
So We Read On
How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $21.83
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Maureen Corrigan
-
By:
-
Maureen Corrigan
About this listen
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great - and utterly unusual - So We Read On takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby's surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a "classic", and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender.
With rigor, wit, and infectious enthusiasm, Corrigan inspires us to re-experience the greatness of Gatsby and cuts to the heart of why we are, as a culture, "borne back ceaselessly" into its thrall. Along the way, she spins a new and fascinating story of her own.
©2014 Maureen Corrigan (P)2014 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby....
-
-
Simple, Beautiful, and Exquisitely Textured
- By Darwin8u on 04-09-13
-
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading
- Finding and Losing Myself in Books
- By: Maureen Corrigan
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A book reviewer for The Washington Post and NPR's Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan is obsessed with books - so much so that they caused her to delay marriage. This audiobook explores her obsession with all things literary. Corrigan expertly weaves together her own life story with the stories from the books she loves.
-
-
The author
- By Jean Lee on 01-19-24
By: Maureen Corrigan
-
The Art of X-Ray Reading
- How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In The Art of X-Ray Reading, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye and many more.
-
-
So Good I Bought the Print Version
- By Jan on 04-25-16
By: Roy Peter Clark
-
Browsings
- A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books
- By: Michael Dirda
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Pulitzer Prize - winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life - the perfect companion for any lover of books. Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the postmoderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace.
-
-
A Bag of Csshews
- By Dennis J Gallagher on 03-06-21
By: Michael Dirda
-
Race to the Bottom
- Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education
- By: Luke Rosiak
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Race to the Bottom, Luke Rosiak uncovers the shocking reason why American education is failing: Powerful special interest groups are using our kids as guinea pigs in vast ideological experiments. These groups’ initiatives aren’t focused on making children smarter—but on implementing a radical agenda, no matter the effect on academic standards.
-
-
This is literally 100% propaganda.
- By Ekim N. on 03-11-22
By: Luke Rosiak
-
Storm in a Teacup
- The Physics of Everyday Life
- By: Helen Czerski
- Narrated by: Chloe Massey
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Storm in a Teacup, Helen Czerski provides the tools to alter the way we see everything around us by linking ordinary objects and occurrences, like popcorn popping, coffee stains, and fridge magnets, to big ideas like climate change, the energy crisis, and innovative medical testing.
-
-
Everyday Physics Thoroughly Explained
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-17
By: Helen Czerski
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby....
-
-
Simple, Beautiful, and Exquisitely Textured
- By Darwin8u on 04-09-13
-
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading
- Finding and Losing Myself in Books
- By: Maureen Corrigan
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A book reviewer for The Washington Post and NPR's Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan is obsessed with books - so much so that they caused her to delay marriage. This audiobook explores her obsession with all things literary. Corrigan expertly weaves together her own life story with the stories from the books she loves.
-
-
The author
- By Jean Lee on 01-19-24
By: Maureen Corrigan
-
The Art of X-Ray Reading
- How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In The Art of X-Ray Reading, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye and many more.
-
-
So Good I Bought the Print Version
- By Jan on 04-25-16
By: Roy Peter Clark
-
Browsings
- A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books
- By: Michael Dirda
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Pulitzer Prize - winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life - the perfect companion for any lover of books. Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the postmoderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace.
-
-
A Bag of Csshews
- By Dennis J Gallagher on 03-06-21
By: Michael Dirda
-
Race to the Bottom
- Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education
- By: Luke Rosiak
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Race to the Bottom, Luke Rosiak uncovers the shocking reason why American education is failing: Powerful special interest groups are using our kids as guinea pigs in vast ideological experiments. These groups’ initiatives aren’t focused on making children smarter—but on implementing a radical agenda, no matter the effect on academic standards.
-
-
This is literally 100% propaganda.
- By Ekim N. on 03-11-22
By: Luke Rosiak
-
Storm in a Teacup
- The Physics of Everyday Life
- By: Helen Czerski
- Narrated by: Chloe Massey
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Storm in a Teacup, Helen Czerski provides the tools to alter the way we see everything around us by linking ordinary objects and occurrences, like popcorn popping, coffee stains, and fridge magnets, to big ideas like climate change, the energy crisis, and innovative medical testing.
-
-
Everyday Physics Thoroughly Explained
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-17
By: Helen Czerski
-
The Map of Knowledge
- A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found
- By: Violet Moller
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The foundations of modern knowledge - philosophy, math, astronomy, geography - were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean....
-
-
Terrible narration.
- By nathan535 on 11-05-19
By: Violet Moller
-
Agatha Christie
- An Elusive Woman
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Lucy Worsley
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
-
-
A delight and a revelation
- By theenglishmajor on 12-02-22
By: Lucy Worsley
-
Target Tokyo
- Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
- By: James M. Scott
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo.
-
-
Vengence is Mine, Thus Sayeth Doolittle
- By Jonathan Love on 06-13-16
By: James M. Scott
-
How to View and Appreciate Great Movies
- By: Eric Williams, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Eric Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sit down with renowned professional filmmaker, author, and award-winning professor Eric R. Williams to unpack the elements of more than 250 “great” movies to gain insights and secrets that will change the way you view films. You’ll discover how from the moment you sit down, great filmmakers control every sensation the movie experience evokes: tremors or tears, goosebumps or giggles, and why it is that we invite them to do this.
-
-
very informative
- By Greg Bensch on 01-18-21
By: Eric Williams, and others
-
Through Two Doors at Once
- The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality
- By: Anil Ananthaswamy
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The intellectual adventure story of the "double-slit" experiment, showing how a sunbeam split into two paths first challenged our understanding of light and then the nature of reality itself - and continues to almost 200 years later. Through Two Doors at Once celebrates the elegant simplicity of an iconic experiment and its profound reach. With his extraordinarily gifted eloquence, Anil Ananthaswamy travels around the world, through history and down to the smallest scales of physical reality we have yet fathomed. It is the most fantastic voyage you can take.
-
-
Excellent exposition of the conundrum
- By GLYNN A on 08-14-18
-
Batman and Psychology
- A Dark and Stormy Knight
- By: Travis Langley
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Batman is one of the most compelling and enduring characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased through countless incarnations since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us? Batman and Psychology explores these and other intriguing questions about the masked vigilante.
-
-
good job
- By deborah mccarter on 09-14-20
By: Travis Langley
-
On Writing
- A Memoir of the Craft
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Joe Hill, Owen King
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.
-
-
Who needs a print edition when King reads King?
- By Cather on 11-18-05
By: Stephen King
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
-
Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John in NC on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Einstein
- His Life and Universe
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 21 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why we think it’s a great listen: You thought he was a stodgy scientist with funny hair, but Isaacson and Hermann reveal an eloquent, intense, and selfless human being who not only shaped science with his theories, but politics and world events in the 20th century as well. Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos.
-
-
Surprise: Two books in one!
- By Henrik on 04-20-07
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Leonardo da Vinci
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Alfred Molina
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.
-
-
Wish the sample was not from the preface!
- By Chris M. on 11-13-17
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Shakespeare
- The World as Stage
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
-
-
Too Little, Too Short
- By Charles L. Burkins on 11-30-07
By: Bill Bryson
-
I Like to Watch
- Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
- By: Emily Nussbaum
- Narrated by: Emily Nussbaum
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From her creation of the “Approval Matrix” in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize–winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has argued for a new way of looking at TV. In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television, beginning with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that set her on a fresh intellectual path. She explores the rise of the female screw-up, how fans warp the shows they love, the messy power of sexual violence on TV, and the year that jokes helped elect a reality-television president.
-
-
Yes, this is worth a credit! 💯
- By Amazon Customer on 07-05-19
By: Emily Nussbaum
Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Careless People
- Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby
- By: Sarah Churchwell
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books, delighting audiences across the world. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922.
-
-
Fascinating study of the Fitzgeralds and Jazz Age
- By Sand on 06-11-14
By: Sarah Churchwell
-
Some Unfinished Chaos
- The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- By: Arthur Krystal
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unusual biography Krystal gives us not only the peripatetic and turbulent life of a cultural icon but also the intellectual sweep of a period in history that created our modern America. Some Unfinished Chaos delivers a nuanced portrait of a man whose various sides embodied the trends, passions, and pursuits of the imperfect society that both glorified and dismissed him.
By: Arthur Krystal
-
The Great Gatsby
- The Only Authorized Edition
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jesmyn Ward - introduction
- Narrated by: Seth Numrich, Eleanor Lanahan, James L. W. West III
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An all-new recording published for the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, this production presents the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with an introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others
-
American Dreamer: Who Was Jay Gatsby?
- By: Blanchard House
- Narrated by: Joe Nocera
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just before the small-time bootlegger Max Gerlach died, he tried to reveal his secret: he was the inspiration for the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It’s a nice story, but was he telling the truth? Veteran reporter Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon investigate this century-old literary mystery and uncover untold secrets about the Great American Novel.
-
-
Not an audiobook
- By George on 05-31-24
By: Blanchard House
-
The Great Gatsby at 100
- By: Sheila Liming, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sheila Liming
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.
-
-
Warning: A Woke Perspective
- By P. Steele on 04-23-25
By: Sheila Liming, and others
-
The Mysterious Case of Agatha Christie
- By: Maureen Corrigan, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Agatha Christie, the best-selling novelist in human history. Her writing career spanned six decades, during which time she wrote 66 crime novels, 6 non-crime novels (including romances), and over 150 short stories. Not only was she a phenomenally successful novelist, but she is also the most successful female playwright of all time - her play “The Mousetrap” is the longest-running show in history. As you learn about Christie’s experiences and her storied career, you will better understand how the circumstances of her life shaped her work and vice versa.
-
-
So excellent!!!
- By linsyh on 08-24-21
By: Maureen Corrigan, and others
-
Careless People
- Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby
- By: Sarah Churchwell
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books, delighting audiences across the world. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail the relation of Fitzgerald's classic to the chaotic world he in which he lived. Fitzgerald set his novel in 1922, and Careless People carefully reconstructs the crucial months during which Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald returned to New York in the autumn of 1922.
-
-
Fascinating study of the Fitzgeralds and Jazz Age
- By Sand on 06-11-14
By: Sarah Churchwell
-
Some Unfinished Chaos
- The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- By: Arthur Krystal
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unusual biography Krystal gives us not only the peripatetic and turbulent life of a cultural icon but also the intellectual sweep of a period in history that created our modern America. Some Unfinished Chaos delivers a nuanced portrait of a man whose various sides embodied the trends, passions, and pursuits of the imperfect society that both glorified and dismissed him.
By: Arthur Krystal
-
The Great Gatsby
- The Only Authorized Edition
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jesmyn Ward - introduction
- Narrated by: Seth Numrich, Eleanor Lanahan, James L. W. West III
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An all-new recording published for the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, this production presents the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with an introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others
-
American Dreamer: Who Was Jay Gatsby?
- By: Blanchard House
- Narrated by: Joe Nocera
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just before the small-time bootlegger Max Gerlach died, he tried to reveal his secret: he was the inspiration for the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It’s a nice story, but was he telling the truth? Veteran reporter Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon investigate this century-old literary mystery and uncover untold secrets about the Great American Novel.
-
-
Not an audiobook
- By George on 05-31-24
By: Blanchard House
-
The Great Gatsby at 100
- By: Sheila Liming, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sheila Liming
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.
-
-
Warning: A Woke Perspective
- By P. Steele on 04-23-25
By: Sheila Liming, and others
-
The Mysterious Case of Agatha Christie
- By: Maureen Corrigan, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Agatha Christie, the best-selling novelist in human history. Her writing career spanned six decades, during which time she wrote 66 crime novels, 6 non-crime novels (including romances), and over 150 short stories. Not only was she a phenomenally successful novelist, but she is also the most successful female playwright of all time - her play “The Mousetrap” is the longest-running show in history. As you learn about Christie’s experiences and her storied career, you will better understand how the circumstances of her life shaped her work and vice versa.
-
-
So excellent!!!
- By linsyh on 08-24-21
By: Maureen Corrigan, and others
What listeners say about So We Read On
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C. Connor
- 05-31-18
Amazing and rich
I am so grateful to have “read” this book. I am coteaching Gatsby for my second and last time because I am retiring, and it has been so helpful. I have walked listening to it and had to stop to take notes on my phone. Thank you, Maureen Corrigan for so many lessons!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Laura Bellefontaine
- 05-26-24
I love everything Gatsby
Okay, so like tell me more about the gay interpretations of Gatsby? This feels like an introduction for me to go a bit deeper but didn’t really give any satisfying answers. Now, on the other hand, there is this audible original that is free on “who is jay Gatsby” and goes into this odd theory — and that gave me more than this but. It wasn’t bad. It felt like that tourist attraction she went on at Gatsby bay or what not. It showed me all these cool things but didn’t go deeper. I want more!! But maybe that’s the point is that it’s inexhaustible. It’s deep, it’s riveting and the audience wants more. Yup, I agree. Fast read, that’s a five star for me.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KB
- 11-15-17
Exquisite - A Journey Into Fitzgerald and Gatsby
It’s been a few years since I read Gatsby and a friend recommended this book to me.
It’s a wonderful book excellently read by the author.
Enough review though... I’ve dug out my 20 year old paperback of Gatsby and I’m starting to reread it and revel in it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Linying
- 07-27-18
tttttttttttttttyyyyyyy
ttttgggghjjnbfcggbbgbbnnn. think. http. then. there thigh thigh hugged think think seeds deserving !k think death thinking deer seeds
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Phillip Jones
- 05-14-23
Charming!
This is a charming treatment of the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, and the author’s own experiences. It blends together pleasantly and encourages subsequent listens to the book in question.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark
- 10-06-14
Reading Gatsby as an adult reveals its greatness!
Would you listen to So We Read On again? Why?
I recently returned to The Great Gatsby and was shocked by its greatness and relevance that I did not appreciate when I first read the novel as a younger man. Like the author states, The Great Gatsby reveals something new every time that a reader reads it again.
I will return to this book again after reading Gatsby again.
What did you like best about this story?
The author brings in her own experiences of reading and seeing Gatsby performed on stage, as a movie as well as a teacher. This brings a dimension to the analysis that is usually lacking in literary analysis.
Have you listened to any of Maureen Corrigan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I did not know Maureen Corrigan before purchasing this audio. I was surprised by the enthusiasm of the performer and checked who she was. Ah, the author is the performer which is absolutely perfect because the enthusiasm and delivery is so pitch perfect for this book. It is rare to find a commentary on a work to be as lively, intelligent and insightful as this. (Other great commentaries on classics: Professor Drout's work on Tolkien and Chaucer are great, Harold Bloom's "How to Read and Why")The passion of the performance comes from the passion for The Great Gatsby. The research done on Fitzgerald, the 1920s and the novel itself were all obviously done out of a love of the book, so it never feels like an imposed dry and didactic thesis paper.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The portions of Fitzgerald's life story that reflect elements of the book make the book even more poignant.
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
- Seth H. Wilson
- 03-13-15
Literary criticism for everyone
The world needs more books like "So We Read On." There are many brilliant minds writing about the meaning and significance of great literature, but because they're writing to an academic audience in language laden with jargon, their important message is never heard by those who most need to hear it.
Corrigan's masterful melding of criticism, biography, and cultural commentary brings "The Great Gatsby" alive in a way that neither a dusty academic journal not a Hollywood blockbuster can do. Insightful yet entertaining, I hope this book serves as a model for other "biographies" of great literary works. Gatsby lives!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- W Perry Hall
- 09-13-14
The Great American Novel: An Orgastic Argument
Professor Corrigan, book critic for NPR and Georgetown professor, loves THE GREAT GATSBY, as do I. I devoured her delightful, didactic book on how and why it's the **Great American Novel** because, among other things, it splendidly captured Americans' quotidian desires for the *American dream,* our desire for desire ("there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired") and our quixotic belief, or perhaps subconscious romanticizing, that we can somehow recapture or relive the past, especially past loves (as Gatsby said to Nick, "Can't repeat the past? ... Why of course you can!").
------- "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--to-morrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning------
-------- "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Ms. Corrigan also provides a scintillating exploration of the author's tragic life and death and why, like many supremely talented artists before him, F. Scott Fitzgerald died in the depths of depression and perceived by himself and many others as a mediocre, has-been, with the splendor of his masterpiece unrecognized (by most) until several years after his death and yet endures as the most studied piece of literature in U.S. secondary education.
I highly recommend this book if you enjoyed The Great Gatsby or if you are fascinated with early 20th century America.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SilverRaven
- 08-06-18
Eye opening and revealing
I discovered this book while perusing a recent Audible sale. At first glance, it didn't seem like something I would pick but as I read the summary, about Maureen, and listener's reviews, I became very curious and seriously interested to learn more. Like most of the reviewers, I too had read The Great Gatsby in high school but was lost on any deep meaning of it at that time. Maureen is superb at providing the true historical facts of the era in which it was written, while explaining what was simultaneously happening in Scott Fitzerald's life as it impacted the story. I couldn't agree more with one of her final thoughts, that perhaps there is a different Gatsby for us to "get" when we read it at different stages of our own lives, and this is why the story continues to endure as one of the greats. Give it a try, and I bet you get caught up in it quickly and become inspired to read/listen to The Great Gatsby again, with new eyes.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andreea Marin
- 03-05-17
Eckleburg's Ears
If you could sum up So We Read On in three words, what would they be?
Gatsby. Fangirl. Party.
What did you like best about this story?
The analysis of the Great Gatsby and its incorporation into the comparison between it and America's beginnings and what America has become. Great cultural study.
What about Maureen Corrigan’s performance did you like?
Her passion for the topic came through.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It made me want to read the Great Gatsby again, and it certainly made me appreciate it more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!