The Cement Garden
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Steven Crossley
-
By:
-
Ian McEwan
About this listen
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
- By: Iain Reid
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this deeply scary and intensely unnerving debut novel, Jake and a woman known only as "The Girlfriend" are on a drive to visit his parents at their secluded farm. But when Jake leaves "The Girlfriend" stranded at an abandoned high school, what follows is a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease, an exploration into psychological frailty, and an ending as suspenseful as The Usual Suspects and as haunting as Misery.
-
-
What a ride! This is a must read!
- By Elizabeth on 06-15-16
By: Iain Reid
-
Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
-
-
Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Girl Next Door
- By: Jack Ketchum
- Narrated by: Jack Ketchum
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets; well-tended lawns; and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths.
-
-
A Horror To The Core
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-19-16
By: Jack Ketchum
-
Saturday
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan's novels have inspired sweeping critical acclaim and won such prestigious awards as the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his modern masterpiece, Atonement. With Saturday, McEwan has crafted perhaps his most unique achievement to date.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Madrid on 04-25-05
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Innocent
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War-weary Berlin has much to offer Leonard Markham, a young, naive postal engineer: first the arts of sophisticated intrigue, then the delights of sexual pleasure. But Leonard's new knowledge carries a heavy price, dragging him and the listener into a new type of story that is exhaustively suspenseful and utterly irresistible.
-
-
A little gem
- By Geoffrey on 08-19-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
- By: Iain Reid
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this deeply scary and intensely unnerving debut novel, Jake and a woman known only as "The Girlfriend" are on a drive to visit his parents at their secluded farm. But when Jake leaves "The Girlfriend" stranded at an abandoned high school, what follows is a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease, an exploration into psychological frailty, and an ending as suspenseful as The Usual Suspects and as haunting as Misery.
-
-
What a ride! This is a must read!
- By Elizabeth on 06-15-16
By: Iain Reid
-
Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
-
-
Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Girl Next Door
- By: Jack Ketchum
- Narrated by: Jack Ketchum
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets; well-tended lawns; and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths.
-
-
A Horror To The Core
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-19-16
By: Jack Ketchum
-
Saturday
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan's novels have inspired sweeping critical acclaim and won such prestigious awards as the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his modern masterpiece, Atonement. With Saturday, McEwan has crafted perhaps his most unique achievement to date.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Madrid on 04-25-05
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Innocent
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War-weary Berlin has much to offer Leonard Markham, a young, naive postal engineer: first the arts of sophisticated intrigue, then the delights of sexual pleasure. But Leonard's new knowledge carries a heavy price, dragging him and the listener into a new type of story that is exhaustively suspenseful and utterly irresistible.
-
-
A little gem
- By Geoffrey on 08-19-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
On Chesil Beach
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Ian McEwan
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come.
-
-
One of the best new novels in recent years
- By George on 06-13-07
By: Ian McEwan
-
Flowers in the Attic
- 40th Anniversary Edition
- By: Gillian Flynn - foreword, V. C. Andrews
- Narrated by: Mena Suvari, Gillian Flynn - foreword
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were a perfect and beautiful family - until a heartbreaking tragedy shattered their happiness. Now, for the sake of an inheritance that will ensure their future, the children must be hidden away out of sight, as if they never existed. They are kept in the attic of their grandmother’s labyrinthine mansion, isolated and alone. As the visits from their seemingly unconcerned mother slowly dwindle, the four children grow ever closer and depend upon one another to survive both this cramped world and their cruel grandmother.
-
-
Loved the book so much but...
- By Nicole on 03-28-20
By: Gillian Flynn - foreword, and others
-
Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
-
-
An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
We Need to Talk About Kevin
- A Novel
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of a boy who ends up murdering seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his 16th birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage, in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.
-
-
A smart, chilling story. Told in a very unique way
- By aaron on 01-09-12
By: Lionel Shriver
-
Playground
- By: Aron Beauregard
- Narrated by: Lila Kerry
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three low-income families have been given a handsome retainer to join Geraldine Borden for a day at her cliffside estate. All the parents must do to collect the rest of their money is allow their children to test out the revolutionary playground equipment Geraldine has been working on for decades. But there’s a reason the structures in the bowels of her gothic castle have taken so long to develop—they were never meant to see the light of day.
-
-
Not for the weak-stomached.
- By Dan Bugbee on 01-26-23
By: Aron Beauregard
-
Tender Is the Flesh
- By: Agustina Bazterrica
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition". Now, eating human meat - "special meat" - is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
-
-
Uhhhhhhh....
- By Josh E. on 12-05-20
-
Come Closer
- By: Sara Gran
- Narrated by: Julie McKay
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.
-
-
Don’t listen or read this book, use caution.
- By amyk0506 on 03-02-21
By: Sara Gran
-
Tampa
- By: Alissa Nutting
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. But Celeste's devotion lies elsewhere. She has a singular sexual obsession: 14-year-old boys. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress driven by pure motivation. She deceives everyone, and cares nothing for anyone or anything but her own pleasure. With crackling, rampantly unadulterated prose, Tampa is a grand, uncompromising, seriocomic examination of want and a scorching literary debut.
-
-
This author is pretty gutsy
- By Linda on 02-19-14
By: Alissa Nutting
-
Lord of the Flies
- By: William Golding
- Narrated by: William Golding
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marooned on a tropical island, alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, and devoid of adult supervision or rules, a group of British boys begins to forge a society with its own unique rules and rituals.
-
-
Great story - bad narration
- By A Mom on 03-05-08
By: William Golding
-
The Fifth Season: Booktrack Edition
- The Broken Earth, Book 1
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
-
-
I would give this less than one star if I could.
- By Christin on 02-12-20
By: N. K. Jemisin
-
Shuggie Bain
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: She is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good - her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor.
-
-
There’s far too much real pain and sadness in the world to spend any time listening to this tale of woe
- By SuperShopper on 02-18-21
By: Douglas Stuart
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
Critic reviews
"A shocking book, morbid, full of repellant imagery, and irresistibly readable." (The New York Review of Books)
"Darkly impressive." (The Times)
Related to this topic
-
I Couldn't Love You More
- A Novel
- By: Esther Freud
- Narrated by: Niamh Cusack
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past.
By: Esther Freud
-
The Playground
- A Novel
- By: Jane Shemilt
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of a long, hot summer in London, the lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circle, resulting in illicit relationships, shocking violence, and unimaginable fallout. There’s Eve, a bougie earth mother with a well-stocked trust fund; she has three little ones, a blue-collar husband, and is obsessed with her Instagrammable recipes and lifestyle.
-
-
remarkable
- By lisa on 01-10-20
By: Jane Shemilt
-
The Folded Leaf
- By: William Maxwell
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is a classic novel from one of our most honored writers - the author of such acclaimed works as So Long, See You Tomorrow and All the Days and Nights. The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring.
-
-
Midwestern Misfits
- By David on 03-17-15
By: William Maxwell
-
The Shadow Lines
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Raj Varma
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Ghosh’s radiant second novel follows two families - one English, one Bengali - as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian-born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives.
-
-
Narrator Doesn't Know How to Pronounce
- By Amazon Customer on 08-27-11
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Brick Lane
- By: Monica Ali
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Sastre
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.
-
-
A truly wonderful book!
- By A M on 11-24-03
By: Monica Ali
-
They Did Bad Things
- By: Lauren A. Forry
- Narrated by: Claire Storey
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1995, six university students moved into the house at 215 Caldwell Street. Months later, one of them was found dead on the sofa the morning after their end-of-year party. His death was ruled an accident by the police. The remaining five all knew it wasn’t, and though they went on with their lives, the truth of what happened to their sixth housemate couldn’t stay buried forever. Twenty years later, all five of them arrive - lured separately under various pretenses - at Wolfheather House, a crumbling, secluded mansion on the Scottish isle of Doon.
-
-
Impressed
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-21
By: Lauren A. Forry
-
I Couldn't Love You More
- A Novel
- By: Esther Freud
- Narrated by: Niamh Cusack
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past.
By: Esther Freud
-
The Playground
- A Novel
- By: Jane Shemilt
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of a long, hot summer in London, the lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circle, resulting in illicit relationships, shocking violence, and unimaginable fallout. There’s Eve, a bougie earth mother with a well-stocked trust fund; she has three little ones, a blue-collar husband, and is obsessed with her Instagrammable recipes and lifestyle.
-
-
remarkable
- By lisa on 01-10-20
By: Jane Shemilt
-
The Folded Leaf
- By: William Maxwell
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is a classic novel from one of our most honored writers - the author of such acclaimed works as So Long, See You Tomorrow and All the Days and Nights. The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring.
-
-
Midwestern Misfits
- By David on 03-17-15
By: William Maxwell
-
The Shadow Lines
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Raj Varma
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Ghosh’s radiant second novel follows two families - one English, one Bengali - as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian-born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives.
-
-
Narrator Doesn't Know How to Pronounce
- By Amazon Customer on 08-27-11
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Brick Lane
- By: Monica Ali
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Sastre
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.
-
-
A truly wonderful book!
- By A M on 11-24-03
By: Monica Ali
-
They Did Bad Things
- By: Lauren A. Forry
- Narrated by: Claire Storey
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1995, six university students moved into the house at 215 Caldwell Street. Months later, one of them was found dead on the sofa the morning after their end-of-year party. His death was ruled an accident by the police. The remaining five all knew it wasn’t, and though they went on with their lives, the truth of what happened to their sixth housemate couldn’t stay buried forever. Twenty years later, all five of them arrive - lured separately under various pretenses - at Wolfheather House, a crumbling, secluded mansion on the Scottish isle of Doon.
-
-
Impressed
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-21
By: Lauren A. Forry
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Nutshell
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Atonement, Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master. To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour is just a speck in the universe of possible things?
-
-
The Long Version, and the Short.
- By Ilana on 09-19-16
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Innocent
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War-weary Berlin has much to offer Leonard Markham, a young, naive postal engineer: first the arts of sophisticated intrigue, then the delights of sexual pleasure. But Leonard's new knowledge carries a heavy price, dragging him and the listener into a new type of story that is exhaustively suspenseful and utterly irresistible.
-
-
A little gem
- By Geoffrey on 08-19-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
Enduring Love
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a sunny afternoon, the middle-aged writer Joe Rose and his wife look up from their picnic in the countryside to see an elderly man desperately trying to anchor his giant helium balloon. Running to help, Joe is joined by other bystanders. But from that fateful day, one of them, Jed Parry, will begin to stalk Joe. Driven by religious zeal and misdirected love, the strange young man will slowly unravel each strand of Joe's life.
-
-
Thriller of the minds and relationships
- By EVERETT on 12-28-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Children Act
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Lindsay Duncan
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.
-
-
McEwan has written perfection in this novel.
- By Bonny on 09-17-14
By: Ian McEwan
-
Saturday
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan's novels have inspired sweeping critical acclaim and won such prestigious awards as the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his modern masterpiece, Atonement. With Saturday, McEwan has crafted perhaps his most unique achievement to date.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Madrid on 04-25-05
By: Ian McEwan
-
Machines Like Me
- A Novel
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality.
-
-
Very disappointed.
- By Tom on 05-25-19
By: Ian McEwan
-
Nutshell
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Atonement, Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master. To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour is just a speck in the universe of possible things?
-
-
The Long Version, and the Short.
- By Ilana on 09-19-16
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Innocent
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War-weary Berlin has much to offer Leonard Markham, a young, naive postal engineer: first the arts of sophisticated intrigue, then the delights of sexual pleasure. But Leonard's new knowledge carries a heavy price, dragging him and the listener into a new type of story that is exhaustively suspenseful and utterly irresistible.
-
-
A little gem
- By Geoffrey on 08-19-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
Enduring Love
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a sunny afternoon, the middle-aged writer Joe Rose and his wife look up from their picnic in the countryside to see an elderly man desperately trying to anchor his giant helium balloon. Running to help, Joe is joined by other bystanders. But from that fateful day, one of them, Jed Parry, will begin to stalk Joe. Driven by religious zeal and misdirected love, the strange young man will slowly unravel each strand of Joe's life.
-
-
Thriller of the minds and relationships
- By EVERETT on 12-28-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Children Act
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Lindsay Duncan
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.
-
-
McEwan has written perfection in this novel.
- By Bonny on 09-17-14
By: Ian McEwan
-
Saturday
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan's novels have inspired sweeping critical acclaim and won such prestigious awards as the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his modern masterpiece, Atonement. With Saturday, McEwan has crafted perhaps his most unique achievement to date.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Madrid on 04-25-05
By: Ian McEwan
-
Machines Like Me
- A Novel
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality.
-
-
Very disappointed.
- By Tom on 05-25-19
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Daydreamer
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Internationally best-selling author and Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan presents his first book for children, The Daydreamer. Peter Fortune is unlike most kids his age. In fact, he's different from everybody else in the world. Peter has the amazing ability to make his daydreams come true. A captivating narration from Simon Prebble brings McEwan's imaginative and adventurous story to vivid life for listeners of all ages.
-
-
Charming and Sweet!!!
- By Matthew S. Hill on 03-27-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
Sweet Tooth
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of such prestigious honors as the Booker Prize and Whitbread Award, Ian McEwan is justifiably regarded as a modern master. Set in 1972, Sweet Tooth follows Cambridge student Serena Frome, whose intelligence and beauty land her a job with England's intelligence agency, MI5. In an attempt to monitor writers' politics, MI5 tasks Serena with infiltrating the literary circle of author Tom Healy. But soon matters of trust and identity subvert the operation.
-
-
Perfect Book for your Literary Sweet Tooth
- By Susianna on 11-18-12
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Child in Time
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two parents come to appreciate the forces of love and time after the disappearance of their daughter, Kate.
-
-
Not McEwan's Best Effort
- By Charles on 06-07-09
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Cockroach
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Bill Nighy
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain - and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way; not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy. In this bitingly funny Kafkaesque satire, Ian McEwan engages with scabrous humor a very recognizable political world and turns it on its head.
-
-
An excellent parody on life during Brexit
- By Kate Juliff on 11-28-19
By: Ian McEwan
-
Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
-
-
Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Solar
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Roger Allam, Ian McEwan
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard is fast approaching 60, a mere shell of the academic titan he once was. While his fifth marriage falls apart, Michael suddenly finds himself with an unexpected opportunity to reinvigorate his career and possibly save humankind from the growing threat of global warming.
-
-
What a disappointment
- By SharkHunterSFO on 04-02-10
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Girl Before
- By: Rena Olsen
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing. In chapters that alternate between past and present, the novel slowly unpeels the layers of Clara's fractured life. We see her growing up, raised with her sisters by the stern Mama and Papa G, becoming a poised and educated young woman, falling desperately in love with the forbidden son of her adoptive parents.
-
-
Darkness before the dawn
- By Janice on 09-26-16
By: Rena Olsen
-
On Chesil Beach
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Ian McEwan
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come.
-
-
One of the best new novels in recent years
- By George on 06-13-07
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Comfort of Strangers
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan has won the Booker Prize, Whitbread Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his masterfully accomplished fiction. The Comfort of Strangers is an exquisitely crafted gothic novella. On holiday, Colin and Maria wander the ancient streets of Venice and frequently lose their way. When they are accosted by a man with a strange and alluring story to tell, they soon become entwined in a fantasy of violence and erotic obsession.
-
-
Mysterious, bizarre
- By EVERETT on 07-21-07
By: Ian McEwan
-
Goddess of Filth
- By: V. Castro
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One hot summer night, Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. Their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors. Over the next few weeks, Fernanda starts acting strangely—smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty. The local priest is convinced it's a demon, but Lourdes suspects it's something else—something far more ancient and powerful.
-
-
Great
- By Elise on 09-25-23
By: V. Castro
-
Atonement
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Atonement, three children lose their innocence, as the sweltering summer heat bears down on the hottest day in 1935, and their lives are changed forever. Cecilia Tallis is of England's priviledged class; Robbie Turner is the housekeeper's son. In their moment of intimate surrender, they are interrupted by Cecilia's hyperimaginative and scheming 13-year-old sister, Briony. And as chaos consumes the family, Briony commits a crime, the guilt of which she shall carry throughout her life.
-
-
An amazing book about complex human perception
- By Amazon Customer on 08-17-04
By: Ian McEwan
What listeners say about The Cement Garden
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 03-09-22
Oof
This book is disturbing as all hell. Great story. Great sense of disturbance.
The narrator was hard to get past at times. Every time he read dialogue it was quite over dramatic and silly, otherwise he did well.
Highly recommend but not for the faint of heart.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Consolation
- 11-09-22
Bummed
I have almost revered Ian McEwen until now, finding his insight and erudition extremely admirable and his plots really arresting.
This book just made me writhe. I wish I had a Sci-fi forgetfulness procedure I could undergo.
In the absence of that, I worry that I will never be comfortable with I. McEwan again.
Sigh.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kelly
- 07-29-20
an uncomfortable and painful story
I found this book uncomfortable, disquieting and painful -- and that is exactly how a reader of this book should feel. The topic of this one is agonizing. And it should be. I see that many reviewers didn't enjoy it, but I did. If a writer creates characters that inspire my empathy and compassion then I will always feel connected to the book.
This book is about four kids -- siblings who range in ages of 6 to 17. The problem is there relationships are marked by incest, which the reader encounters on page 2! They have faced the deaths of both their parents, and decided to bury her in the cellar so that they could stay together. They believed they could hide the fact that they were living together without any guardians.
The missing element here for me is backstory. I wanted to know more about the parents of these kids and how they were interacting with each other. I wanted to know why this family became what it did.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Mr Onion
- 10-01-04
(Almost) unbearably dark
Deeply dark and darkly deep. Simple and chilling without going for cheap explicit shocks. Reminiscent of "Lord of the Flies" with more sex and less religion. Well narrated with a just-slightly-menacing tone, although he sounds more adult than convincingly adolescent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matthew Storkson
- 09-17-24
Bro is that a cucumber in your pocket?
Strange story about children who end up orphaned, making bad decisions including bro and sis hookin up. I haven’t listened to many Fiction books on Audible and one of the first I read ( suggested by the AI assistant on the app) Is this book😒 the writing was alright but wtf seriously, cleary not all books are an amazing slam dunk.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sparky7239
- 03-18-21
Disappointing
Beware of Spoiler: Shocking ending. For me there was little redeeming value. The kids were really suffering, and the end result was incest? Shock value. It could have been ... well it’s his story to tell. But. Cheap ending I thought.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Caligula Kennedy
- 10-21-24
Really diabolical
This was pretty odd and uncomfortable and didn’t resolve anything other than make the reader feel dumb for investing 4 hours of their time into it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 06-16-04
Not so happy with this one:
This book was difficult to stick with. The plot was thin at best and never really takes an interesting turn. It was predictable and flat, with characters that are not engaging. I found myself not caring what happened one way or another. I think I finished it out of sheer stubbornness...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jimi
- 12-28-20
not bad
it was ok I heard that this book was really disturbing but it didn't get really sick till the end it was a good build up to it though
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gabriella
- 07-31-24
Too much Incest
I really don’t know why I finished the whole thing, at first it seemed tame enough and I thought it couldn’t get worse than the literal first chapter but BOY was I wrong. Simply put, the supposed story climax is a sexual climax. Why was incest the main driving point of the book and not the loss of parents and the strive to maintain normalcy after committing a crime? I wish I’d read the reviews first.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!