
When the Cranes Fly South
A Novel
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.
Pre-order for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
About this listen
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE SWEDISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD • A profoundly moving debut novel that follows an elderly man’s attempts to mend his relationship with his son before it’s too late: an emotional story of love, friendship, fatherhood, dogs, and atonement that is already an international sensation.
"One of those ‘you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to buy twenty copies and give them to everyone you love’ books.”—Fredrik Backman, bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, in The New Yorker
“A powerful, sneakily emotional meditation on life and death, and the foundational relationships in our lives. This is a book that will echo in your soul.”—Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he’s got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company … though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he’s expressed his love over the years.
©2025 Lisa Ridzén (P)2025 Random House AudioCritic reviews
“A tender tale about aging, our own and others, and the quiet brutality of love. About what being a man is, and what being a human is, about fathers and sons and fathers and dogs. It’s really a book for anyone who’s had to say goodbye. The kind of book you give to someone when you’re really trying to say 'I’ve been thinking about you' but don’t know how.”—Fredrik Backman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Awake in the Floating City
- A Novel
- By: Susanna Kwan
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.
-
-
Catherine Ho is my least favorite audio performer
- By NMwritergal on 05-15-25
By: Susanna Kwan
-
Bring the House Down
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte Runcie
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.
By: Charlotte Runcie
-
My Other Heart
- A Novel
- By: Emma Nanami Strenner
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 2000, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport. Seventeen years later, two best friends graduate from high school in the WASP-y town of Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. Kit is half Japanese, half American, and interracially adopted by white well-to-do parents. Sabrina is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant single mother who brandishes strict household rules to hide her own secrets. During that last summer before college, Kit travels to Tokyo, determined to uncover her Japanese identity.
-
Consider Yourself Kissed
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Stanley
- Narrated by: Lydia Leonard
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When she first meets Adam, Coralie is new to London and feeling adrift. But Adam is clever, witty, and (he insists) a quarter inch taller than the average male. His charming four-year-old daughter only adds to his appeal. But ten years on, something important is missing from the life Coralie and Adam (though let’s face it, mostly Coralie) have built. Or maybe, having gained everything she dreamed of, Coralie has lost something else she once had: herself.
By: Jessica Stanley
-
Sleep
- A Novel
- By: Honor Jones
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.
-
-
Best “literary fiction” book in years
- By Lydia Paddon on 05-30-25
By: Honor Jones
-
The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club
- A Novel
- By: Martha Hall Kelly
- Narrated by: Martha Hall Kelly, Mary Elizabeth Kelly, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2016: Thirty-four-year-old Mari Starwood is still grieving after her mother’s death as she travels to the storied island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. She’s come all the way from California with nothing but a name on a piece of paper: Elizabeth Devereaux, the famous but reclusive Vineyard painter. When Mari makes it to Mrs. Devereaux’s stunning waterfront farm under the guise of taking a painting class with her, Mrs. Devereaux begins to tell her the story of the Smith sisters, who once lived there.
-
-
Very satisfying
- By cathleen pohlman on 06-07-25
-
Awake in the Floating City
- A Novel
- By: Susanna Kwan
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.
-
-
Catherine Ho is my least favorite audio performer
- By NMwritergal on 05-15-25
By: Susanna Kwan
-
Bring the House Down
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte Runcie
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.
By: Charlotte Runcie
-
My Other Heart
- A Novel
- By: Emma Nanami Strenner
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 2000, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport. Seventeen years later, two best friends graduate from high school in the WASP-y town of Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. Kit is half Japanese, half American, and interracially adopted by white well-to-do parents. Sabrina is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant single mother who brandishes strict household rules to hide her own secrets. During that last summer before college, Kit travels to Tokyo, determined to uncover her Japanese identity.
-
Consider Yourself Kissed
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Stanley
- Narrated by: Lydia Leonard
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When she first meets Adam, Coralie is new to London and feeling adrift. But Adam is clever, witty, and (he insists) a quarter inch taller than the average male. His charming four-year-old daughter only adds to his appeal. But ten years on, something important is missing from the life Coralie and Adam (though let’s face it, mostly Coralie) have built. Or maybe, having gained everything she dreamed of, Coralie has lost something else she once had: herself.
By: Jessica Stanley
-
Sleep
- A Novel
- By: Honor Jones
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.
-
-
Best “literary fiction” book in years
- By Lydia Paddon on 05-30-25
By: Honor Jones
-
The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club
- A Novel
- By: Martha Hall Kelly
- Narrated by: Martha Hall Kelly, Mary Elizabeth Kelly, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2016: Thirty-four-year-old Mari Starwood is still grieving after her mother’s death as she travels to the storied island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. She’s come all the way from California with nothing but a name on a piece of paper: Elizabeth Devereaux, the famous but reclusive Vineyard painter. When Mari makes it to Mrs. Devereaux’s stunning waterfront farm under the guise of taking a painting class with her, Mrs. Devereaux begins to tell her the story of the Smith sisters, who once lived there.
-
-
Very satisfying
- By cathleen pohlman on 06-07-25
-
The Original Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Jemimah Wei
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat inworking-class Singapore, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a brutally competitive place where the insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice.
-
-
not worth it
- By joy P on 06-04-25
By: Jemimah Wei
-
My Name Is Emilia del Valle
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Frances Riddle
- Narrated by: Coral Peña, Johnathan McClain
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her.
-
-
Very disappointing
- By Monica Vachher on 05-10-25
By: Isabel Allende, and others
-
Atmosphere: A GMA Book Club Pick
- A Love Story
- By: Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio, Julia Whelan, Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting listeners to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.
-
-
This has soared to the top of my all-time favs!
- By Kimberley on 06-03-25
-
Rabbit Moon
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Haigh
- Narrated by: Katharine Chin, Yu-Li Alice Shen
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak get a phone call no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, teaching English in China during a college gap year, has been critically injured in a hit and run accident. At a Shanghai hospital they wait at her bedside, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
-
-
dark
- By Maryanne T. on 04-30-25
By: Jennifer Haigh
-
Raising Hare
- A Memoir
- By: Chloe Dalton
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.
-
-
A beautiful reading of a heartfelt story. I didn’t want it to end.
- By Sparrow on 04-02-25
By: Chloe Dalton
-
It's a Love Story
- By: Annabel Monaghan
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the USA Today bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script, a novel about a former adolescent TV punch line who has left her awkwardness in the rearview mirror thanks to a fake-it-till-you-make-it mantra that has her on the cusp of success, until she tells a lie that sets her on a crash course with her past, spending a week on Long Island with the last man she thinks might make her believe in love.
-
-
Fun Read
- By Megan on 06-09-25
By: Annabel Monaghan
-
The Safekeep
- By: Yael van der Wouden
- Narrated by: Stina Nielsen, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.
-
-
This One Should Win
- By K. Bella Bestia on 10-13-24
-
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
- By: V. E. Schwab
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Katie Leung, Marisa Calin
- Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.
By: V. E. Schwab
-
The Emperor of Gladness
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: James Aaron Oh
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak.
-
-
Compelling characters, hopeful and sad
- By MB on 05-20-25
By: Ocean Vuong
-
My Friends
- A Novel
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier.
-
-
How can he keep doing this? Another masterpiece!
- By Blue on 05-08-25
By: Fredrik Backman
-
The Berry Pickers
- By: Amanda Peters
- Narrated by: Aaliya Warbus, Jordan Waunch
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.
-
-
basic
- By CF on 03-04-24
By: Amanda Peters
-
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
-
-
Beautifully written, but painful.
- By NB on 06-10-19
By: Ocean Vuong