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The Great Gatsby Audiobook
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(3.00) - 1,147,101 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. A youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922 inspired the novel. Following a move to the French Riviera, he completed a rough draft in 1924. He submitted the draft to editor Maxwell Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After his revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title and considered several alternatives. After its publication by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, although some literary critics believed it did not hold up to Fitzgerald's previous efforts and signaled the end of the author's literary achievements. Despite the warm critical reception, Gatsby was a commercial failure. The book sold fewer than 20,000 copies by October, and Fitzgerald's hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized. When the author died in 1940, he believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. After his death, the novel faced a critical and scholarly re-examination amid World War II, and it soon became a core part of most American high school curricula and a focus of American popular culture. Numerous stage and film adaptations followed in the subsequent decades. Gatsby continues to attract popular and scholarly attention. The novel was most recently adapted to film in 2013 by director Baz Luhrmann, while contemporary scholars emphasize the novel's treatment of social class, inherited wealth compared to those who are self-made, race, environmentalism, and its cynical attitude towards the American dream.
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"Read it for school. At the beginning I thought it was going to be crap. It was slow and boring, mostly character presentations and mild-character development. Later it gets better. I hated most of the characters but not the story. But I did hope that many of the characters were going to have a really bad end, but didn't happen. Good book overall."
— Karla (4 out of 5 stars)
The Great Gatsby Listener Reviews
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" Typically I'm a Debbie downer when I read classics. But I love this book. I'm glad I finally got to read it. "
— Kristin, 2/17/2014 -
" One of the only books where there is not one thing I would change. "
— Amanda, 2/17/2014 -
" I liked it better than I did in high school, but I still don't get what makes it classic. It's tragic, and has pathetic (literary term: flawed) characters, but I don't think that's anything new, even 100 years ago. "
— Charles, 2/16/2014 -
" Glad I finally got around to this one. I love the idea of a narrator who tells the reader he can't be trusted and is the only one in the book who ought to be. "
— Jessie, 2/15/2014 -
" not bad. The ending was really good. "
— Jennifer, 2/14/2014 -
" could not get into this book and i love the classics. hope everyone else enjoys it. "
— Bekk, 2/7/2014 -
" I thought for sure I read this when I was in high school, but the story seemed new to me. Quick read, though awkward at times in the flow of the story. "
— Beth, 2/1/2014 -
" This was a good book but I guess I am not sure why it got all of the hype. I liked it but it wasn't as amazing as I expected. I guess I was just expecting too much. Definitely a must read but not 5 stars, maybe 3.5 or 4. "
— Kathleen, 2/1/2014 -
" You can't avoid falling in love with the atmosphere described! "
— Chiara, 1/26/2014 -
" My first experience with reading The Great Gatsby was in my high school English class. And I hated this book with a passion, I hated it. I decided to give it another shot, I admit the movie convinced me, to see if it was a hate produced by having to pick apart and dissect the book, or just because I didn't like it. This attempt went a little better. Once the story picked up (as much as it was going to) I found I didn't hate it, but this will never be one of my favorites or high on the like list. Tom drove me nuts with his meddling and idol worship of Gatsby and Daisy is one of the most, if not the most, shallow characters in literature. The only reason this book got three stars from me was due to the symbolism. "
— Janine, 1/22/2014 -
" This book was fairly entertaining, but I believe that ending was not as strong I thought it would have been. The ending really left me lacking as soon as I finished, but the book was still good. "
— Vichith, 1/20/2014
About F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and educated at Princeton, where he was a leader in theatrical and literary activities. He began writing his first novel, This Side of Paradise, while serving in the army. Its publication in 1920 established him as the spokesman for the Jazz Age. His major novels include The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night.