Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
Death of an Ordinary Man Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Open Audiobook

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

Death of an Ordinary Man

AuthorSarah Perry

NarratorLydia Leonard

Duration5h 12m

CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, Biography and Autobiography, Mind, Body and Spirit

PublisherRandom House

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

Brought to you by Penguin.
Death of an Ordinary Man is an unforgettable account of this universal aspect of life. It is not a book about grief: it is a book about dying, and it is a book about family, and care and love.

Sarah Perry's father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. Until then he'd been a healthy and happy man: he loved stamp collecting, fish and chips, comic novels, his local church, and the Antiques Roadshow. He was in some ways a very ordinary man, but as he began to die, it became clear how extraordinary he was.
Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David themselves at home, eventually with the help of carers and visiting nurses. They bathed and cleaned and dressed him, comforted him in pain, sat with him through waking and sleeping, talked to him, sang to him, prayed with him. Day by day and hour by hour, they witnessed what happens to the body and spirit as death approaches and finally arrives.
© Sarah Perry 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

After Me Comes the Flood Cover

After Me Comes the Flood

Author: Sarah Perry

After Me Comes the Flood

Author Sarah Perry

Narrator Leighton Pugh

Duration 6h 30m

One hot summer's day, John Cole decides to leave his life behind. When his car breaks down on an isolated road, he goes looking for help and stumbles upon a grand but dilapidated house. Its residents claim to have been waiting for him.... There's Hester, their controlling host; Alex and Claire, siblings full of childlike wonder; the mercurial Eve;...

View Book
A Day Like Today Cover

A Day Like Today

Author: John Humphrys

A Day Like Today

Author John Humphrys

Narrator John Humphrys

Duration 13h 3m

For more than three decades, millions of Britons have woken to the sound of John Humphrys's voice. As presenter of Radio 4's Today, the nation's most popular news programme, he is famed for his tough interviewing, his deep misgivings about authority in its many forms, and his passionate commitment to a variety of causes. A Day Like Today charts Joh...

View Book
Innocent Cover

Innocent

Author: Cathy Glass

Innocent

Author Cathy Glass

Narrator Denica Fairman

Duration 8h 55m

Innocent is the shocking true story of little Molly and Kit, siblings, aged three years and 18 months, who are brought into care as an emergency after suffering non-accidental injuries. Aneta and Filip, the children's parents, are distraught when their children are taken into care. Aneta maintains she is innocent of harming them, while Filip appear...

View Book
Face It Cover

Face It

Author: Debbie Harry

Face It

Author Debbie Harry

Narrator Clem Burke

Duration 8h 53m

Debbie Harry is a musician, actor, activist and the iconic face of New York City cool. As the front-woman of Blondie, she and the band forged a new sound that brought together the worlds of rock, punk, disco, reggae and hip-hop to create some of the most beloved pop songs of all time. With all the grit, grime, and glory recounted in intimate detail...

View Book
The Essex Serpent Cover

The Essex Serpent

Author: Sarah Perry

The Essex Serpent

Author Sarah Perry

Narrator Juanita Mcmahon

Duration 14h 45m

London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne's controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis - a curious, obsessive boy - she leaves town for Essex, in the hope that fresh air and open space will provide refuge. On arrival, rumours reach them that the mythical Essex Serpent, once sai...

View Book
Enlightenment Cover

Enlightenment

Author: Sarah Perry

Enlightenment

Author Sarah Perry

Narrator Alex Jennings

Duration 13h 5m

Brought to you by Penguin.Unlikely best friends Thomas and Grace are bound together by questions of faith, love and astronomy in this dazzling summer read from the #1 bestselling author.Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirit...

View Book
An Interview With Sarah Perry Cover

An Interview With Sarah Perry

Author: Listening Books, Sarah Perry

An Interview With Sarah Perry

Author Listening Books, Sarah Perry

Narrator Sarah Perry

Duration 17m

An interview with Sarah Perry, the author of The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood. Photo credit Jamie Drew.

View Book
Healing Developmental Trauma Cover

Healing Developmental Trauma

Author: Aline Lapierre

Healing Developmental Trauma

Author Aline Lapierre

Narrator Tom Perkins

Duration 10h 29m

Explaining that an impaired capacity for connection to self and to others underlies most psychological and many physiological problems, clinicians Laurence Heller, PhD, and Aline LaPierre, PsyD, introduce the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), a unified approach to developmental, attachment, and shock trauma that emphasizes working in the pres...

View Book
For the Record Cover

For the Record

Author: David Cameron

For the Record

Author David Cameron

Narrator David Cameron

Duration 30h

David Cameron was Conservative Party leader during the largest financial crash in living memory. The Arab Spring and the Eurozone crisis both started during his first year as prime minister. The backdrop to his time in office included the advent of ISIS, surging migration and a rapidly changing EU. He sets out how he helped turn around Britain's ec...

View Book
Gone Cover

Gone

Author: Min Kym

Gone

Author Min Kym

Narrator Rebecca Yeo

Duration 8h 10m

Penguin presents the complete unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Gone by Min Kym, read by Rebecca Yeo. 'The hours fell away as I read this spellbinding tale of love, loss, and above all devotion to art. You probably don't know what it feels like to be a child prodigy or a world class violinist, but you will after reading this luminous me...

View Book