Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Thieves of Manhattan
    Thieves of Manhattan
    Thieves of Manhattan
    Audiobook8 hours

    Thieves of Manhattan

    Written by Adam Langer

    Narrated by Rich Orlow

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls The Thieves of Manhattan a "delicious satire of the literary world." Here Adam Langer introduces Ian Minoit-an aspiring writer who just can't seem to get published. When Ian's successful girlfriend leaves him for the talentless hack Blade Markham-whose acclaimed memoir Ian is convinced is a fake-he can't understand why he always gets the short end of the stick. Then an opportunity for revenge shows itself when an editor asks Ian to take his novel of murder and thievery and pass it off as a memoir.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 4, 2011
    ISBN9781449839864
    Thieves of Manhattan
    Author

    Adam Langer

    Adam Langer is a journalist, editor, and the author of a memoir and five novels including The Washington Story, Ellington Boulevard, The Thieves of Manhattan, The Salinger Contract, and the internationally best-selling novel Crossing California, which was described in the Chicago Tribune by James Atlas as “the most vivid novel about Chicago since Saul Bellow's Herzog and the most ambitious debut set in Chicago since Philip Roth's Letting Go.” Formerly a senior editor at Book Magazine and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, he currently serves as culture editor at The Forward.

    Related to Thieves of Manhattan

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Thieves of Manhattan

    4/5

    7 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Ian Minot is a struggling writer working at the Morningside Coffee diner. Ian works alongside Joseph, a struggling actor, and Faye, an aspiring artist. Of the three, Ian has been the least successful in his career. His Romanian girlfriend Anya, however, is very close to getting her collection of short stories published while Ian continues to get rejection letters. One of the most memorable of these comes from the literary agent Geoff Olden who simply wrote “good luck placing this and all future submissions elsewhere”. When Faye draws Ian’s attention to a customer they have nicknamed The Confident Man, Ian is appalled to see that he is reading a copy of the recently published memoir “Blade by Blade”. In Ian’s opinion, the book is a “bogus piece of crap”. As it turns out, The Confident Man feels the same way about it. The Confident Man is Jed Roth, a former editor at a very respectable publishing house. Jed left his position at Merrill Books when his decision not to publish “Blade by Blade” was overruled by the owner of Merrill Books. Jed has devised a plan to bring down Merrill Books and agent Geoff Olden and recruits Ian to play a crucial role in his scheme. Ian agrees but soon finds himself in over his head and unsure who to trust. This is a fun story, full of humor and intrigue, which takes a few shots at the publishing industry along the way. The last few pages contain a glossary of selected terms used throughout the book, all based on literary figures.
    • 4/5
      For not being a type of book I would normally read, this was a very pleasant surprise! Well written novel about a down and out New York writer passing time cleaning tables in a small coffeeshop. He meets another writer recently jobless after walking out on a great job with a NY Publisher. The two work together to pull the ultimate con job on the publishing industry. It has it all, Conspiracy, Romance, Humor, Revenge, and a nice jab to the publishing industry. Great book and thankfully it includes a glossary of literary slang, so the inexperienced reader can easily understand what the author's talking about.
    • 4/5
      This one is a ton of fun. It's a literary caper with a healthy sense for the absurd that takes place within the publishing industry (name checking every luminary in the field along the way).

      It's smart, funny, and inventive and executed deftly enough that it won't leave non-book-nerds in the dust.

      It proives once again that Langer's weakness is his strength: every book is different and has to stand entirely on its own merits. Ths one totally does.
    • 2/5
      There a few time-tested confidence games: The slow con. Ponzi schemes. Snake oil salesmen. Pool hustlers and card-sharps. Revivals. Large-scale forgery. And now we can add another to the list: meta books within books about books. Adam Langer's novel is one part whip-smart, farcical commentary on the publishing industry, one part caper-ish page turner, and altogether too dumb a story to spend too much time thinking about. If anyone's getting conned here, it's the reader.The Thieves of Manhattan has a lot going for it: well developed characters, a sad-sack protagonist in search of opportunity, and a well-paced narrative flow; I was on page 100 before I knew it. But then the plot gets way too complicated way too quickly, leaving the reader not just confused, but uninterested. This is not a long book at 254 pages, but I was ready for it to wrap up about 70 pages earlier.I feel that nine times out of ten, it's a mistake for an author to go the self-reflexive meta route in storytelling, that instead of relying on the reader to have an aha! moment, readers end up basking in the smug see-what-I-just-did-there glow of the author after being misdirected into investing thought and energy in the plot and structure of the book.Not recommended.
    • 4/5
      Good fast passed story - spoof of pulp fiction
    • 4/5
      I do so love a good literary in-joke and this was laden with them. This was such fun to read, particularly as the pace picked up in the final third of the book.