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Inside Story

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Inside Story

By: Martin Amis
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

This extraordinary novel gives the listener the heart-to-heart testimony of one of our finest writers - a wonder of literary invention and a boisterous modern classic.

His most intimate and epic work to date, Inside Story is the portrait of Martin Amis' extraordinary life, as a man and a writer. This novel had its birth in a death - that of the author's closest friend, Christopher Hitchens. We also encounter the vibrant characters who have helped define Martin Amis, from his father Kingsley, to his hero Saul Bellow, from Philip Larkin to Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Jane Howard, and to the person who captivated his 20s, the alluringly amoral Phoebe Phelps.

What begins as a thrilling tale of romantic entanglements, family and friendship evolves into a tender, witty exploration of the hardest questions: how to live, how to grieve and how to die? In his search for answers, Amis surveys the great horrors of the 20th century and the still-unfolding impact of the 9/11 attacks on the 21st - and shares all he has learned on how to write.

The result is one of Amis' greatest achievements: a love letter to life that is at once exuberant, meditative, heartbreaking and ebullient, to be savoured and cherished for many years to come.

©2020 Martin Amis (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Biographical Fiction Fiction Heartfelt Witty Thought-Provoking
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What listeners say about Inside Story

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  • Overall
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So good I’m going to listen to it again, now.

Amis is brilliantly voiced by Jennings, and I feel somehow enhanced and better for listening to it, privileged by Amis’s experiences. Thank you.

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Kept me entertained for days

I really enjoyed this book, having been a fan of Kingsley and a huge fan of Elizabeth Jane Howard as well as a reader of some of Martin Amis's books, I loved Money for instance but I can't read them all. I thought the narrator was perfect.

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Faultless

One of the best Audible stories I’ve listened to. Amid fascinating and on his game, and the narration is simply superb. He even sounds how I imagine Amis would sound. Highly recommend this book, if something that makes you think as you listen is what you enjoy…

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    4 out of 5 stars

Excellently read and (mostly) excellently written

If you hate Amis for his Amis-isms, you'll find plenty to hate here. Even if you're an incorrigible Amis head, like me, you'll find plenty to frown at here. The usual blindspots. But there's also huge chunks of captivating prose here -- notably the chapter on Philip Larkin's stunted sexuality (which made me wish Amis would write a Larkin biography) and the last year of Christopher Hitchens' life. I think the book gets better towards the end, where Amis jettisons the rather tedious story of Phoebe Phelps (his "tits on a wand" lover) and describes the deaths of his great idols and mentors, one by one.

Alex Jennings gives a fantastic performance. Whether simulated or not, he speaks like Amis, and this is presumably about as close as you can get to hearing Amis himself read it. Funnily enough, his likeness to Amis makes what's irritating about the author more vividly irritating.

I formally demand that Jennings next reads (the superior, wonderful) "Experience" for Audible. Please please please please.

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Really well read

Got this because MA had just died. Much of it deals with the illness and death of two close friends and a good friend of his father. It’s more of a memoir although it’s described as a novel, but a very interesting book, and well worth listening to. It is read, or rather performed, brilliantly- you hear the writer.

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Beautiful

Splendid reading of some of Amis’s most intimate and tender offerings. A generous goodbye to a life well read.

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Very good

Very very good. Very very good indeed 15 words yet? Nope. So let's just say

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Superb narration

The tone of the narration was perfect and I found this book very moving. Amis will be sorely missed,

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Amis the proclamer

Spectacular in the amount of life stuff he covers - seldom a dull page. At first you think, gosh he’s a bit of a know- it -all but if you can forget or come to see that, right or wrong, he is never dull and frequently very interesting, then your in for a treat.
People struggle with this author, envy,I think is at its core.

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A Chance to know how special Martin Amis was.

I was mesmerised from the start; the wide-ranging knowledge, the magnificent stories, the droll conversations with other writers. I hope Phoebe was real. I laughed out loud at so many witty observations. No idea Martin Amis was so gentle.

Best of all was Alex Jennings completely ego less reading. He captured Amis' slightly mockney self deprecating voice. And Christopher Hitchens voice was perfect. I felt I was eavesdropping on their loving conversations. Alex Jennings is just magnetic.

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