Listen free for 30 days
-
The Plague of Doves
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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 £15.59
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...
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal?
-
-
My favourite read of 2022
- By Michelle on 14-05-22
-
The Painted Drum
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Faye Travers is called upon to appraise the estate of a family in her small New Hampshire town, she isn't surprised to discover a forgotten cache of valuable Native American artifacts. However, she stops dead in her tracks when she finds in the collection a rare drum, ornamented with symbols she doesn't recognize and dressed in red tassels and a beaded belt and skirt, especially since, without touching the instrument, she hears it sound.
-
-
Brilliant Read
- By kim Osborne on 05-03-18
-
Four Souls & Tracks
- Two Novels
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the world of interconnected novels by Louise Erdrich, Four Souls is most closely linked to Tracks. All these works continue and elaborate on the intricate story of life on a reservation peopled by saints and false saints, heroes and sinners, clever fools and tenacious women. Louise Erdrich reminds us of the deep spirituality and the ordinary humanity of this world, and these works are as beautiful and lyrical as anything she has written.
-
-
Just beautiful
- By Ms. Eberts on 12-11-18
-
The Birchbark House
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Nicolle Littrell
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With exquisite care, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Louise Erdrich has fashioned a story rich in the way of life and heritage of the Ojibwa people, a story that begs to be told out loud. As each season in a year of Omakayas' life is lovingly portrayed, the satisfying rhythm of her days is shattered when a stranger visits the lodge one night, bringing with him an invisible enemy that will change things forever.
-
-
We loved this story so much as a family!
- By Jec on 14-08-17
-
Unsheltered
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2016 Vineland. Meet Willa Knox, a woman who stands braced against the vicissitudes of her shattered life and family - and the crumbling house that contains her. 1871 Vineland. Thatcher Greenwood, the new science teacher, is a fervent advocate of the work of Charles Darwin, and he is keen to communicate his ideas to his students. But those in power in Thatcher's small town have no desire for a new world order. Thatcher and his teachings are not welcome. Both Willa and Thatcher resist the prevailing logic. Both are asked to pay a high price for their courage.
-
-
Over-stuffed with good things
- By Rachel Redford on 29-10-18
-
The Master Butcher's Singing Club
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when a trained killer discovers, in the aftermath of war, that his true vocation is love? Having survived the killing fields of World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns home to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action.
-
-
Stunning story with some recording glitches
- By Robin Birney on 06-03-15
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal?
-
-
My favourite read of 2022
- By Michelle on 14-05-22
-
The Painted Drum
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Faye Travers is called upon to appraise the estate of a family in her small New Hampshire town, she isn't surprised to discover a forgotten cache of valuable Native American artifacts. However, she stops dead in her tracks when she finds in the collection a rare drum, ornamented with symbols she doesn't recognize and dressed in red tassels and a beaded belt and skirt, especially since, without touching the instrument, she hears it sound.
-
-
Brilliant Read
- By kim Osborne on 05-03-18
-
Four Souls & Tracks
- Two Novels
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the world of interconnected novels by Louise Erdrich, Four Souls is most closely linked to Tracks. All these works continue and elaborate on the intricate story of life on a reservation peopled by saints and false saints, heroes and sinners, clever fools and tenacious women. Louise Erdrich reminds us of the deep spirituality and the ordinary humanity of this world, and these works are as beautiful and lyrical as anything she has written.
-
-
Just beautiful
- By Ms. Eberts on 12-11-18
-
The Birchbark House
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Nicolle Littrell
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With exquisite care, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Louise Erdrich has fashioned a story rich in the way of life and heritage of the Ojibwa people, a story that begs to be told out loud. As each season in a year of Omakayas' life is lovingly portrayed, the satisfying rhythm of her days is shattered when a stranger visits the lodge one night, bringing with him an invisible enemy that will change things forever.
-
-
We loved this story so much as a family!
- By Jec on 14-08-17
-
Unsheltered
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2016 Vineland. Meet Willa Knox, a woman who stands braced against the vicissitudes of her shattered life and family - and the crumbling house that contains her. 1871 Vineland. Thatcher Greenwood, the new science teacher, is a fervent advocate of the work of Charles Darwin, and he is keen to communicate his ideas to his students. But those in power in Thatcher's small town have no desire for a new world order. Thatcher and his teachings are not welcome. Both Willa and Thatcher resist the prevailing logic. Both are asked to pay a high price for their courage.
-
-
Over-stuffed with good things
- By Rachel Redford on 29-10-18
-
The Master Butcher's Singing Club
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when a trained killer discovers, in the aftermath of war, that his true vocation is love? Having survived the killing fields of World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns home to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action.
-
-
Stunning story with some recording glitches
- By Robin Birney on 06-03-15
-
American Dirt
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yesterday, Lydia had a bookshop. Yesterday, Lydia was married to a journalist. Yesterday, she was with everyone she loved most in the world. Today, her eight-year-old son Luca is all she has left. For him, she will carry a machete strapped to her leg. For him, she will leap onto the roof of a high speed train. For him, she will find the strength to keep running.
-
-
One of the best audio books I’ve listened to.
- By Mrs on 24-01-20
-
The Sentence
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading 'with murderous attention', must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning.
-
-
Ghostly truths
- By Amazon Customer on 27-03-22
-
Piranesi
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
-
-
Slow grind, for me
- By indigoblue on 22-10-20
-
One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow
- A Novel
- By: Olivia Hawker
- Narrated by: Jackie Zebrowski
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse.
-
-
Lovely story, makes you feel closer to nature
- By Anonymous User on 12-01-22
-
Hamnet
- Winner of The Women's Prize for Fiction 2020 - the No. 1 Bestseller
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Daisy Donovan
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.
-
-
Narrator fights writing and wins (sadly)
- By Leaf Green on 20-07-20
-
The Monsters of Templeton
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Liza Ross
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The day 28-year-old Willie Upton returns to her hometown of Templeton, New York, in disgrace is the day an enormous monster surfaces in Lake Glimmerglass. So begins The Monsters of Templeton, a novel of mystery, hubris, obession, passion and revenge spanning two centuries, where the dead rise up to tell their sides of the story and the living are haunted by the sins of the past.
-
The Rabbi
- By: Noah Gordon
- Narrated by: Nicholas Techosky
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Kind is raised in the Jewish cauldron of 1920s New York, familiar with the stresses and materialism of metropolitan life. Turning to the ancient set of ethics of his Orthodox grandfather, with a modern twist, he becomes a Reform rabbi. As insecure and sexually needy as any other young male, he serves as a circuit-rider rabbi in the Ozarks, and then as a temple rabbi in the racially ugly South, in a San Francisco suburb, in a Pennsylvania college town, and, finally, in a New England community west of Boston.
-
The Weight of Winter
- By: Cathie Pelletier
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Mattagash, Maine, a town where everyone's personal lives are as entwined as their family trees. On the day of the first snowfall, the residents brace themselves for the long winter ahead. Mere survival will be hard; dealing with each other is another story. As winter settles in, various Mattagashians careen from conundrum to conundrum, trying to save dying small businesses, caring for crabby loved ones, and cruising through town, stirring up gossip any way they can get it.
-
The Boy with Penny Eyes
- By: Al Sarrantonio
- Narrated by: Dustin R. Ebaugh
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Billy Potter is 11 years old. He never smiles. He never laughs. His copper-colored eyes stare calmly at the world. He is not quite human. He cannot love. He is searching for something - or someone. Where Billy Potter travels, death follows.
-
Little Wolves
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Maltman
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the Minnesota prairies in 1987, during a drought season that is fostering the demise of the family farms, the story features two intertwining narrators: a father searching for answers after his son commits a heinous murder, and a pastor's wife who has returned to the town for mysterious reasons of her own. A penetrating look at small-town America, reminiscent of Russell Banks' Sweet Hereafter or Affliction, driven by a powerful murder mystery, Little Wolves is a literary triumph.
-
-
Very Interesting
- By Paul on 07-04-13
-
The Midwife of Hope River
- A Novel of an American Midwife
- By: Patricia Harman
- Narrated by: Anne Wittman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Midwife Patience Murphy has a gift: a talent for escorting mothers through the challenges of bringing children into the world. Working in the hardscrabble conditions of Appalachia during the Depression, Patience takes the jobs that no one else wants, helping those most in need - and least likely to pay. She knows a successful midwifery practice must be built on a foundation of openness and trust - but the secrets Patience is keeping are far too intimate and fragile for her to ever let anyone in.
-
A Thousand Moons
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winona is a young Lakota orphan adopted by former soldiers Thomas McNulty and John Cole. Living with Thomas and John on the farm they work in 1870s Tennessee, she is educated and loved, forging a life for herself beyond the violence and dispossession of her past. But the fragile harmony of her unlikely family unit, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is soon threatened by a further traumatic event, one which Winona struggles to confront, let alone understand.
-
-
A good follow on from Days Without End
- By Peter Richardson on 25-09-20
Summary
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives.
Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory.
In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth.
The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
Critic reviews
"[A]t once mythic and down-to-earth...beautiful, funny, moving, and unexpected." ( Elle)
"A multigenerational tour de force of sin, redemption, murder and vengeance." ( Publishers Weekly)
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about The Plague of Doves
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cita
- 14-12-15
Difficult to follow
Any additional comments?
This book should have been great. I chose it to read while I was visiting the states described in the novel. In parts it was intersting and had potential but I found it very disjointed and in the end gave up on it.
-
Overall

- Lori
- 02-12-08
Great American Tale
This story is full of quirky, interesting charcters, touches of magical realism. This book unrolls across the generations and is a uniquely American tale. The audio version is smooth and easy to listen to.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Susan
- 09-08-19
Bad narratation
I’m very disappointed in you Audible. The reader of this book did not pronounce Aboriginal names right, which is so integral to this story, that is has ruined it for me. I rarely have issue with the readers because they are usually so well matched but in this case you need to find someone (best Aboriginal) who gives the names and other words the respect they deserve. I adore Louise Erdrich and think she would best read her own story.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- carri
- 26-01-15
Another great take by Erdrich
I thoroughly enjoyed these stories of many different people whose lives are intertwined. I have always loved Erdrich's novels- the way she tells stories. It is somewhat poetic in the way she weaves their lives into words.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- Barbara
- 04-12-10
Worth it for the first chapter
The plague of doves is an infestation of passenger pigeons, and Erdrich made it real for me as never before. Because I had read 2 of the chapters as stories in the New Yorker, and pictured the characters differently, I personally had trouble making this hang together as a novel. The characters and incidents portrayed are compelling, even so. Yes, I'll probably read this again someday.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Blue Moon
- 19-06-16
Great sections
The readers are great. I loved most of it but not the section about Billy, his wife, M. & the religious group. It seemed like it belonged in a different novel. The thing that unites the novel is the murder partially described. But I wanted more development of the characters.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Chris
- 26-01-21
Please Stop with the Music!
I really enjoyed the story but the violin music in between sections of the book is extremely annoying and distracting to the narration. I don't like music in audio books generally, partly because I like to listen while I fall asleep and music startles me back awake. However, the music in this one was particularly bad enough to warrant this review. I hope that the producers of these books will take note for future productions.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall

- Andre
- 16-05-08
Avoid this Plague
After reading a mildly favorable review for the book in the NY Times I decided to give it a go. Little did I realize what I was in for. The book is in need of an editor...a junior editor...anyone with a red pen and a bit of common sense. This book is endless. Beyond endless. Tiresome. Imagine a small town inhabited by one-dimensional characters who all sound so alike one another that the reader/listener can't tell one from the other. All they do is rehashing plot twists that could have been borrowed from a daytime soap. The gratuitous sex...what was the author thinking? There are too many options of far better quality to waste time on this "Plague."
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- Aaron Gersh
- 01-06-08
Scattered
While this book contains some wonderfully mythic material, I couldn't get past the delivery. The book jumps from 1st person to 3rd person narrative. It jumps from story-telling to what appears to be reading directly from someone's autobiography of their past.
I liked the characters, but I couldn't love the characters because there was no continuity to the story.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- "unknown"
- 04-02-22
Stunning and intricate!
Incredibly wonderfully woven intricate story of interconnected human lives. Great plot great, time spin. Captivating but with steady pace. One of those you are curious of next chapters but want the story never to end. The story is a whole alphabet. Closed clamp.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Constance B.
- 29-05-21
Whew!!!
I have read several of Louise Erdrich’s books!! This may be my favorite!! The characters seem so complex, human, larger than their overlapping identities! So many intricate twists! I listened to the story (the readers were great) and now I want to read a few parts, just to savor the moments & see what I may have missed!!