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Keep the Aspidistra Flying
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
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Keep the Aspidistra Flying
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
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South Riding
- By: Winifred Holtby
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In this rich and memorable evocation of the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire are the lives, loves and sorrows of the central characters. There is Sarah Burton, fiery young headmistress; Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall, a councillor tormented by his own disastrous marriage; Jo Astell, a socialist fighting poverty and his own illness; and Mrs Beddows, the first woman Alderman of the district (like Winifred's own mother).
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4 out of 5 stars
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Worth Revisiting
- By Ilana on 11-04-12
By: Winifred Holtby
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A Perfect Spy
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,172
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,039
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,031
Over the course of his seemingly irreproachable life, Magnus Pym has been all things to all people: a devoted family man, a trusted colleague, a loyal friend - and the perfect spy. But in the wake of his estranged father's death, Magnus vanishes, and the British Secret Service is up in arms. Is it grief, or is the reason for his disappearance more sinister? And who is the mysterious man with the sad moustache who also seems to be looking for Magnus? In A Perfect Spy, John le Carré has crafted one of his crowning masterpieces.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Remembrances of loyalties past
- By Darwin8u on 04-13-13
By: John le Carré
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The Heart of the Matter
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 539
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 453
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 445
Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Starts Very Slowly then Boom!
- By Michael on 05-21-17
By: Graham Greene
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London Fields
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 200
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 168
The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Big chewy novel, excellent narration
- By Sand on 08-21-14
By: Martin Amis
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Of Human Bondage
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 28 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 410
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 369
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 365
Of Human Bondage is one of the greatest novels of modern times, and it is certainly Maugham's greatest achievement. It was published in 1914, when Maugham was at the height of his creative powers. The story concerns Philip Carey, afflicted at birth with a club foot, and his passionate search for truth in a cruel world. We follow his growth to manhood, his educational progress, his first loves, and the wrenching tragedies and disappointments that life has in store for him. In some of the finest prose of the 20th century, Maugham has presented us with the timeless story of one man's search for the meaning of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Greatly Unsettling
- By Michael on 10-04-14
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The Keys to the Street
- By: Ruth Rendell
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 79
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Mystery with humor and insight
- By Ida Hagman on 10-02-12
By: Ruth Rendell
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The Forsyte Chronicles, Vol. 3: End of the Chapter
- By: John Galsworthy
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 30 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story5 out of 5 stars 18
The third volume of this gripping family saga, End of the Chapter, shifts to the Cherrells - cousins of the Forsytes by marriage. Young Dinny Cherrell in particular cherishes their ancestral home, Condaford Grange, which represents stability in a rapidly changing world. Through his depiction of the lives and loves of this family, Galsworthy throws a brilliant spotlight on the social and political upheavals of the 1930s.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very enjoyable
- By Jonathan Kalkstein on 11-28-22
By: John Galsworthy
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A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4 out of 5 stars 73
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
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I Capture the Castle
- By: Dodie Smith
- Narrated by: Jenny Agutter
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,792
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,596
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,596
In this coming of age story, Dodie Smith introduces the visionary and eccentric character of seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain. The youngest daughter in a family of impoverished artists, it is her imagination and writing that takes us away from the ramshackle old English castle where they live, and towards an intriguing tale of husband-hunting and light-hearted sibling rivalry.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well, that was a surprise
- By Matthew on 12-16-13
By: Dodie Smith
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Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 379
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 291
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Story4 out of 5 stars 293
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grows Within You
- By Chris Reich on 08-06-11
By: Saul Bellow
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Hunger
- A Novel
- By: Knut Hamsun
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 96
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Story4 out of 5 stars 94
Knut Hamsun's Hunger, first published in 1890 and hailed as the literary beginning of the 20th century, is a masterpiece of psychologically driven fiction. The story of a struggling artist living on the edge of starvation, the novel portrays the unnamed first-person narrator's descent into paranoia, despair, and madness as hunger overtakes him. As the protagonist loses his grip on reality, Hamsun brilliantly portrays the disturbing and irrational recesses of the human mind through increasingly disjointed and urgent prose.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Book quite good; wrong narrator
- By Erez on 05-05-11
By: Knut Hamsun
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Three Comrades
- By: Erich Maria Remarque, Arthur Wesley Wheen - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Braun
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story5 out of 5 stars 54
The year is 1928. On the outskirts of a large German city, three young men are earning a thin and precarious living. Fully armed young storm troopers swagger in the streets. Restlessness, poverty, and violence are everywhere. For these three, friendship is the only refuge from the chaos around them. Then the youngest of them falls in love and brings into the group a young woman who will become a comrade as well, as they are all tested in ways they can have never imagined.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love and friendship in a dying world.
- By Tarquin on 03-18-19
By: Erich Maria Remarque, and others
What listeners say about Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ray Hayes
- 09-18-17
very enjoyable
I really did enjoy the story. good character development. I also really enjoyed this narrator.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Darwin8u
- 08-15-12
Vicisti, O aspidistra!
Oh, what an ode to the money-gods and aspidistras. An amazing, emotional journey of one man's fight against aspidistras and the inevitable pull of the money-gods. This is a novel that is warm, hard, depressing, funny, absurd and at the end virtuous and redeeming. Orwell is able to simultaneously thread the needles of commerce, class, art and protest. Orwell weaves his story with satire and pathos, but doesn't make caricatures of ANY of his characters. Love Richard Brown's laid back narration.
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Andorboth
- 07-16-23
this dry satire will have you in tears laughing
I needed to write this review because Richard Brown's reading of this novel truly made me fall in love with audiobooks way back in the 1990s. I finally found it here again.
Yes, the audio is a bit out of date, but please hear me out: his voice captures the tone of this novel perfectly. I listened to this once with my family and we could not stop laughing, or simply marveling at the witty observations of interwar Britain.
This is also a novel about life in a bookshop. The satire about literary life (and I speak from experience, as someone who also worked in a new generation of bookshops: Barnes & Noble) is just too funny, even as we love literature. So I strongly recommend this novel. You'll encounter another side of Orwell. And just remember its basic lesson: money, money - always money.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous
- 10-27-16
Monotonous
What didn’t you like about Richard Brown’s performance?
Brown's voice is shrill and monotonous. I would return it if I could and certainly I won't buy another book he has narrated.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Francoise
- 10-23-18
More Audible Tech problems
The audible version is not whispersynched to the Kindle book. An irritating defect. Not at all happy.
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