Try free for 30 days

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
Beloved cover art

Beloved

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author. 

This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (
People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. 

“A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

©1987 Toni Morrison (P)1998 Random House, Inc.

Critic Reviews

“A masterwork. . . . Wonderful. . . . I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times

“A triumph.” —Margaret Atwood, The New York Times Book Review

“Toni Morrison’s finest work. . . . [It] sets her apart [and] displays her prodigious talent.” —Chicago Sun-Times

More from the same

Author

Narrator

What listeners say about Beloved

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    95
  • 4 Stars
    21
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    91
  • 4 Stars
    19
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    89
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A challenging listen

A difficult book to listen to as it switches narrators and time frames without notice. The story feeds out in disjointed pieces - challenging but a good story. Loved the author's use of language and her poetic turn of phrase.
The narration was very slow and breathless which I initially felt created good atmosphere, but later found annoying so I slightly sped up the narration speed with good effect.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sensational

There are no words to describe how beautiful this novel is. Its voice and language and imagery are poetic. When read by Toni Morrison herself, it comes alive. I've fallen in love with this book all over again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beloved - a strange world

I’ve never read Morrison. I’d been meaning to for years and her death hastened the reading. It is such a strange world she shows us. An internal world of foreign logic.

Then her language - so simple and profound and yes, at times poetic.

Morrison has a wonderful reading voice, warm and comforting and calm even as she describes horrors. You can get lost in it. I did.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Extraordinary, shocking and beautiful

The poetry of this book is mesmerising. The shocking depiction of slavery, death and escape is set amongst a landscape of beauty, strength and love. Toni Morrison’s reading of her work brings it all to life in a way that would be harder to do by reading the words alone. The story moves between time, place and narrator but even if threads remain dangling and hard to hold on to, it all comes together in a tapestry so rich and evocative it will be hard to forget.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

How is this in the best 100 books?

What a piece of crap. I’m sorry this book is just overrated. Poor story, or no story. No pace. I’ve listened for 7 hours and given up. The author as narrated is passable, until she talks softly and you then can’t hear. I am still trying to come to terms how this is on the same list as animal farm, brideshead revisted, withering heights.

Seriously do not waste your time or money.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Stunning

Powerful beyond words. We too are like the clouds, real and ephemeral, shaped and true, yet pass and never reappear in precisely that form again. Replaced by others. Yet each is real, sometimes dark, menacing, beautiful. It is all captured here. Sublime!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Insightful

Wow what a story, Morrison made me really connect with her characters and feel what they felt. I truly felt proud of Denver and her growth towards the end of the story, that just goes to show the connection between the characters and the audience. I would recommend to anyone the language is simple enough for most readers to grasp, but the subtext can really make an advanced reader think, about what is being said. My only negative is the story seemed to jump around through time a bit, but while it is an annoyance of mine, it was still presented in a meaningful way, and at relevant times throughout the story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

mesmerizing

such darkness wrapped in bittersweet poetry. A story of so much survival, struggle and dying. with so much inside, so much between the lines...I am mesmerized. if Toni Morrison could read to me forever...I would be happy. Such beautiful sadness. Too many emotions . just too many. she has a way of describing tiny tiny nuances of feeling. Gush gush.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Beloved is a book that is not for the faint of heart. It is a story heavy with emotion and filled with troubled spirits haunted by a shocking past. Beloved forces us to expand our emotional range and deepen our understanding of empathy.
The poetic nature of Toni Morrison’s writing is absolutely mesmerizing. The story is filled with meaning and imagery to encourage reflection. I was especially moved by the discussions of love, loss, and sacrifice. That to be denied freedom was to be denied the privilege to love boundlessly. To be able to love as big as you can, to not need permission for desire, that is true freedom. To love without restraint. Without fear of losing.
To have Toni Morrison herself narrating truly brought her words to life. It was easy to get lost in her voice, however, forcing me rewind or pause to really grasp the enormity of the events and concepts being described.
Confronting and challenging to follow along at times, but essential.
A story so profoundly rich with emotion.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

read by the late great Toni Morrison herself

this book is phenomenal and devastating- disturbing and stunning -beautiful. you already know you want to read it- and you will -and here this modern classic is read by the author herself. you couldn’t ask for a more perfect audiobook: her voice is soft and raspy and deep -her intonation for the different characters is subtle but clear.

an opportunity to hear the voice of a true genius read her work. wow. what an experience.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.