Stoner

A Novel

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Stoner

By: John Williams

Narrated by: Alfred Molina

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This is the story of a quiet man, destined to be a farmer but who becomes an academic. It is book in which nothing and everything happens and is possibly the greatest novel you've never read.

William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely.

Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life.

'It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But its one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across' Tom Hanks, Time

'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' Ian McEwan

'A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise and elegant novel' Nick Hornby

John WilliamsAlfred MolinaVintage Digital

Classics

Genre Fiction

Psychological

Classics Genre Fiction Psychological

Critics' reviews

A terrific novel of echoing sadness (Julian Barnes)

It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But its one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across (Tom Hanks)

I was stunned by it... beautifully written in simple but brilliant prose, a novel of an ordinary life, an examination of a quiet tragedy, the work of a great but little-known writer

One of the great unheralded 20th century American novels...Almost perfect (Bret Easton Ellis)

One of the great forgotten novels of the past century. I have bought at least 50 copies of it in the past few years, using it as a gift for friends. It is universally adored by writers and readers alike...so beautifully paced and cadenced that it deserves the status of classic

A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life… I’m amazed a novel this good escaped general attention for so long (Ian McEwan)

A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise, and elegant novel

Something rarer than a great novel -- it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, that it takes your breath away...few stories this sad could be so secretly triumphant, or so exhilarating.

A beautiful and moving novel, as sweeping, intimate and mysterious as life itself (Geoff Dyer)

The most extraordinary work of fiction I've read in a long time... If you're looking for a book that's simple and subtle, warmly human and at the same time utterly pitiless in his rendition of the vicissitudes of an ordinary existence, here's one you will read again and again

Most relevant

I started it without any knowledge or expectations. I could stop myself from listening. fantastic story of the life of a farm boy becoming English professor . I felt like I was there !