Brideshead Revisited: Booktrack Edition

By: Evelyn Waugh

Narrated by: Jeremy Irons

Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Brideshead Revisited: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!

The wellsprings of desire and the impediments to love come brilliantly into focus in Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece - an audiobook that immerses us in the glittering and seductive world of English aristocracy in the waning days of the empire.

Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity.

Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

©2012 Evelyn Waugh (P)2020 Little, Brown & Company

Great story, great performance!

I’d read this book before and watched the series. So I loved listening to this version. Great performance. Great literature.

This is the way to do it

Yes, it takes a little longe than reading it myself, perhaps as much as twice as long, but soooo worth it. I had the lovely Everyman library version and I read along while listening to Jeremy Irons read. It really allowed me to get inside the space of the book.

Brilliantly written and beautifully read

This is a stunning audible recording. I’d read the book and seen the show, but this recording brought the story to an entirely different plain. Irons savors the words, luxuriates, breathes them in…and honestly stopped me in my tracks a few times. I even missed the exit to my home! I had forgotten what an enormous pleasure it is to hear/read a book for more than plot. I’d forgotten what great writing feels like. What an amazing combination of writer and performer! Brilliant.

Superb, Thought-provoking Masterpiece

Waugh was a consummate craftsman, and the combination of his gorgeous prose and Jeremy Irons’ performance gave it an elegiac majesty that absorbed me completely. By chance I came to the end of the book at the middle of Holy Week and I could not have asked for a better pairing. Like many others I could have done without the musical background, which I found distracting.

don't add music to audiobooks

and in case you do decide to add music at least sync it with the narration

except for one thing

did not enjoy the volume of the musical score in the background in several chapters. it was too loud, and made it hard to hear the reader. it was quite irritating.

A stirring classic

This is a fine, thoughtful piece of literature performed by the first rate actor Jeremy Irons. The performance was stellar. I was never able to get through the BBC production of the novel that he starred in. I don’t know why, but this did it for me. It has to be among the best audiobooks ever recorded.

Loved this one!

Beautiful story, great prose and I thought the narration by Jeremy Irons was top notch. Some people said they didn’t like the background accompanying music but I thought it added a nice touch. Would recommend this book for people who enjoy period pieces.

20th Century Classic

What can one say ? An absolute classic read by an outstanding actor. I fell in love with the story some 40 years ago when the Granada Television adaptation came out, and have read the book twice before buying the audio book - no one could play Charles Ryder better than Jeremy Irons. Exceptional !!

A love letter to a dead age.

Through Waugh’s genius prose becomes poetry. Irons is the perfect narrator. I was thoroughly enchanted.