Is there an audiobook of Small Things Like These?

Yes. Small Things Like These has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Aidan Kelly.

How long is the Small Things Like These audiobook?

The Small Things Like These audiobook runs 1 hr 57 min.

Is Small Things Like These on Kindle Unlimited?

No. Small Things Like These was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 29, 2026.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan book cover for the Book of the Day literary fiction book review

Our score

4.2/ 5

Excellent

Listen to Small Things Like These free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

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EDITION PUBLISHEDNovember 2021

PublisherFaber & Faber

Genres

Fiction Literary Fiction Historical Fiction

Themes

Complicity and moral courageThe power of the Church over a communityClass, decency, and quiet heroismFamily and what we owe strangers

Small Things Like These

Name: Small Things Like These
Price: 9 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These is a slim, finely calibrated novel about Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in 1985 Ireland who, while making a delivery to the local convent, discovers a girl the town would rather he didn't see. It's a quiet moral story told in exact, unhurried prose — ideal for readers who love restrained literary fiction that says a lot in few pages.

The Review

Our take

This is a short book. You can read it in an afternoon, but it stays with you far longer than its page count suggests. Bill Furlong is a beautifully drawn ordinary man: a coal and timber merchant, a husband, a father to five girls, someone who came up from precarious beginnings and knows exactly how thin the line is between getting by and going under. Keegan builds him through small, concrete details, like the soot worked into his hands and the way he tallies his blessings and his worries in the same breath. By the time he makes his discovery at the convent, you understand him so completely that his crisis lands like something happening to a friend.

The prose is the main event. Keegan writes with a chiseled precision that never calls attention to itself. She trusts white space and implication, and she lets weather, cold, and the rhythms of a December town do enormous emotional work. There's a hush over the whole thing, the particular quiet of a community that has agreed not to look too closely at what the Church is doing in its midst. The Magdalene laundries hover at the edges without ever being explained in a textbook way. Keegan assumes you'll feel the menace before you fully name it, and you do. Watch how she handles Mrs. Kehoe, the publican who warns Bill to mind his own business — a whole town's survival instinct delivered in a few careful lines.

What makes the novel ache is that it's really about complicity and the courage of small acts. Bill isn't a hero in any grand sense. He's a man weighing what one decent gesture might cost his family, his standing, and his daughters' futures. Keegan refuses to make that calculation easy or sentimental. The tension isn't whether something dramatic will explode; it's whether one quiet man will let himself act on what his conscience already knows. That restraint is the book's moral engine, and it's why the ending hits as hard as it does without ever raising its voice.

A few honest notes on fit. Readers who want plot momentum, twists, or a fully dramatized confrontation may find this too still. It's a meditation more than a thriller, and it ends right where some will wish it kept going. The historical horror it gestures toward stays largely off the page, so anyone expecting an investigative or expansive treatment of the laundries should know this is a single conscience in a single week, not a sweeping account. The compression that makes the book so potent is also what some readers experience as an abrupt close.

Why you should read

Readers who love spare, exact literary prose
Book clubs that like moral dilemmas and quiet, discussable endings
Anyone wanting a complete, resonant story they can finish in one sitting
Fans of character-driven historical fiction set in small-town Ireland

What to expect

Readers who want fast plot, twists, or a dramatized confrontation may find it too still and quiet
The dark history of the Magdalene laundries is felt at the edges rather than fully explored, so it's not the book for a comprehensive account
Its compression leaves you wanting more, which some will experience as an abrupt finish

For the right reader, though, this is something close to extraordinary. It rewards slow reading and rereading. It works beautifully for book clubs that like to argue about what a person owes a stranger, and it proves how much emotional force can be packed into a hundred-odd pages when every sentence is doing its job.

Reviewed by Avery · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.2/ 5

Excellent

Listen to Small Things Like These free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Small Things Like These?: Yes. Small Things Like These has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Aidan Kelly.
Listen to Small Things Like These free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Small Things Like These audiobook?: The Small Things Like These audiobook runs 1 hr 57 min.
Is Small Things Like These on Kindle Unlimited?: No. Small Things Like These was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 29, 2026.
How much does Small Things Like These cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $9.00, Hardcover $10.99. Prices as of August 27, 2026 at 3:45 AM EDT and may change.

Filed underLiterary Fiction Historical Fiction Browse the archive →

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Common questions

What is Small Things Like These about?: This is a short book. You can read it in an afternoon, but it stays with you far longer than its page count suggests. Bill Furlong is a beautifully drawn ordinary man: a coal and timber merchant, a husband, a father to five girls, someone who came up from precarious beginnings and knows exactly…
Is Small Things Like These worth reading?: We scored Small Things Like These 4.2 out of 5. Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These is a slim, finely calibrated novel about Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in 1985 Ireland who, while making a delivery to the local convent, discovers a girl the town would rather he didn't see. It's a quiet moral story told in exact…