-
There but for the
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- 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
Audible Premium Plus
$14.95 a month
Buy for $18.27
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
How to Be Both
- A Novel
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: John Banks
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving, genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths, and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real--and all life’s givens get given a second chance.
-
-
Impressive
- By Saratarvin on 05-19-15
By: Ali Smith
-
Summer
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Juliette Burton
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the exciting culmination of Ali Smith's celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.
-
-
loved this.
- By Elaine S. Wilson on 11-15-20
By: Ali Smith
-
Artful
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Ali Smith
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2012, Ali Smith delivered the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Those lectures, presented here, took the shape of discursive stories that refused to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form. Thus, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. A hypnotic dialogue unfolds between storytelling and a meditation on art that encompasses love, grief, memory, and revitalization.
-
-
#Reality/Loss/Mythology
- By Ellen K. on 11-14-18
By: Ali Smith
-
Winter
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Winter, life force matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to Ali Smith's sensational Autumn, Smith's shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory, and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It's the season that teaches us survival.
-
-
Stellar and magical!
- By BK on 07-07-18
By: Ali Smith
-
NW
- A Novel
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Karen Bryson, Don Gilet
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Somewhere in Northwest London stands Caldwell housing estate, relic of 70s urban planning. Five identical blocks, deliberately named: Hobbes, Smith, Bentham, Locke, and Russell. If you grew up there, the plan was to get out and get on, to something bigger, better. Thirty years later ex-Caldwell kids Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan have all made it out, with varying degrees of succes - whatever that means....
-
-
I believe this book is best listened to than read
- By BowedBookshelf on 09-28-12
By: Zadie Smith
-
Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
-
-
Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
-
How to Be Both
- A Novel
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: John Banks
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving, genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths, and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real--and all life’s givens get given a second chance.
-
-
Impressive
- By Saratarvin on 05-19-15
By: Ali Smith
-
Summer
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Juliette Burton
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the exciting culmination of Ali Smith's celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.
-
-
loved this.
- By Elaine S. Wilson on 11-15-20
By: Ali Smith
-
Artful
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Ali Smith
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2012, Ali Smith delivered the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Those lectures, presented here, took the shape of discursive stories that refused to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form. Thus, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. A hypnotic dialogue unfolds between storytelling and a meditation on art that encompasses love, grief, memory, and revitalization.
-
-
#Reality/Loss/Mythology
- By Ellen K. on 11-14-18
By: Ali Smith
-
Winter
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Winter, life force matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to Ali Smith's sensational Autumn, Smith's shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory, and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It's the season that teaches us survival.
-
-
Stellar and magical!
- By BK on 07-07-18
By: Ali Smith
-
NW
- A Novel
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Karen Bryson, Don Gilet
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Somewhere in Northwest London stands Caldwell housing estate, relic of 70s urban planning. Five identical blocks, deliberately named: Hobbes, Smith, Bentham, Locke, and Russell. If you grew up there, the plan was to get out and get on, to something bigger, better. Thirty years later ex-Caldwell kids Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan have all made it out, with varying degrees of succes - whatever that means....
-
-
I believe this book is best listened to than read
- By BowedBookshelf on 09-28-12
By: Zadie Smith
-
Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
-
-
Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
-
The Shadow King
- A Novel
- By: Maaza Mengiste
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, orphaned servant Hirut struggles to adapt to her new household as Ethiopia faces Mussolini's looming invasion. As the battles begin in earnest, Hirut and other women must care for the wounded. But when Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia is about to lose hope, Hirut helps to disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor to keep the fight alive. She becomes his guard, inspiring women to join the war against fascism.
-
-
Not quite what I expected
- By sh1234 on 12-22-19
By: Maaza Mengiste
-
Spring
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Juliette Burton
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the heels of Autumn and Winter comes Spring, the continuation of Ali Smith's celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.
-
-
Such fine, modern storytelling!
- By Suze on 05-12-19
By: Ali Smith
-
The Accidental
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Heather O'Neill, Stina Nielsen, Jeff Woodman, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barefoot, thirtysomething Amber shows up at the door of a Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. Amber doesn't know them, but she talks her way in, telling lies, and stays for dinner. Eve, an author, thinks Amber is a student her husband is sleeping with. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down. Daughter Astrid, age 12, thinks she's her mother's friend. Son Magnus, 17, thinks she's an angel.
-
-
Excellent writing, thought provoking
- By L on 03-20-06
By: Ali Smith
-
The Vanishing Half
- A Novel
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.
-
-
Soap opera material
- By Sheila S on 06-06-20
By: Brit Bennett
-
The Lying Life of Adults
- By: Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein - translator
- Narrated by: Marisa Tomei
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, is looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Keighlee K. on 09-02-20
By: Elena Ferrante, and others
-
Girl, Woman, Other
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Anna-Maria Nabirye
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of Britain's most celebrated writers of color, Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of black British women. Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and short-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, Girl, Woman, Other paints a vivid portrait of the state of post-Brexit Britain, as well as looking back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
-
-
smart, compassionate, confronting and enjoyable
- By Kelly on 12-20-19
-
The Sea, the Sea
- By: Iris Murdoch, Mary Kinzie - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years.
-
-
Pure pleasure
- By laurel on 06-07-17
By: Iris Murdoch, and others
-
The Dark Forest
- By: Cixin Liu, Joel Martinsen - translator
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 22 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking listeners to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion - in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy.
-
-
Amazing
- By JohnD on 11-25-15
By: Cixin Liu, and others
-
A Burning
- A Novel
- By: Megha Majumdar
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Priya Ayyar, Deepti Gupta, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely — an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor — has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
-
-
Heartbreaking and Brilliantly Performed
- By Steve M on 07-28-20
By: Megha Majumdar
-
The Known World
- By: Edward P. Jones
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor, William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful white man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation, as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart.
-
-
wonderful and highly recommended
- By Rachel on 09-06-04
By: Edward P. Jones
-
The Plot Against America
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
-
-
What if FDR hadn't been re-elected?
- By Kaui on 05-09-17
By: Philip Roth
-
Mostly Dead Things
- A Novel
- By: Kristen Arnett
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo's wife - and the only person Jessa's ever been in love with - walks out without a word.
-
-
not funny, not even a little bit believable
- By Kathryn Bierle on 08-04-19
By: Kristen Arnett
Publisher's Summary
At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs room, and refuses to leave. An eclectic group of neighbors and friends slowly gathers around the house, and the story of Miles is one told from the points of view of four of them: a woman in her 40s called Anna, a man in his 60s called Mark, a woman in her 80s called May, and a 10-year-old child called Brooke. The thing is... none of these people knows Miles anything more than glancingly. So how much is it possible to know about a stranger? And what are the consequences of even the most casual, most fleeting meetings we have every day with other human beings?
Brilliantly audacious, disarmingly playful, full of Smith's trademark wit and puns, There but for the is a deft exploration of the human need for separation - from our pasts and from one another - and the redemptive possibilities for connections.
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about There but for the
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert
- 08-24-12
Insufferable as a bad house guest
This book is as insufferable as the house guest that ties the book together. I got this book based on its awards and strong critical reviews but found the book an annoying slog. Smith uses devices that I usually enjoy in writting (streams of consiousness, multiple narratives, no real heavy plotting) but creates a book that just caused me to give a thousand mile stare when listening too.
Here are some of the problems I had with the book:
1) Characters are poorly introduced and you need to spend a large chunk of time figuring out where the fit into the plot rather than enjoying the story; a few characters and plot lines I just gave up on; some books are worth the effort of really trying to understand it; this is not one of them.
2) Streams of consiousness that go no where and speak like some trivia napkin or fortune cookie
3) the book seems to be in love with its own cleverness like Smith just discovered certain ideas in metafiction and narrative and decided to take it out for a test drive with little consequence or interesting results
This might be your cup of tea but I just found the book awful. The narrator also has a rather shrill tone of a school marm.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mirela
- 03-12-12
Not my cup of tea
What disappointed you about There but for the?
I stuck through this book, but it just didn't speak to me... Strange punctuation style, seemingly irrelevant stories that have a somewhat interesting twist of circular story telling. However, I must not be the target reader type for this book, I didn't love it.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karen K
- 01-23-15
Why I Didn't Like This Book - But You Might
I normally wouldn't stop reading a book and then review it but I am making an exception here. I want to review it so other people know what I know but I didn't want to spend any more of my life listening to it when there are so many other books. I should listen to samples before buying books too so at least I would have known about the really strong theatrical English accent the narrator uses. I am not a big fan of narrators with accents but sometimes they are OK. This one I found made it hard to understand what was being said. Between the accent and the slang I got lost a lot, and add on to that the content which involves a lot of stream of consciousness and cutesy word play, I have never listened to a book so poorly suited to be an audiobook. If you like these sorts of very British books with clever wording and stories of lives of quiet desperation, maybe this is your book. BUT I suggest you read it rather than listen to it. I am not sure why I picked this out in the first place - something in the description caught my interest but I think I will avoid books like this in the future. The last straw for me was a scene where a man was walking through a park (that much I got) and I thought he was talking to his mother, then he seemed to be talking to his dead father but I wasn't really sure, and I could never tell which comments were said aloud and which just thought. If you can't tell whether someone is talking to themselves, or a live person, or a dead person, I think it is time to move on to a different book. So I will.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- denise
- 10-10-13
Awful
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
If you enjoy confusing plot lines by fast talkers
Would you ever listen to anything by Ali Smith again?
Not likely
What didn’t you like about Anne Flosnik’s performance?
Speech pattern too fast
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from There but for the?
Nearly all
Any additional comments?
Very dissatisfied
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elinore
- 02-24-13
I don't know how I missed this author until now.
Any additional comments?
This book had everything I like--a good story and well-developed characters, but also an Interest in ideas, words and sentences. This is a book I would typically prefer to read than hear, but the audio worked for me very well, even with all the changes in perspective and voice.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- B. Hudson
- 08-28-12
Disappointed
What would have made There but for the better?
A different narrator might have helped. The voice grated on my nerves.
What was most disappointing about Ali Smith’s story?
Disjointed and boring. Maybe reading it instead of listening would have given me an appreciation for it. I couldn't even make it through the last 2 hours.
How could the performance have been better?
Some inflection!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Toby
- 10-14-14
Love from the beginning to the end
What did you love best about There but for the?
The young girl, Brooke, was certainly one of the loves of this book. Overall, there was much to love about this novel. The diversity of the various characters made it like being in the heart of London.
What was one of the most memorable moments of There but for the?
I cannot name only one. I vastly enjoyed the conversations Brooke had with others and especially, her parents. Obviously, also Miles!
What about Anne Flosnik’s performance did you like?
Everything. Flosnik is one of my all-time favorite readers.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
I don't think in terms of film, so cannot answer this question.
Any additional comments?
I don't much like comparisons to film. No book can ever, really, be made into the perfect film, or so I believe. This was a tremendous read that flowed flawlessly from character to character and scene to scene. What a marvelous writer, Ms. Ali Smith.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kayla
- 04-03-12
couldn't get through it
Would you ever listen to anything by Ali Smith again?
probably not
What didn’t you like about Anne Flosnik’s performance?
her voice is extremely grating, and she says the dialogue tags in consistent drone