-
A Man Called Ove
- A Novel
- Narrated by: J. K. Simmons
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $22.67
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Anxious People
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything.
-
-
Read. This. Now.
- By DIY Sammy on 09-09-20
By: Fredrik Backman
-
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is 77 years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus crazy. She is also Elsa's best and only friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.
-
-
Nothing to Apologize For
- By Deborah Jacob on 03-19-16
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Beartown
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semifinals, and they actually have a shot at winning.
-
-
EXTRAORDINARY IN SO MANY WAYS
- By Janna Wong Healy on 06-29-17
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Britt-Marie Was Here
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Britt-Marie can't stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It's just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis.
-
-
Backman is an extraordinary writer
- By Birdfan56 on 01-15-18
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
- A Novel
- By: Gail Honeyman
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.
-
-
Hard to understand with the accent
- By Amy on 06-19-19
By: Gail Honeyman
-
Where the Crawdads Sing
- By: Delia Owens
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.
-
-
Don't listen to the negative reviews.
- By Kyle on 12-03-19
By: Delia Owens
-
Anxious People
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything.
-
-
Read. This. Now.
- By DIY Sammy on 09-09-20
By: Fredrik Backman
-
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is 77 years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus crazy. She is also Elsa's best and only friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.
-
-
Nothing to Apologize For
- By Deborah Jacob on 03-19-16
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Beartown
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semifinals, and they actually have a shot at winning.
-
-
EXTRAORDINARY IN SO MANY WAYS
- By Janna Wong Healy on 06-29-17
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Britt-Marie Was Here
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Britt-Marie can't stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It's just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis.
-
-
Backman is an extraordinary writer
- By Birdfan56 on 01-15-18
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
- A Novel
- By: Gail Honeyman
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.
-
-
Hard to understand with the accent
- By Amy on 06-19-19
By: Gail Honeyman
-
Where the Crawdads Sing
- By: Delia Owens
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.
-
-
Don't listen to the negative reviews.
- By Kyle on 12-03-19
By: Delia Owens
-
The Midnight Library
- A Novel
- By: Matt Haig
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? In The Midnight Library, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision.
-
-
Predictable from the Very START
- By James Robert Nash on 10-28-20
By: Matt Haig
-
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- A Novel
- By: Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Julia Whelan, Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated.
-
-
I’m not crying, you’re crying
- By bridget on 07-16-18
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
-
-
Memorable novel
- By Mark on 12-02-17
By: Amor Towles
-
Good Eggs
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca Hardiman
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Gary Furlong, Siobhan Waring
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a home aide arrives to assist a rambunctious family at a crossroads, simmering tensions boil over in this “witty, exuberant debut” (People) that is an “absolute delight from start to finish” (Sarah Haywood, New York Times best-selling author) perfect for fans of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Evvie Drake Starts Over.
-
-
This story will lift you up
- By Anita on 03-26-21
By: Rebecca Hardiman
-
The House in the Cerulean Sea
- By: TJ Klune
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.
-
-
Good Story Line
- By John on 04-06-20
By: TJ Klune
-
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett
- A Novel
- By: Annie Lyons
- Narrated by: Nicolette McKenzie
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eudora Honeysett is done with this noisy, moronic world - all of it. She has witnessed the indignities and suffering of old age and has lived a full life. At 85, she isn’t going to leave things to chance. Her end will be on her terms. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland, a plan is set in motion. Then she meets 10-year-old Rose Trewidney, a whirling, pint-sized rainbow of sparkling cheer. All Eudora wants is to be left alone to set her affairs in order.
-
-
Just what I Needed
- By Angela Adams on 02-04-21
By: Annie Lyons
-
The Nightingale
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Audie Award, Fiction, 2016. From the number-one New York Times bestselling author comes Kristin Hannah’s next novel. It is an epic love story and family drama set at the dawn of World War II. She is the author of twenty-one novels. Her previous novels include Home Front, Night Road, Firefly Lane, Fly Away, and Winter Garden.
-
-
Irritating Narration and Trite Writing
- By Summer Layne on 05-09-19
By: Kristin Hannah
-
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
- A Novella
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: David Morse
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that keeps getting smaller every day. The square is strange but also familiar, full of the odds and ends that have made up their lives: Grandpa's work desk, the stuffed dragon that Grandpa once gave to Noah, the sweet-smelling hyacinths that Grandma loved to grow in her garden.
-
-
Comprehension:Compassion
- By Karen on 11-13-16
By: Fredrik Backman
-
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever - and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
-
-
Prose style not to my liking
- By C.V. Cox on 10-18-20
By: V. E. Schwab
-
Me Before You
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons, Anna Bentink, Steven Crossley, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me. They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose...Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life - steady boyfriend, close family - who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident.
-
-
Not for me
- By Matthew Family on 03-01-19
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
- A Novel
- By: Maria Semple
- Narrated by: Kathleen Wilhoite
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle - and people in general - has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands.
-
-
Epistolary form is frustrating for audio
- By Catherine on 11-25-16
By: Maria Semple
-
Before We Were Yours
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Catherine Taber
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge - until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth.
-
-
I was rivetted, finished in three days.
- By Lin Cloward on 06-26-17
By: Lisa Wingate
Publisher's Summary
More than two million copies sold
“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll feel new sympathy for the curmudgeons in your life.” (People)
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon - the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell”. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.
Fredrik Backman’s novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others.
“If there was an award for ‘Most Charming Book of the Year,’ this first novel by a Swedish blogger-turned-overnight-sensation would win hands down.” (Booklist, starred review)
Featured Article: The Best Listens for Tom Hanks Fans
From Forrest Gump to You’ve Got Mail, Cast Away to Toy Story, Tom Hanks has displayed an incredible range as an actor, and he’s become a household name for bringing some of the most iconic characters to life. But his talent isn’t merely limited to on-screen roles or film voice-over work—Hanks is also a fantastic audiobook narrator and writer, as well as an excellent podcast guest! If you’re looking for some great Tom Hanks content to keep you entertained until his next box office premiere, here are our recommendations.
More from the same
What listeners say about A Man Called Ove
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- WanderLaw
- 04-05-20
By Far the Best Narrator of a Book I've Had
The story was phenomenal by itself but the narrator was so exceptional I got completely sucked in. He made it so enjoyable.
41 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Beverley
- 12-04-19
Best book ever!
This hilarious, touching, deep and at times sad story is the most amazing book I have ever read. I was so sad when it ended. I have hundreds of titles in my library and this one tops the lot! I will be listening to all the authors works for sure. I will also watch the movie now that was made from the book. Don’t hesitate to invest in this purchase, you won’t regret it!
29 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 04-19-20
Loved this book so much!
I laughed, I cried, I LOVED this book. J.K. Simmons was the perfect narrator. What a lovely story, the heartfelt moments snuck up on me and brought me to tears and then there would be a snarky comment from Ove that would then move me to laughter. Highly recommend this book!!
24 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Luntas
- 04-17-20
One of the best books I have ever read.
Bought the paperback but the text was really small. You should listen now - it's love. And life. And makes the pandemic just a little more bearable.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kayla Terry
- 04-14-20
Powerful novel...
Powerful novel In its own right, but the narrator elevates it a notch further. Absolutely beautiful.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- marimars
- 02-14-20
I read Backman’s books last to first
This was my least favorite book by Backman. When first meeting Ove I didn’t like his curmudgeon ill temper from the start. However, I love J.K. Simmons and the reviews well are usually worth of a best seller but Ove put me off and by the time we got to know his childhood and his despair after losing his wife I thought there would be a deeper connection between Ove and his self awareness at this stage of his life but the narrator seemed to not have access to Ove’s internal thoughts. It was like reading or listening to someone observing an old man that lives in your neighborhood and weaving together rumors and overheard interactions by a witness who is trying to explain why the man is so grumpy and lonely.
Ove’s character doesn’t have a his moment where he’s aware of himself. There isn’t an evolution from sad to renewal or connection by way of understanding mistakes or choices to being useful in a new way. No, Ove decided to be helpful so people would leave him alone. He was seemingly thoughtful but in reality he didn’t trust others to do it “right” such as, no one else was going to do the neighborhood watch if he didn’t.
I don’t see his neighbors wanting to subject themselves to his impatient outbursts without some kind of genuine need to put up with them never knowing his personal turmoil. because he wasn’t friends with anyone by the time we are meeting him and all of his friends are dead or dying at this point.
As times change from his abrupt youth to meeting his wife and watching his neighborhood gentrify Ove became an unlikely magnet for misfits. First there was a lone cat that went everywhere including riding in the car and behaving more like a dog would from my experience to a pregnant woman who he was obviously racist of but from an old man perspective and a couple of teenagers one being gay who think his house is the only safe place to hangout when the boy is kicked out after he comes out. The boys are friends not a couple in this story and need the old school fix it with your own tools kind of self sufficient era Ove is so proud of.
I think Backman nails the stereotypical last of his generation racist but not racist grumpy and lonely old man who is just misunderstood. I would have liked to hear about his reversal from wishing he was dead to finding he can change with the times and want to risk breaking out of his comfort zone versus doing these things because no one else will do it the same way he has done things. This book sounded more like the pregnant woman was driving the events of the plot and yet we don’t know her all that well either.
By the end I finally wanted to know Ove. He was finally becoming interesting to me.
His next two books do a better job with character development and keeping the listener interested in the doldrums of a midlife crisis in my opinion.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A. Lynch
- 04-07-20
It truly lives up to the hype
I kept hearing how great this story was and was a bit late to reading it but I’m so glad I did. Full of warmth and love—makes you appreciate others and the little things in life. Jk Simmons made it even better I’m sure—great book!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- julesv728
- 09-23-20
Not for me
This book has a lot of great reviews, but it was just not for me. The character is just not likable, no matter what he does toward the end of the story. It’s really hard to like a guy, regardless of his history, who is basically a jerk. So, I know a lot of people like this, but it is not for me. I did enjoy JK Simmons narration.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pam Giesler
- 04-21-20
Possibly my favorite book to date.
Such a charming and witty book. I couldn't love the characters any more than I do. Definitely one of those books that makes you sad that you've come to the end of it. A must read.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mohammad
- 04-17-20
Beautiful book about family connections
This is a lovely story about how one forms a family from the connections one makes. I loved it. Had me crying at the end. You become very engaged with the characters and how their relationships develop. It also does a good job of going back and forth between Ove’s present and past life in a way that shows how his past experiences shaped his character and values.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- JB
- 01-09-21
Slow start, great story!
I have to admit I almost stopped in the beginning, but decided to give it a chance. The grumpy old man trying to but a device at an electronic shop did not grab me. I am so glad I pushed on and ended up loving the book, and the grumpy old man!