Stoner

by John Williams

Paperback

English language

Published Nov. 8, 2012 by Vintage Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-09-959576-2
OCLC Number:: 894474355

(99 reviews)

William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely.

Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value. Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life. A reading experience like no other, itself a paean to the power of literature, it is a novel to be savoured.

--back cover

43 editions

Bastian Greshake Tzovaras reviewed Stoner by John Williams

Review of 'Stoner' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Yet another book I've discovered through the read list of Philipp. I should have been warned as from my experience he doesn't make claims like «The saddest book I've read so far» too lightly.

It's a pretty quick read (~ 2 1/2 hours worth of reading time) but it stays in your head for much longer. Basically the whole book is the 101 on «How many small bad decisions - which not looked too bad at the time - tend to pile up and can destroy your life if you run with them» (or to borrow from another review: «life sucks and then you die (in my own words)»).

Which I found pretty easy to relate to and reading this book on my commute to work was probably one of the worse decisions I made recently.

5/5. Would suffer again.

Lynn reviewed Stoner by John Williams

Review of 'Stoner' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I can understand the people who quit halfway through this book and then complain about how it's overrated. I kept going to the end, though, and I'm glad I read it. I don't know how to explain why. It was like living someone's life through, and being reminded by doing that all lives are to some extent meaningless, that contentment washes out regrets, and that it all ends. I can't possibly explain why that was good, but it was.

markm reviewed Stoner by John Williams

Review of 'Stoner' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A Dreiser-like panorama of tsouris, life sucks and then you die. The satisfaction comes from how well it is written and from observing the principle character stand amid hostile Society like Jimmy Stewart.