How the Dead Live cover art

How the Dead Live

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

How the Dead Live

By: Will Self
Narrated by: Buffy Davis
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £20.99

Buy Now for £20.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
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.
Cancel

About this listen

It's 1988, and Lily Bloom, a 65-year-old American, lies dying of cancer in a London hospital. As her two daughters buzz around her and the nurses pump her full of morphine, she slides in and out of consciousness, outraged that there is so little time left and so many people still to disparage. As she begins her journey to the other world, she reflects on her husbands, her children, her entire life.

©2000 Will Self (P)2011 W F Howes Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
All stars
Most relevant  
At once bleak, funny and immersive. Self's exploration of addiction, regret and the mind-numbing drudgery of modern life make for an intense yet enjoyable read. Buffy Davis's expressive narration helps to bring Self's typically razor-sharp style to life.

Very impressed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a great book; clever, witty and challenging, His central character is a monster but against your will you understand and sympathise with her, The experience of the book is enhanced even further by the fabulous performance by Buffy Davis-if there is an award for book performance, she should get it.

Truly wonderful book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of the most unusual books I’ve listened to in awhile. Very well read and very tight writing

Funny sad and very creative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I especially liked the energy of the language as well as the originality of the story. I'd probably never have listened to more than one hour had I not been blown away by the power and the excitement of the text: i found it unputdownable and often listened far into the night when I should have been asleep. The story seemed quite mad but eventually it made sense in a very satirical way. I don't think it's for everybody though. The reader was superb!

Mad but fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lily Bloom is an amazing guide to life death and the great black afterlife. Darkly funnyand ummensley brave.

Darkly funny and unputdownable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Will Self has a talent for looking at a subject from new perspectives. If the Bible is written to give comfort and information concerning death then god should have aksed Will Self to write it. The story follows a woman as she approaches death, dies, lives after death, is reincarnated and dies again.

His style , leaves you unsure of where the plot is going and why its going there. Consequently every word is read carefully and searched for meaning. As one does so, death the most emotive of subjects is explored and the messages are dripped in.

The conclusion to me - death is no big deal, it is living happily that is the trick.

Better than The Bible

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
While Lily was still alive and spouting her hateful diatribes against anyone and anything, I found myself wishing her dead.



Then she died and it was all downhill from there.

Hateful

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