The End of the End of the Earth Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Jonathan Franzen (Author), Robert Petkoff (Narrator), HarperCollins Publishers Limited (Publisher)

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A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The Corrections.

In The End of the End of the Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigour to the themes - both human and literary - that have long preoccupied him. Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York or offering an illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces contain all the wit and disabused realism that we’ve come to expect from Franzen.

Taken together, these essays trace the progress of a unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature and with some of the most important issues of our day, made more pressing by the current political milieu. The End of the End of the Earth is remarkable, provocative and necessary.

Listening Length

6 hours and 26 minutes
Author

Jonathan Franzen
Narrator

Robert Petkoff
Audible release date

13 November 2018
Language

English
Publisher

HarperCollins Publishers Limited
ASIN

B07HZ542MJ
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	6 hours and 26 minutes
Author	Jonathan Franzen
Narrator	Robert Petkoff
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	13 November 2018
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07HZ542MJ
Best Sellers Rank	53,489 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 45 in Extended Families 116 in Animals 137 in Literary Essays

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5 star		62%
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2 star		2%
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Top review from Australia

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Felicity Isaac

One for bird enthusiasts

Reviewed in Australia on 13 October 2019

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Very smart, cogent writing as you'd expect from JF.

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Top reviews from other countries

janet gough

Should be on 6th form reading list for every student .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 December 2018

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This is a gem,remarkable.

One person found this helpful

Kunde A.

Strangely confused essays

Reviewed in Germany on 18 March 2019

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Franzen wrote excellent essays years back. Now they seem strangely confused, a unbalanced raw mix of objective information and very personal emotions, unstructured and hard to follow and to interpret. A lack of imagination, wit. Most topics are not of interest to the general (European) reader. Otherwise, a lot on bird watching. But he has written better about his hobby in earlier publications. Quite disappointing.

9 people found this helpful

Aran Joseph Canes

A Bleak Outlook Tempered by Sound Advice

Reviewed in the United States on 14 November 2018

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Jonathan Franzen is often caricatured as an angry man. Angry at conservatives for ignoring humankind’s devastation of the planet and angry at liberals for their smug feeling of moral superiority despite few tangible accomplishments.

However, there is very little anger in The End of the End of the Earth. Instead there is, if not despair, at least a bleak feeling of unstoppable loss permeating the text. Franzen devotes relatively few pages to criticizing Trump and his ilk and instead chooses to focus on his practical ethic of small concrete actions that can be done to preserve what is still good.

For Franzen himself, this is largely dedicated to efforts to preserve the world’s avian wildlife. But mixed in with it are portraits of other individuals defying the Facebook image conscious world by making meaningful human relationships, creating photographic portraits which convey a real sense of the person and, defying the omnipresence of Tweets, writing essays like those in this book that go to the pith of the matter.

Lest you harbor any illusions, the end of the end of the earth is not a new hopeful beginning but a description of the environmental havoc being wreaked in Antarctica (which Franzen aptly refers to as the end of the earth). Instead, what Franzen offers the reader is a vision of the need to do concrete good in a world and biosphere constantly falling into greater entropy.

I doubt this vision will much capture the attention of the American public when there are so many more vapid messages being shouted from megaphones. But that doesn’t make it less sincere or less important. If all that we have at the beginning of the twenty-first century is to ground ourselves in the concrete good before a coming ecological catastrophe it is more than a message of unmitigated despair.

Franzen should be commended for not deploying his artistic talent in the service of the left’s agenda but choosing to articulate his unique vision, popular or not. Highly recommended for those who are able to at least sympathize with such a bleak account of our civilization and planet.

57 people found this helpful

Gloria Z. Nagler

Tearjerker essays...

Reviewed in the United States on 15 November 2018

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Really, I don't know that I've ever before teared up reading essays. I love most of Franzen's writing, and this book exceeds expectations. I feel as though we've been waiting for these essays to help us cope with the horrors of climate change and the accompanying existential crisis. And now that the frigging midterms are over, I can find a nature conservancy group to join. Thank you, Jonathan.

22 people found this helpful

J. Hart

Insightful, Revealing

Reviewed in the United States on 10 December 2018

Verified Purchase

These essays touch all the points not only about writing essays, but the troubles we have to confront. An excellent collection.

6 people found this helpful

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The End of the End of the Earth Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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