Wolff (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Liar
Summary
One of Tobias Wolff's classic tales, The Liar is the story of a deceitful teenage boy and his religious, resolute mother. James is a liar. He enjoys inventing fantastic stories about his family, particularly his mother. Margaret is orderly, stubborn, and judgmental - a woman who throws rocks at hungry bears and never misses four o'clock Mass. She loves her children but has always struggled with James. Like his deceased father, he's fascinated by the darker aspects of life - car crashes, illness, and crime. Dr. Murphy, the family physician who dabbles in psychiatry, believes that James' lying is harmless. His mother, however, thinks otherwise. Written with candor and humor, The Liar is a meditation on one of the most pervasive characteristics of human nature.
©2008 Tobias Wolff (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Old School
Summary
The author of the genre-defining memoir This Boy’s Life, the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novella The Barracks Thief, and short stories acclaimed as modern classics, Tobias Wolff now gives us his first novel. Determined to fit in at his New England prep school, the narrator has learned to mimic the bearing and manners of his adoptive tribe while concealing as much as possible about himself. His final year, however, unravels everything he’s achieved and steers his destiny in directions no one could have predicted. The school’s mystique is rooted in literature, and for many boys, this becomes an obsession, editing the review and competing for the attention of visiting writers whose fame helps to perpetuate the tradition. Robert Frost, soon to appear at JFK’s inauguration, is far less controversial than the next visitor, Ayn Rand. But the final guest is one whose blessing a young writer would do almost anything to gain. No one writes more astutely than Wolff about the process by which character is formed, and here, he illuminates the irresistible power, even the violence, of the self-creative urge. Resonant in ways at once contemporary and timeless, Old School is a masterful achievement by one of the finest writers of our time.
©2003 Tobias Wolff (P)2019 Random House Audio
Selected Shorts
Summary
A collection of poignant, romantic and funny tales performed by Academy Award -winning actor William Hurt. This collection includes a bonus track of an exclusive interview with William Hurt. Hurt's readings are thoughtful, tender, romantic, and resonant. A treasure. Stories in this set include: Aleksandar Hemon's "Blind Josef Pronek" - A Bosnian man struggles to make a new life in America Richard Ford's "Communist" - A teenage boy's relationship to his single mother and her new boyfriend against the background of the stark Montana landscape Ron Carlson's "Towel Season" - A tender story of a scientist and his wife's rocky moments as he works on a tough math proof Tobias Wolff's "Nightingale" - A bullying father suddenly has doubts on his drive with his stoic son to military school to "toughen up" the boySelected Shorts is an award-winning, one-hour program featuring readings of classic and new short fiction, recorded live at New York's Symphony Space. One of the most popular series on the airwaves, this unique show is hosted by Isaiah Sheffer and produced for radio by Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.
©2009 Symphony Space (P)2009 Symphony Space