George Saunders has narrated 10 audiobooks on Listento.it by 7 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 177 ratings. The most-rated is Lincoln in the Bardo.
Lincoln in the Bardo
Summary
Winner of the 2018 Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end? The 166-person full cast features award-winning actors and musicians, as well as a number of Saunders’ family, friends, and members of his publishing team, including, in order of their appearance: Nick Offerman as Hans Vollman David Sedaris as Roger Bevins III Carrie Brownstein as Isabelle Perkins George Saunders as The Reverend Everly Thomas Miranda July as Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford Lena Dunham as Elise Traynor Ben Stiller as Jack Manders Julianne Moore as Jane Ellis Susan Sarandon as Mrs. Abigail Blass Bradley Whitford as Lt. Cecil Stone Bill Hader as Eddie Baron Megan Mullally as Betsy Baron Rainn Wilson as Percival “Dash” Collier Jeff Tweedy as Captain William Prince Kat Dennings as Miss Tamara Doolittle Jeffrey Tambor as Professor Edmund Bloomer Mike O’Brien as Lawrence T. Decroix Keegan-Michael Key as Elson Farwell Don Cheadle as Thomas Havens Patrick Wilson as Stanley “Perfesser” Lippert With Kirby Heyborne as Willie Lincoln, Mary Karr as Mrs. Rose Milland, and Cassandra Campbell as Your Narrator Praise for the audiobook “Lincoln in the Bardo sets a new standard for cast recordings in its structure, in its performances, and in its boldness. Now, let's see who answers the challenge.” (Chicago Tribune) “Like the novel, the audiobook breaks new ground in what can be accomplished through a story. It helps that there’s not a single bad note in the cast of a whopping 166 people. It’s also the rare phenomenon of an audiobook being a completely different experience compared to the novel. Even if you’ve read the novel, the audiobook is worth a listen (and vice versa). The whole project pushes the narrative form forward.” (A.V. Club) “The result is an auditory experience unlike any other, where the awareness of individual voices disappears while the carefully calibrated soundscape summons a metaphysical masterpiece. This is a tour de force of audiobook production, and a dazzling realization of Saunders’ unique authorial structure.” (Booklist) “The finished audiobook’s tapestry of voices perfectly mirrors the novel.” (Entertainment Weekly)
©2017 George Saunders (P)2017 Random House Audio
Tenth of December
Summary
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, "Victory Lap", a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In "Home", a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill - the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation. Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human. Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December - through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit - not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov’s dictum that art should "prepare us for tenderness".
©2013 George Saunders (P)2013 Random House Audio
Fox 8
Summary
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a darkly comic short story about the unintended consequences unleashed by our quest to tame the natural world. Fox 8 has always been known as the daydreamer in his pack, the one his fellow foxes regarded with a knowing snort and a roll of the eyes. That is, until Fox 8 develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak Yuman by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children’s bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people - even after danjer arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack. Told with his distinctive blend of humor and pathos, Fox 8 showcases the extraordinary imaginative talents of George Saunders, whom The New York Times called “the writer for our time”.
©2013 George Saunders (P)2013 Random House Audio
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling, Booker Prize - winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves — and our world today. For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art — namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible. This audiobook includes a PDF of the tables, outlines, figures, and appendices from the book.
©2021 George Saunders (P)2021 Random House Audio
Pastoralia
Summary
A stunning collection including the story "Sea Oak", from the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape. Includes an original song by the author. "Pastoralia" was written and performed by George Saunders, and recorded, mixed, and mastered by Peter Coleman at Indigital Studios in Santa Cruz, California.
©2000, 2001 George Saunders (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Braindead Megaphone
Summary
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. The breakout book from "the funniest writer in America" - not to mention an official "Genius" - his first nonfiction collection ever. George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the listener across the rocky political landscape of modern America. Emblazoned with his trademark wit and singular vision, Saunders's endeavor into the art of the essay is testament to his exceptional range and ability as a writer and thinker.
©2007 George Saunders (P)2020 Random House Audio
In Persuasion Nation
Summary
From the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables - all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon. "The first thing you ought to know is that Saunders is the funniest writer in America.... [But] Saunders's laughs are a cover, a diversion, beneath which reside some profoundly serious intentions regarding the morality of how we live and the power of love and immanent death to transform us into vastly better creatures.... I can't think of another writer who would try to do what Saunders is doing, or anything close to it. This is an important book." (The Nation) "Saunders is a hilarious, wicked, and pitch-perfect satirist of our times, of course, but for a satirist he has a whole lot of heart." (Esquire) This audiobook includes an original song by the author. In Persuasion Nation was written and performed by George Saunders, and recorded, mixed, and mastered by Peter Coleman at 365 Producer in Santa Cruz, California.
©2006 George Saunders (P)2019 Random House Audio
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip
Summary
Gappers will get your goat. Literally. If you don't brush them off and return them to the ocean, whence they arrive every day, these bright orange, many-eyed creatures will cover your goats, and the goats will stop giving milk. In a village called Frip, goat's milk was the entire economy. Three families lived there - the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl named Capable and her widowed father, who wanted everything to remain the same. It didn't. One day, the Gappers, despite an average IQ of 3.7 (±.02), decided for a good reason to concentrate on Capable's goats. Oh, how the Romos and Ronsens turned their backs on the gapper-ridden Capable! Oh, how they indeed lorded it over her! What kinds of creatures are we, one wonders, when such selfishness so often springs up so spontaneously among us? And, given the coldness of her neighbors' shoulders, what will Capable do about her Gapper plague, as her share of the economy dries up? Literally. The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, with a brilliant story by award-ridden short-story master George Saunders, answers that question. In doing so it tells a tale as ancient as the Bible and as modern as a memo from the Federal Reserve Board. And funnier than both - which isn't saying all that much, admittedly. You don't get to laugh and gaze in visual awe and pleasure all that often when the Golden Rule comes under such serious attack and such staunch defense as it did in Frip. An adult story for children, a children's story for adults, an earthlings' story for aliens, an oceanside fable for the landlocked, a capitalist tool for anarchists, a fish story for loaves, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip represents the classic instance of two young geniuses colliding and colluding. The result is - what else? - an instant classic!
©2005 George Saunders (P)2019 Random House Audio
Care to Make Love in That Gross Little Space Between Cars?
Summary
The Believer magazine presents a compendium of advice from producers, writers, and actors of The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, Parks and Recreation, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Hangover, and The Colbert Report, along with other musicians, cartoonists, New Yorker writers, and those similarly unqualified to offer guidance. Here Amy Sedaris describes the perfect murder for unwanted hermit crabs - you will need a piece of meat and a brick. Simon Rich explains how to avoid being found dead in your underwear by firemen - buy some long johns. Zach Galifianakis provides insight into how he changed his name without a social security card - he just started calling himself Adam Zapple, and it stuck. Bob Saget finally illuminates what "friends with benefits" really means - a nonsexual relationship wherein your ex makes monetary deposits into your bank account. Contributors include: Rob Baedeker, Anne Beatts, Elizabeth Beckwith, Jerri Blank, Roz Chast, Louis C.K., Mike Doughty, Dave Eggers, Rich Fulcher, Zach Galifianakis, Dan Guterman, Anthony Jeselnik, Julie Klausner, Lisa Lampanelli, Nick Hornby, Sam Lipsyte, Liam Lynch, Merrill Markoe, Rose McGowan, Misc. Canadian rock musicians, Laraine Newman, The Pleasure Syndicate, Bob Powers, Simon Rich, Bob Saget, George Saunders, Kristen Schaal, Paul Scheer, Amy Sedaris, Allison Silverman, Paul Simms, Brendon Small, Jerry Stahl, Scott Thompson, Fred Willard, Cintra Wilson, Weird Al Yankovic, and Alan Zweibel.
©2012 The Believer (P)2012 Random House Audio
Congratulations, by the Way
Summary
New York Times best seller This inspiring meditation on kindness from the author of Lincoln in the Bardo is based on his popular commencement address. Three months after George Saunders gave a graduation address at Syracuse University, a transcript of that speech was posted on the website of The New York Times, where its simple, uplifting message struck a deep chord. Within days, it had been shared more than one million times. Why? Because Saunders’ words tap in to a desire in all of us to lead kinder, more fulfilling lives. Powerful, funny, and wise, Congratulations, by the Way is an inspiring message from one of today’s most influential and original writers. Praise for Congratulations, by the Way “As slender as a psalm, and as heavy.” (The New York Times) “The graduating college senior in your life probably just wants money. But if you want to impart some heartfelt, plainspoken wisdom in addition to a check, you can't do much better than [Congratulations, by the Way].” (Entertainment Weekly) “The loving selflessness that [George Saunders] advises and the interconnectedness that he recognizes couldn’t be purer or simpler - or more challenging.” (Kirkus Reviews) “Warm and tender.” (Publishers Weekly)
©2014 George Saunders (P)2014 Random House Audio