The Valley of Unknowing
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
The Valley of Unknowing
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
David Ledoux
-
By:
-
Philip Sington
About this listen
In the twilight years of Communist East Germany, Bruno Krug, author of a single world-famous novel written twenty years earlier, falls for Theresa Aden, a music student from the West. But Theresa has also caught the eye of a cocky young scriptwriter who delights in satirizing Krug’s work.
Asked to appraise a mysterious manuscript, Bruno is disturbed to find that the author is none other than his rival. Disconcertingly, the book is good - very good. But there is hope for the older man: The unwelcome masterpiece is dangerously political. Krug decides that if his affair with Theresa is to prove more than a fling, he must employ a small deception. But in the Workers’ and Peasants’ State, knowing the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the betrayed, isn’t just difficult: It is a matter of life and death. Now the celebrated author and secret Stasi informer is ready to confess…
The Valley of Unknowing is both a moving and entertaining love story and a seductive thriller, one that pits the past against the future, commerce against creativity, and art against life.
©2012 Philip Sington (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Lake House
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 21 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20,888
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19,030
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18,983
Living on her family’s gorgeous lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, clever, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented fourteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure ...One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest son, Theo, has vanished without a trace.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Enjoyed the writing, but oy vey, this book
- By Jennifer S on 12-28-18
By: Kate Morton
-
1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,819
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,527
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 9,502
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WOW, WOW, WOW.
- By Amanda on 11-06-11
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
The Shadow of the Wind
- By: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,930
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,462
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,476
Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Have the book handy
- By Rebecca on 07-17-05
-
The Distant Hours
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,279
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,331
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,331
Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Right Mood At The Right Time
- By Simone on 11-13-12
By: Kate Morton
-
The Prague Sonata
- By: Bradford Morrow
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
In the early days of the new millennium, pages of a worn and weathered original sonata manuscript - the gift of a Czech immigrant living out her final days in Queens - come into the hands of Meta Taverner, a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury. To Meta's eye, it appears to be an authentic 18th-century work; to her discerning ear, the music rendered there is commanding, hauntingly beautiful, clearly the undiscovered composition of a master. But there is no indication of who the composer might be.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful topic, writer gets in the way
- By Amber's mom on 07-31-18
By: Bradford Morrow
-
Into the Blue
- By: Robert Goddard
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
Harry Barnett, a middle-aged failure, leads a shabby existence. He is reduced to caretaking a friend's villa on the island of Rhodes and working in a bar to earn his keep. Then a guest at the villa - a young woman he had instantly warmed to - disappears on a mountain peak. Under suspicion of her murder, Harry becomes obsessed by the mystery that has changed his life and begins to trace back the movements and encounters that led to the moment where she vanished into the blue.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thumping Good Listen
- By Anniebligh on 10-04-12
By: Robert Goddard
-
The Lake House
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 21 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20,888
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19,030
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18,983
Living on her family’s gorgeous lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, clever, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented fourteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure ...One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest son, Theo, has vanished without a trace.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Enjoyed the writing, but oy vey, this book
- By Jennifer S on 12-28-18
By: Kate Morton
-
1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 10,819
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,527
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 9,502
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WOW, WOW, WOW.
- By Amanda on 11-06-11
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
-
The Shadow of the Wind
- By: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,930
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,462
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,476
Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Have the book handy
- By Rebecca on 07-17-05
-
The Distant Hours
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,279
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,331
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,331
Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Right Mood At The Right Time
- By Simone on 11-13-12
By: Kate Morton
-
The Prague Sonata
- By: Bradford Morrow
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
In the early days of the new millennium, pages of a worn and weathered original sonata manuscript - the gift of a Czech immigrant living out her final days in Queens - come into the hands of Meta Taverner, a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury. To Meta's eye, it appears to be an authentic 18th-century work; to her discerning ear, the music rendered there is commanding, hauntingly beautiful, clearly the undiscovered composition of a master. But there is no indication of who the composer might be.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful topic, writer gets in the way
- By Amber's mom on 07-31-18
By: Bradford Morrow
-
Into the Blue
- By: Robert Goddard
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
Harry Barnett, a middle-aged failure, leads a shabby existence. He is reduced to caretaking a friend's villa on the island of Rhodes and working in a bar to earn his keep. Then a guest at the villa - a young woman he had instantly warmed to - disappears on a mountain peak. Under suspicion of her murder, Harry becomes obsessed by the mystery that has changed his life and begins to trace back the movements and encounters that led to the moment where she vanished into the blue.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Thumping Good Listen
- By Anniebligh on 10-04-12
By: Robert Goddard
-
Tightrope
- By: Simon Mawer
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 277
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 260
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 257
This captivating historical thriller brings back Marian Sutro, ex-special operations agent, and traces her romantic and political exploits in post-World War II London, where the Cold War is about to reshape old loyalties. As Allied forces close in on Berlin in spring 1945, a solitary figure emerges from the wreckage that is Germany. It is Marian Sutro, whose existence was last known to her British controllers in autumn 1943 in Paris.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Oh my, this is another one
- By Diana Pearson on 11-19-20
By: Simon Mawer
-
The Devil's Own Work: Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Alan Judd
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 2 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 38
After Edward, a rising young author, pens a savage review of the new novel by the world-famous O.M. Tyrell, he is surprised to receive an invitation to visit the old man at his villa in the south of France. The night of their meeting, Tyrell dies, and soon after, Edward's career mysteriously starts to soar as he earns fame, fortune and critical acclaim. But despite his achievements, Edward seems haunted, even tormented.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Short but great
- By Bambalamba on 02-24-20
By: Alan Judd
-
Leviathan
- By: Paul Auster
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 125
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 89
When his closest friend, Benjamin Sachs, accidentally blows himself up on a Wisconsin road, Peter Aaron attempts to piece together the life that led to Sachs' tragic demise and determine the reason for his death.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Better than the "trilogy"
- By P K on 06-09-11
By: Paul Auster
-
A Ladder to the Sky
- A Novel
- By: John Boyne
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,169
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,054
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,055
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent - but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This is a very smart book
- By Johnnie Terry on 01-05-19
By: John Boyne
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 688
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 601
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 595
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Trinity Six
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 351
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 212
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 220
London, 1992. Late one night, Edward Crane, 76, is declared dead at a London hospital. An obituary describes him only as a 'resourceful career diplomat'. But Crane was much more than that—and the circumstances surrounding his death are far from what they seem. Fifteen years later, academic Sam Gaddis needs money. When a journalist friend asks for his help researching a possible sixth member of the notorious Trinity spy ring, Gaddis knows that she's onto a story that could turn his fortunes around. But within hours the journalist is dead, apparently from a heart attack.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Fun exciting intrigues perfectly narrated.
- By Ramon on 03-17-11
By: Charles Cumming
-
The Book of Illusions
- By: Paul Auster
- Narrated by: Paul Auster
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 185
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
After losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he sees a clip from a lost film by the silent comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to study the works of this mysterious figure who vanished from sight in 1929.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Hmmm....
- By Gene on 10-05-04
By: Paul Auster
-
Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 149
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
-
Ratking
- Aurelio Zen, Book 1
- By: Michael Dibdin
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 204
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 179
A powerful industrialist, Ruggiero Miletti, is kidnapped. Inspector Zen is transferred to Perugia to take over the case - but finds that there are many obstacles in his way. The local authorities see him as an interloper, and the victim’s family, one of the most powerful in Italy, seem content to let Miletti languish in the hands of his abductors. Zen has crossed swords with the establishment before - and lost. Can he succeed this time?
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Narrator spoiled it for me
- By Gregory Aurand on 12-15-13
By: Michael Dibdin
-
Zoo Station
- John Russell WWII Spy, Book 1
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Overall great listen!
- By Patricia on 02-28-24
By: David Downing
-
The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.
- A Novel
- By: Lee Kravetz
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Karissa Vacker, Teri Clark Linden
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
A seductive literary mystery and mutigenerational story inspired by true events, The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. imaginatively brings into focus the period of promise and tragedy that marked the writing of Sylvia Plath’s modern classic The Bell Jar. Lee Kravetz uses a prismatic narrative formed from three distinct fictional perspectives to bring Plath to life—that of her psychiatrist, a rival poet, and years later, a curator of antiquities.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Horrible
- By Rhonda Morrison on 07-19-22
By: Lee Kravetz
-
Madonna in a Fur Coat
- By: Maureen Freely - translator, Sabahattin Ali, Alexander Dawe - translator
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 126
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade in 1920s Berlin. The city's crowded streets, thriving arts scene, passionate politics, and seedy cabarets provide the backdrop for a chance meeting with a woman, which will haunt him for the rest of his life. Emotionally powerful, intensely atmospheric, and touchingly profound, Madonna in a Fur Coat is an unforgettable novel about new beginnings and the unfathomable nature of the human soul.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful story. Such a gifted writer.
- By metin taskin on 10-21-20
By: Maureen Freely - translator, and others