A Month in the Country

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

£0.00 for first 30 days

LIMITED TIME OFFER

Get 3 months for £0.99/mo

Get this deal

Try Premium Plus free

Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.

Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.

1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.

Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

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.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

A Month in the Country

By: J L Carr, Penelope Fitzgerald - introduction

Narrated by: Alex Jennings

Get this deal

Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £8.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

'One of the best books I've ever read' Richard Osman

A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village life he experiences a sense of renewal and belief in the future. Now an old man, Birkin looks back on the idyllic summer of 1920, remembering a vanished place of blissful calm, untouched by change, a precious moment he has carried with him through the disappointments of the years.

Adapted into a film starring Colin Firth, Natasha Richardson and Kenneth Branagh, A Month in the Country traces the slow revival of the primeval rhythms of life so cruelly disorientated by the Great War.

'Tender and elegant' Guardian

'Unlike anything else in modern English literature' Spectator

©1980 J L Carr (P)2024 Penguin Audio

20th Century

Classics

Genre Fiction

Historical Fiction

Literary Fiction

Small Town & Rural

Village

Heartfelt

Inspiring

Tear-jerking

Listeners also enjoyed...

J.L. Carr: A Month in the Country and The Harpole Report cover art

Emily Fox-Seton: The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst cover art

Critic reviews

I wanted to write A Month in the Country in space - a brief, lovely homage to the natural world, pastoral writing about how deeply humans respond to our natural environments and the relationship between beauty and survival. In the end (I guess inevitably) the two books bore very little resemblance, but I don't think Orbital would exist without it

The book I keep coming back to, it's one of the best books I've ever read. I've never met anyone who didn't love it

Tender and elegant

Unlike anything else in modern English Literature (D.J. Taylor)

Carr's blessedly small tale of lost love is also a small hymn about art and the compensating joy of the artist, both in giving and receiving. It stays with us, too, and is oddly haunting

Carr has the magic touch to re-enter the imagined past (Penelope Fitzgerald)

Most relevant

There is so much going on in this book. A portrait of a community, warmth and happiness and love but at the same time sadness and loss and fear and a bit of a mystery. One of my favourite books ever and so beautifully read.