Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Tom Lake

By: Ann Patchett
Narrated by: Meryl Streep
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Bloomsbury presents Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, read by Meryl Streep.

The breathtaking new novel from Ann Patchett – a Sunday Times and No. 1 New York Times bestseller

‘Filled with the moments I live for in a story’
BONNIE GARMUS, author of Lessons in Chemistry

‘[Tom Lake] has it all ... Young love, sibling rivalry and deep mother-daughter relationships’
REESE WITHERSPOON

‘One of the most beloved authors of her generation’
SUNDAY TIMES

There's more to every love story than what we choose to tell...

It’s spring and Lara’s three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they’ve always longed to hear – of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents lead before their children are born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.

‘One of our greatest living chroniclers of love and marriage … Expect wonder; Patchett always delivers’ ELLE

* SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023 *
* A REESE WITHERSPOON AND BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK *
* A 2023 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE TIMES *

©2023 Ann Patchett (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Bel Canto cover art
The Covenant of Water cover art
Vacationland cover art
Buddy Babylon cover art
Margreete's Harbor cover art
Jane Eyre cover art
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? cover art
Anne of Green Gables cover art
Good Company cover art
The Things We Cannot Say cover art
The Keeper of Happy Endings cover art
The Things We Do for Love cover art
These Tangled Vines cover art

What listeners say about Tom Lake

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    764
  • 4 Stars
    214
  • 3 Stars
    66
  • 2 Stars
    30
  • 1 Stars
    14
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    929
  • 4 Stars
    68
  • 3 Stars
    19
  • 2 Stars
    10
  • 1 Stars
    6
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    663
  • 4 Stars
    231
  • 3 Stars
    79
  • 2 Stars
    36
  • 1 Stars
    22

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

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Very lovely; very American.

Merely Streep is a dream narrator and she could read me stories forever. The novel is beautifully crafted, evoking landscapes and characters in a perfectly paced way. It is also a tribute to American insularity. I can imagine no other novel if it’s ambition from anywhere else in the world being so contained in the bubble of its own culture. Even Chekhov is somehow appropriated.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

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

Lovely read - calming and a journey

I really enjoyed this book, the story of a young actress doing Summer Stock and the cast of characters around her was so well written. Engaging yet gentle, and with some surprises woven into the story, it was a great reflection of life well lived, the ups and downs. Narration by Meryl Streep fit beautifully. I'd recommend it!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

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

Glorious!

This is one of the best audiobooks I have listened to. The combination of Meryl Streep’s voice and the golden, nostalgic, bittersweet storytelling is absolutely sublime. I am recommending to everyone I can.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

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

Superb!

Meryl Streep! What a treat. It is impossible to imagine what this book would be like with anybody else reading it, including myself. I was about to by the book but am so glad I went for audiobook!!! Such a superb experience!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Gentle dreamy story

Loved Meryl Streep’s narration. Her voice is soothing and fits in with the idyllic setting of cherry orchards and family life. The girls all evolved in their own reactions to the story of their mother’s past.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

the narration

it was a wholesome simple story that I found myself listening to completely engaged.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Beautiful, gentle, engaging.

This is a wonderful story of past lives and family, read in an engaging and empathetic manner.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

I have always loved Ann Patchett. Meryl brings more life into the characters than my imagination ever could.

Meryl is the perfect narrator for this fantastic book. I cannot think of another example of an author and a narrator that deserve and compliment each other so well. I may come back to re-listen again in a while, but for now I will enjoy sitting with what the story and performance have both left me with, gratefully.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Awesome narration by Meryl Streep

A really wonderful soothing listen and a great story about a past love and life before domesticity. Full of love and happiness

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Wonderful Meryl Streep

It's such a joy and a privilege to listen to Meryl Streep read an audiobook! The story itself was beautiful in its simplicity and worth holding out until the end.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!