"Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne: Everyman's Library Edition

Kindle Customer: I thoroughly enjoyed this fantastic book full of wit and mirth. While it was not an easy read I was greatly assisted by Anton Leader's brilliant narration for which he has earned my undying gratitude. Bravo

United Kingdom on Mar 10, 2023

Peter Rogers MD: This is an autobiography of Tristram Shandy, with most about what happened before he was born. Reads incredibly well, and easy for a book from the 1700's. Lots of metafiction, conversational engagement features. Erudite vocabulary. Tongue in cheek humor. I read the Rowson graphic novel version first to get the overview. I was expecting it to be difficult, like Shakespeare, but the prose was surprisingly modern. Sterne's style was modern, pleasant, and clever. The narrator, Lesser, did a great job. He gets the emotions and the jokes.

United States on Oct 10, 2021

TB: I am not quite sure how anyone can accuse Sterne of plagiarism. Yes, there are sections of the book that have been lifted from works of other people. But it has been rearranged and reinterpreted beautifully in a way a poet rearranges alphabets and words from the dictionary of language itself to make new art. All writers borrow from the same set of alphabets. Do you ever call that plagiarism? Do painters steal when they use colours and landscapes used by other painters? For me, it is as original as they get.

About this purchase from uRead-shop, the hardcover version I ordered was delivered on time. It is in great condition, with good quality print and pages. The only complaint I have pertains to the dustjacket. The book did not come wrapped in a protecting covering and the dustjacket is, well, quite dusty.

India on Oct 12, 2018

Gunakanta Ghurachuwa: 👌

India on Dec 28, 2017

drfutural: DIeses Buch zu bewerten ist nicht einfach. Sagen wir mal so: Es ist viel leichter zu lesen, als Gargantua und Pantagruel von Rabelais, in dessen Geiste es wohl geschrieben ist. Und das Werk ist wirklich unglaublich witzig! Ich hatte von dem Autor nie etwas gehört, bis ich (ich weiß nicht mehr wo) von Arthur Schopenhauer diesen Buchtipp erhalten habe. Schopenhauer war voll des Lobes und das ist schon was Besonderes.
Der Autor ist heute vielleicht schon vom Vergessen bedroht. Mein Tipp: Lest nicht, was euch Goethe und Schiller empfehlen (wie den unsagbar langweiligen Goldsmith). Hört auf Schopenhauer und lest dieses Buch!

Germany on Sep 10, 2014

David R. Smith: I consider this Very expensive for a dozen plus plastic discs, but I also consider this book to be one of the best ever written, and this reading of it is superb. If you do not know the book, Sterne crams an entire (and complete) universe into pages of text, delivering a spectrum of the experience of being a human being that is wider than any other work of fiction. Beware though, if you are one who wants a plot in a story, a direction in a character's actions, or a book to "get on with it" you will get NONE of it from Tristram Shandy. Not only that you will be be frustrated and irritated. But if you want joyous, humourous, and subtle episodes of life depicted which say more about humanity than you can imagine being able to be said, you will get ALL of it and MORE. It is read wonderfully, with an obvious sparkle in the eye and fast but clear pronunciation. It is Very Expensive for what it is, but once you start to listen to it you will not mind. Three thumbs up.

United Kingdom on Jul 02, 2014

paola: I bought this kindle ebook confidently because it was a Penguin edition - and, I'm not gonna lie, the price was great too - but I was very disappointed. I'm a literature student, and I found it difficult for literature students as well as non-students to have a complete and successful reading.
The novel is excellent, but it is also form the XVIII century, and a reader today needs a lot of information that is not covered in the footnotes. The footnotes only translate phrases in other languages - latin, french, etc. - (however, there is a whole passage around three pages long in french that they don't translate), or are the footnotes written by Sterne himself, which obviously don't explain us his historical context. I would have expected to find in this footnotes historical context or explanations, as well as notes regarding some XVIII Century vocabulary, idioms, expressions, etc. I thought that with a Penguin edition I would have a more complete reading, but I think it would have been almost the same if I had downloaded from the Internet a free copy (like in Project Gutenberg) since this annotated edition offers no great help.

United States on Jan 12, 2013

Athene: Peter Barker is a marvelous reader, and Sterne is a wild man writer.
Something to be savored and smiled at over time. Many times a laugh aloud!
Don't be in a hurry, or you'll miss mosst of the fun.

United States on Sep 02, 2010

Weston Buckhorn: Anton Lessor gives a performance worthy of this classic. I am writing a paper on Tristram Shandy for school and thought, hey, what the heck I'll listen to it in my car. Walter Shandy and Uncle Toby are characters that rank with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The phrasing and nuance that Lessor gives to Shandy actually provides more humour than you might find on your own. Your get the benefit of someone who has read the material several times and knows where all the jokes are, so you can benefit the first time around. Thoroughly professional preparation is demonstrated by Lessor. When Sterne writes --- or *** just what is a voice actor supposed to do? Somehow Lessor makes a great decision almost every time. That is what I mean when I say it is funnier than reading it on your own. Uncle Toby and Walter talking about "the right end of a woman" is priceless.
By the way, the service from England by mail is pretty good, so save some money and buy it from one of the third party vendors. Enjoy.

United States on Oct 27, 2009

Martin Asiner: When Laurence Sterne, in 1760 wrote the first volume of TRISTRAM SHANDY in what was to be a series of nine, no one had any idea what this new genre of literature was meant to be. The only models that Sterne had were Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson, so the field was pretty much wide open in terms of any competitor's choice of content, style, or theme. Sterne noted from these two that their successes were based on their characters' being placed in wildly varying and potentially threatening situations. He took these twin concepts of changeable location and possible harm which he incorporated into the first volume of Tristram Shandy, and then proceeded to turn the incipient world of novel writing over on its very young head. What differentiated this book from those of Fielding and Richardson was Sterne's abandoning the tidy world of the classical insistence on the need for unity. In a style that centuries later would be adopted by Joyce and Proust, Sterne twisted the relation between plot and time into a pretzel. To begin with, the title itself is a misnomer. The titular hero, Tristram, is not even born until midway through the book. He is born, appears...

United States on Aug 17, 2006