Audiobook recommendation – William Golding’s “The Spire” read by Benedict Cumberbatch

Just finished listening to Benedict Cumberbatch read William Golding’s “The Spire.” The novel was recommended to me as being far better than his “Lord of the Flies” that everyone reads when a student. Having started, I could not stop. It’s set in the middle ages when the building of a church was as much a matter of faith as an architectural certainty. Our hero(??) is the dean of the church who wants a spire put on the church that is simply “too much” in every possible way. The story is told first person by this increasingly delusional soul. The superb narrator brings the situation and people to vivid life. It’s relatively short for an audiobook — seven hours. Was fascinated and absorbed.