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The World According To Garp

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The World According To Garp

By: John Irving
Narrated by: Adam Sims
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About this listen

 A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.

'A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and heartbreaking...terrific' WASHINGTON POST

Anniversary edition with a new afterword from the author.

A worldwide bestseller since its publication, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, struggling writer and illegitimate son of Jenny Fields - an unlikely feminist heroine ahead of her time.

Beautifully written, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP is a powerfully compelling and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation.

'A diamond sleeping in the dark, chipped out at last for our enrichment and delight...As approachable as it is brilliant' COSMOPOLITAN Biographical Fiction Contemporary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction

Critic reviews

Absolutely extraordinary...a roller-coaster ride that leaves one breathless, exhausted, elated and tearful
Like all great works of art, Irving's novel seems always to have been there, a diamond sleeping in the dark, chipped out at last for our enrichment and delight...As approachable as it is brilliant, Garp pulses with vital energy
The most powerful and profound novel about women written by a man in our generation .... Like all extraordinary books, Garp defies synopsis ... a marvellous, important, permanent novel by a serious artist of remarkable powers
A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and heartbreaking. You know it is true. It is also terrific
Iconic ... The World According to Garp is a huge narrative full of complex emotional rollercoasters typical of a writer's life ... fascinatingly unique
A social tragi-comedy of such velocity that it reads rather like a domestic sequel to Catch-22
A brilliant panoply of current attitudes toward sex, marriage and parenthood, the feminist movement and - above all - the concept of delineated sexual roles... Irving's characters will stay alive for years to come
Nothing in contemporary fiction matches it ... Irving's blend of gravity and play is unique, audacious, almost blasphemous ... Brilliant, funny, and consistently wise; a work of vast talent
American fiction dotes on its plucky rebel kids - those clear-eyed but big-hearted outsiders and vagabonds who from Twain to Salinger, and far beyond, light out for the territory of a hard-won liberty. No one, over three decades, has worked this seam with more zest and glee than John Irving...his quirkily compassionate individualism reliably stands up for the upstart and the outcast
All stars
Most relevant
There are lots of books to which I have given a 5-stars rating. But what makes the difference between most of them and a masterpiece such as Irving's, is that most of those very good books are very forgettable. Irving's are not. They stay with me and so does the feeling they generate while reading them. I already know it will be the case for this one too. And the narration is spot on.

Unforgettable

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I read this book years ago, now revisiting on audible. absolutely loved it, even more this time. The voice performance brought nuance I had missed the first time.

Classic John Irving

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I love most of John's books this was the one I gut my teeth on as a teen-ager...I still love it

read this book

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I first read this wonderful novel in 1982 which made me a huge Irving fan. I have reread this novel every decade since and each time I have always found something new and interesting to wonder about!

Sublime

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Listened to the book in record time. An unusual but compelling read.. I've been building up to reading this book for years.. Now that I've taken the plunge a sense of having been cleaned has come over me. And a reminder of the sexual oppression and violence that millions of women still face today.

A novel that demands a response

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