To Say Nothing of the Dog cover art

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

To Say Nothing of the Dog

By: Connie Willis
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £21.14

Buy Now for £21.14

About this listen

Connie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

When too many jumps back to 1940 leave 21st century Oxford history student Ned Henry exhausted, a relaxing trip to Victorian England seems the perfect solution. But complexities like recalcitrant rowboats, missing cats, and love at first sight make Ned's holiday anything but restful—to say nothing of the way hideous pieces of Victorian art can jeopardize the entire course of history.

Delightfully aided by the perfect comedic timing of narrator Steven Crossley, To Say Nothing of the Dog shows once again why Connie Willis is one of the most talented writers working today.

©1998 Connie Willis (P)2000 Recorded Books Action & Adventure Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Time Travel Witty Funny Cats

Continue the series
Blackout cover art
Blackout By: Connie Willis
All Clear cover art
All Clear By: Connie Willis

Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1999

"Willis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose." (Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant
If you like mystery stories (Agathe Christie) and Sci-fi this is the best book

The best Sci-fi since the time travellers wife

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ahh I'm struggling to finish this one. Two thirds through. It's an amusing yarn but much ado about nothing really, far from compelling. Effortless narration though. A real talent.

If you're looking for something gentle at bedtime you may like this book but for me it didn't turn out to be my next great listen.

Fun but..

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
...but certainly not my last. I thoroughly enjoyed the combination of leisurely trips down the river (Jerome K Jerome style), travelling through time, and the historical depictions of various eras, not to mention the city where my father was born. The characters were great fun and I hope to meet them again in her other time-travelling historical romps. I found the narrator easy to listen to and I hope to hear more audiobooks read by him.

My first Connie Willis...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
nothing much happens. narration was very good though. kept waiting for something to happen. book 1 was much much better imo.

boring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Either Connie Willis bowed to pressure from her American editors ,which I doubt, or she shows a disdainful attitude to both her American readers (by assuming they are uneducated) and to her British readers (by dismissing them as unimportant).

With all the research she has obviously put into this book, she must have known how many words and phrases she has included that would never have been used in Victorian England, and are unlikely to have crept into our language in the future.

'Rowlock', 'drapes', 'Postal Office', 'sailboat', 'gotten', 'fishing pole', 'exclamation point'.

We don't go 'down' to London - we go 'up' to London. We don't 'meet with' people - we 'meet' them. 'Infirmary' takes the definite article.

And as for Tossie's frequent use of the word 'cunning'!

These errors would perhaps be forgiveable if the narrator was American, but hearing a British voice reading those words grated on my nerves.

Otherwise, a pleasant book that deserved its Hugo win.

Too many Americanisms for easy listening.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews