Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Anita  By  cover art

Anita

By: Keith Roberts
Narrated by: Nicola Barber
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Fantasy, 2013

Award-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), cast the narrator and produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents.

A few words from Neil on Anita: "Anita is an almost forgotten novel by one of the finest UK writers. But it is a favorite of mine. Anita works on two levels: on the one hand, the stories are a product of the 1960s - they come out of a swinging world and a "Georgy Girl" time, and Keith Roberts, then a young art director, has captured the feel of the sixties. At the same time, he writes about a teenage witch being brought up by her Granny; he writes about a young witch falling in love, getting her heart broken, about change and growing up and compromise, about what magic is and how you can lose it sometimes and how you can get it back. And the character of Anita's Granny is amazing, one of Keith Roberts' best characters…. [Anita] set the template for all the teenage witch stories that come after, and she did it better and more magically. I wanted these stories back in "print", where people could hear them and could fall in love with Anita and Granny, as I did."

Meet Anita Thompson: she's young, she's lovely, she's clever ... and she's a witch. A real one.

Anita lives in two worlds: the modern world of supermarkets and sports cars, radio and rock & roll, where she is a thoroughly modern girl with a thoroughly modern interest in boys and fast living and her own independence. But the ancient and rustic world of traditions, cauldrons, and familiars , where she and her Granny (a witch of the Old School, broom and all) invoke elemental spirits int he service of Him Wot's Down Under. She has senses no ordinary mortal can imagine (at least nine); with them, she can hear the voices of every creature of the night. She can changer her shape, call a drowned corpse from a lake, reverse the flow of time, and ride the Sea Serpent (there's only the one, you know; always has been -- always will be) deep into the ocean in the company of a mermaid, even though the modern world is trying to crowd aside -- and even change -- that world of witchcraft and magic. Yet, complicated as a young witch's life may become, Anita never loses her sense of fun, or her essential innocence.

When the Anita stories first appeared in Science Fantasy and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the late 1960s, they were immediately recognized as a strikingly original departure for the author of such celebrated works as Pavane. One critic called the original 1970 collection of these stories a "treasure." This new volume presents the stories in the author's corrected, definitive texts, a new introduction by the author, and an additional story which did not appear in the first edition.

To hear more from Neil Gaiman on Anita, click here, or listen to the introduction at the beginning of the book itself.

Learn more about Neil Gaiman Presents and Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX).

©1990 The Estate of Keith Roberts (P)2011 Wildside Press LLC

What listeners say about Anita

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    145
  • 4 Stars
    150
  • 3 Stars
    124
  • 2 Stars
    64
  • 1 Stars
    51
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    234
  • 4 Stars
    122
  • 3 Stars
    61
  • 2 Stars
    35
  • 1 Stars
    28
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    123
  • 4 Stars
    135
  • 3 Stars
    107
  • 2 Stars
    63
  • 1 Stars
    56

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Could not finish

What would have made Anita better?

Being a story instead of a collection

Would you ever listen to anything by Keith Roberts again?

Doubt it

Did Nicola Barber do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Yeah

Any additional comments?

It was whiny. Sometimes almost on target as entertainment but mostly a sort of "and THIS is why we hate these people" so prevalent in today's fiction - political correctness precedes anything else of value in the book. If you are a Christian or white or male, for instance, or just believe in marriage - you have a big target on your forehead. This is particularly true in this book which openly scorns human beings as being irretrievably stupid and foul. This form of self loathing is not something I find amusing or inspiring.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Fun at first, but then I couldn't finish it

I can't help but think that Neil G. is indulging himself a bit overmuch. I found the first several stories suprising enough (they actually worshipped Satan? They would probably not get away with that now!) and charming enough. But then I got sick of the perky voice of the narrator, and I felt I had sampled quite enough of the character. Perhaps, had it been a serial released periodically, I would have looked forward to the next installment.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Awful

I suffered through a few chapters and then returned it. It's very strange - like an old fashioned book of children's short stories without any sort of character development...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Charming, but not what I was expecting

When I started this book I was expecting a unified narrative, start to finish, but it turned out to be just a series of loosely connected short stories. Each episode was self-contained, in and of itself. All the stories charming, and many were funny and/or sweet. But ultimately, I really just wanted a long story with a beginning-middle-end, and this definitely was not that. I think my reaction probably says more about my own state of mind as I was listening to Anita than it does about the actual quality of the writing. My expectations prevented me from enjoying this book fully.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!