-
The Sea
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $21.27
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Untouchable
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Bill Wallis
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons, the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his photograph is all over the papers. His disgrace is public, his position as curator of the Queen’s pictures terminated… Maskell writes his own testament, in an act not unlike the restoration of one of his beloved pictures, in order for the process of verification and attribution to begin.
-
-
Brilliant writer writes the most boring spy story
- By David on 05-15-12
By: John Banville
-
April in Spain
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax, despite the beaches, cafés, and the company of his disarmingly lovely wife. When he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at Las Acadas bar, it's hard at first to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him.
-
-
Brilliantly constructed; vintage Banville
- By EveryContinent on 10-22-21
By: John Banville
-
Ancient Light
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is there any difference between memory and invention? That is the question that fuels this stunning novel, written with the depth of character, the clarifying lyricism, and the heart-wrenching humor that have marked all of John Banville's extraordinary works. And it is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave as he plumbs the memories of his first - and perhaps only - love (he, just 15, the woman more than twice his age, the mother of his best friend; the situation impossible, thrilling, devouring, and finally devastating).
-
-
Banville at his best
- By Brian Datnow on 01-14-13
By: John Banville
-
Time Pieces
- A Dublin Memoir
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived. And as he guides us around the city, delighting in its cultural, architectural, political, and social history, he interweaves the memories that are attached to particular places and moments.
-
-
Entertaining book but John Lee stinks
- By Jeff Lacy on 07-07-21
By: John Banville
-
The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
-
-
wonder what navel-gazing sounds like?
- By Anonymous User on 04-13-22
By: John Banville
-
Give Unto Others
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 31
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brunetti is forced to confront the price of loyalty, to his past and in his work, as a seemingly innocent request leads him into troubling waters. What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It’s a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in Give Unto Others, Donna Leon’s splendid 31st installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series.
-
-
All the characters are back in their best form.
- By Cynthia on 03-19-22
By: Donna Leon
-
The Untouchable
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Bill Wallis
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons, the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his photograph is all over the papers. His disgrace is public, his position as curator of the Queen’s pictures terminated… Maskell writes his own testament, in an act not unlike the restoration of one of his beloved pictures, in order for the process of verification and attribution to begin.
-
-
Brilliant writer writes the most boring spy story
- By David on 05-15-12
By: John Banville
-
April in Spain
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax, despite the beaches, cafés, and the company of his disarmingly lovely wife. When he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at Las Acadas bar, it's hard at first to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him.
-
-
Brilliantly constructed; vintage Banville
- By EveryContinent on 10-22-21
By: John Banville
-
Ancient Light
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is there any difference between memory and invention? That is the question that fuels this stunning novel, written with the depth of character, the clarifying lyricism, and the heart-wrenching humor that have marked all of John Banville's extraordinary works. And it is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave as he plumbs the memories of his first - and perhaps only - love (he, just 15, the woman more than twice his age, the mother of his best friend; the situation impossible, thrilling, devouring, and finally devastating).
-
-
Banville at his best
- By Brian Datnow on 01-14-13
By: John Banville
-
Time Pieces
- A Dublin Memoir
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived. And as he guides us around the city, delighting in its cultural, architectural, political, and social history, he interweaves the memories that are attached to particular places and moments.
-
-
Entertaining book but John Lee stinks
- By Jeff Lacy on 07-07-21
By: John Banville
-
The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
-
-
wonder what navel-gazing sounds like?
- By Anonymous User on 04-13-22
By: John Banville
-
Give Unto Others
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 31
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brunetti is forced to confront the price of loyalty, to his past and in his work, as a seemingly innocent request leads him into troubling waters. What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It’s a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in Give Unto Others, Donna Leon’s splendid 31st installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series.
-
-
All the characters are back in their best form.
- By Cynthia on 03-19-22
By: Donna Leon
-
Fool Me Twice
- A Hidden Norfolk Thriller, Book 10
- By: J. M. Dalgliesh
- Narrated by: Greg Patmore
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a glittering career, spanning several decades representing the privileged and the wealthy, behind him the focus of the investigation inevitably turns toward cases and clients past and present, but was his death linked to his work or is there another, darker and far more sinister motive at play? No matter how successful, privileged or elevated in society one person can be, one universal rule applies; we all bleed the same.
-
-
Another Page Turner by J.M. Dalgliesh !
- By Can't Get Enuf Books on 05-22-22
By: J. M. Dalgliesh
-
East of Eden
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
-
-
Why have I avoided this Beautiful Book???
- By Kelly on 03-25-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Unconsoled
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Remains of the Day, here is a novel that is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. The setting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renowned pianist, has come to give the most important performance of his life. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic and infuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital clues to his own past.
-
-
Very satisfied with this book!!
- By Becker_Books on 08-06-18
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Red Sea
- The Cycle of Galand, Book 1
- By: Edward W. Robertson
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dante Galand was just a boy, his father, Larsin, sailed away to make his fortune. And never returned. Since then, Dante has become a great sorcerer. A ruler. A destroyer of kings. And he's just learned that his father is living on a forbidden island at the edge of the known world. Where he's dying of a mysterious plague. In the company of his friend, the swordsman Blays, Dante travels to the island. There, his magic can do nothing for his father.
-
-
tiresome and long-winded...not for me
- By LINCOLN on 10-19-18
-
Rules of Civility
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society - where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
-
-
Such a pleasant surprise
- By Elena on 05-11-12
By: Amor Towles
-
The History of Love
- By: Nicole Krauss
- Narrated by: George Guidall, Barbara Caruso, Julia Gibson, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicole Krauss' first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and her short fiction has been collected in Best American Short Stories. Now The History of Love proves Krauss is among our finest and freshest literary voices.
-
-
George Guidall awesome, rest pale
- By MMinSouthernCA on 12-05-15
By: Nicole Krauss
-
Brideshead Revisited
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evelyn Waugh's most celebrated work is a memory drama about the intense entanglement of the narrator, Charles Ryder, with a great Anglo-Catholic family. Written during World War II, the story mourns the passing of the aristocratic world Waugh knew in his youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities; in so doing it also provides a profound study of the conflict between the demands of religion and the desires of the flesh.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Vieux Carré Blonde on 12-12-12
By: Evelyn Waugh
-
Wolf Hall
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.
-
-
Divorced, beheaded, died...
- By Tim on 09-30-11
By: Hilary Mantel
-
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
-
The Paris Wife
- A Novel
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
-
-
Narration Issues
- By Sara on 10-06-15
By: Paula McLain
-
Life After Life
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.
-
-
Thought provking premise well executed
- By Carolyn on 11-19-15
By: Kate Atkinson
-
The Dovekeepers
- A Novel
- By: Alice Hoffman, Heather Lind
- Narrated by: Aya Cash, Jessica Hecht, Tovah Feldshuh
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over five years in the writing, Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing work ever, a triumph of imagination and research set in ancient Israel. The author of such iconic bestsellers as Illumination Night, Practical Magic, Fortune’s Daughter, and Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, Alice Hoffman is one of the most popular and memorable writers of her generation. Now, in The Dovekeepers, Hoffman delivers her most masterful work yet - one that draws on her passion for mythology, magic, and archaeology and her inimitable understanding of women.
-
-
Draining story - but beautifully written/told
- By Kate on 10-14-11
By: Alice Hoffman, and others
Publisher's Summary
The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife's death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child; a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. The seductive mother, the imperious father, the twins; Chloe, fiery and forthright, and Myles, silent and expressionless, in whose mysterious connection Max became profoundly entangled; each of them a part of the "barely bearable raw immediacy" of his childhood memories.
Interwoven with this story are Morden's memories of his wife, Anna, of their life together, of her death, and the moments, both significant and mundane, that make up his life now: his relationship with his grown daughter, Claire, desperate to pull him from his grief; and with the other boarders at the house where he is staying, where the past beats inside him "like a second heart".
What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, vividly dramatic, beautifully written novel, among the finest we have had from this extraordinary writer.
Critic Reviews
- Booker Prize Winner, Fiction, 2006
“Remarkable. . . . The power and strangeness and piercing beauty of [The Sea is] a wonder.” (The Washington Post Book World)
“With his fastidious wit and exquisite style, John Banville is the heir to Nabokov. . . . The Sea [is] his best novel so far.” (The Sunday Telegraph)
“A gem. . . . [The sea] is a presence on every page, its ceaseless undulations echoing constantly in the cadences of the prose. This novel shouldn't simply be read. It needs to be heard, for its sound is intoxicating. . . . A winning work of art.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Featured Article: Standout Contemporary Irish Authors You Should Give a Listen
Ireland may be a small country, but it's brimming with talent. Just listen to some of these popular contemporary Irish authors and see if you're not impressed with what this North Atlantic island has to offer to the literary community. Winning prestigious awards and topping best seller lists, today’s Ireland-born-and-bred authors are making a big impression on the literary world. Here are 10 contemporary Irish authors you should listen to now.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Sea
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Karen
- 07-20-07
OVERWHELMINGLY FINE
The book itself deserves the Booker prize it received and anything else possible in the way of awards. The contrast between the deeply sad story and the intensely gorgeous language evokes that paradox of despair expressed in beauty. I heard about the book in a round-about way and at first took it for a far older work, the author's willingness to lavish language, description, simile, so fooled me.
What makes THIS version so outstanding, however, is the reading by John Lee. His voice, phrasing, and emphasis are so perfect, his timing especially so apt, that I have trouble imagining the book without it.
40 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Lydia
- 02-22-11
Dark, depressing, realistic but so poetic!
Having a love of Ireland lead me to listen to this book, one of my first audible downloads. While this book has to be described as dark and somewhat depressing, the upside is that the writing is the work of an absolute poet and perfectionist of the English language. Sublime! Regarding the narrator, he is superb. He sounds as if he truly loves the book and each and every character.
I felt tentative about this book at first; the language complex, the story dark. But I encourage readers to stick with it because the past and present are subtely inter-woven, the characters mysterious and interesting, and every question falls neatly into place at the end without the need for any purfunctory happy endings or elevation of character. The story is essentially about life and death and the emotions surrounding them, told by a "man"!
So...if you are interested in literature but written recently, give this awesome book a read. I was very impressed!
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- David
- 11-03-10
Let it flow over you
I had not heard of Banville before this. What is it about the Irish? The command of the language, the humour, pathos, gentility, insight was astounding. At the end I felt I had lost a friend! Beautifully read, this was a true pleasure. It was a gentle journey that could have gone on and on! I recommend this anyone with an interest in the human condition!
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- dianamoore
- 09-04-06
the sea
I've been inside the heads of alot of old men lately; Mr Sammler's Planet,Gilead,The History of Love. I thought it was as good as these other novels. Without much real action or suspense, I was glad to journey with this old man to the end.
It was so beautifully written, insightful, humorous at times and just so human.
28 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 07-24-15
The past beats inside me like a second heart.
Over the years, I've collected about 2 or 3 Banville books. The first was given to me by a girl I liked in HS, but never got around to reading it or dating her. I was finally inspired (or moved?) to read 'the Sea' (and a couple other Ireland-themed novels) because I was going to spend a week with the wife in Ireland and there is nothing better to read about on vacation than sex*, death, loss and sand. It was beautiful. It was poetry. It was nearly perfect.
It is easy to borrow images and allusions from other critics. It is easy to park Banville next to Beckett or Joyce (yes, fine, they all dropped from their mother's wombs onto the same emerald island). It is easy to play the literary cousin game and compare Banville to Proust or Nabokov or Henry James. These things are all true. They are also all fictions and obvious short cuts.
I haven't read enough of Banville to say he measures up to Proust or Nabokov, but damn this book was fine. There really must be something in the water because I'm reading Enright's The Gathering right now and my first thought was 'da feck'? Two Man Bookers by Irish novelists about drowning, death and memory. I'm sure there is more than water and whiskey to this island.
Anyway, I loved and adored 'The Sea'. I used those slick little page-markers everytime I came across a line of Banville's that seemed especially quoteable. I gave up when I ran out of markers. The edge of the book looked like a colorful Stegosaurus with markers dancing up and down the pages.
John Lee, as alwasys, was amazing in this narration. He truely is one of the noble and great narration gods.
* On a side note. It is VERY rare that a writer can actually write about sex without making me want to run from the room. They either make it too clinical (like a doctor popping zits) or too silly (like the cover of a romance novel) or too ethereal (like clouds copulating). Joyce could do it. Nabokov could do it. And I'm proud to say Banville can do it too.
30 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- marebare60
- 02-03-18
Insight, wit and gorgeous prose
If you’re disappointed by books that seem to be recycling ideas, language, and stories you’ve heard somewhere else before, this book will provide much-needed relief.
The prose and creative use of the English language will remind you of Dickens, but the plot is very contemporary. The protagonist’s insights about life, death, and humanity in general, are profound. To top it off, It is read by someone with an Irish accent so thick It immediately whisks you away to the Irish seaside town in which the story takes place. The story is bittersweet verging on sad, but so is life.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- HIYBRID
- 02-21-13
A muddy stream.. of consciousness
OK first John Lee can read a phone book and it would be worth listeng to. This tale is about a person who spends time at THE SEASHORE, not at sea. He has a troubled tragic life and time and remembers it all with you as he writes this. He does not however remember it in any logical form but rather changes time and characters extensively. This left me as the reader lost to figure out what was what and when it all happened. This detracted from whatever story he was trying to tell. In movie form you might have visual cues as to where the pieces of his life fit together but I didn't like it here. Now you may say that I have no appreciation for his artfull stream of consciousness and rich descriptive language. The former no the latter yes.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Criticalthinker
- 11-02-18
Delicious writing!
This was some of the the most well-crafted prose I have encountered in years. The book is exquisite in all respects, and the narrator’s voice and presentation spot-on perfect. Highly recommended!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ann
- 11-07-21
Beautifully written Booker Prize Winner
This short and brilliant novel seemed particularly touching as I read It during a pandemic. It’s about death and life with numerous references to great art and literature. I personally enjoyed using both a paperback book and the audiobook together.. John Lee's narration was excellent as always.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Neil Stedman
- 10-09-21
Verbose and different narrator needed
I do think John Lee is a great narrator. He is not the right choice for this book. An Irish narrator would have been a better choice.
As for the book, the verbose flux is not my style.