
Giovanni's Room
A Novel (Vintage International)
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Matt Bomer
-
Kevin Young
About this listen
James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel with a new introduction.
Giovanni's Room is set in the Paris of the 1950s, where a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David has just proposed marriage to his American girlfriend, but while she is away on a trip he becomes involved in a doomed affair with a bartender named Giovanni. With sharp, probing insight, James Baldwin's classic narrative delves into the mystery of love and tells a deeply moving story that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
©1956 James Baldwin (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Go Tell It on the Mountain
- A Novel (Vintage International)
- By: James Baldwin, Roxane Gay - introduction
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay, Joe Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.
-
-
Haunting
- By DAN on 08-22-24
By: James Baldwin, and others
-
If Beale Street Could Talk
- A Novel
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told through the eyes of Tish, a 19-year-old girl in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and is imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions - affection, despair, and hope.
-
-
The narrator did her thing, I love it!!!
- By Vicky on 03-22-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
The Fire Next Time
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Jesse L. Martin
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.
-
-
Sad and moving and powerful and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 09-17-15
By: James Baldwin
-
Another Country
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, Another Country tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way. Another Country is a work that is as powerful today as it was 40 years ago - and expertly narrated by Dion Graham.
-
-
Powerful and sad
- By Kenneth on 04-10-09
By: James Baldwin
-
Go Tell It on the Mountain
- A Novel (Vintage International)
- By: James Baldwin, Roxane Gay - introduction
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay, Joe Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.
-
-
Haunting
- By DAN on 08-22-24
By: James Baldwin, and others
-
If Beale Street Could Talk
- A Novel
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told through the eyes of Tish, a 19-year-old girl in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and is imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions - affection, despair, and hope.
-
-
The narrator did her thing, I love it!!!
- By Vicky on 03-22-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
The Fire Next Time
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Jesse L. Martin
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.
-
-
Sad and moving and powerful and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 09-17-15
By: James Baldwin
-
Another Country
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, Another Country tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way. Another Country is a work that is as powerful today as it was 40 years ago - and expertly narrated by Dion Graham.
-
-
Powerful and sad
- By Kenneth on 04-10-09
By: James Baldwin
-
Nobody Knows My Name
- More Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name records the last months of this famed American writer's 10-year self-exile in Europe, his return to America and to Harlem, and his first trip south at the time of the school integration battles. It contains Baldwin's controversial and intimate profiles of Norman Mailer, Richard Wright, and Ingmar Bergman. And it explores such varied themes as the relations between blacks and whites, the role of blacks in America and in Europe, and the question of sexual identity.
-
-
Excellent on all counts!
- By Stephen York on 12-03-17
By: James Baldwin
-
Just Above My Head
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience. Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that inflames his nonfiction work.
-
-
Wonderful poignant story
- By Africa on 12-02-18
By: James Baldwin
-
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
- Vintage International
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty.
-
-
Long story
- By A. Baulkman on 08-01-24
By: James Baldwin
-
No Name in the Street
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent '60s and early '70s displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain - the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his return to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.
-
-
A strange and terrible vehicle
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-20
By: James Baldwin
-
Swimming in the Dark
- A Novel
- By: Tomasz Jedrowski
- Narrated by: Will Watt
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide - a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of Andre Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst.
-
-
One of the Best Contemporary Novels Ever
- By Jeffrey veals on 05-11-20
By: Tomasz Jedrowski
-
The New Life
- A Novel
- By: Tom Crewe
- Narrated by: Freddie Fox
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1894, John Addington and Henry Ellis begin writing a book arguing that homosexuality, which is a crime at the time, is a natural, harmless variation of human sexuality. Though they have never met, John and Henry both live in London with their wives, Catherine and Edith, and in each marriage, there is a third party: John has a lover, a working-class man named Frank, and Edith spends almost as much time with her friend Angelica as she does with Henry.
-
-
Brilliant historical fiction
- By Shrewsie Shrew on 01-15-23
By: Tom Crewe
-
The City and the Pillar
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship.
-
-
Do not listen to the introduction!!!!!
- By Billmatto on 12-05-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Play It as It Lays
- A Novel (FSG Classics)
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Joan Didion's Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the listener. Set in a place beyond good and evil—literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul—it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis.
-
-
For every woman who’s been told to be the good wife
- By Otter Pop on 11-08-24
By: Joan Didion
-
God Help the Child
- A Novel
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger.
-
-
God Help Us All
- By Tzynya Pinchback on 04-24-15
By: Toni Morrison
-
Maurice
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Peter Firth
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'Ah for darkness...not the darkness of a house which coops up a man among furniture, but the darkness where he can be free!' Maurice Hall knows he must choose between living life in the shadows or denying himself a chance at love and fulfilment. Aware of his attraction to the same sex, in a time where it was considered unlawful and immoral to have homosexual desires, Maurice must decide whether to battle or submit to a prejudiced 20th-century English society.
-
-
Finally!!! It's past time!
- By Christopher P. on 11-18-10
By: E. M. Forster
-
Begin Again
- James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
- By: Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
- Narrated by: Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Begin Again is one of the great books on James Baldwin and a powerful reckoning with America’s ongoing failure to confront the lies it tells itself about race. Just as in Baldwin’s “after times,” argues Eddie S. Glaude Jr., when white Americans met the civil rights movement’s call for truth and justice with blind rage and the murders of movement leaders, so in our moment were the Obama presidency and the birth of Black Lives Matter answered with the ascendance of Trump and the violent resurgence of white nationalism.
-
-
I Understand.
- By Carrie Johnson on 07-01-20
-
Sula
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
-
-
Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
- By Karen on 04-11-11
By: Toni Morrison
Critic reviews
"If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one."—Michael Ondaatje
"A young American involved with both a woman and a man...Baldwin writes of these matters with unusual candor and yet with such dignity and intensity."—The New York Times
"Absorbing...[with] immediate emotional impact."—The Washington Post
Related to this topic
-
The Honeymoon
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Rose Robinson, Sean Burke, Leena Makoff, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy and Jonah, wealthy entrepreneurs with a spoiled son, hide sins from their past—one involving a death on a cruise, the other a crime in Bali. Nathan and Samantha, the hot ex-nanny turned trophy wife, grapple with infertility and a shocking paternity secret. Bartosz and Angelika (he’s a chef, she’s a former sex worker) carry debts to the other couples they don’t even realize they owe. Over fourteen days, the couples bond—but their pasts are too deeply intertwined to stay hidden. The sly concierge, Putu, knows more than he lets on.
-
-
Great storytelling!
- By Ashley R on 03-31-25
By: Jane E. James
-
Hitchhikers
- By: Ben H. Winters
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?
-
-
The ever present battle between past and future.
- By Kindle Customer on 03-14-25
By: Ben H. Winters
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
-
The Honeymoon
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Rose Robinson, Sean Burke, Leena Makoff, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy and Jonah, wealthy entrepreneurs with a spoiled son, hide sins from their past—one involving a death on a cruise, the other a crime in Bali. Nathan and Samantha, the hot ex-nanny turned trophy wife, grapple with infertility and a shocking paternity secret. Bartosz and Angelika (he’s a chef, she’s a former sex worker) carry debts to the other couples they don’t even realize they owe. Over fourteen days, the couples bond—but their pasts are too deeply intertwined to stay hidden. The sly concierge, Putu, knows more than he lets on.
-
-
Great storytelling!
- By Ashley R on 03-31-25
By: Jane E. James
-
Hitchhikers
- By: Ben H. Winters
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?
-
-
The ever present battle between past and future.
- By Kindle Customer on 03-14-25
By: Ben H. Winters
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
-
He Who Fights with Monsters 2
- A LitRPG Adventure (He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 2)
- By: Shirtaloon, Travis Deverell
- Narrated by: Heath Miller
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
But Jason Asano is settling into his new life. Now, a contest draws young elites to the city of Greenstone to compete for a grand prize. Jason must gather a band of companions if he is to stand a chance against the best the world has to offer. While the young adventurers are caught up in competition, the city leaders deal with revelations of betrayal as a vast and terrible enemy is revealed. Although Jason seems uninvolved, he has unknowingly crossed the enemy’s path before.
-
-
Contrary to common reviews
- By Karen on 05-21-21
By: Shirtaloon, and others
-
Brain Damage
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.
-
-
Who Else Laughed, Cried, and Shuddered?
- By Jennifer Chichester on 09-16-22
By: Freida McFadden
-
Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
-
-
The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
-
Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
-
-
Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
-
The House on the Water
- A Novella
- By: Margot Hunt
- Narrated by: Taylor Schilling
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every year, Caroline Reed takes a trip with her best friend, Esme Lamont. They’re usually accompanied by their spouses - but this year, everything’s changed. Esme has just gone through a bitter divorce, and Caroline's wondering if her own marriage is reaching its breaking point as she and her husband, John, cope with the discovery that their son has been abusing drugs. Still, the inseparable duo books a weeklong stay at a beach-front home in Shoreham, Florida, inviting Esme’s brother, Nick, and his new husband. After a blissful first night in the vacation home, tragedy strikes.
-
-
Wonderful Story
- By David M. Wilcox on 12-04-20
By: Margot Hunt
-
Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection
- By: Stephen Fry, Washington Irving, M.R. James, and others
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.
-
-
Wonderful narration. Mediocre stories.
- By Michael Fuchs on 11-07-23
By: Stephen Fry, and others
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Go Tell It on the Mountain
- A Novel (Vintage International)
- By: James Baldwin, Roxane Gay - introduction
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay, Joe Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.
-
-
Haunting
- By DAN on 08-22-24
By: James Baldwin, and others
-
Little and Often
- A Memoir
- By: Trent Preszler
- Narrated by: Matt Bomer
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trent Preszler thought he was living the life he always wanted, with a job at a winery and a seaside Long Island home, when he was called back to the life he left behind. After years of estrangement, his cancer-stricken father had invited him to South Dakota for Thanksgiving. It would be the last time he saw his father alive. Preszler’s only inheritance was a beat-up wooden toolbox that had belonged to his father, who was a cattle rancher, rodeo champion, and Vietnam War Bronze Star Medal recipient. This family heirloom befuddled Preszler.
-
-
So good
- By Trevor Stanco on 04-28-21
By: Trent Preszler
-
A New Night
- The Dead Soul Series, Book 2
- By: R. I. Polsgrove
- Narrated by: Rick Murphy
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryane and Quinn settle into life together. Quinn is attentive and gentle with her. Ryane learns more about him and his world. But then she uncovers a shocking secret about one of his past kills. It will test the limits of love and friendship.
By: R. I. Polsgrove
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Another Country
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, Another Country tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way. Another Country is a work that is as powerful today as it was 40 years ago - and expertly narrated by Dion Graham.
-
-
Powerful and sad
- By Kenneth on 04-10-09
By: James Baldwin
-
You're Embarrassing Yourself
- Stories of Love, Lust, and Movies
- By: Desiree Akhavan
- Narrated by: Desiree Akhavan
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut.
By: Desiree Akhavan
-
Go Tell It on the Mountain
- A Novel (Vintage International)
- By: James Baldwin, Roxane Gay - introduction
- Narrated by: Roxane Gay, Joe Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.
-
-
Haunting
- By DAN on 08-22-24
By: James Baldwin, and others
-
Little and Often
- A Memoir
- By: Trent Preszler
- Narrated by: Matt Bomer
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trent Preszler thought he was living the life he always wanted, with a job at a winery and a seaside Long Island home, when he was called back to the life he left behind. After years of estrangement, his cancer-stricken father had invited him to South Dakota for Thanksgiving. It would be the last time he saw his father alive. Preszler’s only inheritance was a beat-up wooden toolbox that had belonged to his father, who was a cattle rancher, rodeo champion, and Vietnam War Bronze Star Medal recipient. This family heirloom befuddled Preszler.
-
-
So good
- By Trevor Stanco on 04-28-21
By: Trent Preszler
-
A New Night
- The Dead Soul Series, Book 2
- By: R. I. Polsgrove
- Narrated by: Rick Murphy
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryane and Quinn settle into life together. Quinn is attentive and gentle with her. Ryane learns more about him and his world. But then she uncovers a shocking secret about one of his past kills. It will test the limits of love and friendship.
By: R. I. Polsgrove
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Another Country
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, Another Country tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way. Another Country is a work that is as powerful today as it was 40 years ago - and expertly narrated by Dion Graham.
-
-
Powerful and sad
- By Kenneth on 04-10-09
By: James Baldwin
-
You're Embarrassing Yourself
- Stories of Love, Lust, and Movies
- By: Desiree Akhavan
- Narrated by: Desiree Akhavan
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut.
By: Desiree Akhavan
-
The Parlour Wife
- By: Foluso Agbaje
- Narrated by: Precious Mustapha
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the announcement of World War Two and a change that sends shockwaves through her family, Kehinde is forced to put aside her dreams of writing and become the third wife of Mr Ogunjobi. Kehinde makes her peace by selling snacks at a small market. When she gets the chance to assist the leader of the Lagos Women’s Market Association, fighting for the rights the British are trying to take away, Kehinde finally feels useful again. But if her husband finds out he’ll abandon her.
-
-
This was a slow burn
- By Moira on 03-28-25
By: Foluso Agbaje
-
Nothing Personal
- By: James Baldwin, Imani Perry, Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Baldwin’s critique of American society at the height of the civil rights movement brings his prescient thoughts on social isolation, race, and police brutality to a new generation of listeners.
-
-
The timing… 1/20/25
- By Leslie on 01-20-25
By: James Baldwin, and others
-
If Beale Street Could Talk
- A Novel
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told through the eyes of Tish, a 19-year-old girl in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and is imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions - affection, despair, and hope.
-
-
The narrator did her thing, I love it!!!
- By Vicky on 03-22-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Just Above My Head
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience. Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that inflames his nonfiction work.
-
-
Wonderful poignant story
- By Africa on 12-02-18
By: James Baldwin
-
The Fire Next Time
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Jesse L. Martin
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.
-
-
Sad and moving and powerful and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 09-17-15
By: James Baldwin
-
Going to Meet the Man
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their heads above water.
-
-
Punch in the gut
- By Rebecca on 05-08-17
By: James Baldwin
-
Nobody Knows My Name
- More Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name records the last months of this famed American writer's 10-year self-exile in Europe, his return to America and to Harlem, and his first trip south at the time of the school integration battles. It contains Baldwin's controversial and intimate profiles of Norman Mailer, Richard Wright, and Ingmar Bergman. And it explores such varied themes as the relations between blacks and whites, the role of blacks in America and in Europe, and the question of sexual identity.
-
-
Excellent on all counts!
- By Stephen York on 12-03-17
By: James Baldwin
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
The Devil Finds Work
- An Essay
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics. Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
-
-
A Critical Masterpiece.
- By Ramon McGee on 05-10-18
By: James Baldwin
-
Great American Authors Read from Their Works, Volume 1
- James Baldwin Reading from Giovanni's Room
- By: Calliope Author Readings, James Baldwin
- Narrated by: James Baldwin
- Length: 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Baldwin gives an electrifying reading about a young gay American in Paris recalling a dramatic and transforming incident from his boyhood, as he struggles to accept his sexual identity.
By: Calliope Author Readings, and others
-
No Name in the Street
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent '60s and early '70s displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain - the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his return to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.
-
-
A strange and terrible vehicle
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-20
By: James Baldwin
-
Maurice
- By: Edward Morgan Forster
- Narrated by: Andrea Oldani
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Maurice" è forse il capolavoro di Forster. Certamente è la sua opera più intima e commovente, uno squisito esercizio privato di narrazione della verità. Sullo sfondo di una società vittoriana rigida ed esclusiva, scoppia tra Maurice e Clive, compagni di college, una passione complice e innominabile. Se per Clive la storia d'amore è destinata a seppellirsi nella "normalità", per Maurice è il calvario che conduce a una nuova vita.
What listeners say about Giovanni's Room
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Donna Kearns
- 03-22-25
Heartbreaking
One hundred years ago and so little has changed. I want to read it again and savor the language
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-01-25
beautiful read
this book was so eloquently written and is one of his best pieces of work
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael
- 01-02-25
Beautiful language and pacing - I couldn’t stop till it was done
This is a beautiful book, written in 1956. Never before have I understood the strength of desire and the impossible place society demands of us.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer Knox
- 01-04-25
Heartbreaking
For this book to be nearly 70 years old, a lot of these problems are still relevant to this day. Such a heartbreaking and tragic story. Hats off to Baldwin!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melissa Miles
- 02-24-25
Metaphor
James Baldwin does a remarkable job in creating metaphors throughout this saga of homo and heterosexuality. Powerful book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Charisse Paradiso
- 09-07-24
Outstanding Narration
Matt Bomer's range of talent is evident in every piece of art of which he takes part. " Giovanni's Room" is no exception. His narration transports one into the story. Bien joué.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JCTHIEM
- 09-09-24
Finally got to it.
This has been in my wishlist for quite some time. I held off as many books from this era, especially those centered around love and relationships I find daunting to read. To my surprise I found this quite good. Having lived in Europe for a number of years I found the setting quite familiar and relatable. Characters came to life as they though they could be contemporary characters for the most part. given the books historical notoriety in the community I'm very pleased it's aged as well as it has.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joann Gilles
- 01-28-25
The production felt like listening to dramatic radio. Thoroughly enjoyable. Baldwin’s writing is beautiful.
Felt a little dated, but, of course it is of another time. Things have changed so much.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 02-02-25
Masterpiece
Very well written, poetic masterpiece of literature! James Baldwin writes in a way that is so beautifully constructed that it makes reader/listener fall in love with the very words and the characters. The book was ahead of its time and therefore one almost forgets the era in which it was actually written. It feels so contemporary that one forgets just how revolutionary it actually was! His positive and unapologetic dipiction of gay love is enriching and powerful. A must read or listen! Bravo James Baldwin!🎉🏳️🌈
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 03-29-25
Out of this world
A great reading
A brief and powerful novel
I think it’s my favorite book ever
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!