Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Audiobook By Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones cover art

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

A Novel

Preview

Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends January 21, 2025 at 11:59PM ET.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends January 21, 2025 11:59PM ET. Cancel anytime.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

"A brilliant literary murder mystery." (Chicago Tribune)

"Extraordinary. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work." (Annie Proulx)

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?

©2019 Olga Tokarczuk and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Crime Fiction Literary Fiction Satire Suspense Fiction Comedy Mystery Funny Mind-Bending Literary Humor

Critic reviews

Named a best book of 2019 by Time, NPR, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and BookRiot.

PEN America Translation Prize longlist

Warwick Prize for Women in Translation shortlist

“A marvelously weird and fablelike mystery.... Authors with Tokarczuk’s vending machine of phrasing...and gimlet eye for human behavior...are rarely also masters of pacing and suspense. But even as Tokarczuk sticks landing after landing...her asides are never desultory or a liability. They are more like little cuts - quick, exacting and purposefully belated in their bleeding.... This book is not a mere whodunit: It’s a philosophical fairy tale about life and death that’s been trying to spill its secrets. Secrets that, if you’ve kept your ear to the ground, you knew in your bones all along.” (New York Times Book Review)

“While it adopts the straightforward structure of a murder mystery, [the book features] macabre humor and morbid philosophical interludes [that] are distinctive to its author...[and an] excellent payoff at the finale.... As for Ms. Tokarczuk, there’s no doubt: She’s a gifted, original writer, and the appearance of her novels in English is a welcome development.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Drive Your Plow is exhilarating in a way that feels fierce and private, almost inarticulable; it’s one of the most existentially refreshing novels I’ve read in a long time.” (The New Yorker)

What listeners say about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Highly rated for:

Unique Storytelling Compelling Protagonist Authentic Narration Thought-provoking Themes Imaginative Prose
Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,074
  • 4 Stars
    558
  • 3 Stars
    300
  • 2 Stars
    122
  • 1 Stars
    101
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,109
  • 4 Stars
    342
  • 3 Stars
    221
  • 2 Stars
    93
  • 1 Stars
    93
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    945
  • 4 Stars
    442
  • 3 Stars
    260
  • 2 Stars
    119
  • 1 Stars
    86

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

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

A massive tome that speaks volumes

If you are interested in animal ethics and human destiny, this is your book. I loved every chapter, it keeps me intrigued. The pace is slow as the books eye pours over details that are often overlooked.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

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

Performance ruined it

I cannot stand the narrator. SOOOO SLOOOWWWWWWW. Had to give up 4 chapters in. What a shame.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

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

Sadly disappointed

I am disappointed by the performance, which, sadly, affected the appreciation of the writing. The book is well written but one must constantly struggle to unearth it from the slow moving badly pronounced words. It seems that the performer is reading too a mentally inferior crowd.

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

Hard listen on Audible

Just because a book has a gold sticker on the front doesn't mean it's good!

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

a darkly humorous mystery

loved the odd woman and the story. I wish I knew more William Blake poetry, but not knowing did not take away from the story.

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

Crystal Clear

Gripping tale, beautiful prose and wonderfully performed reading... hauntingly marvelous. Stellar and bountiful read for lovers of nature and literature.

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

So Beautifully Original!

I really loved this book and it’s quirky protagonist. Great plot and narration. Perhaps someone will option it as a movie. There are likely scores of 60+ actresses who would fight to be cast as Mrs Talchenko

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

Loved it!

Great character development with a most interesting story to go along with them. The narrator is excellent and I hope you will enjoy listening.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

So slow I had to listen at 2.2

First person narrator, the meandering and tangential Ms. Dusheko made this book almost unbearable. There was so much potential with this concept, but if this narrator had been telling me this story in person, I would have walked away. Also performance was SO SLOW.

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

Fantastic murder mystery

The author’s obvious brilliance and depth shines in her novel. The plot is excellent and keeps you engaged throughout. The final presentation brings all the elements back together in a final twist that leaves you juxtaposed between justice, admiration, and the darker side of our psyche.
Her specific ties to Blake offer a level of existential consideration. The elements of modern struggles political right wing views, the fight for rights of women and animals and the constant push and pull of natural order and religion are all presented beautifully woven together in the story leaving you pondering long after you’ve put it down.
I will re-read it again very soon- fully excited to glean more and more each time.
Brilliant!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful