The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Karamazov is a buffoonish, grasping old sensualist, and each of his three sons has inherited a different piece of his hunger: Dmitri burns with passion and debt, Ivan with corrosive intellect and doubt, and Alyosha, the novice monk, with a faith that the whole novel puts on trial. When father and eldest son become rivals over the same woman and the same rubles, the collision ends in murder, and in one of the most gripping courtroom sequences ever written.

Around that scaffold of a family crime story, Dostoyevsky hangs everything he had: the Grand Inquisitor's challenge to God, a devil who visits in shabby evening dress, saints, scoundrels, and children wronged beyond forgiving. It is a huge listen, and it earns every hour. It's a murder mystery whose real question is what human beings are for.

At roughly 339,900 words, The Brothers Karamazov runs about 38 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Brothers Karamazov is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Brothers Karamazov” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.