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Title: Harvest

Author: Jim Crace

Narrator: John Keating

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-12-13

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

As late summer steals in and the final pearls of barley are gleaned, a village comes under threat. Over the course of seven days, Walter Thirsk sees his hamlet unmade: the manor house set on fire, the harvest blackened, three new arrivals punished, and his neighbours accused of witchcraft. But something even darker is at the heart of his story, and he will be the only man left to tell it

Members Reviews:

A good (maybe great) book poorly read

What made the experience of listening to Harvest the most enjoyable?

This timeless narrative is very well written, with evocative descriptions of a rural English world that is long gone but deeply embedded in our cultural psyche. I enjoyed it while listening to this short book, but have been surprised how much it has stuck with me - I've often found myself thinking back on it.

What didnt you like about John Keatings performance?

The reading performance I found distractingly bad - possibly the worst I've experienced yet. I found his voice and some of his pronunciations (e.g. 'manny' instead of 'many') irritating, and whenever he did a voice for a character he seemed to put on the same exaggerated squeeky village simpleton voice. This is clearly a matter of taste though, as others have rated the performance highly.

Any additional comments?

I've read/listened to 3 of the 6 books on the 2013 Booker shortlist so far, and I think this would have been a worthy winner.

Very good.

I love it when a novel takes me to a place or time that's new and unknown to me, and 'Harvest' certainly did that. The vague impressions I have of that period in British history, around 1800, when the aristocratic landowners were able to clear the common lands of the common people, in order to use the forests for the much more profitable rearing of sheep, were brought to wonderful, brutal life by the author.

What I like about this novel, though, is that there are no innocents. The village is ancient, but not venerable; it's not a bucolic paradise but a closeted little world with harsh justice and a stagnant gene pool. The indigents may be innocent of the crimes they're accused of, but they're unforgiving and vengeful in the end; and the landlord, and his people, are, for better or worse, responsible for preparing the way for the industrial revolution and our modern world ... So we're all found wanting in this tale. It's well narrated (though the narrator's idiosyncratic pronunciation of 'cloth' as 'clorth' was distracting) and I'll definitely be searching out more of Jim Crace's work.

Great book - weird pronounciations!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

With warnings about the odd pronouciations. A shame, as the book is so original.

What other book might you compare Harvest to, and why?

Unlike anything I've read - I suppose the nearest might be Hardy's novels, with accounts of rural events in his time.

What three words best describe John Keatings performance?

Clear, Not English?

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Too long.

Any additional comments?

I felt that the reader sounded too young for the protagonist who was the narrator, but the most irritating thing was his peculiar pronounciation of words which cropped up a lot, like 'clorth' for cloth for instance, which for me upset the flow of the narrative.