On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
6 Rating(s)
List: $14.00 | Sale: $9.80
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On Chesil Beach

Author: Ian McEwan

Narrator: Ian McEwan

Unabridged: 4 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/05/2007


Synopsis

BONUS FEATURE: Exclusive interview with the author!

A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time

It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan–a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

About The Author

IAN McEWAN is the author of two collections of stories and ten previous novels, including Enduring Love, Amsterdam, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1998, Atonement, and Saturday.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Valerie on 2008-06-12 20:07:35

There's nothing better than a book read by the author. And in this case, the story of the details of a wedding night are so beautifully described it feels like you are inside the characters heads in real time.

AudiobooksNow review by Jeanne on 2009-03-10 11:00:55

The reviews I read discouraged me from reading On Chesil Beach, although I have enjoyed McEwan's other books. So when I finally got to it, I was pleasantly surprised. Far more than the story of a honeymoon gone awry, the book is a view of an earlier age. It's not a 'pageturner' but I enjoyed it and recommend it to readers who enjoy literary fiction.

Goodreads review by brian

read this in one sitting (plane from LA to NYC) and it knocked my socks off and i came up with a scenario: imagine i was flying cross country for some kind of mcewanesque purpose like maybe last trip to NYC I i'd met a girl only spent a few hours with her but came back changed walked around LA all b......more

Goodreads review by Jim

We know the story in advance from the book jacket: a disastrous wedding night. Both are virgins. Young people will find that hard to believe these days, but this is set in the 1960s. The author tells us “the pill was only a rumor.” They had no opportunity for intimacy while dating. While in school i......more

Goodreads review by Sarah

The first thing you should know about this book is that, like the other Ian McEwan books I’ve read, it is about the most uncomfortable, awkward, and squirmy thing you’ll ever read. Don’t believe me? What if I told you that the book – which is 200 pages long – only covers about two hours of time: the......more

Goodreads review by Candi

“… they had so many plans, giddy plans, heaped up before them in the misty future, as richly tangled as the summer flora of the Dorset coast, and as beautiful.” I brought two novels along with me on a recent holiday - this and another by one of my favorite writers, Wendell Berry. I forgot to pack the......more


Quotes

Praise for Saturday

“[McEwan] is the master clockmaster of novelists, piecing together cogs and wheels of his plots with unerring meticulousness.…Finely wrought and shimmering with intelligence…”
New York Times Book Review

“In Saturday, the marvelously gifted Ian McEwan turns a single day into nearly twenty-four hours emblematic of an entire era.”
Chicago Tribune

“McEwan is supremely gifted.…Saturday is a tour de force.”
Washington Post Book World

“McEwan is in the first tier of novelists writing in English today.…He has achieved a complete mastery of his craft.”
—New York Observer

“Impeccable…Beautifully crafted…Fluid, richly textured…Engrossing.”
—Entertainment Weekly


Awards

  • Booker Prize