-
Red Pill
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Hari Kunzru
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $28.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
White Tears
- A Novel
- By: Hari Kunzru
- Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe, Danny Campbell, Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two 20-something New Yorkers. Seth is awkward and shy. Carter is the glamorous heir to one of America's great fortunes. They have one thing in common: an obsession with music. Seth is desperate to reach for the future. Carter is slipping back into the past. When Seth accidentally records an unknown singer in a park, Carter sends it out over the Internet, claiming it's a long lost 1920s blues recording by a musician called Charlie Shaw.
-
-
How the Blues Got There, Captain Jack
- By W Perry Hall on 06-02-17
By: Hari Kunzru
-
Tyll
- A Novel
- By: Daniel Kehlmann, Ross Benjamin - translator
- Narrated by: Firdous Bamji
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. This account of the 17th-century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is forced to flee with the baker’s daughter, Nele. They find safety and companionship with a traveling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade. And so begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll.
-
-
Like a Tapestry
- By David on 02-18-21
By: Daniel Kehlmann, and others
-
Klara and the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
-
-
Well Worth Having Waited For!
- By otherdeb on 03-04-21
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Committed
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt”, he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends.
-
-
Clever, Ironic, Repetitive
- By AuntGert on 03-05-21
-
My Revolutions
- By: Hari Kunzru
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the day before Mike Frame's 50th birthday and his quiet provincial life is suddenly falling apart. But perhaps it doesn't matter, because it's not his life in the first place. He has a past that his partner Miranda and step-daughter Sam know nothing about, lived under another name amidst the turbulence of the revolutionary armed struggle of the 1970s. Now Mike is seeing ghosts: a dead ex-lover and an old friend who wants to reminisce.
-
-
A Disappointment
- By Cariola on 01-02-12
By: Hari Kunzru
-
Homeland Elegies
- A Novel
- By: Ayad Akhtar
- Narrated by: Ayad Akhtar
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.
-
-
a mishmash of political theory and porn
- By LC on 02-06-21
By: Ayad Akhtar
-
White Tears
- A Novel
- By: Hari Kunzru
- Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe, Danny Campbell, Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two 20-something New Yorkers. Seth is awkward and shy. Carter is the glamorous heir to one of America's great fortunes. They have one thing in common: an obsession with music. Seth is desperate to reach for the future. Carter is slipping back into the past. When Seth accidentally records an unknown singer in a park, Carter sends it out over the Internet, claiming it's a long lost 1920s blues recording by a musician called Charlie Shaw.
-
-
How the Blues Got There, Captain Jack
- By W Perry Hall on 06-02-17
By: Hari Kunzru
-
Tyll
- A Novel
- By: Daniel Kehlmann, Ross Benjamin - translator
- Narrated by: Firdous Bamji
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. This account of the 17th-century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is forced to flee with the baker’s daughter, Nele. They find safety and companionship with a traveling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade. And so begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll.
-
-
Like a Tapestry
- By David on 02-18-21
By: Daniel Kehlmann, and others
-
Klara and the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
-
-
Well Worth Having Waited For!
- By otherdeb on 03-04-21
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Committed
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt”, he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends.
-
-
Clever, Ironic, Repetitive
- By AuntGert on 03-05-21
-
My Revolutions
- By: Hari Kunzru
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the day before Mike Frame's 50th birthday and his quiet provincial life is suddenly falling apart. But perhaps it doesn't matter, because it's not his life in the first place. He has a past that his partner Miranda and step-daughter Sam know nothing about, lived under another name amidst the turbulence of the revolutionary armed struggle of the 1970s. Now Mike is seeing ghosts: a dead ex-lover and an old friend who wants to reminisce.
-
-
A Disappointment
- By Cariola on 01-02-12
By: Hari Kunzru
-
Homeland Elegies
- A Novel
- By: Ayad Akhtar
- Narrated by: Ayad Akhtar
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.
-
-
a mishmash of political theory and porn
- By LC on 02-06-21
By: Ayad Akhtar
-
No One Is Talking About This
- A Novel
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void.
-
-
Funny, moving, glad to have read it
- By Terra on 05-26-21
-
A Children's Bible
- By: Lydia Millet
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders - including Eve, who narrates the story - decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.
-
-
Not sure what to make of this
- By CCC on 10-20-20
By: Lydia Millet
-
Crossroads
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 24 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads. A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, its action largely unfolding on a single winter day, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a pivotal moment of moral crisis. Jonathan Franzen’s gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
-
-
How do narrators still do clownish stuff like this in 2021?
- By Hotrodimus on 10-30-21
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
The Glass Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: Dylan Moore
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors.
-
-
Don't waste your time and money
- By Anonymous User on 03-26-20
-
The Way of Kings
- The Stormlight Archive, Book 1
- By: Brandon Sanderson
- Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer
- Length: 45 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter. It has been centuries since the fall of the 10 consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor.
-
-
Great Story!! Cons: slow start & poor narration
- By Monica on 01-17-17
-
Beautiful World, Where Are You
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a breakup, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
-
-
Must listen!
- By cathy hunt on 09-09-21
By: Sally Rooney
-
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever - and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
-
-
Prose style not to my liking
- By C.V. Cox on 10-18-20
By: V. E. Schwab
-
The Name of the Wind
- Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1
- By: Patrick Rothfuss
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 27 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man's search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.
-
-
This is why I joined Audible!
- By customer on 02-14-20
By: Patrick Rothfuss
-
The Dark Tower I
- The Gunslinger
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first book of this brilliant series, Stephen King introduces listeners to one of his most powerful creations: Roland of Gilead, The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which frighteningly mirrors our own, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.
-
-
Abrupt Ending...
- By avoidthelloyd on 06-09-17
By: Stephen King
-
The Shadow of What Was Lost
- The Licanius Trilogy, Book 1
- By: James Islington
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 25 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It has been 20 years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs, once thought of almost as gods, were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets.
-
-
Maybe a fun read for someone younger
- By Dave on 11-30-18
By: James Islington
-
The Fifth Season
- The Broken Earth, Book 1
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
-
-
The Nay-Sayers are Wrong.
- By Steve Groves on 02-10-20
By: N. K. Jemisin
-
Wish You Were Here
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos - days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.
-
-
Amazing Jodi + excellent narration = 5+++
- By Kindle Customer on 12-03-21
By: Jodi Picoult
Publisher's Summary
One of the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2020
One of NPR's Best Books of 2020
One of the A.V. Club's 15 Favorite Books of 2020
From the widely acclaimed author of White Tears, a bold new novel about searching for order in a world that frames madness as truth.
After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of Red Pill arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches Blue Lives - a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life - and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all.
Wannsee is a place full of ghosts: Across the lake, the narrator can see the villa where the Nazis planned the Final Solution, and in his walks he passes the grave of the Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist, who killed himself after deciding that "no happiness was possible here on earth". When some friends drag him to a party where he meets Anton, the creator of Blue Lives, the narrator begins to believe that the two of them are involved in a cosmic battle and that Anton is "red-pilling" his viewers - turning them toward an ugly, alt-rightish worldview - ultimately forcing the narrator to wonder if he is losing his mind.
Critic Reviews
"Haunting and timely ... Kunzru is not the first to write about the free-floating dread and creeping paranoia brought on by the accelerated technologies and fluid social structures of modern life, but his innovation lies in having grafted a taut psychological thriller onto an old-fashioned systems novel of the sort Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon used to write. The effect is dizzying, and also delightful, as he riffs on everything from the early-nineteenth-century German writer Heinrich von Kleist to surveillance culture to the Counter-Enlightenment to the history of schnitzel, while somehow still clocking in at under three hundred pages.” (Jenny Offill, The New York Review of Books)
“Razor-sharp ... as an allegory about how well-meaning liberals have been blindsided by pseudo-intellectual bigots with substantial platforms, it’s bleak but compelling ... ‘Kafkaesque’ is an overused term, but it’s an apt one for this dark tale of fear and injustice.” (Kirkus starred)
“Dazzling ... Kunzru has created a complex, challenging, and bold story about a world gone amok..." (Booklist starred)
Featured Article: These Authors of Color Are Revolutionizing Horror—Listen If You Dare!
Fortunately, authors of color have revolutionized horror, enriching it with their voices and gifts of great storytelling while using the conventions of the genre to unpack the traumas of racism, sexism, classism, and more. The writers collected here are game changers, their mastery of the craft extraordinary. Whether you’re listening at home or on the go, you might want to make sure the area is brightly lit...and that there’s nothing lurking in the shadows.
More from the same
What listeners say about Red Pill
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daved Baker
- 11-05-20
Paranoia justified
Completely by coincidence (?) I finished this book today, November 5th, right before Biden wins the election. What an odd book from one of my favorite authors. The story is all over the place and at times exasperating, but I suppose it's more about the feeling of existential dread that this whole country (at least 51% percent of it anyway) has been living through the past 4 years, and in that way, I found the whole book cathartic, parts of it an engrossing read, and parts of it confusing and overly intellectual. As usual for this author's works, I could never guess the plot or see what was coming next, which I find gratifying, and the author's reading was superb.
18 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-05-20
I think this might be one of my new favorite books
I am in awe of this author and want to read everything he has ever written. Just an incredible and ultra-timely book. Cannot recommend enough. Also, I usually hate when authors read their own work, but Hari is a fantastic reader.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C. P. O. Carroll
- 12-20-20
juvenile
One of the most boring, tepid, amateurish protagonists I have encountered. His endless self- spelunking and incomprehensible gibberish is just intolerable. After endless hours of foreplay there was no payoff. I was hoping he would take a dive into the cold North Sea and spare us his ego-diving. God help us all if he is the avatar of the liberal left, weak,"self-indulgent" and, dare I say it in a world where the word has lost all value, NARCISSISTIC. He leaves his wife and child to "find himself" only to be crushed by a MAGA personified. A very depressing book
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Quinn Richards
- 09-17-20
political fiction for the now.
wonderful listen and potent for our times! infuriating, thought provoking and honest. a reflection on authoritarianism and where/how it leaves room from the rest of us.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 11-17-20
A strange book that I wanted to put down, but couldn’t.
A strange, oddly depressing book. I could never quite see where it was headed, but once into it I just couldn’t put it down.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 03-20-21
If you like interiority
A writer writes about a disillusioned writer falling apart. Huge volumes of interior dialog e
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rupert Pupkin
- 09-06-20
Best Novel of 2020!
Red Pill is a timely, beautiful, terrifying novel which captures our present moment perfectly. I loved White Tears, and this book managed to exceed my expectations. Highly recommended!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- allison
- 06-03-21
This is the worst book I’ve ever downloaded
How do I get my credit back?
There is no plot, it’s the eloquent rambling of someone having a mental crisis.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark G. Garcia
- 05-16-22
Red Pill by Hari Kunzru
This is the story of a man, an author, who goes to a 3-month retreat in Berlin to rekindle his writing spark. He struggles at times, to find inspiration from his surroundings and fellow writers, never quite fitting in, while discovering the undercurrents of weirdness that course through the center he is visiting. But in the end what he finds is even more terrifying than he could have imagined, coming in the form of his own Moriarty, somewhat of a Peter Tiel type with ideas on changing the world. The battle may just cost him his mind.
I found the material in this book to be timely and as such, thought-provoking. That said, the ending was a bit disappointing in its resolution.
Hari Kunzru is a master of his material, and does a great job reading his words as they were meant to be heard.
I found this to be a good read, warts and all.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Max Head-room
- 02-25-22
To Sum Our Post Post Modern Malaise
An expertly drawn repair manual for post modern malaise.
A surprisingly heartwarming human search for solid footing in our new world order.
Narcissist autocrats thrive whilst the facade of comfortable existence goes to Hell in a hand-basket.
Kunzru outlines a hauntingly hollow paint-by-number menagerie, and then colors that fascist kitten in the corner with a bright red crayon.
Whether one chooses the red pill or not — should predict one’s suffering, anxiety, even strategy.
Red Pill is succinct, elegant, and forceful — Less concerned with why, or how, but with historic precedence, and the pieces & connections which may remain.
“Red Pill” elegantly tugs the threads of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian masterpiece “A Clockwork Orange”. Poignant perhaps, if you too find yourself screaming into the void, where those who still care quietly languish.