Utopia Avenue
The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller
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Utopia Avenue
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Narrated by:
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Andrew Wincott
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By:
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David Mitchell
About this listen
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.
©2020 David Mitchell (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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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
- 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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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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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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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- BlueSkinBlake
- 03-05-21
The Road to Paradise is Paradise
What I like about the ‘Avenue is the journey the road that describes the bands origins to their ultimate end. At first I found it hard to get my head around the name dropping. It felt a bit wooden and the characters reactions didn’t seemed a bit wooden. But I suppose it would be very hard to get anything more than two dimensions when you are fitting real historical people, like Cohen, Joplin, Barrett, Lennon, Hendrix, Cass, Garcia, Bacon, and Bowie without upsetting any fan, historian or historian fan of that era. So hats off to Mitchell in attempting it. I found the narrators reading/accents of Elf’s and De Zoet a bit problematic but again ot was good going and by the first quarter the narrator really got me “...on the bus...” I was pretty gutted at the end and really wished that “The Avenue” would turn in to some kind Mahavishnu Orchestra but that wasn’t the point which, for me, illustrated Mitchell’s comment about the 60’s and rebirth of 60’s bands, during Grunge in the 90’s. However, I left the recording wanting to really listen to what I thought “The Avenue” would sound like. I kept coming to the conclusion that it might be like Fleetwood Mac. Early Fleetwood. I learnt a lot about Denmark Street (I looked all that up) and Mitchell was spot on. So enjoy, coz The Road to Paradise is Paradise!
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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
- Eddie Green
- 12-03-22
more fun than most good books
a romp a joy and a triumph- utter fun, utter pop poetry- urgently recommended
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Charles Paxford
- 31-12-20
Superb!
A wonderful, funny and moving story of a late sixties rock band and how they made it. The story is expertly woven between real people and events, which, along with the beautifully penned personalities of the protagonists and their individual stories and the knowledgeable musical detail really brings the people, time, their story, and oddly, their non-existent-in -reality- music, to life. The best I can say is that I already miss these people, and really wish I could hear their music. Awesome!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael J. Dees
- 20-01-21
excellent narrator
Andrew Wincott is a master of accents. the only slightly dodgy character was the German photographer who sounded a little like Herr Flick but the rest was amazing.
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