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Title details for 2030 by Albert Brooks - Available

2030

The Real Story of What Happens to America

by Albert Brooks
Dick Hill
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
Is this what's in store?


June 12, 2030, started out like any other day in memory—and by then, memories were long. Since cancer had been cured fifteen years before, America's population was aging rapidly. That sounds like good news, but consider this: millions of baby boomers, with a big natural predator picked off, were sucking dry benefits and resources that were never meant to hold them into their eighties and beyond. Young people around the country simmered with resentment toward "the olds" and anger at the treadmill they could never get off of just to maintain their parents' entitlement programs.


But on that June 12th, everything changed: a massive earthquake devastated Los Angeles, and the government, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, was unable to respond.


The fallout from the earthquake sets in motion a sweeping novel of ideas that pits national hope for the future against assurances from the past and is peopled by a memorable cast of refugees and billionaires, presidents and revolutionaries, all struggling to find their way. In 2030, the author's all-too-believable imagining of where today's challenges could lead us tomorrow makes for gripping and thought-provoking listening.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 1, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781452622903
      • File size: 412792 KB
      • Duration: 14:19:58

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Dick Hill is a talented narrator, beloved for his renditions of the classics and action novels by Lee Child and Michael Connelly. Hill has gravitas; the man knows how to impregnate a pause. Movies by Albert Brooks, such as LOST IN AMERICA and DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, show actors--himself prominent among them--in circumstances so humiliating that they're hilarious. Having chosen a futuristic setting for his first-ever novel, Brooks has upped the ante. The future is where many of us--all those unsaved--expect the worst. The combination of Hill's deep voice and Brooks's dark comic vision pushes hard at the line between what's funny and what's only sad. But hang on, because there's a happy ending, or happyish. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 28, 2011
      Comedian and filmmaker Brooks welcomes the reader to the year 2030 in his smart and surprisingly serious debut. Cancer has been cured, global warming is an acknowledged reality, people have robot companions, and the president is a Jewâand oy vey does he have his hands full with an earthquake-leveled Los Angeles and a growing movement by the young to exterminate the elderly. And when the Chinese offer to rebuild L.A. in exchange for a half-ownership stake in Southern California, President Bernstein is faced with a decision that will alter the future of America. Brooks's sweeping narrative encompasses a diverse cast of characters, including an 80-year-old Angelino left homeless by the earthquake, a trust fund brat with a grudge against the elderly, and a teenage girl saddled with debt after her father's death, all of whom get brought together just in time for a climactic hostage crisis. Brooks's mordant vision encompasses the future of politics, medicine, entertainment, and daily living, resulting in a novel as entertaining as it is thought provoking, like something from the imagination of a borscht belt H.G. Wells

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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