Listen free for 30 days
-
The Destructors and Other Stories
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £11.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Burnt-Out Case
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Querry, a world famous architect, finds he no longer enjoys his life he sets off on a voyage. Arriving anonymously at a leper colony in the Congo, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a ‘burnt-out case’. Querry slowly moves towards a cure, his mind getting clearer as he works for the colony. However, in the heart of the tropics, no relationship with a woman will ever be taken as innocent….
-
-
An unusual story
- By Carol on 09-11-15
-
Call for the Dead
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This novel, set in London in the late 1950s, finds George Smiley engaged in the humdrum job of security vetting. But when a Foreign Office civil servant commits suicide after an apparently unproblematic interview, Smiley is baffled. Refusing to believe that Fennan shot himself soon after making a cup of cocoa and asking the exchange to telephone him in the morning, Smiley decides to investigate – only to uncover a murderous conspiracy.
-
-
A refreshing change
- By eatough1999 on 27-01-15
-
Every Day Is Mother's Day
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evelyn and Muriel Axon, mother and daughter, lead a haunted existence. Objects of horror to their neighbours, they evade or terrorise any social worker who crosses their path. Inside their house, they pursue a covert persecution of each other, shrinking from the unseen occupants of their spare room. But change is in the air… Every Day is Mother's Day is a merciless comedy of colliding lives: of sex, death, madness, adultery and the social services.
-
-
Funny and thought provoking
- By Squarepusher Fan on 03-07-15
-
The Captain and the Enemy
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Victor was only 12 when the Captain took him away from school to live with Liza, his girlfriend. He claimed that Victor, now reborn as Jim Smith, had been won as the result of a bet. Having reached his 20s, Jim attempts to piece together the story.
-
-
Great mini-novel, not common these days
- By Hasnat Safder on 26-06-21
-
Strange Meeting
- By: Susan Hill
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things like this don't happen often in a lifetime... John Hilliard, a young subaltern returning to the Western Front after a brief period of sick leave back in England blind to the horrors of the trenches, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed. But there is David Barton. As yet untouched and unsullied by war, radiating charm and common sense, forever writing long letters to his family.
-
-
Beautiful story. Beautifully read. Just.Well done.
- By baharnn on 04-01-15
-
The Night Manager
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The night manager is Jonathan, a veteran of clandestine operations. In flight from a failed marriage and his own past, he has taken refuge in the luxury hotel trade. Yet he finds no escape from his demons. Driven by a desire for atonement and by an inherited patriotism, Jonathan allows himself to be recruited as a British secret agent with a mission to expose the murderer of the woman he himself betrayed. His odyssey takes him across Britain and Canada to the Caribbean and the jungles of Panama.
-
-
Demands your attention, then rewards
- By Nils on 07-04-15
-
A Burnt-Out Case
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Querry, a world famous architect, finds he no longer enjoys his life he sets off on a voyage. Arriving anonymously at a leper colony in the Congo, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a ‘burnt-out case’. Querry slowly moves towards a cure, his mind getting clearer as he works for the colony. However, in the heart of the tropics, no relationship with a woman will ever be taken as innocent….
-
-
An unusual story
- By Carol on 09-11-15
-
Call for the Dead
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This novel, set in London in the late 1950s, finds George Smiley engaged in the humdrum job of security vetting. But when a Foreign Office civil servant commits suicide after an apparently unproblematic interview, Smiley is baffled. Refusing to believe that Fennan shot himself soon after making a cup of cocoa and asking the exchange to telephone him in the morning, Smiley decides to investigate – only to uncover a murderous conspiracy.
-
-
A refreshing change
- By eatough1999 on 27-01-15
-
Every Day Is Mother's Day
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evelyn and Muriel Axon, mother and daughter, lead a haunted existence. Objects of horror to their neighbours, they evade or terrorise any social worker who crosses their path. Inside their house, they pursue a covert persecution of each other, shrinking from the unseen occupants of their spare room. But change is in the air… Every Day is Mother's Day is a merciless comedy of colliding lives: of sex, death, madness, adultery and the social services.
-
-
Funny and thought provoking
- By Squarepusher Fan on 03-07-15
-
The Captain and the Enemy
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Victor was only 12 when the Captain took him away from school to live with Liza, his girlfriend. He claimed that Victor, now reborn as Jim Smith, had been won as the result of a bet. Having reached his 20s, Jim attempts to piece together the story.
-
-
Great mini-novel, not common these days
- By Hasnat Safder on 26-06-21
-
Strange Meeting
- By: Susan Hill
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things like this don't happen often in a lifetime... John Hilliard, a young subaltern returning to the Western Front after a brief period of sick leave back in England blind to the horrors of the trenches, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed. But there is David Barton. As yet untouched and unsullied by war, radiating charm and common sense, forever writing long letters to his family.
-
-
Beautiful story. Beautifully read. Just.Well done.
- By baharnn on 04-01-15
-
The Night Manager
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The night manager is Jonathan, a veteran of clandestine operations. In flight from a failed marriage and his own past, he has taken refuge in the luxury hotel trade. Yet he finds no escape from his demons. Driven by a desire for atonement and by an inherited patriotism, Jonathan allows himself to be recruited as a British secret agent with a mission to expose the murderer of the woman he himself betrayed. His odyssey takes him across Britain and Canada to the Caribbean and the jungles of Panama.
-
-
Demands your attention, then rewards
- By Nils on 07-04-15
-
The Confidential Agent
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small continental country civil war is raging. Once a lecturer in medieval French, now a confidential agent, D is a scarred stranger in a seemingly casual England, sent on a mission to buy coal at any price. Initially, this seems to be a matter of straightforward negotiation, but soon, implicated in murder, accused of possessing false documents and theft, held responsible for the death of a young woman, D becomes a hunted man, tormented by allegiances, doubts and the love of others.
-
-
Am unusual Graham Greene well performed by TPS
- By John Saddler on 30-03-15
-
Brighton Rock
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An unabridged audio edition of Graham Greene's classic gang-war thriller. A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold, who is determined to avenge a death.... Read by Samuel West.
-
-
Excellent.
- By Abi on 09-04-11
-
Orlando
- Penguin Classics
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Pippa Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written for Virginia Woolf's friend, the charismatic writer Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is a playful mock 'biography' of a chameleonic historical figure, immortal and ageless, who changes sex and identity on a whim. First masculine, then feminine, Orlando begins life as a young 16th-century nobleman, then gallops through three centuries to end up as a woman writer in Virginia Woolf's own time. A wry commentary on gender roles and modes of history, Orlando is also, in Woolf's own words, a light-hearted 'writer's holiday' which delights in ambiguity and capriciousness.
-
-
Pronounciation
- By Damien L. on 12-04-21
-
The Power and the Glory
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a poor Mexican state in the 1930s, the Red Shirts have viciously persecuted the clergy and murdered many priests. Yet one remains - the ‘whisky priest’ who believes he's lost his soul. On the run and with the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny…Andrew Sachs reads Graham Greene’s powerful novel about a worldly Roman Catholic priest and his quest for penitence and dignity.
-
-
No small entertainment
- By Aquilina Christophorus on 12-01-18
-
Monsignor Quixote
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Cyril Cusack
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Promoted to the rank of Monsignor, Quixote and his friend Sancho, the ex-mayor of El Toboso and an avid Communist, set off on their travels in the rusty old car the call Rocinante. Together, they roam through modern-day Spain in a brilliant picaresque fable that, like Cervantes' classic, offers enduring insights into our life and times. Cyril Cusack reads Grahame Greene’s moving, hilarious novel about a Catholic priest and his friend, a Marxist mayor.
-
-
Not one for misophonia sufferers
- By EEL on 12-11-19
-
The Heart of the Matter
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.
-
-
Just brilliant
- By DartmoorDiva on 24-09-15
-
Hold Up the Sky
- By: Cixin Liu
- Narrated by: Bruno Roubicek
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Three-Body Problem, a collection of award-winning short stories - a breathtaking selection of diamond-hard science fiction. Stories included are 'The Village Teacher', 'The Time Migration', '2018-04-01', 'Fire in the Earth', 'Contraction', 'Mirror', 'Ode to Joy', 'Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming', 'Sea of Dreams', 'Cloud of Poems' and 'The Thinker'.
-
-
A masterclass in Sci-Fi.
- By Luna Mc Laughlin. on 10-01-21
-
Something Fresh
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cecil
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The one thing that could be expected to disturb the peace of life at Blandings is the incursion of imposters. And Blandings has imposters like other houses have mice. On this occasion, there are two of them: both intent on a dangerous enterprise.
-
-
Breathtaking
- By Seimon on 25-06-09
-
The Horologicon
- By: Mark Forsyth
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Horologicon - which means 'a book of things appropriate to each hour' - follows a day in the life of unusual, beautiful, and forgotten English words. From the moment you wake to the second your head hits the pillow, there's a cornucopia of hidden words ready for every aspect of your day.
-
-
Wonderfully funny and informative
- By Penguin on 07-04-13
-
My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Length: 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Delivered in Stockholm on 7 December 2017, 'My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs' is the lecture of the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro. A generous and hugely insightful biographical sketch, it explores his relationship with his homeland of Japan, reflections on his own novels and an insight into some of his inspirations from the worlds of writing, music and film.
-
-
Love the thoughts of Ishiguro
- By Sam on 16-12-19
-
1415: Henry V's Year of Glory
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 25 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this ground-breaking audiobook, Ian Mortimer portrays Henry in the pivotal year of his reign. Recording the dramatic events of 1415, he offers the fullest, most precise and least romanticised view we have of Henry and what he did. At the centre of the narrative is the campaign which culminated in the battle of Agincourt: a slaughter ground intended not to advance England’s interests directly but to demonstrate God’s approval of Henry’s royal authority on both sides of the Channel.
-
-
Impressively scholarly but dull at times
- By Kirstine on 02-04-19
-
Hero: A Simon Serrailler Short Story
- By: Susan Hill
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Simon Serrailler was a rookie constable with the Met, he did something reckless in the course of a night's work which caused a man's death. But his act was praised by his colleagues, and he was called a hero. Years later, now a detective chief superintendent who has been badly injured in the course of duty, he receives a medal for bravery at Buckingham Palace while recollecting that fateful night of his early career, when chance disguised itself as bravery.
-
-
Neat prequal
- By Vicuña on 09-08-16
Summary
From a childish fear of the dark in "The End of the Party" to the chilling conclusion of the "Destructors" and the all-consuming selfishness of "May We Borrow Your Husband", this collection opens with three of Greene's most disturbing stories. Things take a surreal turn in "Under the Garden" before finally blossoming for a moment in "Two Gentle People", then there's a detective story and a brush with Greene's sardonic wit to finish.
Extremely enjoyable and easy to dip in and out of...
- "The Destructors"
- "The End of the Party"
- "Under the Garden"
- "A Discovery in the Woods"
- "May We Borrow Your Husband"
- "Mortmain"
- "The Invisible Japanese Gentleman"
- "Two Gentle People"
- "Murder for the Wrong Reason"
- "The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower"
More from the same
What listeners say about The Destructors and Other Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- KSH
- 11-12-19
Brilliant. Enjoyable
Greene is a great writer. His short stories do not disappoint..Recommended.
Murder for the wrong reason is particularly intriguing
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- yoby
- 06-04-15
Graham Greene
Its easy to forget what a great writer he was till you read the short stories. I find the last two a little thin. He isn't as good at the short more fanciful ones more appropriate for the Twilight Zone. But maybe in their day they were amusing. But the rest are enjoyable. Very entertaining.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Matthew S. Hill
- 14-04-17
Unexpected Delight!
I had to seriously get used to the fact that these stories are not designed to leave you feeling completely satisfied with a clean and clear beginning, middle and end. In fact most are working to try and push the reader to feel uncomfortable or unsatisfied. In this Graham Greene succeeds completely.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Michael L. Seeger
- 14-07-21
I don’t know really about these stories.
I had the impression the author was amusing himself
and who knows about the reader. Some held together
like the Poopy piece. Others just faded. All in all
I wouldn’t use a listening credit on this title
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 20-05-18
Pretty good collection .
Really enjoyable stories and loved the narrator's voice!! A real must for Graham Greene fans.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- K.J.
- 30-08-17
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes yes yes very very guuuuuuuuuuuuud
What did you like best about this story?
the role of the females.......Nothing
What about Stephen Thorne’s performance did you like?
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh bless you my child
Who was the most memorable character of The Destructors and Other Stories and why?
Donald clark