Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
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.
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.
Ishmael cover art

Ishmael

By: Daniel Quinn
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Morgan Freeman
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

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

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

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.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Four Agreements cover art
The Holy cover art
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The New Complete Edition cover art
Lilith: A Snake in the Grass cover art
At Work in the Ruins cover art
The Devil You Know cover art
The Just City cover art
Pathfinder cover art
Brave New World cover art
Meditations cover art
Sophie's World cover art
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass cover art
The Screwtape Letters cover art
Here Comes Earth cover art
Anthem cover art
The Fountainhead cover art

Summary

One of the most beloved and best-selling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special 25th anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author.

“A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet...laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.” (The New York Times Book Review)

Teacher Seeks Pupil.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world.
Apply in person.

It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime.

So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla - a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankind’s place in it.

In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves?

Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy, available on audio:
Ishmael • My Ishmael • The Story of B

Praise for Ishmael

“As suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.” (The Austin Chronicle)

“Before we’re halfway through this slim book...we’re in [Daniel Quinn’s] grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet from ourselves. We want to change our lives.” (The Washington Post)

“Arthur Koestler, in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of the dinosaur, formulated what he called the Dinosaur’s Prayer: ‘Lord, a little more time!’ Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time.” (Los Angeles Times)

©1992 Daniel Quinn (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet...laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“[Quinn entraps] us in the dialogue itself, in the sweet and terrible lucidity of Ishmael’s analysis of the human condition.... It was surely for this deep, clear persuasiveness of argument that Ishmael was given its huge prize.” (The Washington Post

“It is as suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction book you are likely to read this or any other year.” (The Austin Chronicle

What listeners say about Ishmael

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    53
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    45
  • 4 Stars
    12
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    47
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    3

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

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

Hard to describe.

I was recommended this book without the person going into too much detail about what it was about.
The recommendation was based on our shared interest in exploring long told and firmly held beliefs that permeate our society and our lives.
So I began listening and the skilful way the author covers such a topic, while at the same time not being patronising kept me listening. The writing teases out the main message until the reader is fully ready. And then delivers it in an unforgettable few words. Totally decimating a long told and firmly held belief of my own upbringing, and that of most of us.
A life changing book. It you allow it to be.

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

Pretentious

This book is the equivalent to modern art. One dot of paint in the middle of a blank canvas that everyone claims to 'understand' because they don't want to appear stupid. But in reality it means nothing.
This book is one person's opinion, and honestly just has no basis in reality as we know it for the most part.
I have downloaded over 50 books on Audible and despite not enjoying some of them, I have always managed to finish them. But then I made the mistake of purchasing Ishmael...

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Life changing read!!!

Ishmael is a teaching for life. It has turned my vision of the world, of our place as humans in the world and our relationship with nature completely upside down! And for the better! A must must read.

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
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Al
  • 05-10-23

A promising start but soon tangents into marketing

i liked the idea behind the book. I appreciate the fact that it challenges ideas and takes the reader into new ways of thinking. Challenging our views on society..However I can't help but think this is pushing a particular religious viewpoint. the issue I have is that the narrative pace is too convenient. Many times I had questions which were left unanswered. responses that I would responded differently to and flabbergasted the reader responded so simply as they did. it's like a cake being served half done. I feel that there was in between marketing alll the time and especially the tease to read the other books. anyway, I was contemplating if I want to read the others. for now, I don't think so. But thank you for opening my eyes to this book.

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

Believe Ishmael

A book that opened my eyes when I didn’t believe they were close. Our human purposes and behaviors so gracefully explained. I think about the message of this book in many of my encounters ever since

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

Book for every human being

Incredible story. Each human being should read this, If there is a way how the improve humanity, I think this is a good place where to start.

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

One of the most eye opening books I've ever read

Spectacular and meaningful philosophy about how the world has come to be this way and human unsustainability, through the tongue-in-cheek lens of a surreal relationship between a man and a gorilla.

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

Way too didactic

I think I first heard about this work in a Stephen King interview and that was what prompted me to have a listen.
My problem with this book though is that it's not so much a story as a string of long conversations where one character educates another on everything about what is wrong with mankind. It gets very boring with all the great lessons being spelled out.
Lengthy philosophical discussions in a very educational style where the "teacher" likes to pose a question and have the pupil guess, so he can expertly lead him to the right answer.
It's a relatively short listen but I don't think I have the patience.

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

Great perspective

Really easy to listen to this book. I listened to it very quickly and was blown away at certain parts by concepts i hadn't quite considered before! Really interesting view of how we came to be here.

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

An unusual interview but very interesting.

The book helps to explain why we're headed toward the next extinction. We have, in a very short time, caused a lot of damage in the name of progress. This book confirmed a few of my thoughts and added light where I was unsure.
An interesting approach that removed what could have been seen as a 'sermon'.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!