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Birdsong

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Birdsong

By: Sebastian Faulks
Narrated by: Samuel West
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.


Birdsong is a mesmerising story of love and war spanning three generations between WW1 and present day.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

1910. Amiens, Northern France. Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman, arrives in the French city to stay with the Azaire family. He falls in love with unhappily married Isabelle and the two enter a tempestuous love affair. But, with the world on the brink of war, the relationship falters. With his love for Isabelle forever engraved on his heart, Stephen volunteers to fight on the Western Front and enters the unimaginable dark world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land. From award-winning writer Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong is an exceptionally moving and unforgettable portrait of the ruthlessness of war and the indestructability of love.

'Magnificent - deeply moving' Sunday Times

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Also available by Sebastian Faulks as part of the French trilogy series:
The Girl at the Lion d'Or
Charlotte Gray



© Sebastian Faulks 1993 (P) Penguin Audio 2005

©1993 Sebastian Faulks; (P)2005 Random House Audiobooks
20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance War & Military War Military Gas World War

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Critic reviews

Magnificent - deeply moving
With Birdsong Faulks has produced a mesmerizing story of love and war... This book is so powerful that as I finished it I turned to the front to start again
Amazing... I have read it and re-read it and can think of no other novel for many, many years that has so moved me or stimulated in me so much reflection on the human spirit
An overpowering and beautiful novel... Ambitious, outrageous, poignant, sleep-disturbing, Birdsong is not a perfect novel, just a great one (Simon Schama)
Engrossing, moving, and unforgettable
This is a great love story (Prue Leith)
One of the finest novels of the last forty years
This is literature at its very best: a book with the power to reveal the unimagined, so that one's life is set in a changed context. I urge you to read it
So powerful is this recreated past that you long to call Birdsong perfect
A powerful novel that is difficult to put down
All stars
Most relevant
This is one of my favourite books of all time. A wonderful novel. After I finished this book for the first time, i ached for the characters i missed them so much. This would have been a five, but it is only an abridged version. Read the book and just get this to remind you how great this story is.................

If only it wasnt abridged

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This is a beautiful book. The story is simple but haunting while the writers skill and devotion to his craft is evident in every sentence and phrase. I did not think this was 'my kind of book' - I was wrong.

Beautiful book

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A number of narratives in one, interwoven lives, years apart and yet so closely related. Absolutely brilliant detail describing war, love, life and loss…would highly recommend.

Intricately woven story

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Soulfully narrated. A story about the futility and loss in war and love. The juxtaposition of physical pleasure and pain. Masterful. A hard listen graphic and painfully realistic. Stunning but so harsh. Lest we forget.

Visceral

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Loved it...

Extremely powerful and, I daresay, important novel. Beautifully written and carefully performed. Excellent.

Moving

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