Listen free for 30 days
-
Waiting for the Barbarians
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
People who bought this also bought...
-
Shame
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Omar Khayyam Shakil had three mothers who shared everything. They shared the symptoms of pregnancy, they shared the son that they all claim to have borne on the same night. Raised at their six breasts, Omar's mothers teach him to live a life without shame. And it is training that proves very useful when he leaves his mothers' fortress and makes the fateful mistake of falling in love. For he finds himself an unwitting player in an ongoing duel between the families of two men.
-
Disgrace
- By: J M Coetzee
- Narrated by: Jack Klaff
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours, he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding.
-
-
A sombre tale of choices
- By Suswati on 07-07-17
-
The Master of Petersburg
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Byron
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1869 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, lately a resident of Germany, is summoned back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, Pavel. Half crazed with grief, stricken by epileptic seizures and erotically obsessed with his stepson's landlady, Dostoevsky is nevertheless intent on unravelling the enigma of Pavel's life. Was the boy a suicide or a murder victim? Did he love his stepfather or despise him? Was he a disciple of the revolutionary Nechaev, who even now is somewhere in St. Petersburg pursuing a dream of apocalyptic violence?
-
Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
-
-
Two Stars!?!?!?!
- By S. Wragg on 05-04-11
-
Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
The Sea, the Sea
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house on the coast, far from the heady world of the theatre where he made his name, and there he swims in the sea, eats revolting meals and writes his memoirs.But then he meets his childhood sweetheart Hartley, and memories of her lovely, younger self crowd in - along with more recent lovers and friends - to disrupt his self-imposed exile. So instead of 'learning to be good', Charles proceeds to demonstrate how very bad he can be.
-
-
Thank you Richard E. Grant
- By AH on 28-04-20
-
Shame
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Omar Khayyam Shakil had three mothers who shared everything. They shared the symptoms of pregnancy, they shared the son that they all claim to have borne on the same night. Raised at their six breasts, Omar's mothers teach him to live a life without shame. And it is training that proves very useful when he leaves his mothers' fortress and makes the fateful mistake of falling in love. For he finds himself an unwitting player in an ongoing duel between the families of two men.
-
Disgrace
- By: J M Coetzee
- Narrated by: Jack Klaff
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours, he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding.
-
-
A sombre tale of choices
- By Suswati on 07-07-17
-
The Master of Petersburg
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Byron
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1869 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, lately a resident of Germany, is summoned back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, Pavel. Half crazed with grief, stricken by epileptic seizures and erotically obsessed with his stepson's landlady, Dostoevsky is nevertheless intent on unravelling the enigma of Pavel's life. Was the boy a suicide or a murder victim? Did he love his stepfather or despise him? Was he a disciple of the revolutionary Nechaev, who even now is somewhere in St. Petersburg pursuing a dream of apocalyptic violence?
-
Herzog
- By: Saul Bellow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
-
-
Two Stars!?!?!?!
- By S. Wragg on 05-04-11
-
Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
The Sea, the Sea
- Vintage Classics Murdoch Series
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house on the coast, far from the heady world of the theatre where he made his name, and there he swims in the sea, eats revolting meals and writes his memoirs.But then he meets his childhood sweetheart Hartley, and memories of her lovely, younger self crowd in - along with more recent lovers and friends - to disrupt his self-imposed exile. So instead of 'learning to be good', Charles proceeds to demonstrate how very bad he can be.
-
-
Thank you Richard E. Grant
- By AH on 28-04-20
-
The Plot Against America
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
-
-
Unbelievably prescient
- By Dr. Simon G Bell on 24-12-16
-
The Autobiography of My Mother
- By: Jamaica Kincaid
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Powerful, disturbing, and stirring, Jamaica Kincaid's novel is the deeply charged story of a woman's life on the island of Dominica. Xuela Claudette Richardson, the daughter of a Carib mother and a half-Scottish, half-African father, loses her mother to death the moment she is born and must find her way on her own. The Autobiography of My Mother is a story of love, fear, loss, and the forging of character, an account of one woman's inexorable evolution, evoked in startling and magical poetry.
-
-
That was a ride
- By Keeana S on 22-04-20
-
Life and Times of Michael K
- By: J M Coetzee
- Narrated by: Jack Klaff
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience - the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.
-
-
A fine book, engagingly read.
- By SG4 on 13-09-17
-
The Mimic Men
- By: V. S. Naipaul
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned, and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism. Ralph's constant estrangement sees him ever attempting to fit into various communities, only to find home in more transient spaces. Born on the tropical island of Isabella, he is one of West India's many "Mimic Men".
-
-
very perceptive and possessing a haunting tragedy
- By Omar on 04-11-18
-
The Discomfort of Evening
- By: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies - unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all.
-
-
Incest alert!
- By A.J.F on 19-09-20
-
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes
- Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"You girls are my vocation... I am dedicated to you in my prime." So says Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher unlike any other. She is proud and cultured. A romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. When she decides to transform a select group of pupils into the 'crème de la crème' at the Marcia Blaine School they become the Brodie set. In exchange for their undivided loyalty the girls earn a special place of honour and privilege within the school. Yet they are also introduced to a startling new world of adult games....
-
-
Sharp wit that doesn't date
- By Adrienne on 23-12-12
-
War and Peace, Volume 2
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 31 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.
-
-
Better than I remembered
- By Philip on 22-04-13
-
The Executioner's Song
- By: Norman Mailer
- Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton
- Length: 42 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning and unforgettable classic about convicted killer Gary Gilmore now in audio. Arguably the greatest book from America's most heroically ambitious writer, The Executioner's Song follows the short, blighted life of Gary Gilmore who became famous after he robbed two men in 1976 and killed them in cold blood. After being tried and convicted, he immediately insisted on being executed for his crime. To do so, he fought a system that seemed intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death.
-
-
...an amazing work....
- By Jackie on 11-03-20
-
Dubliners (Naxos Edition)
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Joyce's Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the lives of the people of Dublin around the turn of the century. Each story describes a small but significant moment of crisis or revelation in the life of a particular Dubliner, sympathetically but always with stark honesty. Many of the characters are desperate to escape the confines of their humdrum lives, though those that have the opportunity to do so seem unable to take it.
-
-
Dubliners (Unabridged)
- By Samina on 02-12-08
-
Money
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Self is addicted to life. Porn freak and jetsetter, a aficionado of wealth and women, Self is the shameless heir to a fast-food culture where money beats out an insistent invitation to futile self-gratification. Out in New York, mingling with the mighty, making a fortune but spending more, Self is embroiled in the corruption, the brutality and the obscenity of the money conspiracy.
-
-
Spot on performance.
- By S. Wragg on 10-11-09
-
The Boys from Brazil
- By: Ira Levin
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this classic thriller, Ira Levin imagines Dr Josef Mengele's nightmarish plot to restore the Third Reich. Alive and hiding in South America 30 years after the end of the Second World War, Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a sinister project - the creation of the Fourth Reich. Ageing Nazi hunter Yakov Lieberman is informed of the plot, but before he hears the evidence, his source is killed....
-
-
Fantastic!
- By Mr Glenn Lloyd on 12-09-17
-
Dubliners
- Penguin Classics
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Andrew Scott
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joyce's first major work, written when he was only 25, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption and personal failure, yet creates a brilliantly compelling, unique vision of the world and of human experience.
-
-
Astonishing Narration
- By shep29 on 10-11-19
Summary
For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
J. M. Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a startling allegory of the war between oppressor and oppressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency.
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Waiting for the Barbarians
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jennifer Croft
- 05-04-20
An Interesting Read For The Current Times
Though a difficult read due to the disturbing content at times, I found this book curiously and frighteningly relevant to the current political times in which we are living, especially in the USA. It is a book well worth reading in that it prompts us to look inside ourselves to examine how fear of the unknown can drive us to act as human beings and also to remind us of how resilient we can be in difficult times.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Erin Dozier
- 12-08-20
Read it your self
Great story, has all of life’s struggles, and coming to terms with oneself and those insignificant people with significant power. I should have read it myself.
1 person found this helpful