Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
On Beauty Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Stream / Download

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

On Beauty

AuthorZadie Smith

NarratorPeter Francis James

Duration18h 48m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Novels

PublisherPenguin Books Ltd

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?
Set between New England and London, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kipps - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

This Mournable Body Cover

This Mournable Body

Author: Tsitsi Dangarembga

This Mournable Body

Author Tsitsi Dangarembga

Narrator Adenrele Ojo

Duration 11h 32m

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself,...

View Book
Swing Time Cover

Swing Time

Author: Zadie Smith

Swing Time

Author Zadie Smith

Narrator Pippa Bennett-Warner

Duration 13h 50m

An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty. Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly...

View Book
Queen Bee Cover

Queen Bee

Author: Jane Fallon

Queen Bee

Author Jane Fallon

Narrator Jo Joyner

Duration 10h 8m

Brought to you by Penguin. Welcome to The Close - a beautiful street of mansions, where gorgeous Stella is the indisputable Queen Bee . . . It is here that Laura, seeking peace and privacy after her marriage falls apart, rents a tiny studio. Unfortunately, her arrival upsets suspicious Stella - who fears Laura has designs on her fianc‚, Al. W...

View Book
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill Cover

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Author: Abbi Waxman

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Author Abbi Waxman

Narrator Jessica Preddy

Duration 9h 28m

Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To....

View Book
Postscript Cover

Postscript

Author: Cecelia Ahern

Postscript

Author Cecelia Ahern

Narrator Amy Huberman

Duration 9h 52m

When Holly Kennedy is approached by a group calling themselves the PS, I Love You Club, her safe existence is turned on its head. Inspired by hearing about her late husband Gerry's letters, the club wants Holly to help them with their own parting messages for their loved ones to discover after they're gone. Holly is sure of one thing: no way is she...

View Book
White Teeth Cover

White Teeth

Author: Zadie Smith

White Teeth

Author Zadie Smith

Narrator Various

Duration 18h 33m

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of White Teeth by Zadie Smith, read by Pippa Bennett-Warner, Sagar Arya, Ray Panthaki and Lenny Henry. Zadie Smith's White Teeth is a classic international bestseller and an unforgettable portrait of London One of the most talked about fictional debuts ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel,...

View Book
The Embassy of Cambodia Cover

The Embassy of Cambodia

Author: Zadie Smith

The Embassy of Cambodia

Author Zadie Smith

Narrator Zadie Smith

Duration 55m

Revisiting the terrain of her acclaimed novel NW, The Embassy of Cambodia is another remarkable work of fiction from Zadie Smith. 'The fact is, if we followed the history of every little country in the world - in its dramatic as well as its quiet times - we would have no space left in which to live our own lives or apply ourselves to our necessary...

View Book
Summer At the Comfort Food Cafe Cover

Summer At the Comfort Food Cafe

Author: Debbie Johnson

Summer At the Comfort Food Cafe

Author Debbie Johnson

Narrator Dawn Murphy

Duration 9h 50m

The Comfort Food Cafe is perched on a windswept clifftop at what feels like the edge of the world, serving up the most delicious cream teas, beautifully baked breads and carefully crafted cupcakes. For tourists and locals alike, the ramshackle cafe overlooking the beach is a beacon of laughter, companionship and security - a place like no other, a...

View Book
Everything I Never Told You Cover

Everything I Never Told You

Author: Celeste Ng

Everything I Never Told You

Author Celeste Ng

Narrator Cassandra Campbell

Duration 10h 8m

Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt, and Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to hold someone accountable. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who may b...

View Book
Nw Cover

Nw

Author: Zadie Smith

Nw

Author Zadie Smith

Narrator Karen Bryson

Duration 10h 56m

North West London comes vividly to life in NW, the new novel by the author of the bestselling White Teeth and Man Booker-shortlisted On Beauty. This is the story of a city. The north-west corner of a city. Here you'll find guests and hosts, those with power and those without it, people who live somewhere special and others who live nowhere at all....

View Book