The Passengers cover art

The Passengers

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Passengers

By: Will Ashon
Narrated by: Elinor Coleman
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

An original and profound portrait of contemporary Britain told through the testimonies of its inhabitants.

Between October 2018 and March 2021, Will Ashon collected voices - people talking about their lives, needs, dreams, loves, hopes and fears - all of them with some connection to the British Isles. He used a range of methods including letters sent to random addresses, hitchhiking, referrals from strangers and so on. He conducted the interviews in person, on the phone, over the internet or asked people to record themselves. Interview techniques ranged from asking people to tell him a secret to choosing an arbitrary question from a list.
The resulting testimonies tell the collective story of what it feels like to be alive in a particular time and place - here and now. The Passengers is a book about how we give shape to our lives, find meaning in the chaos, acknowledge the fragility of our existence while alleviating this anxiety with moments of beauty, love, humour and solidarity.

©2022 Will Ashon (P)2022 Faber & Faber
Essays Great Britain Social Sciences Nonfiction
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

High John the Conqueror: A Novel cover art
Madhouse cover art
Toy Fights cover art
This Is Me cover art
The Funny Thing About Death... cover art
Kerry Katona: Whole Again cover art
Ten cover art
Rolling with the Punchlines cover art
Standing on the Shoulders cover art
Scatter Brain cover art
Our Autistic Lives cover art
You’ve Got to Laugh cover art
I Can Explain cover art
Making It cover art
Regrets of the Dying cover art
Live. Laugh. Love. cover art

Critic reviews

'A spectacularly enjoyable and compelling reading experience . . . funny, moving, surprising and thought-provoking. It humanises literature in this toxic moment.' MAX PORTER, author of Lanny

'Seemingly simple yet so deeply profound, The Passengers is an absorbing insight into the lives and minds of so-called ordinary people: their hopes and fears and idiosyncrasies at a specific moment in time.' CLIO BARNARD, director of Ali & Ava and The Essex Serpent

'A nation's psyche comes to the surface. The Passengers is not just an oral history of the contemporary moment but, drenched in mood and texture, renders the country itself as a sonic collage.' SUKHDEV SANDHU, GUARDIAN

What listeners say about The Passengers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

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

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

Could Be Unique

Will Ashton has gone out of his way not to be the author of this book. It is 180 very short chapters, each of which is the contribution of a different person, living in the UK during the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020 & 2021 (I think). Therefore it’s disjointed, enigmatic & has the feel of a stream of consciousness. In tiny moments it’s shocking, banal, whimsical, horrifying, enlightening, inane, philosophical, humane & more. I enjoyed it. I think it would be nice to have more real events & things, & less of the internalising - but that’s probably a reflection of the lockdowns. Go on, give it a go. At the very least it’s been written in an interesting, maybe a unique way.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful