Ten Days in the Hills Audiobook By Jane Smiley cover art

Ten Days in the Hills

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On the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards, Max—an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned—and his lover, Elena, are in bed, still groggy from last night's red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, talking about the just-begun war in Iraq. But their house is full of guests demanding attention.

Gathered downstairs are ex-wives, daughters, agents, lovers and a coterie of others. Over the next ten days they share their stories of Hollywood past and present, their fears provoked by the Iraq war; they watch films in Max's luxury screening room; they gossip by the swimming pool and tussle in the many bedrooms, as the tension mounts and sparks fly...

©2007 Jane Smiley (P)2007 Recorded Books LLC Literary Fiction Genre Fiction Fiction

Critic reviews

"Archly sexy and brilliant." (Booklist)

"Scintillating....Smiley delivers a delightful, subtly observant send-up of Tinseltown folly, yet she treats her characters, their concern with compelling surfaces, and their perpetual quest to capture reality through artifice, with warmth and seriousness." (Publishers Weekly)
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Ill never buy before reading reviews again! I gave up after 5 hours. Please dont waste your money.

worst ever

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I often list Jane Smiley as my favorite author. She is able to inhabit diverse environments from the world of realtors to Iowa farmers to horse racing to the life of a university research pig as though she spent a lifetime in each environ.

With Ten Days in the Hills she seems to have lost her authority. Unlike anything I have ever read of Jane Smiley's this book does not sound authentic. Smiley usually takes unsympathic characters and gives them a humanity that makes them seem real. These characters remain unappealing.

I thought that some of the reviews that I read before purchasing Ten Days were biased against Smiley because she is very liberal. Well, so am I and I find the politics in this book to be almost a caricature of what a neo-conservative would think of a liberal.

In addition, I find the narration grating. So much so that perhaps I wouldn't find the book to be so poor if I didn't have the narrators horrible voice characterizations in my head. Nearly unlistenable.

I anxiously await Jane Smiley's next book. She is so good that I can imagine that this one is just an aberration.

Smiley strikes out

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This was the most boring book I have ever read or listened to. On and on and on with no real story. The author tries sending some political left wing messages but even they are boring.
I listen to these books to be unbored but this one put me to sleep.

Boring

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Where was the editor of this book?
I'm curious to know how many times the word "anyway..." was used in this book.

"anyway...... yada, yada, yada.."

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Or your time! The material in the book was as useless as what you find in tabloid newspapers...but not nearly as interesting. SKIP IT!!!!!!!!!

Don't waste your money....

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