Audiobooks by Philip Roth

"Brought to you by Penguin. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Philip Roth turns his gaze on 30s and 40s America in this magnificent successor to American Pastoral. Ira Ringold is an American roughneck who transforms himself from a ditch-digger in 1930s New Jersey, to a radio hotshot in the 1940s. In his heyday as a star - and as a bullying supporter of 'progressive' political causes - Ira marries Hollywood's leading lady, Eve Frame. Their glamorous honeymoon is short-lived, however, and it is the publication of Eve's scandalous bestselling exposé that identifies Ira as 'an American taking his orders from Moscow'. In this story of cruelty, betrayal, and revenge friends become deadly enemies, parents and children estranged, lovers blacklisted and the great felled from vertiginous heights. 'Knotted with energy, barely wasting a scene or word in its cracking velocity' Mail on Sunday 'A passionate and coruscating American tragedy' Financial Times © 1998 Philip Roth (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

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The Human Stain

"Brought to you by Penguin. The American psyche is channelled into the gripping story of one man. This is the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Philip Roth at his very best. It is 1998, the year America is plunged into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president. In a small New England town a distinguished professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues allege that he is a racist. The charge is unfounded, the persecution needless, but the truth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret that he has kept for fifty years. This is the conclusion to Roth’s brilliant trilogy of post-war America – a story of seismic shifts in American history and a personal search for renewal and regeneration. 'An extraordinary book - bursting with rage, humming with ideas, full of dazzling sleights of hand' Sunday Telegraph ©2000 Philip Roth (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Dennis Boutsikaris (Narrator)

Audiobook

Nemesis

"Brought to you by Penguin. It's the sweltering summer of 1944, and Newark is in the grip of a terrifying epidemic. Decent, athletic twenty-three year old playground director Bucky Cantor is devoted to his charges and ashamed with himself because his weak eyes have excluded him from serving in the war alongside his contemporaries. As polio begins to ravage Bucky's playground - child by helpless child - Roth leads us through every emotion such a pestilence can breed: the fear, the panic, the anger, the bewilderment, the suffering and the pain. 'The genius of Philip Roth...back at his imperious best in this heartbreaking tale... The eloquence of Roth's storytelling makes Nemesis one of his most haunting works' Daily Mail 'Cantor is one of Roth's best creations and the atmosphere of terror is masterfully fashioned' Sunday Telegraph 'Very fine, very unsettling' Douglas Kennedy, The Times ©2010 Philip Roth (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Dennis Boutsikaris (Narrator)

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Portnoy's Complaint

"Brought to you by Penguin. 'The most outrageously funny book about sex written' Guardian Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933-)]:A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Portnoy's Complaint tells the tale of young Jewish lawyer Alexander Portnoy and his scandalous sexual confessions to his psychiatrist. As narrated by Portnoy, he takes the reader on a journey through his childhood to adolescence to present day while articulating his sexual desire, frustration and neurosis in shockingly candid ways. Hysterically funny and daringly intimate, Portnoy's Complaint was an immediate bestseller upon its publication and elevated Roth to an international literary celebrity. ©1967, 1968, 1969 Philip Roth (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Ron Silver (Narrator)

Audiobook

Goodbye, Columbus

"Brought to you by Penguin. Philip Roth's debut novella and Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin, he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills, who meet one summer and fall into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella is accompanied by five short stories - sometimes iconoclastic, sometimes elegiac - that crackle with irreverent originality and display Roth's blazing early talent. Philip Roth's prize-winning first book instantly established its author's reputation as a writer of explosive wit, merciless insight and humane compassion for even the most self-deluding of his characters. 'Opening the first page of any Philip Roth is like hearing the ignition on a boiler roar into life. Passion is what we're going to get, and plenty of it' Guardian © 1964 Philip Roth (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Jonathan Davis, Ramiz Monsef, Robert Fass (Narrator)

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Sabbath's Theater

"Brought to you by Penguin. 'A work of near heroic vitality and cunning' Sunday Telegraph At sixty-four Mickey Sabbath is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous; sex is an obsession and a principle, an instrument of perpetual misrule in his daily existence. But after the death of his long-time mistress - an erotic free spirit whose great taste for the impermissible matches his own - Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past. Bereft and grieving, tormented by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction... Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction ©1995 Philip Roth (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), John Turturro (Narrator)

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American Pastoral

"Brought to you by Penguin. Discover the Pulitzer-prize winning novel that confirmed Philip Roth as one of the greatest American writers. 'Swede' Levov is living the American dream. He glides through life cocooned by his devoted family, lucrative business, sporting prowess and good looks. He is the embodiment of thriving, post-war America, land of liberty and hope. Until one sunny day in 1968, when Swede's daughter, Merry, commits an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism and the Levov family is plunged into mayhem. Extraordinarily nuanced and poignant, American Pastoral is the first in an eloquent trilogy of post-war American novels that still resonates today. PRAISE FOR AMERICAN PASTORAL: 'Angry, grieving, witty, acute' Sunday Times 'A profound and personal meditation on the changes in the American psyche over the last fifty years' Financial Times 'A momentous novel' Observer ©2016 Philip Roth (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Plot Against America

"Brought to you by Penguin. When celebrity aviator, Charles A. Lindbergh, wins the 1940 presidential election on the slogan of 'America First', fear invades every Jewish household. Not only has Lindbergh blamed the Jews for pushing America towards war with Germany, he has negotiated an 'understanding' with the Nazis promising peace between the two nations. Growing up in the 'ghetto' of Newark, Philip Roth recounts his childhood caught in the stranglehold of this counterfactual nightmare. As America sinks into its own dark metamorphosis and Jewish families are torn apart, fear and uncertainty spread. Who really is President Lindbergh? And to what end has he hijacked America? 'Many passages in The Plot Against America echo feelings voiced today by vulnerable Americans - immigrants and minorities as alarmed by Trump's election as the Jews of Newark are frightened by Lindbergh's' New Yorker 'He captures better than anyone the collision of public and private, the intrusion of history into the skin, the pores of every individual alive' Guardian 'Though on the morning after the election disbelief prevailed, especially among the pollsters, by the next everybody seemed to understand everything...' **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY** ©2016 Philip Roth (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Ron Silver (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Ghost Writer

"Brought to you by Penguin. When talented young writer Nathan Zuckerman makes his pilgrimage to sit at the feet of his hero, the reclusive master of American Literature, E. I. Lonoff, he soon finds himself enmeshed in the great Jewish writer's domestic life, with all its complexity, artifice and drive for artistic truth. As Nathan sits in breathlessly awkward conversation with his idol, a glimpse of a dark-haired beauty through a closing doorway leaves him reeling. He soon learns that the entrancing vision is Amy Bellette, but her position in the Lonoff household - student? mistress? - remains tantalisingly unclear. Over a disturbed and confusing dinner, Nathan gleans snippets of Amy's haunting Jewish background, and begins to draw his own fantastical conclusions... ©2016 Philip Roth (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Patrimony: A True Story

"Brought to you by Penguin. Patrimony is a true story about the relationship between a father and a son. Philip Roth watches as his eight-six-year-old father, famous for his vigour, his charm and his skill as a raconteur - lovingly called 'the Bard of Newark' - battles with the brain tumour that will kill him. The son, full of love, anxiety and dread, accompanies his father through each fearful stage of his final ordeal, and, as he does so, discloses the survivalist tenacity that has distinguished his father's long engagement with life. Written with fierce tenderness, Patrimony is a classic work of memoir by a master storyteller. ©2016 Philip Roth (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Philip Roth (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

Audiobook

[Spanish] - Zuckerman encadenado

"Reunidas en un solo audiolibro las tres primeras novelas protagonizadas por Nathan Zuckerman y, como epílogo, una pieza genial: La orgía de Praga. Este audiolibro reúne las tres primeras novelas -y una nouvelle- protagonizadas por Nathan Zuckerman La visita al maestro (1979), Zuckerman desencadenado (1981) y La lección de anatomía (1983), el álter ego de Philip Roth. En La visita al maestro, un joven Zuckerman en los inicios de su carrera visita a su mentor en Nueva Inglaterra y se enamora de una mujer que cree identificar con la mismísima Ana Frank. Zuckerman desencadenado es una divertida parodia sobre los riesgos de la fama, mientras que La lección de anatomía cuenta la divertida y triste historia de un Zuckerman en plena crisis vital y creativa. Y al fin, en La orgía de Praga, viajamos con él a la ciudad ocupada por los soviéticos en busca del manuscrito inédito de un misterioso escritor judío. Reseña: «El mejor Roth.» The New York Times Book Review"

Philip Roth (Author), Bern Hoffman (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - El profesor del deseo

"Una magnífica novela del gran Philip Roth, de soberana inteligencia, conmovedora y, muchas veces, hilarante, planteada sobre el dilema del placer. En sus tiempos de estudiante universitario, David Kepesh dice de sí mismo que es «un bribón entre los sabios, un sabio entre los bribones». Poco se imagina él hasta qué punto ha de cumplirse en el futuro dicho lema, ni el daño que le hará. Porque Philip Roth, mientras acompaña a Kepesh desde su niñez en familia hasta adentrarse en el vasto campo de las posibilidades eróticas, partiendo de un ménage à trois en Londres para caer en las garras de la soledad en Nueva York, va creando una novela de soberana inteligencia, conmovedora y, muchas veces, hilarante, planteada sobre el dilema del placer por qué lo buscamos, por qué huimos de él, y cómo nos empeñamos en pactar una tregua entre la dignidad y el deseo. Reseña: «A diferencia de quienes llegamos a este mundo ciegos y desnudos y llorando, el señor Roth ha nacido ya con uñas, con pelo, con dientes, y hablando a la perfección. Posee talento, posee ingenio, está lleno de fuerza y se desempeña como un virtuoso.» Saul Bellow «En la actual literatura norteamericana está Philip Roth y, después, todos los demás.» Chicago Tribune «Philip Roth es un gran historiador del erotismo moderno. […] Habla de una sexualidad que se cuestiona a sí misma; sigue siendo hedonismo, pero es un hedonismo problemático, herido, irónico. La suya es una unión poco común entre la confesión y la ironía. Infinitamente vulnerable en su sinceridad e infinitamente esquivo en su ironía.» Milan Kundera «La lectura nos deja claro que El profesor del deseo [es] una fina muestra de habilidades literarias, una novela breve desafiante, conmovedora cuando debe serlo, un examen erudito del troglodita que llevamos dentro.» Vance Bourjaily, The New York Times"

Philip Roth (Author), Alan Alarcón (Narrator)

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