Unsettled cover art

Unsettled

A Journey through Time and Place

 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.

Unsettled

By: Kate Grenville
Narrated by: Kate Grenville
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

About this listen

‘What does it mean to be on land that was taken from other people? Now that we know how the taking was done, what do we do with that knowledge?’

Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published The Secret River in 2005, a bestseller based on the story of her convict ancestor, an early settler on the Hawkesbury River.

More than two decades on, and following the defeat of the Voice referendum, Grenville is still grappling with what it means to descend from people who were, as she puts it, 'on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation'.

So she decides to go on a kind of pilgrimage, back through the places her family stories happened, and put the stories and the First People back into the same frame, on the same country, to try to think about those questions.

This gripping audiobook is the result of that journey.

©2025 Kate Grenville (P)2025 Bolinda Publishing Australia, New Zealand & Oceania Travel Writing & Commentary Colonial Period
All stars
Most relevant  
Loved Kate’s narration of her insightful, confronting and ultimately inspiring novel. There is a way forward, finding our way through the pain is the only way. Kate also draws attention to the past and ongoing erasure of the indigenous culture in Australia, the way it can still be observed occurring in plain sight. Highly recommended

Confronting our pain in the colonising war against Aboriginal people

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked it all. Quietly woven. No melodrama just an honest first person account of family history.

Actually narrated by author - absolutely no misunderstanding of what is meant. Concise direct factual.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narration by the author made for smooth listening to an amazing and honest record of a family history in the settlement of colonial Australia.

The tragic story of English colonisation of Aboriginal Gondwana.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is an unpretentious book of reflections by Kate Grenville on the history of the occupation of Australia by British and other settlers in the 19th century. There are many issues, she says, which are still not resolved and probably never will be, until European Australians realize how badly our occupation affected the aboriginal people. Her forebear is said to have 'taken up land' - no, says Grenville, he 'took land' to which he was not entitled. I found the book quite fascinating to read, and it certainly stirred me to my own reflections on similar subjects. Kate's own reading was excellent.

Reflections on our colonial past

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is an important book for all of us. Its complete honesty combined with the excellence of the story telling spoke to me in a way that I have rarely felt. My own mother’s forebears migrated to NSW in the 1840s and “settled” in the Manning River area. The book “Unsettled” has woken in me a wish to understand more about my mother’s family.

Kate Grenville shows the way to truth telling.

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.