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Fourteen Days

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Fourteen Days

By: Margaret Atwood - editor, Douglas Preston - editor
Narrated by: Shayna Small
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A BBC, Financial Times and Cosmopolitan What to Read in 2024 pick

Set in a New York apartment building, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive novel with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of neighbours has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice - from Margaret Atwood and John Grisham to Emma Donoghue and Celeste Ng.

One week into lockdown, the tenants of a run-down apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop each evening and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbours gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants – some of whom have barely spoken to each other before now – become real neighbours.

A dazzling, heartwarming and ultimately surprising narrative, Fourteen Days is an ode to the power of storytelling and human connection.

Includes writing from: Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Jennine Capo Crucet, Pat Cummings, Joseph Cassara, Angie Cruz, Sylvia Day, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Maria Hinojosa, Mira Jacob, Erica Jong, CJ Lyons, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, Doug Preston, Alice Randall, Caroline Randall, Ishmael Reed, Roxana Robinson, Nelly Rosario, James Shapiro, Hampton Sides, R.L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rachel Vail, Weike Wang, DeShawn Charles Winslow, Meg Wolitzer

© ed. Margaret Atwood 2023 (P)2023 Penguin Audio

City Life Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban New York Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

An immensely enjoyable product of an immensely unenjoyable time, Fourteen Days is lively, freewheeling and…an impressive achievement
Fourteen Days serves as a valuable reminder that stories can teach, console, provide a place of acceptance and perhaps even change their readers (or listeners)
We like a bit of fun with our fiction, of the sort you get with Fourteen Days, a new collaborative novel set in a New York tenement in the early days of the pandemic in which a crew of acclaimed writers — including Margaret Atwood, John Grisham and Emma Donoghue — each tell a different character’s story.
A fascinating story of the ‘left-behinds’… a literary event not quite like any other
A rather intriguing puzzle box of a book… enjoyable, and has a dip-into-able quality
If you want to feel well read in double-quick time, try Fourteen Days, which is set in a New York city tenement in the early days of the pandemic. It has a novel twist (pardon the pun) - each character has been secretly written by a different author from Margaret Atwood and John Grisham to Dave Eggers and Celeste Ng
A fun, compelling game of literary who’s who
This “collaborative novel” unites writers including Celeste Ng, John Grisham and Emma Donoghue for a story set in a New York apartment building during — surprise! — Covid-19. Framed as an ode to the people who couldn’t escape the city, there’s a twist: it’s deliberately unclear who wrote what
While we're really not in a rush to think about the pandemic again, we'll make an exception for Margaret Atwood. Fourteen Days is a collaborative novel edited by Atwood and Douglas Preston, and includes writing from Celeste NG and John Grisham, amongst others. In the novel, the inhabitants of a Manhattan apartment block gather on the roof and tell stories, as more neighbours join people start to form real bonds
The novel works brilliantly, partly because of the simplicity of its premise… this is a bold, imaginative idea, superbly executed
All stars
Most relevant
Contrary to a previous review in found the narrator fabulous with all kinds of different acting voices for many characters.
The story was cleverly put together if you are wondering how such a collab could be a thing. Very contemporary, not too soon, and a cool quirky twist at the end.
I sometimes found it difficult to follow along with some of the short stories, but that could be my attention span favouring some authors over others which i think many would experience. You can certainly tell which one RL Stein wrote!

The narrator was excellent

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This was a series of short stories expertly woven together with a narrative set in NYC during the pandemic. It was consistently well written and had a tight pace, so even if I occasionally didn’t quite get the story it moved at a nice clip so soon the next narrative was upon us.

A very interesting listen!

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I saw the talented contributors to this project and had to buy it, I was intrigued and I had high hopes. I really tried but the stories were too long, too fanciful and (boringly) detailed and I found myself fast forwarding so I could get to more interesting bits.

These people were in lockdown for weeks. There was no indication that any of them had to leave to get food or were going without. What did they do during the day?

Mostly the narration was awful… singer - sinGER, stringer - strinGer, ringer - rin-Ger,

I’m limping to the end as I write this as I hope the ending is satisfactory.

EDIT: v.good explanatory ending but…

Not what I hoped for

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enjoyed how the authors were able to collaboratively tell the stories of those in lockdown

seamless storytelling

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This story started out very interestingly, the stories within the story I though were captivating for the most part.
I was not a fan of the ending, but I suppose not all books have a good ending.
Overall a very interesting idea for a collaborative creative process.

Not what I expected

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