• To Say Nothing of the Dog

  • Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last
  • By: Connie Willis
  • Narrated by: Steven Crossley
  • Length: 20 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (4,576 ratings)

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To Say Nothing of the Dog  By  cover art

To Say Nothing of the Dog

By: Connie Willis
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
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Publisher's summary

Connie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

When too many jumps back to 1940 leave 21st century Oxford history student Ned Henry exhausted, a relaxing trip to Victorian England seems the perfect solution. But complexities like recalcitrant rowboats, missing cats, and love at first sight make Ned's holiday anything but restful - to say nothing of the way hideous pieces of Victorian art can jeopardize the entire course of history.

Delightfully aided by the perfect comedic timing of narrator Steven Crossley, To Say Nothing of the Dog shows once again why Connie Willis is one of the most talented writers working today.

©1998 Connie Willis (P)2000 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1999

"Willis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose." (Publishers Weekly)

Featured Article: The 25 Best Time Travel Listens to Take You on an Unforgettable Journey


Time travel is one of science fiction's most popular subgenres. Fans are drawn to its infinite possibilities, offering a glimpse into past cultures, societies, and pivotal events while exploring big what if? questions. What if you knew what would happen next in your life? What if you could go back and change history? What if you did change history? With this guide, you're sure to find an exciting audiobook to transport you to the perfect place in another time.

What listeners say about To Say Nothing of the Dog

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

A fun read

Part country-house farce, part chaos theory, part time travel fantasy and all fun. This book was long but held the interest and had moments of laugh-out-loud silliness. There wasn't a rush to end the story but a careful playing out of the tale that lent to a sense of near perfect closure as loose ends were neatly woven together. Highly recommended.

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107 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful

I've read this book several times and wasn't sure it was the best investment in the world to listen to something I was this familiar with. Well, I was wrong. The audio version of this witty, funny book was even better than reading it. If you're looking for an escape to a comedy of manners embedded in speculative fiction, I recommend this book (and, really, anything by Willis) highly. I was sad when it ended.

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103 people found this helpful

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

A Sentimental Favorite

This is one of the books that has lived on my nightstand so I'll always have it close at hand for years. It's my favorite Mr. Dunworthy (auto correct keeps changing his name to Unworthy; forgive me, Connie Willis!) story. It combines elements of farce, light-hearted comedy, gallant romance and time travel. Oh, and the Bishop's bird stump. So glad to now have it in Audible format too. Just charming.

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45 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Embarrassing, but i'm a sucker for time travel

And the smarter the time travel, the more I like it. Yeah, this was a bit of a romance novel. A bit of time travel book and a tad of a serial mystery type book. So what? I liked it. It made me happy with it's sense of playfulness and whimsy. Cats extinct, time travel a reality and who doesn't want to spend just a day dressing pretty with an empty head (just a day dammit) and then really like the guy who finds it annoying. Light reading. Veiled romance. Chic book I'd say. And a damn nice one. So there.

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39 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • C
  • 12-03-09

A Delightful Romp

Never before have time travel, science, literary allusion and the sticky matter of Victorian manners been brought together so charmingly and so seamlessly. The prose itself is a perfect mix of the modern and the Victorian style, and the reader carries it off with perfect aplomb. The story is witty and delightful, the characters both exasperating and endearing, and the entire 20 hours slide by in a kind of dream of delighted amusement. I couldn't recommend it more!

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29 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Book...

This was one of the best Historical Sci-Fi books I have read. The characters were great, it was one of those ooks where I was able to envision mysef as the main character. The narations was excellent. Don't miss it.

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28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Hilarious, intelligent and so well narrated

I actually tried to read this book, but just could never seem to really get into it. I decided to give it another try as an audiobook because I like Connie Willis' work so much. Let me tell you, the narrator is so good that he literally brings the story to life. I've been listening in the car to and from work and I've actually been wishing I had a longer commute!

The book is about time travel, chaos theory, three-men in a boat, love...to say nothing of the dog.


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27 people found this helpful

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

Nitwits and oafs

I love Pride and Prejudice. Congreve and Wycherley delight me. "A Civil Campaign," by Lois McMaster Bujold, is a wonderful example of comedy of manners by a contemporary writer. Even "Friends" used to manage it rather nicely at times. Unfortunately, however, CoM is tricky to write. If you are not careful, you end up with a menagerie of nitwits and oafs being "clever" and clueless by turns with nary a character in the mix that you can really care about.

Those who love complex puzzles will revel in the intricately convoluted time travel plot Willis constructs. For me it was definitely not enough to sustain a fairly long book filled with useless nobs who wander around in a vapid haze, constantly failing to add two and two. The dog and the cat are simply not enough.

I was delighted to find that Audible is now giving refunds for books you feel wasted your time and money. I will be claiming mine. But after procrastinating for a very long time in the knowledge that I would invite a flood of angry dissent, I decided I needed to raise a small flag of warning among the banners of homage. And now I can expunge the dog and the stump and the cat and the whole boring menagerie from my library and breathe a welcome sigh of relief.

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22 people found this helpful

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

If P G Wodehouse Time Traveled

I LOVED this book and was very sad when it was over! Steven Crossley did an amazing job with his narration. I felt like I had landed in the England of P.G. Wodehouse which somehow got crossed up with several centuries of time travel and the hunt for the world's ugliest vase.

Connie Willis does an astonishing job of weaving together a plethora of odd and loose ends, reeling through well-researched historical tidbits all set in England of various eras; from the 13th century to World War II and the blitz and on to punting on the Thames. The boat scenes are marvelous, complete with a bulldog and various other well-drawn characters. I felt like I knew these people by the time the book was over. I would love to see them off on another adventure through time together.

I listened to this book on a very long drive to California and it was perfect, I found myself yelling at the IPod and making remarks as one might at a movie when you know the answer but the character just doesn't see it. Great fun, well plotted with more twists than Chubby Checker.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

I'm still confused

This is an odd book.
I'm still not sure what I think about it.
The narrator was fine, the story progressed.
I think I came in somewhere in the middle of a series, I had trouble following the action for the first 30min-hour, then I sort of settled into it.
Perhaps this would be more exciting for someone with more interest in late 19th century England, English writers and colleges at the time?
I was happiest near the end when time travel was happening and expectations were being surprised and loose ends were finally being tied up.

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18 people found this helpful