Lord of the Flies

By: William Golding

Narrated by: William Golding

Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Get ready for an adventure tale in its purest form, a thrilling and elegantly told account of a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island. Alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, devoid of adult supervision or rules, the boys begin to forge their own society, their own rules, their own rituals. With this seemingly romantic premise, and through the seemingly innocent acts of children, Golding exposes the duality of human nature itself: the dark, eternal divide between order and chaos, intellect and instinct, structure and savagery.

©1954 William Golding (P)2002 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Lord of the Flies gives the reader a lucid and chillingly objective mirror to our modern society. William Golding's narration is as impartial as his work, yet his grumbly, grandfatherly voice, complete with mid-sentence sniffs and swallows, is intimate." (AudioFile)

"Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. I still read it every couple of years." (Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games trilogy)

"I finished the last half of Lord of the Flies in a single afternoon, my eyes wide, my heart pounding, not thinking, just inhaling.... My rule of thumb as a writer and reader - largely formed by Lord of the Flies - is feel it first, think about it later." (Stephen King)

"This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man's return [in a few weeks] to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge. Fully to succeed, a fantasy must approach very close to reality. Lord of the Flies does. It must also be superbly written. It is." (The New York Times Book Review)

a classic. well read.

this is a classic story, well read. I hadn't read this since I was in middle schooler and I just finished listening to it with my middle school student. it is both horrifying and engrossing.

William Golding

William golding's narration of his own book really caused this book to be an excellent listen. I truly enjoyed this version of this book and highly recommend this is a good listening book.

honestly my fav

I don't know what to tell you... I just love this book. allegory man. the characters. the concept, the setting, it's just... mwah!

Golding's performance was unimpressive

The story line was great, a classic, but Golding's performance was horrible. His narration was boring at best with his monotone voice. Several times sounding like he did not want to narrate his book but was being forced to.

Tremendous Story

While I think it’s magnificent that the author reads us his own story I found the real reason they hire narrators. It was pretty painful to listen to but partially that is my fault for waiting all these years to read Lord of the Flies and it be listened to. I enjoyed the authors comments before and after the story and I think that what he had to say and giving background and meaning was a great talking point.

Now for Lord if the Flies itself, this is a masterpiece. I’m sure many people read this young. It was never assigned to me and my reading maturity as a child favored more current events. I think I will purchase this book to read several times over as it has many lessons and can be interpreted many ways, which the author kindly points out.

Love it

Great to hear the author read this amazing story. Even though I read it in high school

Performance

This narration is unbearable. It’s cool it’s the author but please… should use a professional narrator

Okay…

I was literally forced to read this and I didn’t have any expectations at all. I seriously don’t think this narration is as bad as the reviews say it is, but since there is a pretty sexist comment right in the introduction I can’t give the man more than one star (women represent society too, dint you know?). The story is interesting but the pacing is awful, the writing hard to get through and seriously the only characters I liked were killed which left me sad. The story is very hopeless; honestly couldn’t we end in a better note? I didn’t want to pick this book and I had a really hard time reading it because I was not excited about anything. That said, Piggy is the best in the whole story and I wanted to give a hug to his auntie!

No matter if you are a boy or a girl.

I have accidentally watched a movie made on this story when I was about 12 and I was being shocked by its deep, inevitable truth even then, at my 12.
Now I’m 40 and I am still confirming the precise and sharp look of the author onto the subject.
The great stories are the ones that will not leave you unchanged. And this is a great story.

Fascinating story of stranded boys

The author did a great job capturing both the thoughts and views of youths as well as showing the slow decay of society into chaos. I was captured and caught off guard multiple times as they slowly descended into anarchy.

While it was interesting to hear the author voice his opinions and experience writing the book, I would recommend you find a different reader as his pacing and recording is not very good.