Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Take Nothing with You

  • By: Patrick Gale
  • Narrated by: Patrick Gale
  • Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (181 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
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.
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.
Take Nothing with You cover art

Take Nothing with You

By: Patrick Gale
Narrated by: Patrick Gale
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

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

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

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.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Mother's Boy cover art
Dangerous Pleasures cover art
Crossing the Lines cover art
The One I Was cover art
Odd Girl Out cover art
The Wildflower Path cover art
The Dandelion Years cover art
Paradise House cover art
Tell it to the Skies cover art
Summer at the Lake cover art

Summary

From the best-selling author of A Place Called Winter comes a new novel of boyhood, coming of age, and the confusions of desire and reality. For all readers of Ian McEwan's Atonement or L P Hartley's The Go-Between.

1970s Weston-Super-Mare, and 10-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother's quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons. Music making brings release for a boy who is discovering he is an emotional volcano. He laps up lessons from his young teacher, not noticing how her brand of glamour is casting a damaging spell over his frustrated and controlling mother.

When he is enrolled in holiday courses in the Scottish borders, lessons in love, rejection and humility are added to daily practice.

Drawing in part on his own boyhood, Patrick Gale's new novel explores a collision between childish hero worship and extremely messy adult love lives.

©2018 Patrick Gale (P)2018 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

What listeners say about Take Nothing with You

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    95
  • 4 Stars
    54
  • 3 Stars
    26
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    90
  • 4 Stars
    49
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    77
  • 4 Stars
    54
  • 3 Stars
    24
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    1

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

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Music to your ears

This book begins and ends with Eustace who, with or without his cello, somehow survived the ups and downs of life in calm and measured manner. A book which should be read twice. With Bach's cello concerto.

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

A riveting journey.

I am a fan of Patrick Gales writing and was not disappointed in this book. I actually set out to make time to listen to Eustace' life and was sorry to have the story end.

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

Take nothing with you

A long time fan, so thoroughly enjoyed listening to this audio book read by the author.

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

Thoroughly enjoyed every moment!

Brilliant story. Enjoyed the narration, too. I loved the characters. Totally dismayed that it has finished

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Great start, then meandering middle and muddled end.

I like Patrick Gale’s writing a lot. When he’s on form he’s riveting. This, to me, is a curate’s egg of a story however. After a tremendous start involving an HIV positive man navigating online dating it quickly devolves into a meandering riff on cello lessons/childhood recollections before bizarrely heading up a cul de sac of nonsense about conversion therapy. In isolation any one of these topics could have made a great book, but they simply don’t hang together as a cohesive novel. And I wish he’d get a decent narrator to read his books. His voice is flat and his array of accents belie a dreadful sense of snobbery. Every working class woman sounds like some sort sex crazed Eastenders reject!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

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

Disappointing

Nowhere near the usual standard and why do authors feel the need to narrate their own books? Leave it to the professionals!

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Oh my, this tapped nostalgic emotions.

I really enjoy Patrick Gales voice and the book felt real, growing up gay, very sexy too, and the characters and their questing to find meaning and closeness. He has a tenderness that can tell the various characters story without judgement when to say they are good or bad would be too simple — and shows not only compassion for the human condition but believable motivation. Great writing, can’t wait to download the next one.

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

I didn’t want it to end.

The best book I’ve read or listened to in ages. Patrick’s voice is sublime. I will miss Eustace, I wanted the story to go on and on. Thank you Patrick.

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
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Falls short of usual Gale standard

For me, as a non-musician, there was far too much technical detail. Also, I wasn’t expecting the main plot to be a sort of rite of passage of a young teenage boy.
I did not enjoy the author’s performance and thought it would have been better left to a professional actor.

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

An enjoyable and thoughtful story

I enjoyed this tale of coming of age and the twirl between the older and younger self.
Full of learning about music and full of emotion that will ache and keep you riveted and some sex for added pleasure.
Get it, you won’t regret.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful