Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead cover art

Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

By: Olga Tokarczuk
Narrated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

With Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, Man Booker International Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk returns with a subversive, entertaining noir novel.

In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her 60s, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken.

When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller by ‘one of Europe’s major humanist writers’ (Guardian) offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination - and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk’s native Poland.

©2020 Olga Tokarczuk (P)2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions
Crime Fiction International Mystery & Crime Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Fiction Mystery Detective Witty
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Aviator cover art
A Man's Place cover art
Bury Me Deep cover art
The Years cover art
The Partisan Heart cover art
Shutter cover art
The Address cover art
Burial Rites cover art
White Silence cover art
Crone cover art
A Poison Tree cover art
End of Summer cover art
The Big Dark Sky cover art
Lady Audley's Secret cover art

What listeners say about Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    119
  • 4 Stars
    53
  • 3 Stars
    46
  • 2 Stars
    14
  • 1 Stars
    10
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    100
  • 4 Stars
    40
  • 3 Stars
    26
  • 2 Stars
    16
  • 1 Stars
    20
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    110
  • 4 Stars
    50
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Strange little book

Bit wacky, dark and pretty funny at times. Reader felt like the exact right voice for it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Unusual

Reading other reviews, it is clear that this novel is very well received. The feelings about the narration is where the reviewers differ hugely.
As many others, I was sceptical about the translator reading the novel, and at the start I thought she was terribly stilted and her voice forced.
However, I soon grew accustomed to her voice and ended up thinking it had the perfect pitch. Even her male voices were the character’s (not the reader’s) attempt to imitate them in her head, invariably making fun of all these guys she loathed.
In all I thought it was a unique and surprising story with credible characters.

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Stellar performance

The story is highly evocative and I found myself swept up in the rich characters and the twisting plot. Well worth a listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Detailed, Dark and Funny!

I really enjoyed the story and felt as if I was there, which doesn’t happen with a lot of stories. I liked the narrator. I was glad of the outcome too!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Surrender to it.

Surrender any expectations of what you like. Meet the story and narration on their own terms and by the end you will love it.

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
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Narration gets in the way.

I understand the narration is an artistic choice, but in this case it makes the writing hard to take in. It’s great writing too, which makes it all the more frustrating the narrator sounds like a knock off Miss Marple. A shame.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Quirky and atmospheric

The storyline was very quirky and original - quite unexpected murder mystery. I loved the characters, especially the narrator. I also loved the descriptions of the settings. The performance was great, just how I imagined the narrator to be.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A strange and meditative, beautiful story

A cryptic, beautiful story that demands a second read. The writing, as always with Tokarczuk, is top notch. The narrator makes some pretty basic errors around phrasing (a few sentences don't actually make sense the way she has split them up) and a few mispronunciations which could be forgiven but her style is rather tedious to listen to with a fairly predictable range of character voices that begin to sound rather similar. Definitely a reader rather than a storyteller. Despite this, give the book a go (or even better find a different recording), it deserves your attention.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Amazing Ending

It’s a little slow to begin with but has an absolutely superb ending, making it thoroughly worth watching!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The narrator is wonderful

Bizarre and unusual but enjoyable too. Loved the character of Janina especially. She had a good heart

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!