Jersey City Frankie

4 books read for LibriVox

filter sort genre era audiobooks

Les Misérables Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood
Yes, it's huge, and Hugo will stop everything for fifty pages on the Paris sewers, but Jean Valjean lifting that cart, or the bishop handing over his candlesticks, will sit in your chest for years. Skim the digressions if you must; the mercy at the center holds.
Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe
Eugene Gant grows up in a boarding house full of strangers, torn between a stonecutter father who rages like weather and a mother who counts every penny. Wolfe's sentences pour out in floods, so if you like language that overreaches on purpose, this one aches beautifully.
The Rasp Philip MacDonald
If you like Golden Age puzzles, this is a tidy one: Anthony Gethryn, restless after the war, pokes into a cabinet minister's murder and lays out his whole solution in a long letter at the end. It's a bit stiff and dated, but fair and clever.
Trilby George du Maurier
You go for the sinister hypnotist Svengali, but what stays with you is bohemian Paris, three British art students, and tone-deaf Trilby herself, warm and doomed. Fair warning, du Maurier rambles and the Svengali caricature is ugly by any modern measure, so read it with eyes open.

4 books read for LibriVox

filter sort genre era audiobooks

Les Misérables Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood
Yes, it's huge, and Hugo will stop everything for fifty pages on the Paris sewers, but Jean Valjean lifting that cart, or the bishop handing over his candlesticks, will sit in your chest for years. Skim the digressions if you must; the mercy at the center holds.
Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe
Eugene Gant grows up in a boarding house full of strangers, torn between a stonecutter father who rages like weather and a mother who counts every penny. Wolfe's sentences pour out in floods, so if you like language that overreaches on purpose, this one aches beautifully.
The Rasp Philip MacDonald
If you like Golden Age puzzles, this is a tidy one: Anthony Gethryn, restless after the war, pokes into a cabinet minister's murder and lays out his whole solution in a long letter at the end. It's a bit stiff and dated, but fair and clever.
Trilby George du Maurier
You go for the sinister hypnotist Svengali, but what stays with you is bohemian Paris, three British art students, and tone-deaf Trilby herself, warm and doomed. Fair warning, du Maurier rambles and the Svengali caricature is ugly by any modern measure, so read it with eyes open.