UID:
kobvindex_ZLB16313633
Edition:
Unabridged
ISBN:
9780804191197
,
9780804191197
Content:
" Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, The Circle is the exhilarating novel from Dave Eggers, best-selling author of Heroes of the Frontier .When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—,ven as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge. From the Hardcover edition. "
Content:
Rezension(1): " Dave Eggers grew up near Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing ( McSweeney's Quarterly Concern ), and a monthly magazine, The Believer . McSweeney's publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. In 2002, he cofounded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit youth writing and tutoring center in San Francisco's Mission District. Sister centers have since opened in seven other American cities under the umbrella of 826 National, and like-minded centers have opened in Dublin, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Birmingham, Alabama, among other locations. His work has been nominated for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, France's Prix Mé,icis, Germany's Albatross Prize, the National Magazine Award, and the American Book Award. Eggers lives in Northern California with his family." Rezension(2): "Dennis K. Berman, The Wall Street Journal : A vivid, roaring dissent to the companies that have coaxed us to disgorge every thought and action onto the Web . Carries the potential to change how the world views its addicted, compliant thrall to all things digital. If you work in Silicon Valley, or just care about what goes on there, you need to pay attention." Rezension(3): "Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books :Fascinating . Eggers appears to run on pure adrenaline, and has as many ideas pouring out of him as the entrepreneurs pitching their inventions in The Circle . [A] novel of ideas . about the social construction and deconstruction of privacy, and about the increasing corporate ownership of privacy, and about the effects such ownership may have on the nature of Western democracy . Like Melville's Pequod and Stephen King's Overlook Hotel, the Circle is a combination of physical container, financial system, spiritual state, and dramatis personae, intended to represent America, or at least a powerful segment of it . The Circlers' social etiquette is as finely calibrated as anything in Jane Austen . Eggers treats his material with admirable inventiveness and gusto . the language ripples and morphs . It's an entertainment, but a challenging one." Rezension(4): "Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times :A parable about the perils of life in a digital age in which our personal data is increasingly collected, sifted and monetized, an age of surveillance and Big Data, in which privacy is obsolete, and Maoist collectivism is the order of the day. Using his fluent prose and instinctive storytelling gifts, Mr. Eggers does a nimble, and sometimes very funny, job of sending up technophiles' naï,eté, self-interest and misguided idealism. As the artist and computer scientist Jaron Lanier has done in several groundbreaking nonfiction books, Mr. Eggers reminds us how digital utopianism can lead to the datafication of our daily lives, how a belief in the wisdom of the crowd can lead to mob rule, how the embrace of 'the hive mind' can lead to a diminution of the individual. The adventures of Mr. Eggers's heroine, Mae Holland, an ambitious new hire at the company, provide an object lesson in the dangers of drinking the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid and becoming a full-time digital ninja . Never less than entertaining . Eggers is such an engaging, tactile writer that the reader happily follows him wherever he's going . A fun and inventive read." Rezension(5): "Hugo Lindgren, The New York Times Magazine :The particular charm and power of Eggers's book . could be described as 'topical' or 'timely,' though those pedestrian words do not nearly capture its imaginative vision . Simply a great story, with a fascinating protagonist, sharply drawn supporting characters and an exciting, unpredictable plot . As scary as the story's implications will be to some readers, the reading experience is pure pleasure." Rezension(6): "Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times :Eggers is a literary polymath . The Circle is funny in its skewering of Internet culture. Holland obsessively tallies the reach of her Twitter-like Zings and enthuses about a benefit for needy children that raises not money but 2.3 million 'smiles' (think Facebook 'likes'). The Circle's buildings are named for epochs, so at her first party Holland gets her wine from the Industrial Revolution . The ideas behind The Circle are compelling and deeply contemporary. Holland is an everywoman, a twentysomething believer in Internet culture untroubled by the massive centralization and monetization of information, ubiquitous video surveillance and corporate invasions of privacy. Compare that to A Hologram for the King , in which a middle-aged man thoughtfully but powerlessly observes America's economic decline, realizing that his efforts to participate in globalization led to his own obsolescence. The two books together are saying something foreboding about America's place in the world: We have traded making physical things for a glossy, meaningless online culture that leaves us vulnerable to those who see that information -- in the form of data, video feed" Rezension(7): "〈a href=http://www.audiofilemagazine.com target=_blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/audiofile_logo.jpg alt=AudioFile Magazine border=0 /〉〈/a〉:Eggers's novel begins with an almost giddy tone, re-created perfectly by narrator Dion Graham. Pulling every tool from his kit, Graham describes the inner workings of the world's largest Internet company as it develops a new identity operating system that will allow even easier access by users across different platforms. Graham gives Mae Holland the trill of a scratch-off winner who can't believe her luck when a friend helps her secure a position at the Circle. But--as the listener hears in Graham's increasingly horrified tone--this Google-like utopia quickly becomes a dystopia when Mae realizes what the Circle really has in mind. Listeners will be reminded of Orwell's 1984. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine" Rezension(8): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from September 16, 2013 The latest offering from McSweeney', founder Eggers (A Hologram for the King) is a stunning work of terrifying plausibility, a cautionary tale of subversive power in the digital age suavely packaged as a Silicon Valley social satire. Set in the near future, it examines the inner workings of the Circle, an internet company that is both spiritual and literal successor to Facebook, Google, Twitter and more, as seen through the eyes of Mae Holland, a new hire who starts in customer service. As Mae is absorbed into the Circle', increasingly demanding multi- and social media experience, she plays an ever more pivotal role in the company', plans, which include preventing child abductions through microchips, reducing crime through omnipresent surveillance, and eliminating political corruption through transparency courtesy of personal cameras. Soon, she', not alone in asking what it will mean to ",omplete the Circle",as its ultimate goal comes into view,even her closest friends and family suspect the Circle is going too far in its desire to make the world a better, safer, more honest place. Eggers presents a Swiftian scenario so absurd in its logic and compelling in its motives that the worst thing possible will be for people to miss the joke. The plot moves at a casual, yet inexorable pace, sneaking up on the reader before delivering its warnings of the future, a worthy and entertaining read despite its slow burn. Agent: Andrew Wylie, The Wylie Agency. " Rezension(9): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: November 25, 2013 When 20-something Mae Holland is recruited to work at the Circle, a sort of social network on steroids that consolidates its users’ various online identities (personal e-mail, social media, financial services), she’s thrilled at the company’s grand modernity and cutting-edge aesthetic. She delights in the Circle’s exuberance and the grand fetes it throws. But as her role in the company becomes increasingly public, she becomes increasingly wary of the Circle’s role in the lives of Americans. An encounter with Kalden, a shadowy figure who issues ominous pronouncements about the Circle’s contribution to a dystopia, further dampens Mae’s enthusiasm. Dion Graham provides inventive narration in this audio edition—capturing Mae’s breathless enthusiasm at landing the job. Graham also cleanly differentiates between characters, and provides them with simple but unique voices. Despite the longtime audio partnership between Graham and Eggers—the former read A Hologram for the King and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius—the narrator seems an odd choice for this title given its female protagonist. Graham has a deep, masculine voice—and at times it can be incongruous to hear him approximate the gasps and anxieties of a young woman. A Knopf hardcover. "
Note:
Auszeichnungen: The New York Times:The New York Times Best Seller List
Language:
English
URL:
https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-25/1191-1/1378248-TheCircle.wma
URL:
https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/1191-1/1378248-TheCircle.mp3
URL:
https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=28D48E23-705F-44FE-86A9-8FE1D8D902B5&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
URL:
http://voebb.lib.overdrive.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=28D48E23-705F-44FE-86A9-8FE1D8D902B5
Author information:
Eggers, Dave
Bookmarklink
