Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • A Week at the Airport

  • A Heathrow Diary
  • By: Alain de Botton
  • Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
  • Length: 2 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (11 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

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.

A Week at the Airport

By: Alain de Botton
Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
Try for £0.00

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

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

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.

Summary

We all spend longer than we would like waiting around in airports, but we rarely discover anything about our fellow travellers or those who work there. In the summer of 2009, however, Alain de Botton was given unprecedented, unrestricted access to wander around Heathrow, one of the world’s biggest airports, having been appointed its Writer-in-Residence. He spoke with everyone from airline staff and senior executives to travellers passing through, and based on these conversations he produced this extraordinary account of life at an airport and what it says about modern existence.

Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, he explores the magical and the mundane, and the stories that inhabit this strange "non-place" that we are usually eager to leave. Taking the listener through the departures lounge, "airside" and the arrivals hall, de Botton shows with his usual combination of wit and wisdom that spending time in an airport can be more useful and more revealing than we might think.

©2009 Alain de Botton (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Dear Miss Landau cover art
Only: A Singular Memoir cover art
Navigating Life cover art
Off the Rails cover art
Making a Noise cover art
The Last Englishmen cover art
Limbo cover art
The Mimic Men cover art
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days cover art
Taken on Trust cover art
Almost French cover art
Monsieur Pamplemousse and the French Solution cover art
Light and Shadow cover art
Leaving Home cover art
The 8.55 to Baghdad cover art
The Mechanic's Tale cover art

Critic reviews

"Simultaneously poignant and terribly funny... De Botton's most imaginative work yet." ( Spectator)
Funny, charming, and slender enough to pack in your carry-on.' - Daily Mail
Surprising ... His observations on airport life are wry and thought-provoking.' - Telegraph
Shrewd, perceptive and gently ironic.' - Independent

What listeners say about A Week at the Airport

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

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