News From Nowhere Audiobook By William Morris cover art

News From Nowhere

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News From Nowhere

By: William Morris
Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
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News from Nowhere (1890) is the best-known prose work of William Morris. The novel describes the encounter between a visitor from the 19th century, William Guest, and a decentralized and humane socialist future. Set over a century after a revolutionary upheaval in 1952, these 'Chapters from a Utopian Romance' recount his journey across London and up the Thames to Kelmscott Manor, Morris's own country house in Oxfordshire.

Drawing on the work of John Ruskin and Karl Marx, Morris's audiobook is not only an evocative statement of his egalitarian convictions but also a distinctive contribution to the utopian tradition. Morris's rejection of state socialism and his ambition to transform the relationship between humankind and the natural world, give News from Nowhere a particular resonance for modern readers.

©2013 William Morris (P)2013 Audible Ltd Classics

Editorial reviews

Author Morris was a socialist, a pattern-maker, an environmentalist, and a writer. Here Morris imagines an England reformed through civic rebellion against social injustice. A young man goes to sleep and wakes up in the far future, in an England that has become a communist, rural utopia. British narrator Barnaby Edwards employs a droll and tony voice when reciting this mannered and far-fetched text. The novella is written in first person, and the protagonist is young. The story registers like an essay, and the protagonist sounds far older than his years. This book is mainly an imaginative vehicle for Morris to decry societal wrongs and propose an idealistic alternative. Matching Morris’ intent Edwards performs as if he is lecturing.
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I never write reviews but I think this story deserves one. I haven’t found a story like this in a very long time and was almost in a depressed state knowing it would finish. It transports you into a world you would want to fall into and would hate waking up from. Thank goodness Morris had the unselfish act of writing more stories. The narrator did an excellent job in telling the tale and I will definitely listen over and over again! Thank you!!

Fantastic Transport into A New World

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This was a pretty enjoyable book. It’s great that the narrator is delighted by everything he sees. ‘Oh look how clean London is, oh look how friendly and attractive all the people are, oh look!’ It’s sweet in a kind of sad way, all the antiquated ways he thinks the world could improve. I also loved how he’s constantly ragging on the 19th Century, how dreadful it was.

I think the form & structure of the book hasn’t really held up for a modern audience, not that I blame it for that, of course. But the middle ~60% of the book is mostly an expository dialogue that in my opinion probably would have been better shown not told. However, the content was interesting enough & as I said, it was written with a very different audience in mind.

A delightful escape

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Timeless. Truly inspiring. While I personally feel 'Looking Backward' captures a more likely future, this text is no less important and, in fact, does add a great deal to the conversation.

Do yourself and future generations a favor. read this text.

An essential read.

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News from Nowhere is a masterpiece of utopian literature and counter-history. In this version the various verbal tics - the endless deliberative ‘well’s and the irritating ‘you like that, do you’ of the ‘praiser of the past’ - are made particularly noticeable, to the point of making the text rather irritating to hear. On the other hand, there are some moments of interpretation - a stress added to Ellen’s ‘go with YOU through all the west’, for example, or the dwelling on the early passages on architecture - that really enhance the text and specifically the ‘romance’ element. The various accents adopted don’t generally help the text, and risk caricature. And though there is that moment where Ellen’s character and the whole unrequited love story shine through, overall it is the accent given to Ellen that most works against the text. Since we are meant to fall in love with her and the way she thinks and feels, and since all we have of her here is her voice, I would have gone with a plainer voicing that would have allowed all the emotion to come through.

A great book, well but not sympathetically read

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