A Ladder to the Sky

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

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free

Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.

Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.

Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.

Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Ladder to the Sky

By: John Boyne

Narrated by: Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya, Laurence Kennedy

Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £9.48

About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne, read by Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya and Laurence Kennedy.

A psychological drama of cat and mouse, A Ladder to the Sky shows how easy it is to achieve the world if you are prepared to sacrifice your soul.

If you look hard enough, you can find stories pretty much anywhere. They don’t even have to be your own. Or so would-be writer Maurice Swift decides very early on in his career.

A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann gives him an opportunity to ingratiate himself with someone more powerful than him. For Erich is lonely, and he has a story to tell. Whether or not he should do so is another matter entirely.

Once Maurice has made his name, he sets off in pursuit of other people’s stories. He doesn’t care where he finds them – or to whom they belong – as long as they help him rise to the top.

Stories will make him famous but they will also make him beg, borrow and steal. They may even make him do worse.

John BoyneRichard E. GrantRichard CorderyNina SosanyaLaurence KennedyTransworld Digital

City Life

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Literature & Fiction

Urban

Scary

Thought-Provoking

City Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Urban Scary Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

A deliciously dark tale of ambition, seduction and literary theft . . . compelling and terrifying, powerful and intensely unsettling. In Maurice Swift, Boyne has given us an unforgettable protagonist, dangerous and irresistible in equal measure. The result is an ingeniously conceived novel that confirms Boyne as one of the most assured writers of his generation. (Hannah Beckerman)

Maurice Swift, the novelist protagonist of John Boyne’s A Ladder to the Sky, is a bookish version of Patricia Highsmith’s psychopathic antihero Tom Ripley.

A dark morality tale in the mould of Patricia Highsmith . . . consistently intriguing

Everything the wonderful Irish novelist John Boyne writes is special . . . a highly entertaining read (Jake Kerridge)

Gripping . . . John Boyne is a master storyteller and fans will doubtless be captivated by this chilling and darkly comic tale of unrelenting ambition

Boyne delivers a perfect balance of pace and detail to keep you gripped throughout

Maurice Swift is a literary Tom Ripley . . . a first-class page turner

It charts the rise of Maurice Swift, as cold and manipulative a character as you’re likely to meet this year . . . the story takes an ever darkening series of twists and turns

‘A Ladder to the Sky is endlessness inventive and wickedly funny. Boyne’s irredeemable antihero holds up a brutally well lit mirror to every writer who has ever wondered what they need to do to do that little better...’ (Patrick Gale)

Clever, chilling and beautifully paced, a study of inner corrosion that Patricia Highsmith could not have done better

Most relevant

So glad I stayed with this after a slow start as the different threads all made for fabulous stories on their own, but the way the stories meld together by the end was pure joy. Thoroughly recommended.