Audiobooks by Antony Beevor

Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944: The Sunday Times No 1 Bestseller

"Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Arnhem by Antony Beevor, read by Sean Barrett. On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aero engines. He went out on to his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the vast air armada of Dakotas and gliders,carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. He gazed up in envy at the greatest demonstration of paratroop power ever seen. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept: the Americans thought it unusually bold for Field Marshal Montgomery. But the cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch who risked everything to help. German reprisals were cruel and lasted until the end of the war. The British fascination for heroic failure has clouded the story of Arnhem in myths, not least that victory was possible when in fact the plan imposed by Montgomery and General 'Boy' Browning was doomed from the start. Antony Beevor, using many overlooked and new sources from Dutch, British, American, Polish and German archives, has reconstructed the terrible reality of this epic clash. Yet this book, written in Beevor's inimitable and gripping narrative style, is about much more than a single dramatic battle. It looks into the very heart of war."

Antony Beevor (Author), Sean Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

Paris After the Liberation: 1944 - 1949

"Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Paris After the Liberation by Antony Beevor, read by Sean Barrett. Antony Beevor's Paris After Liberation: 1944-1949 is a remarkable historical account of the chaos and uncertainty that followed the liberation of Paris in August, 1944 Post-liberation Paris: an epoch charged with political and conflicting emotions. Liberation was greeted with joy but marked by recriminations and the trauma of purges. The feverish intellectual arguments of the young took place amidst the mundane reality of hunger and fuel shortages. This is a thrilling, unsurpassed account of the drama and upheaval of one of history's most fascinating eras. 'A dashing, multi-dimensional story. This book covers all aspects of life - diplomacy, strategy, rationing, politics and politicking (from Churchill, Pétain's and de Gaulle's point of view), the international theatricals and the tourist invasion, blitzkrieg and Ritzkrieg - to create a lovely tapestry, threaded with facts and figures' Olivier Todd, Sunday Times 'Absorbing . . . a rich, many-layered account, selecting from official documents, private archives, memoirs and histories with a wonderful lightness of touch, so that the most complex events become clear' Jenny Uglow, Independent on Sunday 'A beautifully written book about a vast tapestry of military, political and social upheaval. Remarkably well-researched, wise, balanced, very funny at times . . . I was a witness to events in Paris in the first desperate, glorious, mad weeks, and this is just how it was' Dirk Bogarde"

Antony Beevor, Artemis Cooper (Author), Sean Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

"Brought to you by Penguin. Antony Beevor's D-Day: The Battle for Normandy is the closest you will ever get to war - the taste, the smell, the noise and the fear. The Normandy Landings that took place on D-Day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was simply awesome. What followed them was some of the most cunning and ferocious fighting of the war, at times as savage as anything seen on the Eastern Front. As casualties mounted, so too did the tensions between the principal commanders on both sides. Meanwhile, French civilians caught in the middle of these battlefields or under Allied bombing endured terrible suffering. Even the joys of Liberation had their darker side. Antony Beevor is the renowned author of Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, and Berlin, which received the first Longman-History Today Trustees' Award. His books have sold nearly four million copies. 'Antony Beevor's gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war.As near as possible to experiencing what it was like to be there. . . It is almost impossible for a reader not to get caught up in the excitement' Giles Foden, Guardian 'No writer can surpass Beevor in making sense of a crowded battlefield and in balancing the explanation of tactical manoeuvres with poignant flashes of human detail' Christopher Silvester, Daily Express © Antony Beevor 2009 (P) Penguin Audio 2017"

Antony Beevor (Author), Cameron Stewart (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stalingrad

"Penguin presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of Stalingrad by Antony Beevor, read by Peter Noble. Antony Beevor's Stalingrad is a harrowing look at one of history's darkest moments. In October 1942, a panzer officer wrote 'Stalingrad is no longer a town... Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure'. The battle for Stalingrad became the focus of Hitler and Stalin's determination to win the gruesome, vicious war on the eastern front. The citizens of Stalingrad endured unimaginable hardship; the battle, with fierce hand-to-hand fighting in each room of each building, was brutally destructive to both armies. But the eventual victory of the Red Army, and the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, was the first defeat of Hitler's territorial ambitions in Europe, and the start of his decline. An extraordinary story of tactical genius, civilian bravery, obsession, carnage and the nature of war itself, Stalingrad will act as a testament to the vital role of the soviet war effort. 'A superb re-telling. Beevor combines a soldier's understanding of war's realities with the narrative techniques of a novelist . . . This is a book that lets the reader look into the face of battle' Orlando Figes, Sunday Telegraph 'A brilliantly researched tour de force of military history' Sarah Bradford, The Times Antony Beevor is the renowned author of Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, and Berlin, which received the first Longman-History Today Trustees' Award. His books have sold nearly four million copies."

Antony Beevor (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

Audiobook

Berlin: The Downfall 1945

"Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Berlin by Antony Beevor, read by Peter Noble. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 is Antony Beevor's brilliant account of the fall of the Third Reich. The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. Political instructors rammed home the message of Wehrmacht and SS brutality. The result was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with tanks crushing refugee columns under their tracks, mass rape, pillage and destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred because Nazi Party chiefs, refusing to face defeat, had forbidden the evacuation of civilians. Over seven million fled westwards from the terror of the Red Army. Antony Beevor reconstructs the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse, telling a terrible story of pride, stupidity, fanatacism, revenge and savagery, but also one of astonishing endurance, self-sacrifice and survival against all odds."

Antony Beevor (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble

"Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Ardennes 1994 by Antony Beever, read by Sean Barrett. On 16 December 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes on the Belgian/German border. Although Hitler's generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. The Ardennes offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the war in western Europe. In January 1945, when the Red Army launched its onslaught towards Berlin, the once-feared German war machine was revealed to be broken beyond repair. The Ardennes was the battle which finally broke the Wehrmacht."

Antony Beevor (Author), Sean Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook