Modern Gods: A Novel
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)
“[Nick Laird’s] kinetic prose, full of insight about politics, history and religion, dazzles eye and ear." –The New York Times Book Review
“Nick Laird takes two experiences poles apart and unites them in gorgeous language…[with] fierce tenderness. ” –Dave Eggers, author of Heroes of the Frontier
Alison Donnelly has suffered for love. Still stuck in the small Northern Irish town where she was born, working for her father’s real estate agency, she hopes a second marriage will help her get her life back together. Her sister Liz, a fiercely independent professor who lives in New York City, is about to return to Ulster for Alison’s wedding, before heading to an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea to make a TV show about the world’s newest religion.
Both sisters hope to write their own futures, but the past has other ideas. Alison wakes up the day after her wedding to find that her new husband has a past neither of them can escape. While Liz, in a rainforest on the other side of the planet, finds herself increasingly entangled in the eerie, charged world of Belef, the charismatic middle-aged woman she has come to film, the leader of a cargo cult.
As Modern Gods ingeniously interweaves the stories of Liz and Alison, it becomes clear that both sisters must learn how to negotiate with the past, with the sins of fanaticism, and decide exactly what the living owe to the dead. Laird’s brave, innovative novel charts the intimacies and disappointments of a family trying to hold itself together, and the repercussions of history and belief.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Nick Laird. (2017). Modern Gods: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Nick Laird. 2017. Modern Gods: A Novel. Books on Tape.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Nick Laird, Modern Gods: A Novel. Books on Tape, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Nick Laird. Modern Gods: A Novel. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2017.
Library | Owned | Available |
---|---|---|
Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 1 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1191-1/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1191-1/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1191-1/2FE/FC4/8C/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1191-1/2FE/FC4/8C/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: 8
- value: penguinrandomhouse_audio#9781524779443
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781524779450
- name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
- id: audiobook-mp3
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: 8
- value: penguinrandomhouse_audio#9781524779443
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781524779450
- name: OverDrive Listen
- id: audiobook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- Audiobook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Nick Laird
- title
- Modern Gods
- dateAdded
- 2017-07-06T18:13:00-04:00
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=3081931
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Modern Gods A Novel
- crossRefId
- 3081931
- subtitle
- A Novel
- id
- 2fefc48c-1f10-4cd8-a140-74e35fd1b0f4
- starRating
- 4.1
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- duration: 12:21:25
- fileName: ModernGods_9781524779443_3081931
- partCount: 10
- fileSize: 354477436
- identifiers:
- audience: retailer
- type: 8
- value: penguinrandomhouse_audio#9781524779443
- audience: library
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781524779450
- rights:
- type: PlayOnPC
- value: 1
- type: PlayOnPCCount
- value: -1
- type: BurnToCD
- value: 1
- type: BurnToCDCount
- value: -1
- type: PlayOnPM
- value: 1
- type: TransferToSDMI
- value: 1
- type: TransferToNonSDMI
- value: 1
- type: TransferCount
- value: -1
- type: CollaborativePlay
- value: 0
- type: PublicPerformance
- value: 0
- type: TranscodeToAAC
- value: 1
- name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: audiobook-mp3
- onSaleDate: 6/27/2017
- samples:
- source: Part 1
- formatType: audiobook-mp3
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/1191-1/3081931-ModernGods.mp3
- source: From the book
- formatType: audiobook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2fefc48c-1f10-4cd8-a140-74e35fd1b0f4&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- duration: 12:18:23
- fileName: ModernGodsANovel-63533
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 354429383
- identifiers:
- audience: retailer
- type: 8
- value: penguinrandomhouse_audio#9781524779443
- audience: library
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781524779450
- name: OverDrive Listen
- isReadAlong: False
- id: audiobook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 6/27/2017
- samples:
- source: Part 1
- formatType: audiobook-mp3
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/1191-1/3081931-ModernGods.mp3
- source: From the book
- formatType: audiobook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2fefc48c-1f10-4cd8-a140-74e35fd1b0f4&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Laird, Nick
- bioText: Nick Laird was born in Northern Ireland and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. He has published two novels, Utterly Monkey and Glover’s Mistake, and three collections of poetry, To a Fault, On Purpose, and Go Giants. He is the recipient of many awards for his fiction and poetry, including the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.
- name: Nick Laird
- role: Narrator
- fileAs: Drummey, Sarah-Jane
- name: Sarah-Jane Drummey
- imprint
- Penguin Audio
- publishDate
- 2017-06-27T00:00:00-04:00
- edition
- Unabridged
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Modern Gods
- fullDescription
- A powerful novel about two sisters who must reclaim themselves after their lives are dramatically upended, from an award-winning author with “a wonderfully original and limber voice” (The New York Times)
“[Nick Laird’s] kinetic prose, full of insight about politics, history and religion, dazzles eye and ear." –The New York Times Book Review
“Nick Laird takes two experiences poles apart and unites them in gorgeous language…[with] fierce tenderness. ” –Dave Eggers, author of Heroes of the Frontier
Alison Donnelly has suffered for love. Still stuck in the small Northern Irish town where she was born, working for her father’s real estate agency, she hopes a second marriage will help her get her life back together. Her sister Liz, a fiercely independent professor who lives in New York City, is about to return to Ulster for Alison’s wedding, before heading to an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea to make a TV show about the world’s newest religion.
Both sisters hope to write their own futures, but the past has other ideas. Alison wakes up the day after her wedding to find that her new husband has a past neither of them can escape. While Liz, in a rainforest on the other side of the planet, finds herself increasingly entangled in the eerie, charged world of Belef, the charismatic middle-aged woman she has come to film, the leader of a cargo cult.
As Modern Gods ingeniously interweaves the stories of Liz and Alison, it becomes clear that both sisters must learn how to negotiate with the past, with the sins of fanaticism, and decide exactly what the living owe to the dead. Laird’s brave, innovative novel charts the intimacies and disappointments of a family trying to hold itself together, and the repercussions of history and belief. - reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
April 24, 2017
Pulling from the real-life events of 1993, when a young supporter of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a British loyalist paramilitary organization, shot up a small pub in Northern Ireland, Laird has written a truly superb novel exploring the possibilities and impossibilities of forgiveness. Protestant Kenneth and Judith Donnelly live in Ulster. They have three adult children: Liz has been living somewhat unhappily in the States after finishing her Ph.D. in anthropology; Allison has two small children and is planning to marry a mysterious local man whose background she hasn’t pushed to understand; and Spencer has a big secret of his own. Gathering at their parents’ house for Allison’s wedding, the family will have to confront the suddenly very personal echoes of the “troubles” of the past. Liz, meanwhile, will leave after the ceremony, on her own journey to a small island off the coast of Papua New Guinea, where she’ll be working on a BBC documentary. In a possibly heavy-handed move, Laird sends Liz to New Ulster, drawing a parallel between the two islands, thousands of miles apart, which seemingly share more than a name. “A lot of violence in these places,” Kenneth remarks, as Liz first announces her plans. “Where are ‘these places’?” Liz asks in turn, the very question Laird asks of himself and his readers. Though Liz’s experiences are salient, its Allison’s fate, thoroughly chilling and unsettling, that is the highlight.
- premium: True
- source:
- content: In Laird's audiobook, two sisters from Northern Ireland experience life-changing upheaval simultaneously--on opposite ends of the globe. One is in Ulster, and the other in Papua New Guinea. Narrator Sarah-Jane Drummey adopts a slow, deliberate pace, and her Irish accent is pleasant to listen to as she describes Liz's venture to a Papua New Guinean island to explore a new religion led by a charismatic leader. At the same time, her sister, Alison, struggles in Ulster, where she discovers the truth about her new husband's past. Drummey also uses an accent for the Papua New Guinean characters, most strikingly for Belef, the religious leader whose deep and clearly enunciated words reinforce the gravity of her convictions. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
- popularity
- 133
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/2fefc48c-1f10-4cd8-a140-74e35fd1b0f4/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 2fefc48c-1f10-4cd8-a140-74e35fd1b0f4
- starRating
- 4
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1191-1/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1191-1/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1191-1/2FE/FC4/8C/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1191-1/2FE/FC4/8C/{2FEFC48C-1F10-4CD8-A140-74E35FD1B0F4}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fiction
- value: Literature
- publishDateText
- 06/27/2017
- mediaType
- Audiobook
- shortDescription
- A powerful novel about two sisters who must reclaim themselves after their lives are dramatically upended, from an award-winning author with “a wonderfully original and limber voice” (The New York Times)
“[Nick Laird’s] kinetic prose, full of insight about politics, history and religion, dazzles eye and ear." –The New York Times Book Review
“Nick Laird takes two experiences poles apart and unites them in gorgeous language…[with] fierce tenderness. ” –Dave Eggers, author of Heroes of the Frontier
Alison Donnelly has suffered for love. Still stuck in the small Northern Irish town where she was born, working for her father’s real estate agency, she hopes a second marriage will help her get her life back together. Her sister Liz, a fiercely independent professor who lives in New York City, is about to return to Ulster for... - sortTitle
- Modern Gods A Novel
- crossRefId
- 3081931
- subtitle
- A Novel
- publisher
- Books on Tape
- bisacCodes
- code: FIC019000
- description: Fiction / Literary
- code: FIC044000
- description: Fiction / Contemporary Women
- code: FIC045000
- description: Fiction / Family Life / General