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Tenth of December

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Tenth of December

By: George Saunders
Narrated by: George Saunders
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About this listen

Winner: The Folio Prize 2014

From the undisputed master of the short story comes a dazzling and disturbing new collection. A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for all occasions; Divisional Director Todd Birnie sends round a memo to employees he thinks need some inspiration; and in an auction of local celebrities Al Roosten hides his own internal monologue behind a winning smile. Although, as a young boy discovers, sometimes the voices fade and all you are left with is a frozen hill on a cold day in December...

©2013 George Saunders (P)2013 W F Howes Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Celebrity Short Story

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Critic reviews

"Saunders, as an American social and literary critic, may be shaping up as the Orwell of the millennium" ( The TImes)
"He makes the all-but-impossible look effortless" (Jonathan Franzen)
"Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny with a prose style this fine" (Zadie Smith)
"There’s something so wildly magnanimous about these stories that you want to force them on everyone you meet for the good of mankind" ( Daily Telegraph)
All stars
Most relevant  
I think I'll get a refund, having read the summaries of the stories I've listened to so far. Apparently I listened to 3 stories and not 2. Thanks Wikipedia.

See... as far as short real-world stories go, these were quite good so far. I'll probably add the book to my ever-growing Kindle list.

I'm also of the opinion that there's no reason to be very critical of short audiobooks, (since they're such a small time investment) but in this case I am afraid that the narration will ruin/spoil them for me. Maybe their style just makes them unsuitable for medium-budget narration. The narrator is clearly not a voice actor and these stories all but demand voice acting.

The first 3 stories are streams of consciousness with dialogue and action. The narrator did his best to differentiate between the characters, but that led to akthenths that are hahther to undethtand. There's also no redundancy in the stories. Miss something and you'll be lost for a few minutes. I missed half of the plot, according to Wikipedia. The transition between stories is also just one word in a sea of words, usually. I still don't quite remember what the second story was.

The tone is very light, but these stories aren't light listens. I'd have to pay closer attention than what I can afford right now. I hope they're better when I'm the one reading them.

Good stories; very hard to follow

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This collection of short stories cannot be pigeon-holed. In this oddly disjointed, surreal collection, the underlying issues in modern American culture are loudly explored. George Saunders' breathless writing style floods over terrible realities and hard truths, leaving the reader gasping in its wake.

Tenth of December handles its running themes in a poignant, individual and certainly irreverent way. Narcissistic ideas of charity stems from trivial competition, while sheer denial is shown in the face of true poverty. Generations breed generations, passing on corrupted ideals and traumatic examples. Paedophilia, racism, poverty: nothing is safe from these chastising, powerful stories.

Saunders leaves an expunged, brutally telling view of the American dream. In his futuristic imaginings, he exaggerates the failings of Western consumerism, yet ultimately his message is clear: When one tries to have it all, they're left with nothing.

Dark, disturbing and satirical

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The author of these stories has some great ideas.
Because the stories are all very vague the listener has to work out the hidden details.
The problem arises when all the stories are merged into one. there is no proper or obvious gap between stories. thsu the listener might think this is more detail on the current story.
Maybe the editors could put "story 3" or similar marker between each story?

That would really help.

Great ideas all merged into one

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A series of short stories, none of which feature a beginning or an end, ranging from the absurd to the macabre all in the first person and narrated by the author. Some seemingly set in an ever so slightly ‘off’ version of our own world. I loved it. It was also occasionally laugh out loud funny which I wasn’t expecting given that most of the stories relate to traumatic events involving the protagonists. Hate, love, jealousy, hope, forgiveness, mortification. It’s all here.

All of what it means to be human laid bare on the page

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The narrator!
It grinds away and not at all absorbing ~ very irritating so can’t get into the storyline. Have given up

Nothing

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I had to listen to this as it was our Book Club read. Soooooo boring. Narrator’s tone soooooo monotonous. The stores are so unengaging that I rarely noticed when one ended and a new one began. None seemed to me to have any point, and as far as I could tell all ended in the middle of a thought... never at the end of a ‘story’. Don’t waste 5 hours of your life on these.

Truly awful

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What would have made Tenth of December better?

Why is this audiobook, made up of short stories, downloaded as if it was a single file? No way of easily skipping to a particular short story! Very annoying.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of George Saunders?

Just about anyone else

Any additional comments?

Audible, why?

Why?

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OMG. I wish I had not wasted my time listening to that book. I thought it would come to a conclusion in the last chapter, but had to stop listening half way through.
Rubbish!!!

What was that all about??

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