The Ocean at the End of the Lane

A Novel

By: Neil Gaiman

Narrated by: Neil Gaiman

Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Narration by the Author or Authors, 2014

Audie Award Finalist, Fiction, 2014

Sussex, England: A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. He is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet sitting by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean), the unremembered past comes flooding back. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie - magical, comforting, wise beyond her years - promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. A stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

©2013 Neil Gaiman (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

lovely dark tale

Love Neil Gaiman's style, and well worth the Neil Gaiman reading. Feels like the graveyard book to me in a lot of ways to me. probably best to be listened to in the rain.

Making the ordinary extraordinary

No spells yet magical none the less. While listening to this book I could think of nothing but my mother and grandmother. The way they were able to ring magic out of thin air and make even the most painful of times seem just a little bit earlier.

At once magical & very human

Loved it! Magical themes clarifying humanity & one man's journey back to a turmoiled childhood. Enjoy!

This book is bigger than you think...

I wasn’t ready for how much this book was going to affect me. It is so much more than a sweet little story—which is what I assumed it would be, with a little fantasy thrown in for good measure. Instead, I realized it was actually a story about ME, as a child, and ME now, as an adult. It’s about all of us really. At the end, even during the acknowledgements, I was sobbing for me (as an adult human), as much as I was for Handsome George. This is an incredible bit of storytelling and imagination.

And all of it spoken in the voice of Neil Gaiman’s, which quite possibly might bsound like

A Nostalgic Wonderland of Magic and Menace

I don't generally like horror and I seldom read fantasy, but this captivating gem spoke to my spirit. I was mesmerized within minutes, and coming away from the story made me ache to return. It's the kind of story that makes you sit and think about things for a long time after.

The story starts in the "real world" as the narrator revisits his childhood home, in an urbanizing once-rural English countryside. He remembers his remarkable friend and neighbor, Lettie Hempstock, and how she saved him from terrible peril when he was seven, and she had been eleven for many, many years. The plot progresses through increasingly creepy and frightening events, and even the sometimes predictable results are mesmerizing.

The story combines traditional magical themes with new and disturbing twists. It gave me many a pang or chill, but the children also maintain a sweetness of spirit that made me care deeply about them. I am from the era the narrator remembers, so that made it particularly vivid for me, but everyone can relate to childhood fears for safety, parental wrath, and the despair of not being believed about matters of grave importance.

I don't like the term "bittersweet" because it seems to promise more bitter than sweet. I will call this story loving/sad, with good helpings of thrills and humor. I feel content, and a little still under its spell.

interesting and different

My favorite part was the uniqueness of the story. It also kept a good pace.
Without revealing too much, the ending could have used more explanation and seeing Lettie again.

Neil Gaiman + Audible = Magic

Neil Gaiman stories are among the best fiction source for audio format, with a technicolor flow of utterly original images and ideas. The emotional nuance and imagery of this one have stayed with me like a dreamy collage. With Neil Gaiman, you are completely transported to another place yet the stories become part of who you are. I love that.

Fantastic story

I loved this story. It was an unexpectedly good read. I recommend it to all ages.

Delightful and riveting

Gaiman spins stories like you wish every audiobook would be read; with varied pace and great care to keep your attention. Thank you for this wonderful storytelling experience

A beautiful tale, most important in my life

Gaiman has this ability, to elicit a particular frame of mind in the reader. When I read his words, I'm not a man reading a book critically, and trying to uncover conspiracies and solve mysteries. I'm a child listening and being completely enthralled by a fairy tale.

His books ease my mind and make me soar through feeling and memories instead of concepts and ideas, something I find rather important today, as my life becomes increasingly serious, and dense.

This one is no exception, and if anything, it brought me to places I had forgotten, deep in the furthest reaches of my memory. Not with imagery that was anything like what I had lived, but by making me remember what it feels like to be 7 years old again (with occasional snippets to put my life back into perspective).

I feel like this is something everyone should read, for everyone should remember. The selves that we are now, and the selves we were long ago are not so different, and still from now on I will strive to keep them closer. And this book will be a great tool in that effort.