
We Begin Our Ascent
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 $18.74
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Matthew Lloyd Davies
-
By:
-
Joe Mungo Reed
About this listen
Sol and Liz are a couple on the cusp. He's a professional cyclist in the Tour de France, a workhorse but not yet a star. She's a geneticist on the brink of a major discovery, either that or a loss of funding. They've just welcomed their first child into the world, and their bright future lies just before them - if only they can reach out and grab it.
But as Liz's research slows, as Sol starts doping, their dreams grow murkier and the risks graver. Over the whirlwind course of the Tour, they enter the orbit of an extraordinary cast of con men and aspirants who draw the young family ineluctably into the depths of an illegal drug smuggling operation. As Liz and Sol flounder to discern right from wrong, up from down, they are forced to decide: What is it we're striving for? And what is it worth?
We Begin Our Ascent dances nimbly between tragic and comic, exploring the cost of ambition and the question of what gives our lives meaning. Reed melds the powerful themes of great marital dramas like Revolutionary Road with the humor, character, and heart of a George Saunders collection. Throughout, we're drawn inside the cycling world and treated to the brilliant literary sports writing of modern classics like The Art of Fielding. "A great debut, as affecting as it is smart," writes Dana Spiotta. "Reed's precision-cut sentences and darkly funny dialogue bring to mind Don DeLillo's End Zone."
©2018 Joe Mungo Reed (P)2018 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Hammer
- By: Joe Mungo Reed
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 2013, and much of the world still reels from the global economic collapse. Yet in the auction rooms of London, artworks are selling for record-breaking prices. Seeking a place in this gilded world is Martin, a junior specialist at a prestigious auction house. Martin spends his days catering to the whims of obscenely wealthy clients and his nights drinking in grubby pubs with his demoralized roommate. However, a chance meeting with Marina, an old university friend, presents Martin with a chance to change everything.
By: Joe Mungo Reed
-
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have heard before.
-
-
This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
-
The Art of Racing in the Rain
- By: Garth Stein
- Narrated by: Christopher Evan Welch
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling novel from Garth Stein - a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope - a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.
-
-
5 out of 3000
- By Roger on 02-23-10
By: Garth Stein
-
Me Before You
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons, Anna Bentink, Steven Crossley, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me. They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose...Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life - steady boyfriend, close family - who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident.
-
-
A Journey Into the Unknown
- By Pamela Harvey on 01-13-13
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Gold
- A Novel
- By: Chris Cleave
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. Gold is the story of Zoe and Kate, world-class athletes who have been friends and rivals since their first day of Elite training. They've loved, fought, betrayed, forgiven, consoled, gloried, and grown up together. Now on the eve of London 2012, their last Olympics, both women will be tested to their physical and emotional limits.
-
-
Very Good--but not great--
- By Patricia on 07-18-12
By: Chris Cleave
-
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Broadbent
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.
-
-
Wonderful Walkabout
- By FanB14 on 07-01-13
By: Rachel Joyce
-
Hammer
- By: Joe Mungo Reed
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 2013, and much of the world still reels from the global economic collapse. Yet in the auction rooms of London, artworks are selling for record-breaking prices. Seeking a place in this gilded world is Martin, a junior specialist at a prestigious auction house. Martin spends his days catering to the whims of obscenely wealthy clients and his nights drinking in grubby pubs with his demoralized roommate. However, a chance meeting with Marina, an old university friend, presents Martin with a chance to change everything.
By: Joe Mungo Reed
-
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have heard before.
-
-
This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
-
The Art of Racing in the Rain
- By: Garth Stein
- Narrated by: Christopher Evan Welch
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling novel from Garth Stein - a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope - a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.
-
-
5 out of 3000
- By Roger on 02-23-10
By: Garth Stein
-
Me Before You
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons, Anna Bentink, Steven Crossley, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me. They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose...Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life - steady boyfriend, close family - who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident.
-
-
A Journey Into the Unknown
- By Pamela Harvey on 01-13-13
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Gold
- A Novel
- By: Chris Cleave
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. Gold is the story of Zoe and Kate, world-class athletes who have been friends and rivals since their first day of Elite training. They've loved, fought, betrayed, forgiven, consoled, gloried, and grown up together. Now on the eve of London 2012, their last Olympics, both women will be tested to their physical and emotional limits.
-
-
Very Good--but not great--
- By Patricia on 07-18-12
By: Chris Cleave
-
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Broadbent
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.
-
-
Wonderful Walkabout
- By FanB14 on 07-01-13
By: Rachel Joyce
-
Ghosted
- A Novel
- By: Rosie Walsh
- Narrated by: Katherine Press
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Sarah meets Eddie, they connect instantly and fall in love. To Sarah, it seems as though her life has finally begun. And it's mutual: It's as though Eddie has been waiting for her, too. Sarah has never been so certain of anything. So when Eddie leaves for a long-booked vacation and promises to call from the airport, she has no cause to doubt him. But he doesn't call. Sarah's friends tell her to forget about him, but she can't. She knows something's happened - there must be an explanation.
-
-
Boring, tedious, not worth my time. I am so aggravated that I preordered this book. It was absurd. Much ado about nothing!
- By Pamela M. on 07-28-18
By: Rosie Walsh
-
The Horse Dancer
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars and the forthcoming Someone Else's Shoes, a novel about a lost girl and her horse, the enduring strength of friendship, and how even the smallest choices can change everything.
-
-
Maximum Misery for Minimum Payoff
- By Stephnsea on 11-27-19
By: Jojo Moyes
-
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
-
Alan Partridge: Nomad
- By: Alan Partridge
- Narrated by: Alan Partridge
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Alan Partridge: Nomad, Alan dons his boots, windcheater and scarf and embarks on an odyssey through a place he once knew - it's called Britain - intent on completing a journey of immense personal significance. Diarising his ramble in the form of a 'journey journal', Alan details the people and places he encounters, ruminates on matters large and small and, on a final leg fraught with danger, becomes not a man (because he was one to start off with) but a better, more inspiring example of a man.
-
-
Pointlessness is the point
- By Michael on 10-21-16
By: Alan Partridge
-
On the Edge
- By: Richard Hammond
- Narrated by: Richard Hammond, Mindy Hammond
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Hammond describes his childhood and adolescence and the emergence of the adrenalin junkie, the first ridiculous stunts on his tricycle, and an increasing and near obsessive attraction to speed and the smell of petrol. He finds an attractive girl, Mindy, who shares his interests and helps him organise his high-speed life.
-
-
A bit disappointing!
- By Cindy on 08-04-12
By: Richard Hammond
-
The Rules of Backyard Cricket
- By: Jock Serong
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. It is no surprise, then, that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety - one of those men who's always got away with things and just keeps going...until the day we meet him, middle aged and in the boot of a car, and everything pointing towards a shallow grave.
-
-
Great story and great narration!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-17-23
By: Jock Serong
-
The Wolf Border
- By: Sarah Hall
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For almost a decade, Rachel Caine has turned her back on home, kept distant by family disputes and her work monitoring wolves on an Idaho reservation. But now, summoned by the eccentric Earl of Annerdale and his controversial scheme to reintroduce the grey wolf to the English countryside, she is back in the peat and wet light of the Lake District. The earl's project harks back to an ancient idyll of untamed British wilderness.
-
-
Marvelous.
- By V on 05-27-15
By: Sarah Hall
-
The Memory of Love
- By: Aminatta Forna
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of Sierra Leone’s 1990s civil war, British psychologist Adrian Lockheart comes to work at the Freetown hospital. There he meets a dying elderly patient who confesses to Adrian his past crimes of passion and betrayal.
-
-
Narrator is great - Could not get into the story.
- By Delah on 02-10-12
By: Aminatta Forna
-
All That Is Solid Melts into Air
- A Novel
- By: Darragh McKeon
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russia, 1986: On a run-down apartment block in Moscow, a nine-year-old prodigy plays his piano silently for fear of disturbing the neighbors. In a factory on the outskirts of the city, his aunt makes car parts, hiding her dissident past. In a nearby hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his work, avoiding his failed marriage. And in a village in Belarus, a teenage boy wakes to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of his neighbor's cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has happened.
By: Darragh McKeon
-
Life Is a Marathon
- A Memoir of Love and Endurance
- By: Matt Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An endurance athlete and coach reveals how the marathon transforms the lives of everyone who attempts it - and how it has helped his own family cope with serious adversity.
-
-
Not my favorite running book
- By riogirl1992 on 03-05-22
By: Matt Fitzgerald
-
Descent
- My Epic Fall from Cycling Superstardom to Doping Dead End
- By: Thomas Dekker, Thijs Zonneveld
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At age 20, Thomas Dekker was already earning €100,000 a year - as an amateur bike racer. The next year, he turned pro and his salary quadrupled then rose again to €900,000 as he established his position as a super-domestique among Europe's wealthiest superteams. The sport world marveled at Dekker's rise as the young racer set his ambitions on capturing cycling's biggest prizes for himself. Before long, though, Dekker found himself corrupted by money, dazzled by fame, and cracking under the relentless pressure to perform at a superhuman level.
-
-
Brat on wheels
- By Tanner Schember on 02-10-25
By: Thomas Dekker, and others
-
The Man Who Died
- By: Antti Tuomainen, David Hackston
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A successful entrepreneur in the mushroom industry, Jaakko Kaunismaa is a man in his prime. At just 37 years of age, he is shocked when his doctor tells him that he's dying. What is more, the cause is discovered to be prolonged exposure to toxins; in other words, someone has slowly but surely been poisoning him. Determined to find out who wants him dead, Jaakko embarks on a suspenseful roller-coaster journey full of unusual characters, bizarre situations and unexpected twists.
-
-
Darkly funny
- By wendybird on 09-27-18
By: Antti Tuomainen, and others
Story was like riding a bicycle in straight line on a flat road. No drama just a long narrative .
Lack of depth & poor reading
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I don't know how much the performance contributed to my lack of enjoyment, but in the end I didn't feel there was much of a story. <I don't think the rest of this paragraph contains spoilers, but skip if you are super-sensitive.> The drama with Liz seemed completely contrived. And the drama with Fabrice didn't seem to follow from what had gone before. I didn't feel any build-up of pressure or tension that might have led to such a result. In other words, it seemed very far-fetched.
I kept thinking how much more exciting and interesting the real Tour almost certainly is.
Weak story, poor performance
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
quite slow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.