Listen free for 30 days
-
The Unconsoled
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 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 £19.99
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...
-
The Remains of the Day
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Dominic West
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside – and into his past.
-
-
Should I stay or should I go?
- By Barbara on 20-03-18
-
The Giant, O'Brien
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Patrick Moy
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles O’Brien, Irish bard and giant: The cynical are moved by his flights of romance; the craven stirred by his tales of epic deeds. The Surprising Irish Giant may be the sensation of the season but only his compatriots seem to attend to his mythic powers of invention. John Hunter, celebrated surgeon and anatomist, buys dead men from the gallows and babies’ corpses by the inch. Where is a man as unique as The Giant to hide his bones when he is yet alive?
-
-
Engaging and so well performed
- By J. Hughes on 11-08-21
-
Black Dogs
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Philip Franks
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1946, June and Bernard set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they had planned an idyllic holiday, but in France they witness an event that alters the course of their lives entirely. Forty years on, their son-in-law is trying to uncover the cause of their estrangement and is led back to this moment on honeymoon and an experience of such darkness it was to wrench the couple apart.
-
-
Menace within Europe
- By Rachel Redford on 07-09-18
-
When We Were Orphans
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.
-
-
Beautifully crafted and gripping.
- By Hilary Falk on 25-06-16
-
The Buried Giant
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at last the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased.The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards - some strange and otherworldly - but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.
-
-
disappointed
- By Mrs on 26-04-16
-
Nocturnes
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Adam Kotz, Neil Pearson, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Nocturnes, a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the "hush-hush floor" of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning. Gentle, intimate, and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older.
-
-
Musical off notes
- By Adrienne on 23-12-12
-
The Remains of the Day
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Dominic West
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside – and into his past.
-
-
Should I stay or should I go?
- By Barbara on 20-03-18
-
The Giant, O'Brien
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Patrick Moy
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles O’Brien, Irish bard and giant: The cynical are moved by his flights of romance; the craven stirred by his tales of epic deeds. The Surprising Irish Giant may be the sensation of the season but only his compatriots seem to attend to his mythic powers of invention. John Hunter, celebrated surgeon and anatomist, buys dead men from the gallows and babies’ corpses by the inch. Where is a man as unique as The Giant to hide his bones when he is yet alive?
-
-
Engaging and so well performed
- By J. Hughes on 11-08-21
-
Black Dogs
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Philip Franks
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1946, June and Bernard set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they had planned an idyllic holiday, but in France they witness an event that alters the course of their lives entirely. Forty years on, their son-in-law is trying to uncover the cause of their estrangement and is led back to this moment on honeymoon and an experience of such darkness it was to wrench the couple apart.
-
-
Menace within Europe
- By Rachel Redford on 07-09-18
-
When We Were Orphans
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.
-
-
Beautifully crafted and gripping.
- By Hilary Falk on 25-06-16
-
The Buried Giant
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at last the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased.The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards - some strange and otherworldly - but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.
-
-
disappointed
- By Mrs on 26-04-16
-
Nocturnes
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Adam Kotz, Neil Pearson, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Nocturnes, a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the "hush-hush floor" of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning. Gentle, intimate, and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older.
-
-
Musical off notes
- By Adrienne on 23-12-12
-
Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Kerry Fox
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In one of the most acclaimed novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatizes her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.
-
-
Haunting and thought provoking
- By Stephibobz on 08-09-15
-
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
-
Klara and the Sun
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.
-
-
Quite a high ranking story
- By papapownall on 05-03-21
-
Next Season
- A Novel
- By: Michael Blakemore
- Narrated by: Philip Bird
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A novel from the director of the film Country Life. A young actor struggles to make his way in the theatre, experiencing the quick, intense relationships that flare within the closed world of the theatre as he acts out small, solid roles with a famous classical company outside of London.
-
-
A must read for any thespians of the rep days
- By Ian Grieve on 15-10-17
-
Bluebeard
- The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988)
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Rabo Karabekian, a moderately successful surrealist painter who we meet late in life and see struggling (like all of Vonnegut's key characters) with the dregs of unresolved pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok's one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in his life that is heavy with women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence, and as of yet unknown consequence.
-
-
One of Kurt’s best.
- By Priestley on 18-11-21
-
The Tale of Halcyon Crane
- By: Wendy Webb
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ghosts don't exist in our world of today. Life is too pragmatic, too consuming, too busy for past lives to linger on longer than their allotted time, or so Halcyon had believed, until she received a letter from a lawyer claiming that her mother, whom she had thought long dead, had actually been living in another part of the country since Halcyon's early childhood. She had only recently passed away, leaving Halcyon heir to an unexpected fortune and an estate on an isolated island in the middle of the Great Lakes.
-
-
loved this cozy gothic ish horror
- By Hawt on 07-02-22
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
Paint dries before the war.
- By Richard on 11-08-20
-
Galapagos
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Galapagos takes the listener back one million years to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Galapagos Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave new, and totally different, human race.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Stuart on 14-02-12
-
The Name of the Wind
- The Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1
- By: Patrick Rothfuss
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 28 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the university at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me.
-
-
Very entertaining but strangely flat
- By Amazon Customer on 27-05-17
-
The Eye of the World
- Wheel of Time, Book 1
- By: Robert Jordan
- Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer
- Length: 29 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When their village is attacked by trollocs, monsters thought to be only legends, three young men, Rand, Matt, and Perrin, flee in the company of the Lady Moiraine, a sinister visitor of unsuspected powers. Thus begins an epic adventure set in a world of wonders and horror, where what was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
-
-
American narration such a turn off
- By Simon Corke on 22-04-20
-
The Edible Woman
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marian is determined to be ordinary. She lays her head gently on the shoulder of her serious fiancé and quietly awaits marriage. But she didn't count on an inner rebellion that would rock her stable routine, and her digestion. Marriage a la mode, Marian discovers, is something she literally can't stomach ... The Edible Woman is a funny, engaging novel about emotional cannibalism, men and women, and desire to be consumed.
-
-
Compelling
- By Helen on 01-12-15
-
The Passion of New Eve
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Piers Hampton
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I know nothing. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am a being as mythic and monstrous as Mother herself.... New York has become the City of Dreadful Night where dissolute Leilah performs a dance of chaos for Evelyn.
-
-
I love this book so strangely fascinating!
- By Anonymous User on 22-10-20
Summary
By the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.
Ryder, a renowned pianist, arrives in a Central European city he cannot identify for a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. But then as he traverses a landscape by turns eerie and comical - and always strangely malleable, as a dream might be - he comes steadily to realise he is facing the most crucial performance of his life.
Kazuo Ishiguro's eight books have won him worldwide renown and many honours, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over 40 languages. The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go have each sold in excess of one million copies in Faber editions alone, and both were adapted into highly acclaimed films. His most recent novel, The Buried Giant, was published in 2015, debuting at number one on the Sunday Times best-seller list.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about The Unconsoled
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kagford
- 09-08-19
Dreamlike, frustrating and affecting
I thought this was excellent, but I understand people's difficulty with it. The dream logic is unexpected and unusual. The array of bizarre characters with their hangups and illogicality could be hard for someone expecting a cleaner narrative. But I was swept along, and absolutely loved it.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anthony
- 24-03-18
Narcissism, ADD, Kafka, and regret intertwined
Recent to audible, this was written decades ago.
Beautifully written and impressively narrated, but frustrating as one gets sucked into a scenario in which the protagonist, Ryder, a famed pianist, is both victim and fool.
His narcissism leads him astray; his attention deficit disorder (not mentioned but certainly appears to be the case!) make it difficult for him to stay on task, and despite narrowing time frames and increasingly important decisions he is unable to perform ethically or effectively. Kafka seems omni-present, it is all somehow absurd and we never determine what exactly is going on, why, or who are the winners and losers and in whose interests they are operating. Ryder is not a likeable person and his return to the town of his youth to share his celebrity is clearly manipulated by local elites and others each wanting to a portion of his fame and time for often unclear but seemingly devious agendas.
As with much of Ishiguro's writing, the relationships are interesting and unfold in their complexity; and tales of regret and what might have been. weave their way across the pages.
A compelling read, frustratingly entertaining ... Somehow I still recommend it!
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- W.Sh.
- 26-07-19
Perseverance pays off
This is not an easy book to get into, and I've had a couple of false starts, covering a couple of chapters before giving up, before I decided to "soldier on", probably not a sign of an easy reading. But after I got halfway through the book I found it hard to put it down. It turns out to be a very rewarding read.
Simon Vance has done a marvellous job by capturing the intricacies of Ishiguro's writing. Highly recommended.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 27-11-18
A dream sequence.
Strangely gripping and I suspect easier to listen to than to read Narration excellent too.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- foodjunkie
- 10-03-18
Surrealistic masterpiece
This is a wonderful novel in the tradition of the surrealists and many places it reads like a Luis Bunuel movie with false leads and plots.
Overall it is ridiculous but locally it is coherent and makes sense. It even has a great sense of drama and suspense as it build to what promises to be a climactic finish.
I thoroughly enjoyed every word and found myself laughing out loud often.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christina
- 14-05-20
Kazuo chuckling to himself about the Booker prize
It feels as if this is the writer's bet with himself to see for how long he could go on and on without really getting anywhere.
Meandering, Kafkaesque, never-ending, nightmarish wanderings of the main character in a town full of lying, pretentious, mean, horrible little people.
Left me annoyed and frustrated, with the same feeling you get when you wake up from one of those bad dreams full of anguish, circular references and dark meanings.
Ishiguro is a brilliant writer, hence the two stars - the writing is indeed brilliant and weirdly engaging so maybe it is just me. Perhaps it's my fault for not quite finding any meaning in the merging of many of the characters or for not being moved by their agonies but this has got to be one of the most unsatisfying books I've listened to. I think this is mostly to the lack of some sort of catharsis, arrival or explanation. Like I said, it may just be me...
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Peponi
- 06-03-18
Disappointing
Terrifically well written, of course, but too boring and slow paced for me. Couldn’t even finish it.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Suzi Telford
- 18-02-18
Couldn’t finish
I got half way and had to stop. The plot is thin and too dream-like in its structure. It started to annoy me and as much as I enjoyed the performance I simply had no interest in continuing. I felt if I kept listening I’d be rewarded with no real feeling of satisfaction by the end and I just didn’t care enough about any of the characters to see how things turned out.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Morganrandg
- 21-11-21
Thoroughly Absorbing
I know how Ryder feels… so stressed he can hardly recall recent events or his distant past, jumbled memories and plans, pressure of events. The story feels like a portrayal of mental health issues with dream-like account of a life. People resonate with the main character such that they appear reflected in his world and belief system. I just couldn’t stop listening. This narrator does a magnificent job.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Si
- 07-09-21
A masterpiece
Beautifully written; the prose reminds me of M John Harrison's, and Simon Vance's narration is top class as usual.
*** Possible spoilers ***
It is a long novel and I can understand why people become confused and give up. Taken at face value it makes no sense and the inconsistencies pile up from page one, but once you understand the basic premise, things begin to come together.
The implicit backstory is that Mr Ryder, a mediocre pianist with a drink problem, gets married and the couple have a child. Ryder's low-paid work frequently takes him away from home and this, together with Ryder's bullying and indifference towards his son, leads to friction with his wife and culminates in a bitter separation. During a mental breakdown, Mr Ryder falls into a delusional state whereby he symbolically relives key elements of his life, from his youth - desperately eager to please his hyper-critical and overbearing parents - to his later life, where he attempts to confront his habitual willingness to please those around him and his guilt at not having been a good husband or father. In order to deal with all this he constructs for himself the persona of a world-famous pianist, revered and respected by those around him, touring an unnamed but strangely familiar European city. In this place, various aspects of his personality are presented to him as third parties and strangers turn out to be friends and family. It is this latter story that forms the narrative of the book, the backstory needing to be pieced together from the unfolding events.
A really, really good read.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Elizabeth
- 13-07-21
Very strange story
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Ishiguro’s other books. It is quite strange like a dream or rather a nightmare and rather mesmerising to listen to. I didn’t finish it. I might go back to it one day or perhaps one night if I’m having trouble sleeping!
There is a comprehensive review of it in The Guardian and this quote is from that review:
“ The Unconsoled can seem frustrating, drawn out and possibly even ridiculous. It is tiring to struggle through a narrative where every moment in the present seems to create its own new past, and the future never quite arrives, where for every step you take forward, you have to take three back and a detour around the corner, too. Where if you try to come back around the same corner, you’ll end up in a completely different place.”
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- M. J. Walsh
- 06-07-20
Exploring the inexplicable
Told largely in the first person, this book is an account of a visit to a provincial European city by a man who may (or may not) be a celebrated pianist about to perforn a recital as part of an important civic occasion.
The influence of Kafka is a constant presence in this long novel about exploring an inexplicable terrain of emotional life and temporal dislocation. Although it is punctuated by flashes of clever absurdist humour, for the most part, Ishiguro's own view of his work remains opaque. Readers must make their own maps and seek their own destinations.
A superb reading enhances an unusual book that rewards close engagement.