:INFO
Two Formats, One Unusual Novel
Lincoln in the Bardo has 166 distinct narrator voices, and Saunders distinguishes every one of them in the text using typographic cues and attribution. I read the print version first and found it dazzling but occasionally difficult to track. The audio version, performed by over 160 readers, is a different experience entirely. It is not better or worse. It is genuinely another way of encountering the same novel, and I think it is worth trying both if the book interests you.


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368 Pages
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2 Formats Tried

:JOURNEY
Reading Lincoln in the Bardo
4 Visually inventive
5 Voice cast lands
4 Quiet grief
5 Fully earned

:CHECKLIST
What to Know Before You Start This Novel
[ ] The novel is set over a single night in a Washington DC cemetery in 1862
[ ] Most narrators are ghosts who do not yet know they are dead
[ ] The audio version features over 160 distinct readers including recognizable voices
[ ] The print version rewards slow reading for the typographic choices throughout

:NOTE
If you loved the experimental energy, try either format. If you struggled with the print version, the audio may be the version that makes it click for you.


:POLL
Which format of Lincoln in the Bardo did you try first?
Print, and I loved it immediately
Print, and I found it difficult to follow
Audio, and the experience was incredible
I have not read or listened to it yet