The Temporary Gentleman
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 $15.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Gerard Doyle
-
By:
-
Sebastian Barry
About this listen
A stunning new novel from the Man Booker shortlisted author of The Secret Scripture.
In this highly anticipated new novel, Irishman Jack McNultyis a "temporary gentleman" - an Irishman whose commission in the British army inWWII was never permanent. Sitting in his lodgings in Accra, Ghana, in 1957, he's writing the story of his life with desperate urgency. He cannot take one step further without examining all of the extraordinary events that he has seen. A lifetime of war and world travel - as a soldier in WWII, an engineer, a UN observer - has brought him to this point. But the memory that weighs heaviest on his heart is that of the beautiful Mai Kirwan and their tempestuous, heartbreaking marriage. Mai was once the great beauty of Sligo, a magnetic yet unstable woman who, after sharing a life with Jack, gradually slipped from his grasp.
Award-winning author Sebastian Barry's The Temporary Gentleman is the sixth book in his cycle of separate yet interconnected novels that brilliantly reimagine characters from Barry's own family.
©2014 Sebastian Barry (P)2014 Blackstone AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
-
The Cold, Cold Ground
- Detective Sean Duffy, Book 1
- By: Adrian McKinty
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren’t always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It’s no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.
-
-
Listen to this book. You won't be disappointed.
- By Christopher on 01-21-12
By: Adrian McKinty
-
This Other Eden
- By: Paul Harding
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys’ descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.
-
-
Painfully overwritten
- By WPH on 02-24-23
By: Paul Harding
-
The Queen of Dirt Island
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love.
-
-
Donal Ryan never disappoints
- By Chris C on 03-17-23
By: Donal Ryan
-
We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
-
-
Relentlessly Negative
- By John on 06-02-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
-
Walk the Blue Fields
- Stories
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly, Aoife McMahon, Aidan Quinn
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.
-
-
Just Superb.
- By Deborah on 12-09-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
-
The Cold, Cold Ground
- Detective Sean Duffy, Book 1
- By: Adrian McKinty
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren’t always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It’s no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.
-
-
Listen to this book. You won't be disappointed.
- By Christopher on 01-21-12
By: Adrian McKinty
-
This Other Eden
- By: Paul Harding
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys’ descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.
-
-
Painfully overwritten
- By WPH on 02-24-23
By: Paul Harding
-
The Queen of Dirt Island
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love.
-
-
Donal Ryan never disappoints
- By Chris C on 03-17-23
By: Donal Ryan
-
We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
-
-
Relentlessly Negative
- By John on 06-02-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
-
Walk the Blue Fields
- Stories
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly, Aoife McMahon, Aidan Quinn
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.
-
-
Just Superb.
- By Deborah on 12-09-22
By: Claire Keegan
-
So Late in the Day
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Claire Keegan
- Length: 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabine with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. All evening, with only the television and a bottle of champagne for company, thoughts of this woman and others intrude - and the true significance of this particular date is revealed.
-
-
This Audible is not the full Kindle/Book version.
- By Mary F. on 11-26-23
By: Claire Keegan
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
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
-
Trespasses
- A Novel
- By: Louise Kennedy
- Narrated by: Brid Brennan
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment—Michael is not only Protestant but older and married—Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites.
-
-
Exquisite
- By Suzanna on 11-10-22
By: Louise Kennedy
-
Hold Her Down
- By: Kathryn R. Biel
- Narrated by: Lisa Beacom
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elizabeth Zurlo is lost. She's a wife, a mother, a teacher, a PTA volunteer - but somewhere along the way, she has lost herself. Depression and despair can lead to desperate measures, and when she is pulled back from the brink of suicide, Elizabeth slowly tries to rebuild her marriage and reclaim her life.
-
-
Loved the message of the book and the narration was spot on to the changing emotions of the characters
- By Jackie C on 04-19-20
By: Kathryn R. Biel
-
Be Mine
- A Frank Bascombe Novel
- By: Richard Ford
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway.
-
-
Frank 4
- By lorraine kennedy on 08-03-23
By: Richard Ford
-
The Light Between Oceans
- A Novel
- By: M. L. Stedman
- Narrated by: Noah Taylor
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1918, after four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes only four times a year and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Three years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel is tending the grave of her newly lost infant when she hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up on shore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
-
-
Wonderful story.....terrible narrator.
- By Sandra on 08-14-12
By: M. L. Stedman
-
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 everything 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. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
-
-
Listen to the sample first!
- By Cheryl D on 07-30-08
-
The Christie Affair
- A Novel
- By: Nina de Gramont
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1925: In a world of townhomes and tennis matches, socialites and shooting parties, Miss Nan O’Dea became Archie Christie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Agatha Christie. The question is, why? Why destroy another woman’s marriage, why hatch a plot years in the making, and why murder? How was Nan O’Dea so intricately tied to those 11 mysterious days that Agatha Christie went missing?
-
-
Terrific Book!
- By robin hayes on 02-11-22
By: Nina de Gramont
-
We Are Water
- A Novel
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Wally Lamb, George Guidall, Maggi-Meg Reed, and others
- Length: 23 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After 27 years of marriage and three children, Anna Oh - wife, mother, outsider artist - has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her success. They plan to wed in the Oh family’s hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut. But the wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora’s Box of toxic secrets - dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.
-
-
Lamb writes Fine Literature/What a Book!
- By Suzn F on 10-27-13
By: Wally Lamb
-
I Liked My Life
- A Novel
- By: Abby Fabiaschi
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett, Dan Bittner, Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maddy is a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother, host of excellent parties, giver of thoughtful gifts, and bestower of a searingly perceptive piece of advice or two. She is the cornerstone of her family, a true matriarch...until she commits suicide, leaving her husband, Brady, and teenage daughter, Eve, heartbroken and reeling, wondering what happened. How could the exuberant, exacting woman they loved disappear so abruptly, seemingly without reason, from their lives?
-
-
Loved it! Don't let the suicide issue put you off
- By SLuzaz on 03-01-17
By: Abby Fabiaschi
Related to this topic
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
-
The Heart of the Matter
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.
-
-
Starts Very Slowly then Boom!
- By Michael on 05-21-17
By: Graham Greene
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Sea, the Sea
- By: Iris Murdoch, Mary Kinzie - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years.
-
-
Murdoch Amazes
- By Sara on 08-30-17
By: Iris Murdoch, and others
-
South Riding
- By: Winifred Holtby
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this rich and memorable evocation of the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire are the lives, loves and sorrows of the central characters. There is Sarah Burton, fiery young headmistress; Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall, a councillor tormented by his own disastrous marriage; Jo Astell, a socialist fighting poverty and his own illness; and Mrs Beddows, the first woman Alderman of the district (like Winifred's own mother).
-
-
Worth Revisiting
- By Ilana on 11-04-12
By: Winifred Holtby
-
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
- A Novel
- By: Louisa Young
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The lives of two very different couples - an officer and his aristocratic wife, and a young soldier and his childhood sweetheart - are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight - and those who don't - and a poignant testament to the enduring power of love.
-
-
Just read it!! Or rather, listen!
- By Annie M. on 08-31-14
By: Louisa Young
-
Annie Dunne
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1959 in Wicklow, Ireland, and Annie and her cousin Sarah are living and working together to keep Sarah’s small farm running. Suddenly, Annie’s young niece and nephew are left in their care. Unprepared for the chaos that two children inevitably bring, but nervously excited nonetheless, Annie finds the interruption of her normal life and her last chance at happiness complicated further by the attention being paid to Sarah by a local man with his eye on the farm.
-
-
Splendid
- By Shady on 06-21-23
By: Sebastian Barry
-
The Heart of the Matter
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.
-
-
Starts Very Slowly then Boom!
- By Michael on 05-21-17
By: Graham Greene
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Sea, the Sea
- By: Iris Murdoch, Mary Kinzie - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years.
-
-
Murdoch Amazes
- By Sara on 08-30-17
By: Iris Murdoch, and others
-
South Riding
- By: Winifred Holtby
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this rich and memorable evocation of the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire are the lives, loves and sorrows of the central characters. There is Sarah Burton, fiery young headmistress; Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall, a councillor tormented by his own disastrous marriage; Jo Astell, a socialist fighting poverty and his own illness; and Mrs Beddows, the first woman Alderman of the district (like Winifred's own mother).
-
-
Worth Revisiting
- By Ilana on 11-04-12
By: Winifred Holtby
-
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
- A Novel
- By: Louisa Young
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The lives of two very different couples - an officer and his aristocratic wife, and a young soldier and his childhood sweetheart - are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight - and those who don't - and a poignant testament to the enduring power of love.
-
-
Just read it!! Or rather, listen!
- By Annie M. on 08-31-14
By: Louisa Young
-
The Silence of Ghosts
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Aycliffe
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dominic Lancaster hoped to prove himself to his family by excelling in the Navy during World War II. Instead he is wounded while serving as a gunner, and loses his leg. Still recovering from his wounds and the trauma of his amputation when the Blitz begins, Dominic finds himself shuffled off to the countryside by his family, along with his partially deaf sister, Octavia.
-
-
Spooky story. All it lacks is the campfire.
- By DarylP on 10-09-15
-
Galilee
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 23 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barbarossa family’s roots are far more ancient and ethereal, but they are bound to the Gearys by a shared history of murder, insanity, and adultery. When Rachel Geary and Galilee, the seductive prince of the Barbarossa clan, fall in love, they unleash powerful enmities that could destroy both dynasties. Shorter and more conventional than some of Barker’s other work, this novel is especially rich with complex, passionate, three-dimensional characters, lush settings, and elegant language.
-
-
An Audiophile's Dream
- By Joseph on 09-01-11
By: Clive Barker
-
The Testament of Gideon Mack
- By: James Robertson
- Narrated by: Tom Cotcher
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Gideon Mack, faithless minister, unfaithful husband, and troubled soul, the existence of God, let alone the Devil, is no more credible than that of ghosts or fairies - until the day he falls into a gorge and is rescued by someone who might just be Satan.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Christopher on 07-06-08
By: James Robertson
-
The Good Apprentice
- By: Iris Murdoch
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 20 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity, and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity, and his motives.
-
-
A Squabble of Smartypants
- By Geoff Maddison on 09-10-12
By: Iris Murdoch
-
The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1
- By: Anton Chekhov
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1860-1904), was born in Russia at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His name has become synonymous with a certain literary style much admired and widely copied since his death. Typically, a Chekhov story is a "mood", a state of mind, usually with regard to relations between one person and another. Under the influence of the constant, infinitesimal, and unforeseen pinpricks of life, there occurs a gradual transformation of that state of mind.
-
-
A Box of Chocolates
- By Darlene on 02-08-05
By: Anton Chekhov
-
The Tea Rose
- By: Jennifer Donnelly
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 28 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
East London, 1888 - a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright hopes meet the darkest truths. Here, by the whispering waters of the Thames, Fiona Finnegan, a worker in a tea factory, hopes to own a shop one day, together with her lifelong love, Joe Bristow, a costermonger's son. With nothing but their faith in each other to spur them on, Fiona and Joe struggle, save, and sacrifice to achieve their dreams.
-
-
Wow. Wow wow wow!
- By I like to shop on 04-26-16
-
Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
-
-
Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
-
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.
-
-
Gordon's Grey World is Colored with Grant
- By Timothy on 09-25-11
By: George Orwell
-
All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
-
-
Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
-
The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told
- Best Stories Ever Told
- By: Stephen Brennan - editor
- Narrated by: J. M. Badger, Imelda Pot
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A big, brilliant, spooky collection of classic and contemporary ghost stories that will make you hesitate before turning off that light.
-
-
A very mixed review
- By Michael Mayer on 08-05-15
-
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
- By: R. A. Dick
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Jasicki
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burdened by debt after her husband's death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted.
-
-
Bias Review Warning
- By Michael on 09-22-19
By: R. A. Dick
-
The Magus
- By: John Fowles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 26 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Fowles’s The Magus was a literary landmark of the 1960s. Nicholas Urfe goes to a Greek island to teach at a private school and becomes enmeshed in curious happenings at the home of a mysterious Greek recluse, Maurice Conchis. Are these events, involving attractive young English sisters, just psychological games, or an elaborate joke, or more? Reality shifts as the story unfolds. The Magus reflected the issues of the 1960s perfectly, and it continues to create tension and concern today.
-
-
One of the best novels that I really think I hate.
- By Darwin8u on 01-29-14
By: John Fowles
What listeners say about The Temporary Gentleman
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- g
- 04-17-16
urelentingly depressing
although Gerald Doyle is an outstanding narrator, he could not elevate this story to a level that inspires sustained interest. it is an unrelenting story of woe.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 05-12-14
Grab a box of Kleenex because if you have a heart you will need it.
If you could sum up The Temporary Gentleman in three words, what would they be?
Heartbreaking love story.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Temporary Gentleman?
There are so many memorable moments.The author does such a wonderful job in painting pictures of the characters and Gerard Doyle narration brings them to life so vividly.I would say probably a couple of the most memorable moments would be when Jack first meets his future in-laws.Another would be the scene immediately following the wedding.I believe the one that affected me most though, as the daughter of an alcoholic mother would be when he returned home to find his wife and young daughter outside in the snow.I don't want to say much as I don't want to spoil the story for anyone.
What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Mr. Doyle has quickly become one of my favorite narrators.I am pretty sure I would listen to him read the Yellow Pages.My first experience with Gerard Doyle was the graves are walking.I think that any book narrated by him is better because of it.
Any additional comments?
I read the Amazon reviews, as there were no Audible Reviews available yet for this book at the time.I was still completely I am prepared for what this book would do to me emotionally.I am still thinking about this book and finding it hard to move onto another after finishing it.It has been a long time since I have read such a sad book and one that has affected me so much I just could not tear myself away from it though.I was thrown for a loop even by the ending.Kind of thought I knew pretty much how it would end, but I was definitely wrong.This book is hard to describe but definitely worth the time taken to read it.I felt so conflicted throughout the book.Both anger and compassion for May and Jack.My heart broke for both of them and of course for the children.This book definitely brings alcoholism, codependency, and to some extent mental illness and secrets and problems that go along with all those things to life for the reader.This is the first book I have read by this author, but will definitely be checking out more of his books.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Janna Wong Healy
- 02-01-22
An Acquired Taste
It was only after I finished the book and did some reading about it that I learned it is the third book in a trilogy by Sebastian Barry about the McNulty men. (There was also an admonishment that the books should be read in order...oops.)
If you like stream-of-consciousness writing, you will love this book. Barry writes beautifully; every word in every sentence is meant to be there. If you don't enjoy this type of writing, you might get a bit impatient as it moves from one time period to another, from one adventure to another, and so tends to wander a bit if you're not paying close attention.
But, when reflecting on what you've just read (or listened to), you will most likely come to the same conclusion I did: this is a searing, engrossing, sad story of one man's life, the mistakes he made, and the intense love he had for his wife.
The narration by Gerard Doyle is spot-on; it's soothing and the Irish accent brings John McNulty's story to life in a realistic way.
I'm not sure I will revisit this book, and I likely won't read the first two books in the trilogy. But, I don't regret reading this one as the prose is so darn beautiful.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sasha the book eater
- 07-15-24
Beautiful and wrenching
Has anyone learned how to rip our hearts out like Irish writers? This astonishing tale of small individual lives in the grip of huge events (and private confusions) will do so. Prepare yourself for lyrical, searching prose, as distilled as any poem. The musical, luminous performance by Gerard Doyle matches his finest reading performances, and adds dimensions of understated emotion to this saga of war, love, loss and awareness. Sligo and Dublin, Ghana and the Middle East, come to life in ways that chime with the innermost harmonics of our humanity. Can’t lie, I cried repeatedly as the characters were alternately animated and undermined by their passions, duties, faith, failings, wit, hopes, humor, shame and guilt; by sex, Empire, colonialism, war, alcohol, courage and cowardice. Ireland, Britishness, and indeed the world, are brought to life during and after the World Wars. An extraordinary experience for those who listen to audiobooks with their whole hearts and minds.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Keenan
- 05-19-17
Gerard Doyle brings depth to this protagonist
What did you love best about The Temporary Gentleman?
It is an unusual story, artfully told, of a not-particularly attractive protagonist drifting through life. There is something captivating about it that is beyond my comprehension.
Who was your favorite character and why?
None of them.
What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
If I had read the book instead, I don't think I would have finished it. Gerard Doyle's characterization brought dimension to this character that I would not have read into him.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Disturbing. There was one laugh-out-loud moment near the end of the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary
- 09-21-19
Stunning
Barry has given us a gloriously poetic, nuanced study of love as it exists woven in the suffering and tragedy of life. That this flawed, tenacious love provides neither salvation or redemption makes the lessons — of penitence, forgiveness, and of a self striving towards its full humanity — all the more compelling. It has touched me more than any book this year.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- will33
- 06-01-21
Made me cry
The language is gorgeous. I loved the insight Jack had into his own failings and I actually wept.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeff Lacy
- 03-27-18
Nice appropriate performance
Narrator Gerard Doyle gives an appropriate performance—a voice inline with characters, modulated and sensitively performed, well paced, and a nice Irish accent and tone. This is a meaningful novel, a story of a husband and wife who are alcoholics and how their excessive drinking damaged their marriage, their roles as parents, their finances, their health, and their assessment of themselves. It also took a tole on their children, parents, siblings, and friends. Barry writes in the first person in the style of a memoir. It works well.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rosanne Font
- 04-29-15
Unrewarding
After listening to Sebastian Barry's 'Secret Scripture' I was excited to listen to his next novel. Though his descriptive language is outstanding, the story was too sad & broken for me to appreciate it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cinnabelle
- 07-31-21
Interesting Story
I am in two minds about the book. It was masterful story telling. The writing was superb and the narrator was excellent.
Still, I think the main character was very dislikable. He was an alcoholic but couldn’t see his alcoholism only his wife’s. He refused to see how his drinking contributed to hers.
His wife suffered from postpartum depression and when his mother and his wife’s best friend shared their concern he brushed it off.
He had very little relationship with his two daughters and one daughter, given her parents relationship, seems to have ended up in an abusive marriage.
The main character’s end was not surprising and it was difficult to have any empathy for him
I would highly recommend the book because it’s masterful writing. One phrase/idea that will stay wit me is : “drunkenness is a form of human absence, a maelstrom that blanks out the landscape.”
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!