Atonement

Unabridged
Author: Ian McEwan
Narrator: Jill Tanner
Genres: Fiction
Publisher: Recorded Books
Date: January 2005
Length: 14 hours
Ratings:
Formats:
  • CD

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Overview

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed forever...

Selected Reviews

I didn't see the movie

by ceectee
  • Book Rating: 0/5

boring

by Anonymous
  • Book Rating: 2/5

More...

Read All 8

Reviews (8)

I didn't see the movie

Written by ceectee on September 23rd, 2008

  • Book Rating: 0/5

This book was so slow that I had to force myself to listen to the second CD. After that I couldn't take it anymore, so I put the CD back in the sleeve and sent it back. I think I'll rent the movie to see what's it's all about.

boring

Written by Anonymous on August 8th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 2/5

The reader was slow and the storyline was slower. I lost interest and , reading the synopsis elsewhere, decided to give up on the book.

Atonement

Written by Anonymous on April 8th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 5/5

The book/CD was VERY slow getting started. However, since I had heard so much on the TV and knew the movie had won so many awards....I stuck with it. It turned out to be pretty good.

Atonement

Written by Andrea Stillwell on November 14th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Very well written and this was my first exposure to McEwan. I was entranced by the structure, that is the division into parts. I had no problem being engaged with the characters from page (disc) one and several times sat in my car in the parking lot and was ever so slightly late for work! I have never considered Dunkirk from the perspective of those who were picked up only from the "picker uppers"...see Mrs. Miniver. A fascinating picture of whatever McEwan chose to tell us. Enjoy.

Don't give up...

Written by Sherry M.-Midwest on September 10th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Though the writing was very good in the beginning, the plot was very slow to take off and for what would have been the second time, I nearly gave up on it. The nicest thing about books on tape, a reader's voice is better than silence in the car, at least most of the time. I listened to the tape, sometimes becoming very impatient with the author. A couple of times I recall saying outloud--make me care about these characters! About half way through the book, I began to care. I cared so much, in fact, that I stopped listening to the book and picked up the book again and read it at home. As the book ended, I was so moved my eyes clouded in tears. I then appreciated the careful journey the author had taken me on. A very good book if you can be a bit patient.

Atonement

Written by Audrey Dillon on April 3rd, 2007

  • Book Rating: 4/5

If you enjoy good literature rather than "formula" authors, you will want to listen to this. It is very well crafted. McEwan's style of writing and use of language is to the reader (or - in this case, listener) a literary feast. I found myself looking for excuses to be in my car to listen to this masterpiece. This book was very deservant of winning the Booker prize!

Atonement (unabridged)

Written by Ted Balant from Toronto, ON on November 1st, 2006

  • Book Rating: 4/5

An excellant book by one of the best writers of contemporary modern fiction. The first half of the book is as good as anything that is is being written today. The second half doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first half but McEwan at 75% is still better than most writers that one is likely to read. The book, like most of McEwan's writing, is a series of exquisitely wrought set pieces. The writing is technically brilliant though undeniably dark in nature. I give it 4 out of 5 because McEwan's abundant talent sets the bar high for himself. The promise of the book makes one wish it were even better than it is. The bok has terrific perspective on life between the wars in upper class English family life in the run up to WW2 and in the summer of 1940. The book also has a wonderfully well crafted perspective on a precocious teen's view of the mysteries of adult love and life. There is a terrible tragedy that emerges from this misunderstanding that forever changes three lives.

Atonement

Written by William Morgan from South Lyon, MI on November 9th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 3/5

I almost gave up on this one. The first few disks seemed to go nowhere, but after awhile, the story began to take shape. It was not really my style, too much romance and flowery descriptive language. However, in the end I was glad I saw it though.

Selected Reviews

I didn't see the movie

by ceectee
  • Book Rating: 0/5

boring

by Anonymous
  • Book Rating: 2/5

More...

Read All 8

Author Details

Author Details

McEwan, Ian

Ian McEwan was born on 21 June 1948 in Aldershot, England. He studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970. He received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia.

McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites; the Whitbread Novel Award (1987) and the Prix Fémina Etranger (1993) for The Child in Time; and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. His novel Atonement received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002), National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003), Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003), and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004). He was awarded a CBE in 2000. In 2006, he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Saturday and his novel On Chesil Beach was named Galaxy Book of the Year at the 2008 British Book Awards where McEwan was also named Reader's Digest Author of the Year.

McEwan lives in London and is currently writing a new novel. His most recently published work is For You, a libretto.