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Birnam Wood  By  cover art

Birnam Wood

By: Eleanor Catton
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
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Publisher's summary

Birnam Wood is terrific. As a multilayered, character-driven thriller, it’s as good as it gets. Ruth Rendell would have loved it. A beautifully textured work—what a treat.” (Stephen King)

“One of the finest writers of our time.” (Jonathan Ruppin, The Independent)

The Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries brings us Birnam Wood, a gripping thriller of high drama and kaleidoscopic insight into what drives us to survive.

Birnam Wood is on the move....

A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last.

But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: He has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

©2023 Eleanor Catton (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

About the Creator

Eleanor Catton is the author of the international bestseller The Luminaries, winner of the Man Booker Prize and a Governor General’s Literary Award. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal, won the Betty Trask Award, was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize. She is also the screenwriter of Emma, a 2020 feature film adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Born in Canada and raised in New Zealand, she now lives in Cambridge, England.

About the Performer - Saskia Maarleveld

About the Performer

Saskia Maarleveld is an award winning audiobook narrator of over 500 titles. Growing up in New Zealand and Europe, she can often be heard narrating in a variety of accents. She now lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and kids.

What listeners say about Birnam Wood

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Great characterizations

Excellent book, story, characters, filled with growing menace as the plot unfolds in a nauseating but well-paced finale

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Will Anyone See The Smoke?

Though a often told story of the forces of wealth and empowerment and their effects on Mother Earth versus the “nature lovers” it is nice to hear it from a new voice and from other countries (this time New Zealand).
Certainly both sides contain severely flawed characters that can prevent them from delivering their hoped for outcome. Both assisted by the middle of the road folks (Darvish household?) whose cluelessness and unquestioningly living in “the past” allow this tragedy to go forward.
…and though others dislike the abrupt ending the metaphor is in those last “thoughts”. I don’t think anything more need be said.

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How do you want it to end?

It’s not about getting what you want, it’s about getting what we’ve got. Which characters here represent the truth? Honor the concept of truth?

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Compelling, contemporary, masterful storytelling

A writer at the top of her game, with such depth and breadth of character development, and it unfolds as if out of today’s headlines. Suspenseful, supercharged, and dynamic.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing !

This author is so captivating. Like her style. How she describes characters and seen. Cannot wait to read her next books.

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Great!

Compelling story with insightful social commentary. A page turner from the beginning. Really great narrator.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Very bad ending

Terrible ending I think the author just got tired of writing and just ended it

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Ending

Seemed like a rushed ending given the depth of the earlier narrative. That is all.

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Thriller

The ending was certainly unconventional — in a good way, I think. Very powerful, thought provoking, hopeful or not…you choose!

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Like A B(illionaire) Movie

While this story had its moments, it never clicked with me as a story. Two women rivals. Ruthless billionaire. Idealistic reporter/love interest. Silly ending.

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