Skippy Dies cover art

Skippy Dies

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Skippy Dies

By: Paul Murray
Narrated by: Patrick Moy
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

About this listen

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Paul Murray's hilarious book, Skippy Dies. Read by the actor Patrick Moy.

'Skippy and Ruprecht are having a doughnut-eating race one evening when Skippy turns purple and falls off his chair . . .'

And so begins this epic, tragic, comic, brilliant novel set in and around Dublin's Seabrook College for Boys. Principally concerning the lives, loves, mistakes and triumphs of overweight maths-whiz Ruprecht Van Doren and his roommate Daniel 'Skippy' Juster, it features a frisbee-throwing siren called Lori, the joys (and horrors) of first love, the use and blatant misuse of prescription drugs, Carl (the official school psychopath), various attempts to unravel string theory . . . while at the same time exploring the very deepest mysteries of the human heart.

©2010 Paul Murray (P)2011 Penguin Audio Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Heartfelt Comedy

Critic Reviews

"Marvellous, witty, heartbreaking, intensely moving, excellent. The writing is second to none, the banter brilliant. Crazy, but beautiful." (Daily Telegraph)

"One of the most enjoyable, funny and moving reads of this year. A rare tragicomedy that’s both genuinely tragic and genuinely comic." (The Guardian)

"Savagely funny, brimful of wit, energy, poetry and vision, unflaggingly entertaining. A triumph." (The Sunday Times)
All stars
Most relevant  
References to literature, poetry, science, maths and mysticism, resulting in something very original. And the humour resonated. It was highly entertaining in its description of serious and complex subjects.

The weaving together of stories - the absurd and the real.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A long story, great for travelling. You can really get into the characters. Devastating truths.

Irish gem

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved this darkly comical send up of life in an Irish Catholic boys boarding school. The story is full of colourful characters warmly drawn by a gifted author. The fact that it is always entertaining and often very funny belies the multi-layered significant piece of literature Murray has crafted. The performance is also brilliant, one of the best readings I’ve ever heard.

Truly brilliant satire of school days

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wonderfully written. Rich character development and increasingly intertwining stories. Though should come with a trigger warning- contains themes of child sexual abuse.

An entertaining read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved this honest appraisal of real life. The narration is nothing short of brilliant.
I laughed and cried.

Fantastic Story. Excellent narrator.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A joy to listen to. Better than hearing my own voice reading it from the page

When listening beats reading

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Totally loved everything about this book. Murray has such a talent for weaving stories together and keeping you rapt for the next installment

Brilliant!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Couldn’t finish the book. The narrator tries to do accents and the female American accent needs to be heard to be believed. But don’t! I literally cringed every time there was any accent attempted. The story seemed ok but I couldn’t get past the 90 minute mark.

Narrator!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.