Try an audiobook on us
Unsheltered
People who bought this also bought...
-
Clock Dance
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life: when she was 11 and her mother disappeared, being proposed to at 21, the accident that would make her a widow at 41. At each of these moments, Willa ended up on a path laid out for her by others. So when she receives a phone call telling her that her son’s ex-girlfriend has been shot and needs her help, she drops everything and flies across the country. The spur-of-the moment decision to look after this woman - and her nine-year-old daughter, and her dog - will lead Willa into uncharted territory....
-
-
Beautiful - as you'd expect from such a fine write
- By Liz Scully on 19-07-18
-
Love Is Blind
- By: William Boyd
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Love Is Blind by William Boyd. Love Is Blind is William Boyd's sweeping, heart-stopping new novel. Set at the end of the 19th century, it follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life. When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum.
-
-
Boyd on Top Form
- By Mark on 27-09-18
-
The Lacuna
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in the US and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing mother, Salome. When a violent incident sends him to North Carolina, he remakes himself in America's hopeful image. But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna - between truth and public presumption.
-
-
Well, I like her voice!
- By patashnik on 28-09-10
-
Transcription
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever. Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
Full Marks Kate
- By Amazon Customer on 09-09-18
-
Milkman
- By: Anna Burns
- Narrated by: Bríd Brennan
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.
-
-
Very, Very Good
- By David M on 20-10-18
-
So Much Life Left Over
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: Avita Jay, David Sibley
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them and to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage.
-
-
Brilliant Novel
- By Mark on 08-07-18
-
Clock Dance
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life: when she was 11 and her mother disappeared, being proposed to at 21, the accident that would make her a widow at 41. At each of these moments, Willa ended up on a path laid out for her by others. So when she receives a phone call telling her that her son’s ex-girlfriend has been shot and needs her help, she drops everything and flies across the country. The spur-of-the moment decision to look after this woman - and her nine-year-old daughter, and her dog - will lead Willa into uncharted territory....
-
-
Beautiful - as you'd expect from such a fine write
- By Liz Scully on 19-07-18
-
Love Is Blind
- By: William Boyd
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Love Is Blind by William Boyd. Love Is Blind is William Boyd's sweeping, heart-stopping new novel. Set at the end of the 19th century, it follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life. When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum.
-
-
Boyd on Top Form
- By Mark on 27-09-18
-
The Lacuna
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in the US and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing mother, Salome. When a violent incident sends him to North Carolina, he remakes himself in America's hopeful image. But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna - between truth and public presumption.
-
-
Well, I like her voice!
- By patashnik on 28-09-10
-
Transcription
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever. Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
Full Marks Kate
- By Amazon Customer on 09-09-18
-
Milkman
- By: Anna Burns
- Narrated by: Bríd Brennan
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.
-
-
Very, Very Good
- By David M on 20-10-18
-
So Much Life Left Over
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: Avita Jay, David Sibley
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them and to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage.
-
-
Brilliant Novel
- By Mark on 08-07-18
-
The Silence of the Girls
- By: Pat Barker
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Michael Fox
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great city of Troy is under siege as Greek heroes Achilles and Agamemnon wage bloody war over a stolen woman. In the Greek camp, another woman is watching and waiting: Briseis. She was a queen of this land until Achilles sacked her city and murdered her husband and sons. Now she is Achilles' concubine: a prize of battle. Briseis is just one among thousands of women backstage in this war - the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead - all of them voiceless in history.
-
-
A feminist Iliad
- By Barbie on 02-09-18
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soon to be a major TV series starring Kenneth Branagh. On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval. Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?
-
-
The best book I’ve listened and read in a long time
- By Bean on 29-11-18
-
Paris Echo
- By: Sebastian Faulks
- Narrated by: Elham Ehsas, Deborah McBride
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Random House presents the audiobook edition of Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks. Here is Paris as you have never seen it before - a city in which every building seems to hold the echo of an unacknowledged past, the shadows of Vichy and Algeria. American postdoctoral researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq have little in common, yet both are susceptible to the daylight ghosts of Paris....
-
-
Listen very carefully as I shall say zis only wuns
- By Amazon Customer on 22-09-18
-
Take Nothing with You
- By: Patrick Gale
- Narrated by: Patrick Gale
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1970s Weston-Super-Mare, and 10-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother's quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons. Music making brings release for a boy who is discovering he is an emotional volcano. He laps up lessons from his young teacher, not noticing how her brand of glamour is casting a damaging spell over his frustrated and controlling mother.
-
-
Great start, then meandering middle and muddled end.
- By the typist on 03-09-18
-
Normal People
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life - a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us - blazingly - about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege.
-
-
It plunges under your skin and invades you.
- By Wras on 18-10-18
-
The Poisonwood Bible
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil.
-
-
excellent read
- By metalwork on 22-09-10
-
Warlight
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1945. The capital is still reeling from the war. Fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents who leave the country on business, and are left in the dubious care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. Nathaniel is introduced to The Moth’s band of criminal misfits and is caught up in a series of teenage misadventures, from smuggling greyhounds for illegal dog racing to lovers’ trysts in abandoned buildings at night. But is this eccentric crew really what and who they claim to be? And most importantly, what happened to Nathaniel’s mother?
-
-
Loved every minute.
- By bookylady on 10-09-18
-
The Overstory
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Overstory by Richard Powers, read by Suzanne Toren. The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
-
-
fantastic!!! this is the book that should have wo
- By Amazon Customer on 09-02-19
-
Washington Black
- By: Esi Edugyan
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When two English brothers take the helm of a Barbados sugar plantation, Washington Black - an 11-year-old field slave - finds himself selected as personal servant to one of these men. The eccentric Christopher 'Titch' Wilde is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor and abolitionist whose single-minded pursuit of the perfect aerial machine mystifies all around him. Titch's idealistic plans are soon shattered, and Washington finds himself in mortal danger.
-
-
Slave's-eye worldview, a novel idea.
- By K. J. Noyes on 12-09-18
-
The Trick to Time
- By: Kit de Waal
- Narrated by: Fiona Shaw
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal, read by Fiona Shaw. Mona is a young Irish girl in the big city, with the thrill of a new job and a room of her own in a busy boardinghouse. On her first night out in 1970s Birmingham, she meets William, a charming Irish boy with an easy smile and an open face. They embark upon a passionate affair, a whirlwind marriage - before a sudden tragedy tears them apart. Decades later, Mona pieces together the memories of the years that separate them. But can she ever learn to love again?
-
-
I didn't want it to end. Fabulous novel.
- By bookylady on 14-05-18
-
Once Upon a River
- By: Diane Setterfield
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child. Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science? An exquisitely crafted multilayered mystery brimming with folklore, suspense and romance as well as with the urgent scientific curiosity of the Darwinian age, Once Upon a River is as richly atmospheric as Setterfield’s best seller The Thirteenth Tale.
-
-
Great story
- By jlbenefield on 04-02-19
-
Conversations with Friends
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances is a 21-year-old college student in Dublin; she performs at spoken word events with her best friend and ex-lover, Bobbi. When they are profiled by journalist Melissa, they enter an orbit of beautiful houses and raucous dinner parties. Initially unimpressed, Frances begins an affair with Nick, Melissa's husband, which gives way to an unexpected intimacy.
-
-
Great performance of a not so great novel
- By Benry on 25-10-18
Summary
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.
A testament to the power and goodness of human spirit, Unsheltered explores the foundations we build, crossing time and place to give us all a little more hope in those around us, and a little more faith in ourselves.
More from the same
What members say
Average customer ratings
Overall
-
-
5 Stars55
-
4 Stars20
-
3 Stars7
-
2 Stars2
-
1 Stars3
Performance
-
-
5 Stars51
-
4 Stars17
-
3 Stars7
-
2 Stars3
-
1 Stars4
Story
-
-
5 Stars52
-
4 Stars16
-
3 Stars9
-
2 Stars2
-
1 Stars3
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rachel Redford
- 29-10-18
Over-stuffed with good things
I’ve respected Barbara Kingsolver’s work since the wonderful Poisonwood Bible twenty years ago, but I was disappointed with Unsheltered. Her deep-seated concerns are clear and there are some similarities between this novel and fellow American Anne Tyler’s Clock Dance (reviewed by me 20/8/18) - not least in having the main character being called Willa.
Kingsolver’s Willa lives in Vineland New Jersey in an old inherited house with her elderly and sick Greek father-in-law living on the top floor. Her universe disintegrates as their son returns home with a very young baby after its mother commits suicide, and their massively opinionated daughter returns out of the blue from her aimless travels with a boyfriend – and they all have to live together in a house that is seriously disintegrating. The situation is a metaphor for the crumbling of everything around us in today’s society in America and even globally.
Kingsolver is a political writer with impassioned views, wide knowledge about the natural world and insight into the failings of contemporary society from failing healthcare and man-made ecological ruination, to the impossible economic pressures on families (and much more). The trouble with Unsheltered is that I found it over-ambitious and just too stuffed, however good parts are. A huge part of the book is a parallel story of nineteenth century Darwinism in the re-created life of one pioneer who had once lived in Willa’s house and corresponded with Darwin. There’s far TOO much about carnivorous plants and 19th century letters, however interesting they are in this parallel story. It clogs and confuses the whole, even though I can see Kingsolver’s intention is to make a parallel between society facing the apparent end of the world as they have known it now and then.
16 hours is too long – Clock Dance was 9 hours and made its message more succinctly and effectively. Kingsolver’s characters are carrying such polemical weight that they are just too heavy-going to breathe as real people.
Kingsolver’s narration is superb, however. She has a good voice and she knows exactly how to convey the nuances of her own beautifully written work.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JENNIFER
- 28-10-18
Incredible Writing
Amazing book. Certainly makes one think of our worlds future. Barbara is an amazing narrator.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Helen
- Brighton, United Kingdom
- 09-02-19
unfocused
The story starts off about one woman and her family. After a few chapters getting to know her and her story, it completely changes - its another family ? the same house and an earlier time but not sure, maybe I wasn't paying attention for a split second. Anyway the first story isn't mentioned again. The other family seems to have no focus but is rather about in depth conversations about politics and flora. Just gave up in the end.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mrs. Sarah-Helen Snow
- Kent, UK
- 04-02-19
History & the present collide seamlessly.
Loved this book. Having lived in Vineland, I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some of the great people who formed the beginnings of our town.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 17-01-19
Brilliant
Love Barbara Kingsolver. Love her consciousness of our work, her eco-responsible sensitive writing. More people need to listen to her themes. She is so accurate about the current administration
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Provence49
- Provence
- 18-12-18
Fantastic
Loved it, I couldn't switch it off. I've bought hardcopy too.
I love her writing, Poisonwood Bible is one of my favourite books, I was dissappointed by Flight Behaviour and Lacuna but here I find her back on what I enjoy:meaty subject matter and great style. I'm not saying anythingelse! Just get it!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- holly bird
- 04-12-18
spoilt!
A good book spoilt by author doing narration. Please why does Barbara Kingsolver insist on reading her own books?
she has a pleasant voice and accent BUT NOT a whole novel. Far too monotonous. Please Audible get actors.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful