The Outermost House

A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod

By: Henry Beston

Narrated by: Brett Barry

The Outermost House is a classic of American nature literature.

In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go."

Beston stayed for a year, meditating on humanity and the natural world. In The Outermost House, originally published in 1928, he poetically chronicled the four seasons at the beach: the ebb and flow of the tides, the migration of birds, storms, stars, and solitude. The landscape was his major character, and his writing provides a snapshot of the Cape, a place physically changed yet still as soulful 80 years later.

Like Henry D. Thoreau before him, and Rachel Carson after him, Beston was a writer of stunning beauty, importance, and vision. Robert Finch once wrote of him, "His are burnished, polished sentences, richly metaphoric and musical, that beg to be read aloud."

©1928 Kate Barnes (P)2007 Silver Hollow Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A colorful and ever-changing chronicle of movement that approaches the magnificent." ( Boston Transcript)
"Clear and full of life." ( The Nation)

Listened to this for more than22,000 hours this is not a typo

I was born down the Cape, but rarely get to spend time there. I read this book some time ago and loved it. Sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.This audio book transports me to that outermost place, bringing to life every sight and smell. I can recapture the feeling of living peacefully in that desolate place enjoying every note in the symphony of creation.In our lives today we don’t have time for an experience so rich and liberating. This book is so beautifully written and spoken. I have since visited this place. Some things have changed. The ocean has encroached on the dunes over time and the place where the house stood is no longer there.The coastguard station remains as it was and if you travel a few miles further north you will see and feel just what it was like to live in that” Outermost House” I highly recommend this audiobook

Splendid & evocative!

A must read for anyone who spent time in the Nauset Light to Coastguard beach area of the Cape! You will hear the sounds and smell the smells of your past visits! Thanks to my Dad, we spent many halcyon weeks right at Nauset Light Beach in cottages right on the dunes. Unfortunately, these cottages were swept away by the sea in the same storm that took the "Fo'scle"! We were lucky enough the have been there when we could still wander through the dune paths. Great read!

Great book

Love it, but the chapters are not listed correctly, so if you are trying to start on a particular chapter, you have to jump around to find it.

Enchanting

A beautiful meditation on the natural works. It is now one of my favorite books, indeed it rivals Walden Pond and the writing of Robert McFarland.

Wonderful narration of classic Beston novel

I've read this book numerous time and this audio production was an excellent performance that brought out nuances not available on the page.