Birdsong

By: Sebastian Faulks

Narrated by: Samuel West

Brought to you by Penguin.


Birdsong is a mesmerising story of love and war spanning three generations between WW1 and present day.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

1910. Amiens, Northern France. Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman, arrives in the French city to stay with the Azaire family. He falls in love with unhappily married Isabelle and the two enter a tempestuous love affair. But, with the world on the brink of war, the relationship falters. With his love for Isabelle forever engraved on his heart, Stephen volunteers to fight on the Western Front and enters the unimaginable dark world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land. From award-winning writer Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong is an exceptionally moving and unforgettable portrait of the ruthlessness of war and the indestructability of love.

'Magnificent - deeply moving' Sunday Times

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Also available by Sebastian Faulks as part of the French trilogy series:
The Girl at the Lion d'Or
Charlotte Gray


© Sebastian Faulks 1993 (P) Penguin Audio 2005

©1993 Sebastian Faulks; (P)2005 Random House Audiobooks

Critic reviews

Magnificent - deeply moving

With Birdsong Faulks has produced a mesmerizing story of love and war... This book is so powerful that as I finished it I turned to the front to start again

Amazing... I have read it and re-read it and can think of no other novel for many, many years that has so moved me or stimulated in me so much reflection on the human spirit

An overpowering and beautiful novel... Ambitious, outrageous, poignant, sleep-disturbing, Birdsong is not a perfect novel, just a great one (Simon Schama)

Engrossing, moving, and unforgettable

This is a great love story (Prue Leith)

One of the finest novels of the last forty years

This is literature at its very best: a book with the power to reveal the unimagined, so that one's life is set in a changed context. I urge you to read it

So powerful is this recreated past that you long to call Birdsong perfect

A powerful novel that is difficult to put down

Meh.

I have read the book and the abridged audio version was a let down. Felt disjointed and it left out parts that stuck with me previously. If you have no idea of the story it could be fine for you but an unabridged version is what is really needed. Not this...

Fantastic narration of a modern classic

Samuel West's immaculate narration is the perfect gloss to one of the top books of the 90s and one of my personal favourites of all time. Obviously, if you have read the book before, then an abridged audio version is never going to be quite the same but, if you haven't, then you should find this presentation highly compelling and the abridgements are not apparant. It's a great story, impeccably researched and delivered with care. 4 stars is much as I can give an abridged book, and this earns each of them.

Very Moving

Birdsong depicts the close-up horrors of war better than any book I've ever read. The love story at the beginning was totally overshadowed by the scenes of battle (and in fact, it seemed rather unnecessary and digressive). A beautifully written novel, andt the narrator did it justice.

Solid Period Piece

Any additional comments?

This would make a great movie. It has a little bit of a Lifetime-feel to it but solid and interesting.

Magnificent Narration of a Great Book

I've listened to Peter Firth's wonderful narration of the Unabridged Version before and absolutely love this grand and passionate war story.

This version, however, delighted (or moved, to be exact) me even more. Samuel West's extraordinarily smoothing voice brought me into deep thought or let me burst into tears so spontaneously that I can't help feeling being part of the story.

Yet the loss of certain details in this abridged version is quite upsetting, especially the part where Stephen and Weir decided whether or not to kill a bird in the tunnel, or the soldiers singing the chessy ballad together to celebrate their being alive. After all, it's the details that impressed me the most when I first read it.