A Separate Peace, John Knowles
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
22 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

A Separate Peace

Author: John Knowles

Narrator: Spike McClure

Unabridged: 6 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 02/25/2011


Synopsis

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete.
What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

About John Knowles

John Knowles (1926–2001) was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and Yale University. His first novel, A Separate Peace, was published in 1959 and adapted for film in 1972. In 2004 it was adapted again as a television movie by Showtime. He wrote seven novels, a book on travel, and a collection of stories. He was the winner of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Nicole on 2010-01-18 17:33:33

This book was a nice light read.

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on September 19, 2015

"And the rays of the sun were shooting past them, millions of rays shooting past them like--like golden machine-gun fire." Gene is a boy from the South attending an exclusive New Hampshire prep school. He becomes best friends with a New Englander from Boston named Phineas. Let me amend that, Phineas......more

Goodreads review by Jim on December 11, 2021

[Edited for typos and pictures added 12/11/21] A short review because I can’t add much to the thousands of reviews that are out there. The story takes place at an elite all-boys New England prep school. (A thinly disguised Phillips Exter Academy in New Hampshire that the author attended.) The two mai......more

Goodreads review by mark on May 31, 2024

uptight boy loves free spirit boy but is too uptight to admit it. fat-ass boy tries to get in the way. then, betrayal.......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on June 15, 2007

This book had a profound and lasting impact of me. It is a short, exquisitely crafted story narrated by a talented but unconspicuous boy who is jealous of his best friend, Phineas--who is athletic, beautiful, and kind. Phineas stands tall as the prodigy of American prep adolescence. He is simple; he......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on October 18, 2016

This is one of those "required summer reading novels". In fact, while I am sure they are out there, I don't think I have ever met anyone who read this and it was not required for school. But, it was an enjoyable required read. Focusing on coming of age, schoolboy friendships, etc. Not too much else I......more