Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
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.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
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.
The Line of Beauty cover art

The Line of Beauty

By: Alan Hollinghurst
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Swimming Pool Library cover art
The Dog In The Chapel cover art
The Charioteer cover art
Holding the Man cover art
The Lessons cover art
Something Like Summer cover art
The Wildflower Path cover art
The Untouchable cover art
Briefs Encountered cover art
Wish You Were Here cover art
The Forgotten Guide to Happiness cover art

Summary

Winner of the Man Booker Prize, The Line of Beauty is a classic novel about class, politics and sexuality in Margaret Thatcher's 1980s Britain.

There was the soft glare of the flash – twice – three times – a gleaming sense of occasion, the gleam floating in the eye as a blot of shadow, his heart running fast with no particular need of courage as he grinned and said, 'Prime Minister, would you like to dance?'

In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious Tory MP, his wife Rachel and their children Toby and Catherine. Innocent of politics and money, Nick is swept up into the Feddens' world and an era of endless possibility, all the while pursuing his own private obsession with beauty.

The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's Man Booker Prize-winning masterpiece. It is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man's collision with his own desires, and with a world he can never truly belong to.

©2018 Alan Hollinghurst (P)2018 Macmillan Digital Audio

The Pride List of Queer Storytelling

To mark Pride 2023 Audible teamed up with non-profit organisation, Out on the Page, supporter and champion of LGBTQIA+ writers and writing, to release an extensive Pride List of Queer Storytelling. Featuring contributions from some of the UK’s most important and exciting voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, this audiobook is one of the many featured on the list that is available to listen to on Audible.

What listeners say about The Line of Beauty

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    108
  • 4 Stars
    58
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    10
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    113
  • 4 Stars
    37
  • 3 Stars
    10
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    85
  • 4 Stars
    52
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    5

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Obvious and lusty

I'd heard many good reports of this....but after three hours all I could discern was a flimsy narrative linking the lusty thoughts and dabblings of a young Gay adventurist. Tedious repetition of the words penis, bulge, snog, hole, etc.
Bored by the boring.
And so it was abandoned.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

excellent writing and urgent listening

If you want to understand the political landscape of 1980s Britain, this is the novel. If you want to understand the history behind the current media morality panic about trans people, this is the novel. If you want to understand our current government, this is the novel.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Excellent prose - but do we really need all that detail?

On reflection, I enjoyed listening to this. The narration was excellent - just the right sardonic time for the times. The writing is very beautiful too. The story moves slowly, but everything falls into place at the end, which is satisfying. But there is just too much explicit description of sex... it seems on every page. I do understand that this is an important theme... and I’m no prude, or I wouldn’t have chosen this book at all... but too much detail and too frequently just gets really tedious. If it was a paper book, I’d just skip those sections, but more difficult with audio.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating depiction, gorgeously written

I’m confused by the negative reviews of this book, which I can’t help feeling are fuelled (however subconsciously) by internalised homophobia… I understand the style and pace may not be for everyone, but in what way are class, politics and the AIDS epidemic ‘niche’ or uninteresting topics??

I found this a fantastically evocative, wry, observant and sad depiction of 80s Britain. Or, more specifically, of a young gay man’s experience brushing shoulders with the mega-wealthy/political elite in 80s Britain. Rich subject matter, deftly executed - the writing really is masterful.

It’s not a page turner exactly - it took me a while to get through - but I savoured every line, and finished with the overwhelming sense that this was a book I was going to remember for a long time.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

Aimed at a limited interest group. Cliche ridden. Hardly of interest to a wide audience.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Transcends Genre

Absolute masterpiece. Complex characters, a protagonist with ambiguous morals leads us through a portion of sex, drugs, politics & first love - all handled expertly. The reeason this book was so successful is due to its honesty & accuracy with a genuinely interesting story. Also the sadness, hypocrisy & betrayal that the author showcases - in 80’s London high society is subtle & powerful. A book you won’t forget

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Dull

I had high hopes of this novel as I love this narrator, who can usually bring anything to life, and I liked the sound of the storyline. However, I found it at best unengaging, at worst boring and mannered.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Challenging but worth it

It's not an easy listen, but worth getting to the end. It's well narrated. The book moves well at the start. You get into the characters and the situations. The writer establishes the 80s well without being descriptive. But about two thirds into the book, it completely loses it's way and becomes dull. Not much happens for a while, and I was tempted to give up, but was glad I listened to the end. The book stayed on my mind for weeks after.

Possible spoiler.
At the start I expected to like Nick and feel sorry for him. He doesn't really do a lot. He just explores his sensuality. I felt kinship with him not being wealthy. But at the end I hated him. He's nothing but a leech, and an observer. Very polite. Almost a sycophant, but too boring. He just has nothing to him and no feeling or passion, and is extremely selfish. Perhaps a narcissist? Difficult to put my finger on it. He just watches really and tags along, and never really contributes. Interesting.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

My first Hollinghurst

5 years ago, a friend told me I should read Alan Hollinghurst, I didn't get round to it then but I'm so pleased I have now

Hollinghurst takes ordinary characters, and some extra-ordinary too, and allows them to tell their stories in compelling, often heary-wrenching, yet very human ways.

Jack, thanks for the reading list!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

What were the Booker judges thinking?

To say ‘Not what I expected’, would be an understatement. At times it felt like House & Gardens meets the Tatler with some Jackie Collins thrown in. The writing was good, descriptions, turns of phrase etc, but where was the plot? The protagonist, Nick Guest went from naive 21 year old looking for love in 1983, to still pretty naive Nick Guest in 1987.
It was all so predictable. The excitement & tragedy of his sexual love with Leo Charles. The hypocrisy & double standards of the upper middle class & aristocracy of Thatcher’s Britain. The spectre of AIDS. On paper this could have been a tender look at the fears of the 1980’s gay community, while critiquing the double standards of those in power. Instead, it wasn’t. Pretty writing isn’t enough. I have to care about the characters, even if they are unlikeable.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!