Play Audiobook Sample
The Adventures of Augie March Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(4.00) - 18 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
This grand-scale heroic comedy tells the story of the exuberant young Augie, a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Depression.
While his neighborhood friends all settle down into their various chosen professions, Augie, as particular as an aristocrat, demands a special destiny. He latches on to a wild succession of occupations, proudly rejecting each one as too limiting. It is not until he tangles with a glamorous perfectionist named Thea, a huntress with a trained eagle, that his independence is seriously threatened. Luckily, his nature, like the eagle’s, breaks down under the strain. He goes on to recruit himself to even more outlandish projects but always ducks out in time to continue improvising his unconventional career.
With a jaunty sense of humor embedded in a serious moral view, Bellow’s story both celebrates and satirizes the irrepressible American spirit.
Download and start listening now!
"I like it when he talks about books and discusses them. I will always remember the eagles.He tries to describe women, but he doesn't give us a voice. He seems to want to speak for us. "
— Ke (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
-
“The Adventures of Augie March is the great American novel. Search no further.”
— Atlantic Monthly -
“[Bellow’s] body of work is more capacious of imagination and language than anyone else’s…If there’s a candidate for the great American novel, I think this is it.”
— Sunday Times (London) -
“The best postwar American novel…magnificently terminates and fulfills the line of Melville, Twain, and Whitman.”
— New Republic -
“This is a must-listen; should be in most collections.”
— Library Journal -
“This audio will…keep listeners enthralled…[Gardner’s] narration seems natural and authentic.”
— Kliatt -
“A book of extraordinary and massive power…plainly one of the richest of twentieth-century American novels.”
— Alfred Kazin, literary critic and author of On Native Grounds -
“[Grover Gardner’s] reading...is masterful...Listening to [Gardner’s] superb reading of the novel makes clear that this is one of Bellow’s most entertaining and most profound books; it is, in fact, a magnificent modern novel.”
— Allen Chavkin, Southwest Texas State University
Awards
-
Winner of the 1954 National Book Award for Fiction
-
One of Modern Library's 100 Best English-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century
-
One of Time Magazine's Best 100 English-Language Novels from 1923–2005
-
A New York Public Library Staff Pick of Favorite Books of the Last 125 Years
-
New York Times bestseller
-
A London Times Pick of the 50 Best Novels of the Last 100 Years
The Adventures of Augie March Listener Reviews
-
" Fantastic, bombastic and carnivalesque picaresque. "
— Samuel, 5/21/2011 -
" So rambling and oddly-paced...so Bellow. A few good bookmarks, but otherwise I tended to read it like the narrator of Goodfellas during most parts. And I doubt that's so wrong. "
— Jennifer, 5/5/2011 -
" This is the anthem for the loners of the world struggling to lead a purposeful life. "
— Juan, 4/17/2011 -
" Five stars if it was slightly shorter. As if Saul would care. "
— Brendan, 4/10/2011 -
" What was wrong with the enjoyment of love, and what did there have to be an eagle for? "
— Noel, 3/11/2011 -
" The philosophical parts - eh. The adventures - hilarious. "
— Caroline, 2/25/2011 -
" How did I miss reading this yet in my life? It is so original and absorbing, really an astonishing book full of Chicago and America. "
— Chris, 2/16/2011 -
" I loved the Chicago Bellow evokes, and the way he can make even the most minor characters spellbinding. The episodic nature of the work drove me nuts--although it's so true to the narrator's character: a Huck Finn of the modern world. Really, it's an enjoyable, if rather long, read. "
— Jason, 1/9/2011
About Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow (1915–2005), author of numerous novels, novellas, and stories, was the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards. He also received the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, Bellow served as a war correspondent for Newsday. He taught at New York University, Princeton, and the University of Minnesota and was chairman of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
About Grover Gardner
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.