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Utopia Avenue
- The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 25 hrs and 10 mins
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Utopia Avenue
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Summary
Utopia Avenue might be the most curious British band you've never heard of.
Emerging from London's psychedelic scene in 1967, folksinger Elf Holloway, blues bassist Dean Moss, guitar virtuoso Jasper de Zoet and jazz drummer Griff Griffin together created a unique sound with lyrics that captured their turbulent times. The band produced only two albums in two years, yet their musical legacy lives on.
This is the story of Utopia Avenue's brief, blazing journey from Soho clubs and draughty ballrooms to the promised land of America, just when the Summer of Love was receding into something much darker - a multi-faceted tale of dreams, drugs, love, sexuality, madness and grief; of stardom's wobbly ladder and fame's Faustian pact and of the collision between youthful idealism and jaded reality as the '60s drew to a close.
Above all, this bewitching novel celebrates the power of music to connect across divides, define an era and thrill the soul.
Critic reviews
"One of the most brilliantly inventive writers of this, or any country." (Independent)
What listeners say about Utopia Avenue
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mrs P.
- 11-09-20
Brilliant!
Different, what an imagination! Excellent writing with great descriptions. Thank you David Mitchell for a wonderful story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Andreas Teschner
- 06-10-21
What a book
After a slow start I really got into this. At the end you know these people like family, although they never lived and you love their songs without hearing a single note. What a performance from the narrator! This whole thing is just amazing!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dudds
- 26-08-20
Highly Recommended
Nostalgic, moving and a welcome return of some familiar names in places ... just, wonderful. (Also, one of the best narrated audiobooks I have heard.)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sam Roberts
- 04-09-22
Back of the fkin net, Davo
Quality, unbolloxed
My first Mitchell since Cloud Atlas. If they make a film about this I hope they don’t screw it up too.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anon
- 06-03-23
A story set in the 1960s of a group of musicians.
Likeable characters and a fun story about a group of musicians trying to make it big. The narration is good but some of the accents are a bit off. Recommended.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- harvey
- 02-05-24
Stunning writing amazing storytelling
Like is not a word used for David Mitchell books I absolutely loved this one. I love the era. I love the band. I love the characters each with their own fascinating back stories and challenges of every day life. The realistic struggles of trying to get started as a musician in the late 60s and all the politics around that time in the UK and America. It’s absolutely stunning and I cried at the end partly because of the story and partly because it was over - Shush this is a book I will reread again and again for sure. Now my joint fave of all time desert island books along with Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell is a genius. You cannot fail to be moved and affected by his unbelievable writing. If you are not you are already dead.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Tamsyn Payne
- 06-12-20
Narration is a bit Toasty
I’m a big DM fan, I reread 1000 Autumns of Jacob de Zout before I dived into this new tome, knowing there would be references I’d want to have fresh in my mind. 1000 years is a beautiful book btw. Which only cemented my conclusion that this isn’t his best work.
My main struggle was with the audiobook narration which felt a bit over dramatic (if you’ve watched Toast of London you’ll maybe see what I mean, this could have been Matt Berry doing the whole thing). No mean feat to nail so many characters and impressions of well known rock stars but it felt a wee bit cringe worthy in places.
But still it’s another part of the Horology universe so if you’re in it for the long run it’s probably a must read. I’d probably go for the hard copy version over the audio book though.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 30-07-20
Fantastic.
Loved it. As I do everything by David Mitchell. First time I've done one as an audio book and Andrew Wincott did a great job with all the voices.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Mr A D Boughton
- 03-08-23
Story was good, narration was perfect
It took me a while to read Utopia Avenue and for whatever reason it didn’t grab me like the other books had done, so I ended up buying it on Audible so that I could finish it. I’m not sure I was as blown away as I was in other books, but I was pleased to see connections made to his previous works (and I’ll say no more🤫)
I did thoroughly enjoy the narration. I think it is a real skill to perform so many different characters, so many different accents and there are a lot of difficult Dutch words that are being thrown out very confidently. I can see other reviews where people weren’t so impressed but I thought I’d say the performance was 10/10 and it really brought the book to life as the characters were talking to each other. Loved it
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- P. Dockerill
- 14-04-24
A fab wander through 60s musicland.
I became increasingly absorbed as the story progressed. Loved the references to Cloud Atlas. was fully emotionally engaged by the end
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