Reading Genesis, Marilynne Robinson
Reading Genesis, Marilynne Robinson
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Reading Genesis

Bestseller

Author: Marilynne Robinson

Narrator: Suzanne Toren

Unabridged: 12 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/12/2024


Synopsis

One of our greatest novelists and thinkers presents a radiant, thrilling interpretation of the book of Genesis.

“[Suzanne] Toren's narration highlights Genesis as a work of literature that is especially beautiful when read aloud.”—AudioFile

For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative. In other words, academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherency, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true.

Both of these approaches preclude an appreciation of its greatness as literature, its rich articulation and exploration of themes that resonate through the whole of Scripture. Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis, which includes the full text of the King James Version of the book, is a powerful consideration of the profound meanings and promise of God’s enduring covenant with humanity. This magisterial book radiates gratitude for the constancy and benevolence of God’s abiding faith in Creation.

A Macmillan Audio production.

About Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home (2008), winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Lila (2014), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Jack (2020), a New York Times bestseller. Her first novel, Housekeeping (1980), won the PEN/Hemingway Award. Robinson’s nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things (2015), When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012), Absence of Mind (2010), The Death of Adam (1998), and Mother Country (1989). She is the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for “her grace and intelligence in writing.” Robinson lives in California

About Suzanne Toren

Suzanne Toren has over 30 years of experience in recording.  She won the American Foundation for the Blind's Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year in 1988, and AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture.  She is also the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. Her many credits include works by Jane Smiley, Margaret Weis, Jerry Spinelli, Barbara Kingsolver, and Cynthia Rylant. AudioFile also raves, “Toren brings a distinguishing warmth and power to her narrations. Her talents extend to both fiction and nonfiction, and in her recording career of 30-plus years she has given listeners heart-wrenching memoirs, lively history, engaging light fiction, and involving mysteries.” Toren also performs on and off-Broadway and in regional theatres.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ilya on November 10, 2023

This is an excellent meditation on the foundational stories of Genesis. It is gentle and thoughtful, unapologetically Christian yet wholly persuasive to a nonbeliever. Robinson is not interested in a narrowly minded scholarly dissection of Scripture in (established) source-critical terms; what she c......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on January 12, 2024

In Genesis the recurring sin is grievous harm to one’s brother. Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson I have loved Marilynne Robinson’s novels and have read Gilead three times (twice for book clubs). When my husband was in seminary–fifty years ago–I audited a half dozen classes in theology and Biblica......more

Goodreads review by Brian on March 23, 2024

No, she doesn't treat the Bible as a work of fiction. Check out her interview on it on the secular Ezra Klein Show podcast. She radiates a high view of Scripture and its Author that even he seems to find compelling. But it IS interesting to have a novelist look at the book of Genesis up close. She po......more

Goodreads review by Paul on March 24, 2024

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:10-12, New International Version Marilynne Robinson's Gilead trilogy remains o......more


Quotes

"In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths . . . [A] luminous exegesis." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Robinson skillfully melds her literary interpretation with her theological one . . . Like the biblical book it explicates, Robinson’s offering is demanding, intense, and best read slowly." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)