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.
Tinkers  By  cover art

Tinkers

By: Paul Harding
Narrated by: Christian Rummel
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

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2010

An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure.

A methodical repairer of clocks, he is now finally released from the usual constraints of time and memory to rejoin his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler, whom he had lost seven decades before. In his return to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine, he recovers a natural world that is at once indifferent to man and inseparable from him, menacing and awe inspiring.

Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.

©2009 Paul Harding (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"An outstanding debut.... The real star is Harding's language, which dazzles whether he's describing the workings of clocks, sensory images of nature, the many engaging side characters who populate the book, or even a short passage on how to build a bird nest. This is an especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship." ( Publishers Weekly)
"This compact, adamantine debut dips in and out of the consciousness of a New England patriarch named George Washington Crosby as he lies dying on a hospital bed in his living room.... In Harding's skillful evocation, Crosby's life, seen from its final moments, becomes a mosaic of memories, 'showing him a different self every time he tried to make an assessment.'" ( The New Yorker)

What listeners say about Tinkers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    118
  • 4 Stars
    119
  • 3 Stars
    126
  • 2 Stars
    82
  • 1 Stars
    52
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    114
  • 4 Stars
    90
  • 3 Stars
    72
  • 2 Stars
    22
  • 1 Stars
    28
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    91
  • 4 Stars
    77
  • 3 Stars
    79
  • 2 Stars
    46
  • 1 Stars
    41

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

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Annoying and pretentious

This book has some problems. While the premise for the story is that a man is dying and therefore everything that follows is a hallucination, this may serve more as an excuse for strained and exaggerated writing that quickly becomes annoying. "Tinkers" is a convoluted series of episodes reaching back in time to the grandfather and father (as a young boy, and later as an adult) of the main character. It is a lot of sound and fury, eventually signifying very little. I found myself not caring about any of these characters and their overwrought problems - again the language got in the way of any character development. The point of view shifts from first person to third person, throughout, the language is overblown and affected. The audio narration is expressive and fairly well done, with the exception of the performer's attempt at women's voices -- most of them sounding like drag queens. I cannot recommend this audio book; it was frustrating and irritating to listen to and really had trouble just finding a story to tell.

I gave it 2 stars simply because the technical aspects of this production are good.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

32 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Breath Taking

I had no preconceptions when I ordered Tinkers. My wife's book club selected it and in my ongoing effort to be a supportive husband I decided to "read" along. (If I had known the book's premise, I wouldn't have touched it with a ten foot pole. A book about a dieing man? Never.)

I was immediately taken by the poetry laced through out the narrative. The master of the well-turned phrase, John Updike, came to mind in light of the extordinary richness and color of the language in Tinkers.

Slowly I became increasingly interested in the odd assortment of characters. By the book's conclusion I was swept away by what is certainly the best work of fiction I have "read" in years.

Whether you have read Tinkers already or not, if you have not listened to it being read you have missed part of its enchantment. Close your eyes and let the stream of beautiful sentences flow over you.

In case you are wondering, I borrowed my wife's copy of Tinkers after her book club and read it through in one setting. Another wonderful, but less sensual experience.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

18 people found this helpful

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

Just... Couldn't... Finish... ugh...

I've been enjoying reading Pulitzer winning fiction for years. As I've begun to listen to more books I recently tried and loved A Visit From the Goon Squad (prior to its Pulitzer win) and gave five stars to Empire Falls which was a 20 hour book.
For a break I figured I'd give Tinkers a try as a shorter listen. What a disappointment. Unlike powerful (relatively) shorter books like Toni Morrison's Beloved, Tinkers grated on my nerves from the very beginning.
Professional reviews touted the detail of such tasks as watch repair which I found to be eloquent (for a watch repair manual) but incredibly boring in a novel. Proulx's The Shipping News contains a scene which describes the construction of a boat in detail as an integral part of the story after we're invested in the characters. In Tinkers however, the detailed clock repair scene made me want to drive into a tree. Any time the story even hinted at the prospect of another journey down the clock repair path I could only grit my teeth.
The trek in Tinkers felt contrived to me unlike Cold Mountain which was a sequence of adventures within a larger plot. I had no interest in the main characters nor the sub-characters who often felt forced into the story to me.
In the end I just couldn't finish the book and clicked it off with little reservation. As a concession for my bailing out I gave it a second star. Maybe it improved but I just couldn't give it that chance. Life is just too short.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Beautifully written

This is a very good story, and the writing is fabulous. I was surprised that the other reviews complained about the language getting in the way of the story. I personally do not understand or care for poetry, but this book's style is very melodic(?) and really puts your imagination to work. The story is strong, and the descriptions are vivid. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

13 people found this helpful

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

Hard to follow the audio

This is a spectacular, beautiful book but Rummel (the narrator) reads too quickly! I had to go back and read it in print to get the full impact of Harding's gorgeous language. The only way I could listen to this audiobook was to play it at 1/2 speed. I highly recommend the novel but not the audio.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A rich pattern

Beautiful language and rich characters. I really enjoyed this book mainly for the poetry of the words

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Unique but valuable read

I am glad I read this book, despite some of the posted reviews. True, the book is not "action" as some award books are. It is a psychological piece dealing with secrets, families and the passage of time.


The book is best read as a multi-genre "experience," and it has aspects of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. It also employs occasional stream of consciousness and shifting characters. I read the book hard copy as I listened, which helped. This could be a confusing book to "get" if you only have the audio file.


But the book is dreamy and intense, and reveals about human relationships by portraying them as foggy and obscure. A sad book overall, but optimistic, too. I liked it.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

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

better than I expected

Where does Tinkers rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I'm not sure where to rank it. Not at the top, but certainly not near the bottom. It's a different kind of novel.

Who was your favorite character and why?
I liked Howard the best. The sections with Howard driving the cart and his mule, Prince Albert, pulling it were the most interesting.

What does Christian Rummel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Rummel does a great job of reading. I really have no complaints. The narration is on par with the story.

If you could take any character from Tinkers out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Prince Albert, the mule, because that would surely be something to see.

Any additional comments?
This novel is for those who like description and enjoy the beauty of language. Don't get me wrong, there's a story here, and the author does a good job of telling it. It's not a long recording, and it's worth the time.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Decent, but...

No structure. Enjoyable characters and a very emotional ending. I, however, am skeptical this novel would not have been better without some serious planning and perhaps another voice in the room. As it stands, it requires alot of patience, even for a novella-length story. Recommended, but not for everyone.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

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

Where has this book been hiding?

A great story with an important message; unfortunately, the narrator had a very unpleasant manner--he reads in a choppy way that is unsettling on the ears.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful