The Ocean at the End of the Lane Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Neil Gaiman (Author, Narrator), Headline Digital (Publisher)

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The celebrated modern classic from the number one best-selling writer.

THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'BOOK OF THE YEAR'

AN ACCLAIMED WEST END THEATRE PRODUCTION

This is what he remembers, as he sits by the ocean at the end of the lane:

A dead man on the back seat of the car and warm milk at the farmhouse.

An ancient little girl and an old woman who saw the moon being made.

A beautiful housekeeper with a monstrous smile.

And dark forces woken that were best left undisturbed.

They are memories hard to believe, waiting at the edges of things. The recollections of a man who thought he was lost but is now, perhaps, remembering a time when he was saved....

NEIL GAIMAN.

WITH STORIES COME POSSIBILITIES.

Listening Length

5 hours and 43 minutes
Author

Neil Gaiman
Narrator

Neil Gaiman
Audible release date

18 June 2013
Language

English
Publisher

Headline Digital
ASIN

B00TSM3TYK
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	5 hours and 43 minutes
Author	Neil Gaiman
Narrator	Neil Gaiman
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	18 June 2013
Publisher	Headline Digital
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B00TSM3TYK
Best Sellers Rank	2,524 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 379 in Military Fantasy (Books) 435 in Fantasy (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

5 star		66%
4 star		21%
3 star		8%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Australia

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By Melanie Johnson

Lyrical, surreal, brilliant

Reviewed in Australia on 12 November 2019

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Simply a literary masterpiece. The story is such a pleasure to follow, and the way it's told ought to be an art form in itself. I keep coming back to this book, again and again - its effect never ceases to encapsulate me. Cheers, Neil Gaiman. You've done it again :D

Helpful

A Very Different Kind Of Magic.

Reviewed in Australia on 12 July 2015

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This is the kind of book that you discover by accident. You look at the cover, at the title, you pick it up, you read a bit. You put it down. There is something about it that sticks. So you get a copy. Then you read it, enjoying every page.
That is how I found this book. Very enjoyable. Very entertaining. A delightful read. A story that has you asking, where is this going? Where is the writer taking me. Not where I expected but I was glad of the destination.

One person found this helpful

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Nello

An adult fairy story brings the magic of childhood alive

Reviewed in Australia on 27 December 2014

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I always loved fairy stories and this is a wonderful fairy story for adults. Neil Gaiman has the gift of being able to describe the world through the eyes of a child and bring alive the wonderful mix of reality and fantasy children naturally inhabit and then weave it into a grown up story.
It is easy to read and easy to just give yourself over to the world of magic and enjoy the journey but at the same time it is not just frivolous or silly and there are adult considerations and dark forces which infringe on the child's eye view.

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Amanda

Adult fairy tale

Reviewed in Australia on 21 December 2015

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This book took me quite a while to really get into but once I established what was happening in this story I was hooked.
To explain this story line would expose too much of the journey the reader is taken on. I certainly recommend reading about Lettie's Ocean at the end of the Lane to readers which enjoy having to think outside the box, as it won't be everyone's idea of a great read.

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Michelle

Brilliant. You won't regret it.

Reviewed in Australia on 23 September 2014

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Wow. I wish I hadn't put off reading this!

An adult's fairytale, full of vivid imagination and wonder at remembering the striking and fantastical occurrences in childhood. It doesn't matter whether what the narrator experienced in the past is true or not, it's a wonder to revisit through a child's eyes and one of those stories that is all about the journey rather than the destination.

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David M

Not his best

Reviewed in Australia on 4 June 2017

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If you have never read a Neil Gaiman book, read Neverwhere, his best in my opinion and a fantastic book. Or read American Gods. This one was just ok. He is a great writer and knows how to tell a story. But unfortunately in this case the story is just a bit 'meh'.

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Mandy

Real writing

Reviewed in Australia on 25 October 2020

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Gain an managed to mix the real and the unreal realistically.

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Cathleen Taylor

An intriguing read.

Reviewed in Australia on 26 September 2021

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I was captivated and thoroughly enjoyed the journey, scarey bits and all! I'm still thinking about it, missing it, like I always do when I finish a good book.

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Top reviews from other countries

I expected a lot less

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 March 2021

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This is not a review of the book's literary merit, just the quality of the particular edition.

A nice treat for everyone fond of book illustrations.

Here’s the breakdown of the edition:
The binding is the main culprit here, as it tends to be nowadays. Unfortunately, it is hybrid, which means the individual signatures have been sewn but glued to each other afterwards. The book doesn’t open flat and with a volume of this thickness that can be a bother.
The paper is matte, slightly creamy-coloured, and of decent thickness (only barely see-through when you’re turning the pages).
The font size is regular, with good line spacing and huge margins from the edges, making the text easily readable.
The book itself is a perfect size for reading, about an inch longer in height than A5 books. However, it is quite heavy due to the thickness.
The overall design deserves a moment in the spotlight. The publisher did a great job there, favouring the illustrator’s work for the cover design over some graphic horror attempt made from scratch. Many books completely ruin the illustrator’s style with an unmatching, uninspired, flat design on the covers. Here, we get Elise Hurst’s own illustration with a hint of colour (unlike the black and white illustrations inside the covers). Equal treatment was given to the illustrated endpapers, also printed in shades of blue. The cover paper has a woven-like texture, imitating the feel of fabric, which is another delightful perk for readers who are tactile.
The biggest appeal is how generously illustrated the novel is. You get to witness a real symbiosis between a writer and an artist as nearly every page has some illustration on it, often merging with the text. There are countless full-page illustrations and several of them across both pages. The artistic style is quite subtle with loose lines, not too literal, giving the reader’s imagination plenty of opportunity to run wild.
Who is this edition for then? Neil Gaiman’s numerous fans go without saying, but book illustration enthusiasts should have plenty to appreciate, too. Book collectors, on the other hand, might be disappointed due to the hybrid binding but unless this particular novel gets a Folio Society treatment, I’d say it’s still a mile ahead of a common glued paperback.
As for the price, I’d rather pay more if it meant the book was smyth-sewn and as a result opened flat and was more durable.

That being said, I certainly didn’t expect to be barraged by over a hundred of beautiful illustrations and, for that reason alone, the edition is worth getting over an ordinary paperback, as long as you don’t struggle with heftier volumes.

Reviewing the edition published by Headline in 2019, illustrated by Elise Hurst, ISBN: 978 1 4722 6023 9, priced £14.78 at the time.

9 people found this helpful

P. Mortimer

My husband has been trying to get me to read Good Omens for about twenty years

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2018

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I bought this three years ago, and can finally now say I’ve read a Neil Gaiman book. My husband has been trying to get me to read Good Omens for about twenty years, and in fact, he read this book shortly after I bought it. However, despite liking Neil Gaiman, he said he found this extremely boring, so I was very much hoping my experience was a more positive one. I can say, I didn’t find it that bad, but I definitely didn’t fall in love with it.

I loved the film Coraline and the TV series of American Gods, but The Ocean at the End of the Lane really didn’t thrill me. I enjoy some fantasy, have been a fan of horror since I was a young girl, and absolutely love magical realism, but for some reason this story didn’t get inside me. Don’t get me wrong, it is well written, and clearly loved by many, but it felt like it was lacking something I can't quite put my finger on.

Maybe it’s unfortunate this was the first book I read by this author. Perhaps I would love his other books, or it’s just best I stick to enjoying his film and TV adaptations instead. I was also expecting an adult book, but this felt much more young adult to me, so that might explain some of my disappointment.

There were a couple of quotes I liked:

“Books were safer than other people anyway.”

“I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.”

Oh, and this book did have my mouth watering at the memory of Blackjacks, which were one of my favourite childhood sweets. Yum!

I have Neverwhere and Stardust on my to be read pile, so perhaps I’ll give one of them a go at some point. Who knows, maybe I’ll eventually get round to reading my husband’s old copy of Good Omens one day too.

21 people found this helpful

Tim

that is easy to read but touches on deeper themes in a ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2015

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The Ocean at the end of the Lane, is a straightforward book, that is easy to read but touches on deeper themes in a manner that an author like Neil Gaiman would attempt.
It captures the feel of growing up in the country really well, with common places made special and otherworldly simply by their location and a young imagination.
In some ways the story feels really rather sad, a melancholic vein running through, perhaps made more ‘real’ by the fact that the story is told retrospectively by the main protagonist.
A character that would appeal to many who grew up reading books, lost in adventures in their heads, he tells us that he found it hard to make friends as when younger. He seemed happy enough living with his mother, father and sister until a sequence of events brings him into contact with the Hempstock family, the youngest of them, a daughter Hettie, a few years older than himself.
They live in a farm at ‘the end of the lane’ with a pond in the middle of the yard, although Hettie calls it an ocean, a fanciful bit of imagination.
But as with stories of this type there is a lot more going on than initially meets the eye, and the new friends embark on an adventure to stop something dark seeping into the world. It is a threat that gradually escalates until only a sacrifice will appease.
The book draws on archetypes, most importantly in the form of the Hempstock family. There is a power in the form of three women, often shown as three witches although Gaiman makes them so much more in this instance. It is something that the late Terry Pratchett used and can be traced back through literature over the ages, indeed Gaiman himself made use of the trope in has Sandman series.
The Crone (rather unkind), the Mother and the Maiden – a role fulfilled by the Hempstock family. They seem somewhat archaic, but also seem to know a lot more about the world than anyone else. They are also filled with mystery and a gentle cunning. Hettie gives her age as eleven, but it is then established that the important question is how long has she been eleven?
For what is really quite a small book it is hidden with depth, from the characters themselves (especially the Hempstocks), touching on themes of loss, of greed, of suicide, of the feeling that there is more to the world than we could possibly believe, of courage and the willingness to sacrifice the most potent of things for friendship and more. Of horror that can lurk in the most innocuous of places and of the bravery it takes to find it.
It is also very unsettling, having one of the most disturbing scenes I have read in a long time as a father tries to drown his son.
Perhaps it is the mark of desperation falling upon a man finding his world being diminished by financial difficulties, but there is nothing more disturbing or terrifying than finding that one of the two people in the world that should be there for a child no matter what, is a bigger threat than anything else in the world.
It is a book that is both terrifying and wonderful, delivering a conclusion that is fitting and yet downbeat. A genuine telling and a charming read.

35 people found this helpful

Sleipnir

Like a Stephen King story for younger readers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2020

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I recently completed Neil Gaiman's course of lessons on MasterClass.com and decided it was the perfect time to read more of his work. The narrator of this book is a seven-year-old boy who has a rather unusual experience after his family's lodger commits suicide in their car. The people who live on the farm at the end of the lane provide him with some comfort in the immediate aftermath of what he saw, before the youngest of them, Lettie, exposes him to a world of mystery and fear that he never knew existed. What unfolds is akin to a Stephen King story for younger readers.

5 people found this helpful

Rebecca Carter

A beautifully written fable for adults

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2016

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I loved this book. Although only my second Neil Gaiman book he's definitely becoming one of my favourite authors. I just love his style of writing, the way it makes you feel and his ability to transport you to other times and places. His genre is unlike most other authors; it's his own. A mix of fantasy, paranormal, magical realism, adventure, adult/dark fairy tales and a smidgeon of subtle horror (minus lots of gore) blended with witty dialogue.

This book has a dreamlike quality to it, you are never quite sure what is real and what isn't. He manages to perfectly capture the essence of what it's like to be a child; the adventures, the insecurity, the not knowing, the hopelessness, the magic. The shadows on walls morphing into monsters in our minds, the dark of nighttime playing tricks on us - something we can all relate to and remember.
The writing is just beautiful, he manages to conjure up such vivid imagery with his creativity. The story is pretty short but quite sweet and simple. A middle aged man returns to his childhood home and is hit by memories of when he was 7 and his friendship with 11 year old (or infinitely old) Lettie, and what events were triggered after a man was found dead in the lane. You really need to read it to discover the magic for yourself, without knowing any details or where the story is taking you.

Apart from a few scenes this book could quite easily have been a kids book, well maybe an older child's book. I don't mean that in a bad way, but it could almost be a very dark and slightly more grown up Roald Dahl kind of book. Maybe because it's told mainly from a 7 year olds perspective, but i can imagine it would have both terrified and fascinated me as a child. As it is it makes a fantastic dark kind of fairy tale/bed time reading book for adults. The only problem is being able to put it down at a reasonable hour to attempt enough hours sleep before work!

15 people found this helpful

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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