Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The Things They Carried
- Narrated by: Bryan Cranston
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
Buy Now for £14.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Editor reviews
Summary
This modern classic and New York Times best seller was a finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award and has become a staple of American classrooms. Hailed by The New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling", The Things They Carried’s portrayal of the boots-on-the-ground experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War is a landmark in war writing. Now, three-time Emmy Award winner Bryan Cranston, star of the hit TV series Breaking Bad, delivers an electrifying performance that walks the book’s hallucinatory line between reality and fiction and highlights the emotional power of the spoken word.
The soldiers in this collection of stories carried M-16 rifles, M-60 machine guns, and M-79 grenade launchers. They carried plastic explosives, hand grenades, flak jackets, and landmines. But they also carried letters from home, illustrated Bibles, and pictures of their loved ones. Some of them carried extra food or comic books or drugs. Every man carried what he needed to survive, and those who did carried their shattering stories away from the jungle and back to a nation that would never understand.
This audiobook also includes an exclusive recording “The Vietnam in Me,” a recount of the author’s trip back to Vietnam in 1994, revisiting his experience there as a soldier 25 years before, read by Tim O’Brien himself.
The Things They Carried was produced by Audible Studios in partnership with Playtone, the celebrated film and television production company founded by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and producer of the award-winning series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about The Things They Carried
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 24-12-14
What is a true war story?
What is a true war story? Can there ever be such a thing?
Tim O'Brien ponders this and explains that there cannot, at least not really. It is not short stories or non-fiction or a novel, but some of all these things and these tales and memories and anecdotes of Vietnam all coalesce into a book with great gravit, punch and poetry. Here the war is so intense that it overrules all else and there is an authentic and truthful power in the layers of the narrative that can't be described, at least by me.
Bryan Cranston's reading is wonderful.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AReader
- 29-11-18
Just not for me
So far I've just literally heard lists of things the soldiers carried with them. This may be a powerful meditation (and Bryan Cranston is a good reader) but I was hoping for more information. There isn't a narrative. I'm already convinced by the ^war is hell^ story and don't need to be immersed in any more horror, so I will return this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 28-12-20
Brilliant
Cranston does a excellent job of reading this brutally honest portrait of the Vietnam experience from a grunts perspective without all the false glory seeking crap you find in some books about Vietnam. Tim o brien works wonders with descriptions and how it actually is.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Simone Chalkley
- 21-01-24
Raw, gritty, devastating, moving, unforgettable
I am not usually into war stories but we studied a small section of this at uni for creative writing and I became hooked. I started listening to this a very long time ago and a bit over halfway a particular passage was so visceral it shocked me into fewling quite sick and it took me a long time to revisit it. I'm glad I did. It's an insightful and moving tale made up of many tales in the Vietnam War, not necessarily true, but each told to convey the emotions and thoughts of a soldier who was too cowardly (his words) not to fight. Gripping, funny, grotesque, moving. Unforgettable. A great bonus feature at the end too. Thank you.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 03-10-23
Fantastic
fantastic narration. not just a great war book, but a great book. brilliantly written. a favourite
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- JPJEEP26
- 01-04-22
Unforgiving and Unforgotten
I've always wanted to read a book about the Viet Nam experience. Not the war as such. More what it was actually like to be 20, in 1968, in a foreign country fighting an enemy who were almost part of the landscape. To be utterly alien to the location, the culture and the people. This book was that great first book. Narrated perfectly by Cranston and fully deserving of its near cult status. Hard to tell story from fact, biography from autobiography, a blur of the picture but occasionally freeze framing you on an image so clear it's hard to focus on the next sentences. Yes, it's got the gore, yes it's got the violence, yes it's got the insane anecdotes of war woven throughout but these are almost superfluous. The book is about love, life, death and the undead. If you're looking for Rambo or Chuck Norris or Flight of the Valkyries, rent a movie. If you want 'Nam, seen, heard and felt through the boots and soul of a 21 yr old boy soldier and the effect the place had on him and all he served with, read this book.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- DAN MARTIN
- 28-10-21
excellent
Having read the book myself a few years ago, it had quite an impact in its total honesty. A very different account of this pointless war and a pitch black chapter in american history. Bryan Cranstons narration fits beautifully and the bonus from Tim at the end is superb. Thankyou
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steve
- 17-10-21
Visceral and unflinching
Am amazing account of what war does to people.
It’s too brutal for me in places and some aspects of it will take some forgetting.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Duncan Connell
- 17-05-21
One man's story, the tales of many.
This book was hard to put down. It takes you on a roller coaster of emotions as you listen to the experiences. Trying to decide which are fiction you which are the authors experiences.
This isn't a book about guts and glory, it's about the human mind and the many corridors it wanders to keep surviving.
Narrated perfectly by Brian Cranston.
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
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 22-02-17
Thoroughly Good.
Possibly the best book listened to for a long while. True fear, love, loss, heartache. Definitely recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful