James Franco has narrated 5 audiobooks on Listento.it by 8 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 633 ratings. The most-rated is Slaughterhouse-Five.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Summary
Slaughterhouse-Five is the now famous parable of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran and POW who has, in the later stage of his life, become "unstuck in time" and who experiences at will (or unwillingly) all known events of his chronology out of order and sometimes simultaneously. Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence). The "unstuck" nature of Pilgrim's experience may constitute an early novelistic use of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder; then again, Pilgrim's aliens may be as "real" as Dresden is real to him. Struggling to find some purpose, order, or meaning to his existence and humanity's, Pilgrim meets the beauteous and mysterious Montana Wildhack (certainly the author's best character name), has a child with her, and drifts on some supernal plane, finally, in which Kilgore Trout, the Tralfamadorians, Montana Wildhack, and the ruins of Dresden do not merge but rather disperse through all planes of existence. Slaughterhouse-Five was hugely successful, brought Vonnegut an enormous audience, was a finalist for the National Book Award and a best seller, and remains four decades later as timeless and shattering a war fiction as Catch-22, with which it stands as the two signal novels of their riotous and furious decade.
©1969 Kurt Vonnegut (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
The Dead Zone
Summary
Never before on audio! A number-one national best seller about a man who wakes up from a five-year coma able to see people's futures and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in The Dead Zone - a "compulsive page-turner" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma after his car accident and discovers that he can see people's futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiancée married another man during his coma, and people clamor for him to solve their problems. When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future. The Dead Zone is a "faultlessly paced...continuously engrossing" (Los Angeles Times) novel of second sight.
©1979 Stephen King (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
Actors Anonymous
Summary
Nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album The actors in James Franco's brilliant debut novel include a McDonald's drive-thru operator who spends his shift trying on accents; an ex-child star recalling a massive beachside bacchanal; hospital volunteers and Midwestern transplants; a vampire flick starlet who discovers a cryptic book written by a famous actor gone AWOL; and the ghost of River Phoenix. Then there's Franco himself, who prowls backstage, peering out between the lines—before taking the stage with fascinating meditations on his art, along with nightmarish tales of excess. "Hollywood has always been a private club," he writes. "I open the gates. I say welcome. I say, Look inside." Told in a dizzying array of styles—from lyric essays and disarming testimonials to hilariously rambling text messages and ghostly footnotes—and loosely modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Actors Anonymous is an intense, wild ride into the dark heart of celebrity.
©2013 James Franco (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Palo Alto
Summary
A fiercely vivid collection of stories about troubled California teenagers and misfits - violent and harrowing, from the astonishingly talented actor and artist James Franco. Palo Alto is the debut of a surprising and powerful new literary voice. Written with an immediate sense of place - claustrophobic and ominous - James Franco's collection traces the lives of an extended group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism. In "Lockheed" a young woman's summer - spent working a dull internship - is suddenly upended by a spectacular incident of violence at a house party. In "American History" a high-school freshman attempts to impress a girl during a classroom skit with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner, only to have his feigned bigotry avenged. In "I Could Kill Someone" a lonely teenager buys a gun with the aim of killing his high-school tormentor, but begins to wonder about his bully's own inner life. These linked stories, stark, vivid, and disturbing, are a compelling portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth.
©2010 James Franco (P)2010 Simon & Schuster
WordTheatre: Families & Other Natural Disasters, Volume 1
Summary
WordTheatre, the short story performance specialists, casts the perfect actors to bring great contemporary writing to life. Recorded live with many of the authors present, these nine exquisitely crafted stories explore the one topic that everyone knows something about: families. Whether through birth, adoption, or marriage, whatever the relationships, they provide rich fodder for our talented authors - at times amusing, at others, achingly painful. Halley Feiffer reading “Ask for Pain” by Julie Orringer James Franco reading “The Odds It Would Be You” by Alice Mattison Gary Dourdan reading “Bug Juice” by Christine R. Lincoln Danielle Panabaker reading “The Escape” by Joyce Carol Oates Ian Hart reading “Distant Ships” by Simon Van Booy Robin de Jesus reading “The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue” by Manuel Munoz CCH Pounder reading “Pet” by Deb Olin Unferth Vincent Piazza reading “Three Thursdays in the Bronx” by David Prete Nicki Micheaux reading “Vacuum” by Brad Watson Produced and directed by Cedering Fox; edited by Sara Bencivenga; mixed and mastered by Theo Mondle; music composed by Greg Chun. WordTheatre gives voice to great writing. We are an innovative, internationally recognized, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring empathy, curiosity and conversation through powerful and entertaining performances, both live and recorded, of the world’s best contemporary literature. We aim to ignite a passion for reading, writing and self-expression in our community and in future generations.
©2014 Cedering Fox (P)2014 WordTheatre