Audiobooks by Michael Cunningham

The Hours: A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

**Winner of the Gold Award for Best Drama in the New York Festivals Radio Awards 2018*** A BBC radio adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Michael Cunningham, inspired by Virginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway Three separate women, living in different locations and eras, are linked by their passion for Virginia Woolfs novel Mrs Dalloway. As they each live through a Tuesday in June, their thoughts and experiences mirror each other and become interwoven. In Richmond in 1923, Virginia Woolf struggles to write a novel whose protagonist is Mrs Dalloway. In Los Angeles in 1949, Laura ignores her chores and small son to sit in bed reading Mrs Dalloway. In 1990s New York, Clarissa goes to buy flowers for a party, mirroring the start of the fictional Mrs Dalloway's day. The party is in honour of her sick friend Richard, who long ago dubbed her Mrs Dalloway. As their stories intertwine, they converge to become one, weaving together themes of storytelling, domestic tension, friendship, love, loss, parental guilt, loneliness, bisexuality and the challenges of hosting social rituals. Adapted by Sony Award-winning dramatist Frances Byrnes, this affecting dramatisation stars Fenella Woolgar as Virginia Woolf, Teresa Gallagher as Laura and Rosamund Pike as Clarissa. I am so thrilled by the BBCs production of my novel, The Hours, and - believe me - a novelist does not thrill easily - Michael Cunningham Cast Virginia/Kitty...Fenella Woolgar Laura...Gallagher Dan/Walter...Corey Johnson Richie...Jack Towbin Clarissa...Rosamund Pike Sally/Vanessa...Lia Williams Leonard/Louis...David Annen Nelly...Rachel Atkins Julia...Haley McGee Other voices by Sydney Beveridge and Josh Wakesberg Directed by Judith Kampfner and Polly Thomas Produced by Judith Kampfner A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4

Michael Cunningham (Author), , Fenella Woolgar, Rosamund Pike, Teresa Gallagher (Narrator)

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A Wild Swan: And Other Tales

Fairy tales for our times from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away—the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder—are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Billy Hough, Lili Taylor (Narrator)

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A Wild Swan

Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed, reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours. Rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away - the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder - are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Billy Hough, Lili Taylor (Narrator)

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The Snow Queen: A Novel

A darkly luminous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours Michael Cunningham's luminous novel begins with a vision. It's November 2004. Barrett Meeks, having lost love yet again, is walking through Central Park when he is inspired to look up at the sky; there he sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn't believe in visions-or in God-but he can't deny what he's seen. At the same time, in the not-quite-gentrified Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett's older brother, a struggling musician, is trying-and failing-to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Tyler is determined to write a song that will be not merely a sentimental ballad but an enduring expression of love. Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion. Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. Beth tries to face mortality with as much courage as she can summon. Cunningham follows the Meeks brothers as each travels down a different path in his search for transcendence. In subtle, lucid prose, he demonstrates a profound empathy for his conflicted characters and a singular understanding of what lies at the core of the human soul. The Snow Queen, beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic, proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Claire Danes (Narrator)

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The Snow Queen

From the author of THE HOURS'Luminously written ... page-turningly enjoyable, this is a profound novel about love from a highly regarded, Pulitzer-winning novelist' Sunday TimesWalking through Central Park, Barrett Meeks sees a translucent light in the sky that regards him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn't believe in visions - or in God - but he can't deny what he's seen. In nearby Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett's older brother, is trying - and failing - to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Barrett turns unexpectedly to religion, while Tyler grows convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers.The Snow Queen, beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic, proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Claire Danes (Narrator)

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By Nightfall

From the Pultizer Prize-winning author of 'The Hours', comes the story of a marriage thrown off course by a moment of mistaken identity.Peter Harris is forty-four, prosperous, the owner of a big New York apartment and a player in the contemporary art scene. He has been married to Rebecca for close to twenty years. Their marriage is sound, in the way marriages are. Peter might even describe himself as happy. But then Rebecca's much younger brother Mizzy shows up for a visit. Beautiful, twenty-three years old, with a history of drug problems, Mizzy is looking for direction. And in his presence, Peter finds himself questioning his marriage, his desires, his career - the entire world he has so carefully constructed for himself.Making us think deeply about the uses of beauty and the place of love in our lives, By Nightfall is heartbreaking look at the way we live now.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Hugh Dancy (Narrator)

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By Nightfall: A Novel

Peter and Rebecca Harris: mid-forties denizens of Manhattan's SoHo, nearing the apogee of committed careers in the arts-he a dealer, she an editor. With a spacious loft, a college-age daughter in Boston, and lively friends, they are admirable, enviable contemporary urbanites with every reason, it seems, to be happy. Then Rebecca's much younger look-alike brother, Ethan (known in the family as Mizzy, "the mistake"), shows up for a visit. A beautiful, beguiling twenty-three-year-old with a history of drug problems, Mizzy is wayward, at loose ends, looking for direction. And in his presence, Peter finds himself questioning his artists, their work, his career-the entire world he has so carefully constructed. Like his legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours, Michael Cunningham's masterly new novel is a heartbreaking look at the way we live now. Full of shocks and aftershocks, it makes us think and feel deeply about the uses and meaning of beauty and the place of love in our lives.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Hugh Dancy (Narrator)

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Specimen Days: A Novel

A highly anticipated, bold new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours—three linked visionary narratives set in the ever-mysterious, turbulent city of New York In each section of Michael Cunningham’s new book, we encounter the same group of characters: a young boy, an older man, and a young woman. “In the Machine” is a ghost story which takes place at the height of the Industrial Revolution, as human beings confront the alienated realities of the new machine age. “The Children’s Crusade,” set in the early twenty-first century, plays with the conventions of the noir thriller as it tracks the pursuit of a terrorist band which is detonating bombs seemingly at random around the city. The third part, “Like Beauty,” evokes a New York 150 years into the future, when the city is all but overwhelmed by refugees from the first inhabited planet to be contacted by the people of Earth. Presiding over each episode of this interrelated whole is the prophetic figure of the poet Walt Whitman, who promised his future readers, “It avails not, neither distance nor place...I am with you, and know how it is.” SPECIMEN DAYS is a genre-bending, haunting, and transformative ode to life in our greatest city—a work of surpassing power and beauty by one of the most original and daring writers at work today.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Alan Cumming (Narrator)

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A Home at the End of the World: A Novel

Michael Cunningham (Author), Blair Brown, Colin Farrell, Dallas Roberts (Narrator)

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The Hours: A Novel

Winner of the Pulitzer prize, the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and nominated for 9 Academy Awards, The Hours is now available on Unabridged CD. Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, The Hours tells the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb and beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway. By the end of the novel, the stories have intertwined, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace, demonstrating Michael Cunningham's deep empathy for his characters as well as the extraordinary resonance of his language.

Michael Cunningham (Author), Michael Cunningham (Narrator)

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