Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
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3.6 • 579 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
In this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding.
"Arresting lyricism and beauty" —The New York Times Book Review
Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes—it would be too awkward—and you can't say no—it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
"I could not love LESS more." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Andrew Sean Greer's Less is excellent company. It's no less than bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful." —Christopher Buckley, The New York Times Book Review
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
National Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post Top Ten Book
A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award, and the California Book Award
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Two things about this audiobook had us hooked from the get-go. First was Robert Petkoff’s warm, intimate narration. Second was our hero, middling writer Arthur Less, who sets out on a witty, globe-trotting adventure when he’s invited to his ex-lover’s wedding. Like Bridget Jones, Arthur is a hapless, sometimes infuriating hero who’s treated with beautiful, heartbreaking kindness by author Andrew Sean Greer. That’s not an easy tone to master, but Greer—who won a Pulitzer for this novel—makes it seem effortless. Even as Less confronts loneliness, aging, and other sad topics, the story draws on a hidden well of optimism and humor.
Customer Reviews
So good!
Just wonderful! Beautifully written with humor and love sewn throughout.
Don’t be fooled into buying this.
This book is woke smut.
Delightful
So much more than what the blurb describes! Remarkable depth as our protagonist explores the world. He’s a gay character, but his conquests are not sexual; we’re simply observing circumstances through gay eyes to arrive at universal truths. The narrator is terrific too, tackling foreign languages and accents with verve!