On Beauty
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On Beauty
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Narrated by:
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Peter Francis James
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By:
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Zadie Smith
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Winner of The Women's Prize
Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2015
Sunday Times Top 10 Best Seller
From the acclaimed author of Swing Time, White Teeth and Grand Union, discover a brilliantly funny and deeply moving story about love and family
Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?
Set between New England and London, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families—the Belseys and the Kipps—and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the confusions—both personal and political—of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.
©2005 Zadie Smith (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
What listeners say about On Beauty
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sam
- 19-12-23
Great book and recording but there are many glitches
Someone at Penguin needs to proof check this as there are many technical glitches (skips/repeats)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Matthew Stables-Burrows
- 27-02-24
Fantastic presentation, because it’s bbc books America
The narrator is perfect and great at an English accent. The novel is cool AF.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Karen Erdpohl
- 04-09-21
Beautiful
This book has sat on my bookshelf since the year it was published. Bought because I do judge books by their cover. I struggled to get into the paper version so I gave the audible a go and Peter Francis James brought the book to life with a myriad of accents. This is a long and enjoyable listen. There are technical issues with the recording, it jumps like a scratched record at several point. This is surprising as it’s produced by the BBC America, but the story and performance outweigh the technical shortcomings. Yes I would recommend.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- boo65
- 28-07-24
Wonderful narration and story
I loved this from beginning to end - a great comedy about campus life and the snobbery of ego driven academics. Brilliant!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Samina Anwary
- 12-05-22
Incredibly written & performed
But the sound jumps and scratches in places. needs to be rerecorded because those bits are jarring
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 05-02-23
Good story spoiled by poor recording
This audible book frequently skips and jumps. Other reviewers have commented on this, perhaps it is time for the publisher to rectify it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Zahraa Scott
- 13-04-24
Loved it
Subtly hilarious, deeply nostalgic and incredibly nuanced character development. This was my fave Zadie Smith novel ever.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jemimah H
- 08-08-22
Great book but the recording is broken
Zadie Smith is just astounding.
But unfortunately this recording is like how tapes used to go when you unwound them; at points it’s fine, but then it jumps around and sounds weird.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Ruth Purle
- 26-08-21
Overall an enjoyable book but the recording had technical problems - jumping in parts!
The recording had a few blips along the way which I’ve never experienced with an Audible book before. It happened on half a dozen occasions through the book and spoilt the listening in parts. The story was lovely although I found the end a little insipid! I chose this after listening to Graham Norton’s book club and was pleased overall.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- SM Davis
- 18-01-23
mixed thoughts
The narrator was good and did all the different voices very well.
I did find the book quite long, and the subject matter did not appeal a huge amount.
The atmosphere in the university was well depicted, and the characters well drawn and interesting.
The dramatic moments were well concocted, and the different strands of the plot were well brought together at the end.
There was a definite climax at the end. The reader is left hanging and wondering what happens, which I quite like.
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