Audiobooks Narrated by Colum McCann

Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice

From the bestselling author of the National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin comes a lesson in how to be a writer—and so much more than that. Intriguing and inspirational, this book is a call to look outward rather than inward. McCann asks his readers to constantly push the boundaries of experience, to see empathy and wonder in the stories we craft and hear. A paean to the power of language, both by argument and by example, Letters to a Young Writer is fierce and honest in its testament to the bruises delivered by writing as both a profession and a calling. It charges aspiring writers to learn the rules and even break them. These fifty-two essays are ultimately a profound challenge to a new generation to bring truth and light to a dark world through their art. Praise for the fiction of Colum McCann Let the Great World Spin Winner of the National Book Award “One of the most electric, profound novels I have read in years.”—Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times Book Review “There’s so much passion and humor and pure life force on every page that you’ll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed.”—Dave Eggers TransAtlantic Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award “Reminiscent of the finest work of Michael Ondaatje and Michael Cunningham.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Another sweeping, beautifully constructed tapestry of life . . . Reading McCann is a rare joy.”—The Seattle Times Thirteen Ways of Looking A New York Times Notable Book of the Year “The irreducible mystery of human experience ties this small collection together, and in each of these stories McCann explores that theme in strikingly effective ways.”—The Washington Post “Extraordinary . . . incandescent.”—Chicago Tribune

Colum McCann (Author), Colum McCann (Narrator)

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Thirteen Ways of Looking

Told from a multitude of perspectives, in lyrical, hypnotic prose, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a ground-breaking work of true resonance. Accompanied by three equally powerful stories set in Afghanistan, Galway and London, this is a tribute to humanity's search for meaning and grace, from a writer at the height of his form, capable of imagining immensities even in the smallest corners of our lives.

Colum McCann (Author), Colum McCann (Narrator)

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Thirteen Ways of Looking

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - NPR - Los Angeles Times -The Boston Globe -The Seattle Times - The Independent In such acclaimed novels as Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann has transfixed readers with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first collection of short fiction in more than a decade, McCann charts the territory of chance, and the profound and intimate consequences of even our smallest moments. "As it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing." In the exuberant title novella, a retired judge reflects on his life's work, unaware as he goes about his daily routines that this particular morning will be his last. In "Sh'khol," a mother spending Christmas alone with her son confronts the unthinkable when he disappears while swimming off the coast near their home in Ireland. In "Treaty," an elderly nun catches a snippet of a news report in which it is revealed that the man who once kidnapped and brutalized her is alive, masquerading as an agent of peace. And in "What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?" a writer constructs a story about a Marine in Afghanistan calling home on New Year's Eve. Deeply personal, subtly subversive, at times harrowing, and indeed funny, yet also full of comfort, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a striking achievement. With unsurpassed empathy for his characters and their inner lives, Colum McCann forges from their stories a profound tribute to our search for meaning and grace. The collection is a rumination on the power of storytelling in a world where language and memory can sometimes falter, but in the end do not fail us, and a contemplation of the healing power of literature. Praise for Thirteen Ways of Looking "The irreducible mystery of human experience ties this small collection together, and in each of these stories McCann explores that theme in some strikingly effective ways. . . . [The first story] is as fascinating as it is poignant. . . . [The second] captures the mundane and mysterious aspects of shaping characters from the gray clay of words, placing them in realistic settings and breathing life into their lungs. . . . That he makes the story so emotionally compelling is a sign of his genius. . . . The most remarkable [piece] is Sh'khol. . . . Caught in the rushing currents of this drama, you know you're reading a little masterpiece."-The Washington Post "McCann is a writer of power and subtlety and beauty. . . . The powerful title story loiters in the mind long after you've read it."-Sarah Lyall, The New York Times "[McCann] unspools complex and unforgettable stories in this, his first collection in more than a decade."-The Boston Globe "McCann is a passionate writer whose impulse is always toward a generous understanding of his diverse characters."-The Wall Street Journal "Powerful, profound, and deeply empathetic, McCann's beautifully wrought writing in Thirteen Ways of Looking glides off the page."-BuzzFeed "McCann weaves the magic that made Let the Great World Spin so acclaimed."-The Huffington Post From the Hardcover edition.

Colum McCann (Author), Colum McCann (Narrator)

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Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton: A Memoir

Thalia Book Club Special Event: The author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses talks with Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin) about his long-anticipated, enthralling and provocative new memoir of his exile under the fatwa that sentenced him to death in 1989.

Salman Rushdie (Author), Colum McCann, John Freeman (Narrator)

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Thalia Book Club: Salman Rushdie's Joseph Anton: A Memoir

The author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses talks with Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin) about his long-anticipated, enthralling and provocative new memoir of his exile under the fatwa that sentenced him to death in 1989.

Salman Rushdie (Author), Colum McCann, John Freeman, Salman Rushdie (Narrator)

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Let the Great World Spin

New York, August 1974. A man is walking in the sky and the city stands still, captivated by this sight, awe and disbelief filling the streets. Philipe Petit is making his famous tightrope walk across the World Trade Centre. Set against a time of sweeping political and social change a single audacious event will intricately bind these apparent strangers, transforming their lives.

Colum McCann (Author), Alma Cuervo, Carol Monda, Cherise Boothe, Chris Sorensen, Colum McCann, Colum Mccann, Denica Fairman, Gerard Doyle, Jim Frangione, Johanna Parker, Lizan Mitchell, Multiple Narrators, Patricia Floyd, Ramon De Ocampo, Richard Poe (Narrator)

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