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

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)

Laugh out loud

Great book, had me laughing out loud as I listened at my desk. Wonderful listen.

Best narration ever!

The book is brilliant, and funny and deserving of any award they throw at it, yes -- all true. The only thing is, I never would have followed the story -- got all the humor, felt the emotions that the author conveyed or come to think of the main characters as close friends had it not been for the amazing job Steven Crossley did reading it. He clearly understood the work of Ms Willis and brought it to life for me. I listen to this book often as I drift off to sleep and am taken away each time.

an excellent story with ecxellent narration

an absolute pleasure to listen to, a book full of humor and adventure. absolutely loved it. the fact that it ended was almost painful. my only regret is that i don't own it on paper (which seems like my next purchase)

Loved it!

I found myself laughing out loud during several parts of the book. The characters, the plot twists and the historical details combined nicely. I'm not as much into the science of time travel as I am into the "what would it be like to live in another time" aspects, so this book was perfect for me. I truly enjoyed the performance, his voice was perfect.

Wonderful. Amazing.

I. Loved. This. Book.

Everything about it - deliciously complex plot, incredibly narrated. An obvious love of history on the part of the author. I'm pretty much speechless.

Puzzling, Humerous and odd. Kind of delicious.

I loved this quirky odd book with it's timeline complexities and strange character encounters. At times it is slow, but still really funny.

Whimsically amusing ad nauseum

Any additional comments?

Having greatly enjoyed Doomsday, I was disappointed by the lack of sublety in this book. The whimsical humour and farcical situations were blatantly a la Wodehouse, and there was no need for the author to make repeated references to Jeeves to make sure we got it. Also, the clues to the twists in the story were so obvious that the ending was somewhat less than surprising. Although the narrator did an excellent job, and in general I did appreciate the humour, I began to find the story tedious long before the twenty plus hours were finished.

marvelous

I got sucked into Connie Willis' time travel series (and Audible!) by Blackout. This book is lighter and never fails to make me laugh, despite the half dozen rereads.

such a pleasure

I laughed out loud a few times! Absolutely brilliant, excellent twists. I could never predict what was was going to happen!
I struggled to put it down

Outstanding narration

This isn’t a regular read for me but audible offered so I tried it. This author is so witty I found myself laughing and chuckling throughout the story. It’s very good!