Home
/
Fiction
/
Everything is Illuminated
Everything is Illuminated
Nov 9, 2025 6:57 PM

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer,Jeff Woodman,Scott Shina

Everything is Illuminated

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, read by Jeff Woodman and Scott Shina.

THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING NOVEL

ADAPTED INTO A FEATURE FILM WITH ELIJAH WOOD

From the bestselling author of Here I Am, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and We are the Weather - a hilarious, life-affirming and utterly original novel about the search for truth

'Gripping, hilariously funny and deeply serious. An astonishing feat of writing' The Times

'One of the most impressive novel debuts of recent years' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement

'A first novel of startling originality' Jay McInerney, Observer

'It seems hard to believe that such a young writer can have such a deep understanding of both comedy and tragedy' Erica Wagner, The Times

A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a "blind" old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive -- a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war.

What they find turns all their worlds upside down...

Reviews

Funny, smart and controversial

—— Andreina Cordani , Cosmopolitan

[A] smart update on chick lit…as bracing as a margarita in a Manhattan bar… Very funny, very sharp and very modern

—— Metro

Magnificent…packed with great one-liners… This is a laugh-out-loud book [with] extremely smart writing

—— Christena Appleyard , Daily Mail

One of the funniest debut voices of the year

—— Grazia

[A] romping summer read… Sheer unadulterated and adulterous fun

—— Stylist

whip-smart, pacy, and truly hilarious. The Bridget Jones’ Diary for our times, you’ll probably read it in one sitting because that’s how good it is.

—— Stylist Magazine

A salty, lively first novel… In the fine tradition of screwball-comedy brides[,] the book’s dialogue is crackling, bawdy and modern

—— New York Times

I started reading Sunday morning, finished Sunday afternoon, have not laughed this hard or this much at a book since Bridget Jones's Diary. It was wickedly smart, hilariously funny, sexy, clever, and stupidly accomplished for a first novel. In short, the most enjoyable read I have had in YEARS. I completely loved it.

—— Jane Green

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I Take You is the funniest book I've read all year. I drank four bottles of chardonnay by myself because I couldn't get to a book club fast enough. Eliza Kennedy makes infidelity sexy again!

—— Gary Shteyngart

The smartest, sexiest, funniest (like, hilarious) beach read on the shelves right now.

—— Huffington Post

This is a racy, pacy, funny read.

—— Cathy Rentzenbrink , Bookseller

In the first big beach read of the season, New York lawyer and bride-to-be Lily Wilder has a hard time staying faithful to her perfect fiance´—but that won’t stop this hilarious debut novel from winning you over and warming your heart.

—— Entertainment Weekly

This debut novel’s take on modern gender roles is aggressively provocative. It’s also funny and, eventually, wise.

—— People Magazine

Sparkles with candor and wit... Kennedy’s ribald story is both engaging and atypical, the perfect combination for a new voice in women’s fiction.

—— Publishers Weekly

A whip-smart, whip-fast debut… One for the beach

—— Sonia Haria , Sunday Telegraph STELLA LOVES

Smart, pacy, and hysterically funny

—— Deirdre O’Brien , Sunday Mirror

This provocative debut explores whether monogamy is all it’s cracked up to be

—— Glamour

Witty, sparkling and a dissection of monogamy and happiness... Entertaining

—— Lady

Here is a heroine who scores a solid ten on the sass-o-meter, and she made the whole reading experience a hoot… Guilt-free fun with this deliciously rampant romp.

—— Sarah Hughes , Heat

The tale of men struggling to survive in a brutal landscape is told in language so sparse that whole passages are made up of monosyllabic vocabulary that is powerfully immersive. You can only guess at the influence Williams may have had on Cormac McCarthy

—— Ben Felsenburg , Metro

Williams is a versatile writer: the story of Will Andrews couldn't be more different to the tale of William Stoner – and his depiction of the behaviour of men in extreme situations is masterful

—— Oldie

A meditative cowboy yarn with a putative ecological message, it could not be more different from Williams’s [Stoner]; it is just as good

—— David Evans, 5 stars , Independent On Sunday

It is a sort of Dances with Buffaloes, and one of the most tense, gripping, tragic novels I have ever read

—— Giles Coren , The Times

Stoner...is a fine book but his western novel Butcher's Crossing is even better... Visceral, violent and chilling.

—— Barbara Taylor Bradford , Daily Mirror

A novel that turns upside down the expectations of the genre—and goes to war with a century of American triumphalism, a century of regeneration through violence, a century of senseless slaughter.

—— John Plotz , Guardian
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved