Lost for Words
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Alex Jennings
-
By:
-
Edward St. Aubyn
About this listen
Edward St. Aubyn is "great at dissecting an entire social world" (Michael Chabon, Los Angeles Times)
Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels were some of the most celebrated works of fiction of the past decade. Ecstatic praise came from a wide range of admirers, from literary superstars such as Zadie Smith, Francine Prose, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Michael Chabon to pop-culture icons such as Anthony Bourdain and January Jones. Now St. Aubyn returns with a hilariously smart send-up of a certain major British literary award in this witty audiobook.
The judges on the panel of the Elysian Prize for Literature must get through hundreds of submissions to find the best book of the year. Meanwhile, a host of writers are desperate for Elysian attention: the brilliant writer and serial heartbreaker Katherine Burns; the lovelorn debut novelist Sam Black; and Bunjee, convinced that his magnum opus, The Mulberry Elephant, will take the literary world by storm. Things go terribly wrong when Katherine's publisher accidentally submits a cookery book in place of her novel; one of the judges finds himself in the middle of a scandal; and Bunjee, aghast to learn his book isn't on the short list, seeks revenge.
Lost for Words is a witty, fabulously entertaining audiobook satire that cuts to the quick of some of the deepest questions about the place of art in our celebrity-obsessed culture, and asks how we can ever hope to recognize real talent when everyone has an agenda.
©2014 Edward St. Aubyn (P)2014 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Double Blind
- A Novel
- By: Edward St. Aubyn
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Double Blind follows three close friends and their circle through a year of extraordinary transformation. Set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur, and a rewilded corner of Sussex, this thrilling, ambitious novel is about the headlong pursuit of knowledge - for the purposes of pleasure, revelation, money, sanity, or survival - and the consequences of fleeing from what we know about others and ourselves.
-
-
What in the world?
- By Nicole Hanson on 06-10-21
By: Edward St. Aubyn
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Talented Mr. Ripley
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal, but he grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante.
-
-
Patricia, Phil, and Pathology
- By Mel on 04-24-13
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Hamnet
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
-
-
A masterpiece
- By Molly-o on 08-03-20
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Double Blind
- A Novel
- By: Edward St. Aubyn
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Double Blind follows three close friends and their circle through a year of extraordinary transformation. Set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur, and a rewilded corner of Sussex, this thrilling, ambitious novel is about the headlong pursuit of knowledge - for the purposes of pleasure, revelation, money, sanity, or survival - and the consequences of fleeing from what we know about others and ourselves.
-
-
What in the world?
- By Nicole Hanson on 06-10-21
By: Edward St. Aubyn
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Talented Mr. Ripley
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal, but he grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante.
-
-
Patricia, Phil, and Pathology
- By Mel on 04-24-13
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Hamnet
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
-
-
A masterpiece
- By Molly-o on 08-03-20
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
Harlem Shuffle
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.
-
-
Best Read/Listen on Audible
- By Henry Posner on 09-22-21
By: Colson Whitehead
-
Lucky Jim
- By: Kingsley Amis
- Narrated by: James Lailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the audience through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.
-
-
An old favorite!
- By Helen53 on 05-29-23
By: Kingsley Amis
-
The Magician
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice.
-
-
Terrific listening experience
- By M. Mead on 09-17-21
By: Colm Toibin
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
-
The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
- By Michael on 10-13-12
By: Dan Simmons
-
The Idiot
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself. The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary.
-
-
Fascinating point of view
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-17
By: Elif Batuman
-
American Gods [TV Tie-In]
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.
-
-
Read other Neil Gaiman first
- By Robert on 04-16-11
By: Neil Gaiman
-
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With his trademark mirth and boundless charisma, actor Nick Offerman brought the loveable shenanigans of Twain's adolescent hero to life in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Now, in yet another virtuosic performance, the actor proves that despite being separated by a span of over a century, his connection to the author and his work is undeniable and that theirs is a timeless collaboration that should not be missed.
-
-
Mark Twain and Nick Offerman are a perfect match
- By Philip M. Chute on 10-23-17
By: Mark Twain
-
Gulliver's Travels: A Signature Performance by David Hyde Pierce
- By: Jonathan Swift
- Narrated by: David Hyde Pierce
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Signature Performance: Four-time Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce delivers an air of lovable self-importance in his rendition of the classic social satire that remains as fresh today as the day it was published.
-
-
Loved every minute
- By Rose on 01-16-11
By: Jonathan Swift
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By Elizabeth on 01-05-08
By: David Mitchell
-
The Professor and the Madman
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.
-
-
Perfect example of a quality audible book.
- By Jerry on 07-07-03
By: Simon Winchester
-
The Bonfire of the Vanities
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 27 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Wolfe's best-selling modern classic tells the story of Sherman McCoy, an elite Wall Street bond trader who has it all: wealth, power, prestige, a Park Avenue apartment, a beautiful wife, and an even more beautiful mistress - until one wrong turn sends Sherman spiraling downward into a humiliating fall from grace. A car accident in the Bronx involving Sherman, his girlfriend, and two young lower-class Black men sets a match to the incendiary racial and social tensions of 1980s New York City.
-
-
Big mistake
- By karen on 08-31-14
By: Tom Wolfe
Critic reviews
“Everything St. Aubyn writes is worth reading for the cleansing rancor of his intelligence and the fierce elegance of his prose…” —Anne Enright, New York Times Book Review
“Lost for Words is especially witty... a hilarious commentary on the dissonance between the daily lives of authors and how they are perceived publicly.” —Maddie Crum, Huffington Post
“St. Aubyn… executes his irony with phlegmatic and tightly controlled prose, underneath which lurks the trenchant exasperation of a veteran.” —Esther Yi, Los Angeles Review of Books
Related to this topic
-
Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
-
-
Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Girls of Slender Means
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions." Thus begins Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club building itself - "three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit" - its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal, practicing elocution and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown.
-
-
please please try again
- By Consolation on 03-24-20
By: Muriel Spark
-
Corduroy Mansions
- A Novel
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In London’s Pimlico neighborhood lies a tenement described in architectural guides as “a building of no interest whatsoever.” But the residents of Corduroy Mansions—including a literary agent, a wine merchant, a thoroughly unpleasant member of Parliament, and a vegetarian dog—are a rather fascinating lot.
-
-
Oedipus Snark, MP
- By connie on 04-25-12
-
The Sunday Philosophy Club
- An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, winner of the first-ever Saga Award for Wit, has entertained millions with his beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries. Now this phenomenally popular author introduces a fresh series, brimming with the charm and humor his stable of dedicated fans can't get enough of.
-
-
Advice For Prospective Listeners
- By DCinMI on 02-18-13
-
The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
-
-
one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
-
Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
-
-
Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Three Daughters of Eve
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
-
-
Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Girls of Slender Means
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions." Thus begins Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club building itself - "three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit" - its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal, practicing elocution and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown.
-
-
please please try again
- By Consolation on 03-24-20
By: Muriel Spark
-
Corduroy Mansions
- A Novel
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In London’s Pimlico neighborhood lies a tenement described in architectural guides as “a building of no interest whatsoever.” But the residents of Corduroy Mansions—including a literary agent, a wine merchant, a thoroughly unpleasant member of Parliament, and a vegetarian dog—are a rather fascinating lot.
-
-
Oedipus Snark, MP
- By connie on 04-25-12
-
The Sunday Philosophy Club
- An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, winner of the first-ever Saga Award for Wit, has entertained millions with his beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries. Now this phenomenally popular author introduces a fresh series, brimming with the charm and humor his stable of dedicated fans can't get enough of.
-
-
Advice For Prospective Listeners
- By DCinMI on 02-18-13
-
The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
-
-
one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
-
Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
-
-
It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
-
Outline
- The Outline Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Rachel Cusk
- Narrated by: Kate Lock
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A man and a woman are seated next to each other on a plane. They get to talking - about their destination, their careers, their families. Grievances are aired, family tragedies discussed, marriages and divorces analyzed. An intimacy is established as two strangers contrast their own fictions about their lives. Outline is a novel in 10 conversations. Spare and stark, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens.
-
-
Difficult and Better in Print
- By Nick O. on 07-18-23
By: Rachel Cusk
-
The Submission
- A Novel
- By: Amy Waldman
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claire Harwell hasn't settled into grief; events haven't let her. Cool, eloquent, raising two fatherless children, Claire has emerged as the most visible of the 9/11 widows who became a potent political force in the aftermath of the catastrophe. She longs for her husband, but she has found her mission: she sits on a jury charged with selecting a fitting memorial for the victims of the attack.
-
-
Some books were meant to be read...
- By Barbara on 02-24-12
By: Amy Waldman
-
Past Imperfect
- By: Julian Fellowes
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern--his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death.
-
-
Read Snobs instead
- By cristina on 02-14-13
By: Julian Fellowes
-
The Good Liar
- A Novel
- By: Nicholas Searle
- Narrated by: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Veteran con artist Roy spots an obvious easy mark when he meets Betty, a wealthy widow, online. In no time at all, he's moved into Betty's lovely cottage and is preparing to accompany her on a romantic trip to Europe. Betty's grandson disapproves of their blossoming relationship, but Roy is sure this scheme will be a success. He knows what he's doing. As this remarkable feat of storytelling weaves together Roy's and Betty's futures, it also unwinds their pasts.
-
-
Hope the movie is better than the book?
- By S. Smith on 10-17-19
By: Nicholas Searle
-
Putney
- A Novel
- By: Sofka Zinovieff
- Narrated by: Michelle Ford
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man 20 years her senior. Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints - victim, perpetrator, and witness - Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.
-
-
One of the greatest stories of all time!
- By Valarie on 06-17-20
By: Sofka Zinovieff
-
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
- Stories
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Piter Marek, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).
-
-
clever
- By jared rogerson on 03-15-18
By: Helen Oyeyemi
-
A Parcel for Anna Browne
- By: Miranda Dickinson
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The gift of a lifetime? Anna Browne is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. Her day job as a receptionist in bustling London isn't exactly her dream, yet she has everything she wants. But someone thinks Anna Browne deserves more.... A parcel addressed to Anna Browne arrives. She has no idea who has sent it. Inside she finds a beautiful gift - one that is designed to be seen.
-
-
Cute idea but a bit of an eye-roll
- By hannah on 04-11-16
-
Us: A Novel
- By: David Nicholls
- Narrated by: David Haig
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.
-
-
Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
-
The Golden Notebook
- By: Doris Lessing
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.
-
-
Transcendent narration of a masterpiece.
- By @vmarinelli on 07-03-12
By: Doris Lessing
-
Palace of Tears
- By: Julian Leatherdale
- Narrated by: Ming-Zhu Hii
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dazzling story of family, passion, secrets and vengeance, woven through the hardships of both World Wars and revealing the intriguing history of the Palace, the opulent Blue Mountains hotel famed for its luxury and mysterious owner. A sweltering summer's day, January 1914: the charismatic and ruthless Adam Fox throws a lavish birthday party for his son and heir at his elegant clifftop hotel in the Blue Mountains. Everyone is invited except Angie, the girl from the cottage next door.
-
-
Distractingly bad acting by narrator!
- By Bunny on 01-30-16
-
How It All Began
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.
-
-
Wonderful and beautifully written
- By Molly-o on 02-15-12
By: Penelope Lively
What listeners say about Lost for Words
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- dub
- 06-07-14
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Authors
*no spoilers*Ever wondered how books are chosen for major literary prizes? Having a friend in publishing, I've heard plenty of real-life anecdotes which match these fictitious behind-the-scenes maneuvers to get your favourite book on the short-list: regional politics, sex, race, political correctness, and 'too long, didn't read' jostle titles on and off the list for a Commonwealth prize.
The judges perfectly articulated some of my own prejudices when choosing a book: [ugh, child abuse narrative in regional dialect: next!]. But the ending is rushed; otherwise this would have received 4.5 stars.
If you've ever been to a party and fibbed that you've read a 'hot' book and got called out on it: this one is for you!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sand
- 06-07-14
Delectable satire, ALMOST perfect narration
If anyone can poke fun at contemporary literature and the machinations behind one of its major prizes, it's Edward St. Aubyn.
His send-ups of the various gimmicky sub-genres that seem to be perennial fixtures on literary "buzz" lists are laugh-out-loud funny, perhaps made all the more so by Alex Jennings's spot-on reading of the affectedly authentic narratives (which range from a gutteral Irwin Welsh-style Scottish to a wincingly stagey Elizabethan English).
Indeed, far as the narration goes, it's hard to imagine that reading the print version of the book could be nearly as enjoyable as hearing Jenning's portrayal of Sonny Bunjee, the delusional Brahmin snob, or of the French intellectual Didiot, with his non-sequitur rants and comically formulaic writing process.
In fact, all of Jennings's character's accents are exquisite except the American ones, which are such a weird mashup of regional accents--flattened midwestern/ rounded southern vowels, hyper-rhotacization and dropped word endings--that it's almost uncanny how alien it is to any actual existing American speech pattern.
Fortunately the two American characters in the novel appear only very briefly, but when they do, the listening is painful enough to be a noticeable departure from an otherwise flawless performance, which was the only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars. (Of course this is a completely US-centric opinion--Jennings's Indian and Scottish accents could be just as inaccurate to their native's ears--but there you have it.)
Compared to the rest St. Aubyn's work, this little book is mostly just silly fun--you certainly won't find more than the occasional glimpse of the depth and subtlety of the Patrick Melrose novels. But St. Aubyn Lite is still, well, St. Aubyn--no less brilliantly tight and crisp for the subject matter. And there's enough underlying commentary about art is and how it's recognized (i.e. a work of great art should, by definition, be original enough to defy the kind of comparison that an art award/competition requires) to give some welcome substance to the satire.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cariola
- 07-08-14
Taking Down the Booker Prize
This was my first experience reading Edward St. Aubyn, and I quite enjoyed the ride. Lost for Words is a send-up of the British literary scene--in particular, the Man Booker Prize and all the hubbub surrounding it. St. Aubyn clearly took his inspiration from the controversy of a few years back, when a semi-qualified panel decided to invoke popularity over literary quality. Several of the judges for the Elysian Prize for Literature have spurious qualifications; others unabashedly admit to not planning to read all the submitted books, and each is promoting a particular book because of preference (e.g., one likes nothing better than Scottish historical novels). The hopeful authors have their quirks as well. (My favorite was an Indian writer whose publisher mistakenly submits his aunt's cookbook instead of his own novel, The Mulberry Elephant.) St. Aubyn provides subtle humor in the behind-the-scenes rivalries and passions as well as the public debates. I saw the ending coming, but it was still fun getting there.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 🌟CW_214🌟
- 05-22-20
Entertaining
Enjoyed this book and it’s cast of characters. Alex Jennings performance provided much to the overall experience - great choice for the story. Expected the ending to be a bit.. more due to build throughout the entire story. Fell a bit flat, but not completely.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jane
- 08-24-15
Satire in the spirit of Waugh
The English satire lives! Hilarious, tangy satire in the long tradition of English social critics. Brilliant piss take of literary theory, modern letters, and the paste board facades of literary prizes. Lovely.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J. Houghton
- 07-01-14
St. Aubyn and Jennings -- made in heaven
Would you consider the audio edition of Lost for Words to be better than the print version?
I wouldn't know
Who was your favorite character and why?
Sonny was funny
Which character – as performed by Alex Jennings – was your favorite?
I would listen to Alex Jennings read the phone book -- wait, they don't have phone books anymore...
Who was the most memorable character of Lost for Words and why?
Very much an ensemble piece, With ESA and AJ giving each character his/her own unique voice.
Any additional comments?
I was hoping the Melrose novels weren't that one (large) autobiographical novel everyone's got inside them, i.e. a fluke of sorts. No way. Edward St. Aubyn is the real thing and I eagerly await his next offering (read by Jennings, pleeeeeze!?)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane
- 05-26-14
Excellent Audible Adaptation
Would you consider the audio edition of Lost for Words to be better than the print version?
Edward St. Aubyn's dazzling writing has been performed, not just read, by Alex Jennings. I own both the print and audible versions.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary
- 06-23-14
A Fine Romp
Sharp, funny and short. A very scathing take-down of the London literary scene focusing on a Booker-like literary award.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Plainbrownpaper
- 01-19-15
Dry Wit
Great narration. Wicked writing. Story lines less than engaging but overall a nice read. I've already downloaded other wither work by St. Aubyn.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Debra B
- 05-28-14
Witty, and the narrator is perfect
This is one of the wittiest books I've read in a long time. I am not an insider to the world the author describes, but it didn't prevent me from feeling like I knew the various characters, and thinking the whole thing was terrifically funny. Except for a few spots, it wasn't burst out loud funny; it was more all of the little interjections from the author and the perfect little plot twists that made it so enjoyable. The various characters are perfect: they weren't too over the top, as they sometimes are in parody. I know there was a start, middle and end to the book, but I admit I was so caught up in the character portrayals that the plot seemed secondary. I may listen to this again, because the wit comes at you fast and furious, and I probably missed some good stuff. The narrator's voice was absolutely drenched with highbrow sentiment, and he was great. It was almost like he was the one who wrote this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful