Cloudstreet cover art

Cloudstreet

 Preview

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.

Cloudstreet

By: Tim Winton
Narrated by: Peter Hosking
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £15.14

Buy Now for £15.14

About this listen

 Two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet, where they begin their lives from scratch. For 20 years, they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts.©2002 Tim Winton (P)2008 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban Heartfelt

Critic reviews

AudioFile Earphones Award, Exceptional Audio Performance, 2004
"One of those rare novels that warm the heart, as well as spark the imagination." ( Kirkus Reviews)
"Peter Hosking's performance is true to Winton's unsentimental exploration into humankind's ability to love and survive amid adversity....His characterizations, including an aboriginal ghost and a talking pig, are earthy, real, and frequently hilarious." ( AudioFile)
All stars
Most relevant
A fabulous, fantastic book. Beautifully read. Wholesome, disfunctional characters living a quirky life. Bitter sweet, tender, funny and sad. An absolute "must read". If you love literature you will love this. I envy everyone who hasn't read this book yet.

A beautiful book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A life-affirming, rollicking book, wonderfully narrated. Very highly recommended. Will be looking out for more by this author

Magical

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What a great read and so beautifully spoken by Peter Hosking
My listening companion for two weeks
Felt like knowing the two central families so well through the ‘stuff of daily life’ who’s stories fill it’s pages
Reading as our book of the month in our Quaker book group
Hope next month’s is as gripping

Enthralling

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The only reasons I don't give this book five stars are (i) some annoying chapter and 'event' headers (when read out they come across like subtitles) and (ii) to English ears the narration is occasionally challenging. But the story and characters are both excellent. The story follows two working class families across 30 years of domestic life, set in Western Australia rather than perhaps better known places like Melbourne or Sydney. There are times when the modern reader wonders how the characters kept going - life was clearly pretty tough back then. But somehow the lust for life of the Austrlain personality enlivens every crisis and set-back. There are themes below the surface about fate, fortune/luck and whether you can 'cheat your destiny'. I read it on a flight to and while driving through New South Wales, which made it come to life even more. This is also regularly voted the most popular Australian contemporary novel.

A look back at what made Australia 'australian'

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

Would you listen to Cloudstreet again? Why?

Cloudstreet is probably the best audio book I've heard in the last 5 years of listening.

What other book might you compare Cloudstreet to, and why?

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Both books are family tales filled with the mystery and ordinariness of life, described in prose of the highest quality.

What about Peter Hosking’s performance did you like?

He manages to capture the uniqueness of each character's voice without strain or stress, to bring to life the world of 1950's Perth.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Both.

Any additional comments?

Tim Winton might have felt, when he finished this book, that it is the book he was meant to write. It has a completeness and maturity about it that all great books achieve. Images from the tale come to mind long afterwards. The characters feel real and one comes to love them.

A great novel, beautifully read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews