Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

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.

Cloud Atlas

By: David Mitchell
Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith, Charles Collingwood, Jane Collingwood
Try for £0.00

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

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

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.

Summary

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2004.
Winner of the British Book Awards, Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year, 2005.

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified 'dinery server' on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation; the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each others' echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his extraordinary third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

©2005 David Mitchell (P)2005 Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories cover art
The Silmarillion cover art
A House for Mr. Biswas cover art
Hyperion cover art
Dallas Noir cover art
Elantris (2 of 3) [Dramatized Adaptation] cover art
New Spring cover art
Atlas Shrugged cover art
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 13 cover art
Rip-Off! cover art
Krampus cover art

Critic reviews

"David Mitchell has fast established himself as a novelist of considerable authority and power... Anyone who read his remarkable debut, or its successor, number9dream, will instantly recognise the characteristic moves and bold gestures of this amazing extravaganza. His novels have a gleefully kleptomaniac air, moving from the most tawdry thrills to thunderous, visionary spectacle; they are unlike anything else, and you emerge from them dazed, amazed, unsure of the exact nature of the overwhelming experience... a tremendous novel... Cloud Atlas is one of the most shamelessly exciting books imaginable... Mitchell is a novelist who knows exactly what he is doing, and one who is always one or two steps ahead of the reader; and at the end it seems to evaporate like the best dream you ever had." (Philip Hensher, Spectator)

What listeners say about Cloud Atlas

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    43
  • 4 Stars
    39
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    15
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    20
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    10
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    10
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1

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

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Not as memorable as I thought it might be

Nice idea fairly well written and well read. I think I woudloffer it a 3.5. It just lacked the untimely quality I was expecting. But worth a listen or read.

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
    5 out of 5 stars

An amazing story to listen to

Where does Cloud Atlas rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

At the top of my list

What did you like best about this story?

It was engaging and thought provoking and a story that kept me both intrigued and committed until the end .

Which scene did you most enjoy?

They were all so different that it is impossible to identify a particular scene .

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Numerous moments to be honest....

Any additional comments?

I highly recommend you to at least give this audio book a go.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Average

I decided to give this a listen before going to see the film but after listening to it gave the film a miss. Although interesting to begin with the jumping timelines and characters began to grate towards the end. The multiple narrators used for different characters also seemed good to begin with but in the end just became annoying, The story was good but I don't think I will be giving it another listen and will wait until the film is on TV.

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

What a great read!

I loved this book. Its structure is interesting with its interconnecting narratives, and the use of different actors really helps to delineate these clearly. It's so great to read a book that really demonstrates a breadth of imagination and style way beyond anything that I could come up with myself. Luisa Rey a compelling story, Robert Frobisher the most wonderfully flawed cad, Timothy Cavendish's desperate plight hilarious. Sloosha (apologies for spelling, know it must be wrong!) the only one that bemused me, I'll revisit it - certainly easier to grasp in audio than written version.
Anyway, if you like short stories this is a must, as it develops the genre further and tells them in ways which make you think about them long after you have finished reading. Always entertaining, by turns witty, alarming, uplifting, shocking, moving - a great read!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

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

Slightly disappointing

I’ve heard this book much pleased and I have to say it was interesting, but it was also a bit muddled. Perhaps a better book to read rather than listen to.

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
    2 out of 5 stars

Miscast. Hacked the book to pieces. Read in full.

This abridged version doesn't come close to doing justice to the actual book. The core storyline is there but most of Mitchell's fine writing and nearly all of the subtleties in humour are lost. There are some very talented readers (for Cavendish and Zachry) but others might make you feel uncomfortable; some are poorly cast indeed. If you are truly interested in the story, read the book or wait for the unabridged version-- which might be better done if it was one person reading (not trying to act) throughout. This is an incredible work of fiction and so much of its brilliance lies in Mitchell's way with words. Don't be short-changed by this version that is overly reductive and fails to capture the nuances of a truly great work.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful