A Breath of French Air
The Larkin Novels, Volume 2
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Narrated by:
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Philip Franks
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By:
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H. E. Bates
About this listen
In the second novel in the Pop Larkin series, the Larkin family descends upon Brittany in France. Like fish out of water, they find that things don't quite turn out their way: The weather is less than ideal, the food is awful, and the hotel is in a bad state of repair. But things slowly improve as Pop manages to sweet-talk Mlle Dupont, Angela Snow, and her sister, Iris; and Charley and Mariette celebrate their first wedding anniversary. A Breath of French Air is a delightful book full of nostalgia, fun, and frivolity.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©1959 H. E. Bates (P)2016 Naxos AudioBooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The year is 1928. On the outskirts of a large German city, three young men are earning a thin and precarious living. Fully armed young storm troopers swagger in the streets. Restlessness, poverty, and violence are everywhere. For these three, friendship is the only refuge from the chaos around them. Then the youngest of them falls in love and brings into the group a young woman who will become a comrade as well, as they are all tested in ways they can have never imagined.
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Love and friendship in a dying world.
- By Tarquin on 03-18-19
By: Erich Maria Remarque, and others
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The Road Home
- By: Rose Tremain
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008, The Road Home is the best-selling story of Lev, a middle-aged migrant from Eastern Europe, who moves to London in search of work after losing his wife and job. Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency. The world Tremain creates is both convincing and poignant.
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OK - nice narration - good characters
- By bea on 02-21-11
By: Rose Tremain
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My Family and Other Animals
- By: Gerald Durrell
- Narrated by: Nigel Davenport
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family - as well as puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies.
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A thoroughly delightful book!
- By T.K. on 06-21-08
By: Gerald Durrell
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The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
- By: R. A. Dick
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Jasicki
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Burdened by debt after her husband's death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted.
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Bias Review Warning
- By Michael on 09-22-19
By: R. A. Dick
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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Strange Weather in Tokyo
- A Novel
- By: Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Tsukiko, 38, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei", in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is 30 years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy, which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
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Cozy Love Story and Leisure Time in Japan
- By mz on 01-02-19
By: Hiromi Kawakami, and others
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Cannery Row
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Jerry Farden
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and most poignant works.
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Five stars with a Caveat
- By Bette on 04-23-12
By: John Steinbeck
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I Capture the Castle
- By: Dodie Smith
- Narrated by: Jenny Agutter
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In this coming of age story, Dodie Smith introduces the visionary and eccentric character of seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain. The youngest daughter in a family of impoverished artists, it is her imagination and writing that takes us away from the ramshackle old English castle where they live, and towards an intriguing tale of husband-hunting and light-hearted sibling rivalry.
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Well, that was a surprise
- By Matthew on 12-16-13
By: Dodie Smith
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Mildred Pierce
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.
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Mildred -- you pierce my heart
- By P. Giorgio on 03-11-11
By: James M. Cain
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Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
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Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
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Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
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Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
What listeners say about A Breath of French Air
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jennifer Rundlett
- 08-07-23
Charming and Funny
I’m enjoying listening to this series after watching the TV series. Very impressive performance of all the voices. Bravo!!
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- Andrew Thompson
- 06-27-19
best of british drama
amazing to think these are 60 year old novels. great characters and wonderful plots. like a stroll along the canal in kent.
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- mz
- 05-15-20
Not as good as TV adaptation
This is one of those few books where the TV adaptation is better, less dirty, less sexual, less sexist, more interesting added side stories, and less focused on a perverted man in that each character has their own stories that are more fleshed out and real. The TV show brings this series to life. I don't think I would enjoy the book much if I hadn't seen the TV series. It's disgusting what the main male character in this series and the author's Uncle Silas do, the latter being way worse. Seems a man's fantasy of very tolerable wives.
Narration is excellent, by the actor of Charlie in the TV series! Wonderful.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bianca
- 01-01-19
Trite in every respect.
This book may be alright for reading while crossing the Atlantic. The story line is never challenging.
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1 person found this helpful