Selected Readings from The Portable Dorothy Parker - Dorothy Parker

Written by Dorothy Parker
Read by Lorna Raver
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: January 1, 2006
Duration: 13:23:18

Marion Meade - editor

When it comes to expressing the pleasure and pain of being just a touch too smart to be happy, Dorothy Parker is still the champion, after all these years. Along with Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, she dominated American popular literature in the 1920s and 1930s.

These unabridged selections of more than thirty short stories and poems is essential for any Parker fan and an excellent way for new readers to make the acquaintance of one of the twentieth century’s most quotable authors, whose memorable lines include: “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B,” “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force,” and “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Parker’s ability to lay bare the follies, myths, and hypocrisies of her characters in such a wickedly funny—sometimes sad—manner is unmatched, and her attention to language, quirks, and the other little details of life make her stories come vividly to life

“.If ever a book cried out for audio, this is it. Dorothy Parker, one of the wittiest women of the twentieth century, decimated the hypocrisies of her time with the razor-sharp, prolific (if not always pithy) selections of verse, short stories, criticism, song lyrics, and screenplays. Lorna Raver provides the voice, at once snappish and elegant, that quipped about a Katharine Hepburn performance, “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.” After an introduction to Dorothy Parker’s world, Raver treats listeners to a compilation of her writings, performed with Parker’s “magnificent disregard” for recklessness. The collection, graced by Raver’s luminous reading, makes for wonderful listening.”— AudioFile