
A Needle in the Right Hand of God
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Hoye
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By:
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R. Howard Bloch
About this listen
Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king Harold and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history.
Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by the Tapestry¿s evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic "The Song of Roland", which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin.
©2006 R. Howard Bloch (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"With estimable clarity and evident enthusiasm, Bloch delivers variety, surprise, and understanding for history readers." (Booklist)
"The tapestry, now in a museum in Bayeux, brings history to life, and Bloch's splendid account does the same for the tapestry itself." (Publishers Weekly)
Fascinating!
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would certainly recommend it to someone interested in history. The author brings together a lot of small pieces of history and arceology to paint a very thorough picture of the tapastry and the history behind it.What did you like best about this story?
The piecing together of very small parts of a great puzzle.How could the performance have been better?
The narrator was awfull, indeed. I think other reveiws also pointed that out. It took me a couple of hours' reading to adapt to that diction. It annoyed me.It sounded like he was reading from a long long list and was terribly tired of having to do so.
Interesting account of history
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To appreciate the subject, you must have a detailed image of the embroidery. There are amazing images, visual puns and puzzles, and so much storytelling in the needlework.
I was lucky enough to have access to an old book with large, multiple fold-out images, and as a more useful alternative, there are many sections which can be viewed online. Without visuals, this book is about as useful as trying to read about Van Gogh without ever seeing one of his paintings.
Note: "The Bayeux Tapestry Embroiderer's Story" by Jan Messent is a hand-written and illustrated book which may also be of interest to the textile-obsessed who wish to delve deeper into the artistic elements and craftsmanship of the embroidery itself.
Recommended for textile historians only
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Needs to be seen and not just heard
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I'll leave this short and sweetly right here....
Great information, sometimes hard to follow.
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
A focused history of the Bayeux tapestry, in the larger context of French and English history, and national identity. Well-read.Detailed and far-ranging
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I enjoyed much of the book, and think I would have enjoyed it more had I a decent copy of the tapestry to follow along with.
Hard to get the picture
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He successfully places this icon in historic and cultural perspective.
The Bayeux Tapestry
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When dealing with the tapestry itself, it is impossible to correlate what the book is talking about to my small scale print out of the tapestry. The listener is not able to make any connections between the book and tapestry itself. It also does not help that author describes the tapestry in complete random order. He keeps talking about panels, and the listener has no basis to make a connection.
The author does have a passion for the tapestry, which is enjoyable. I have no idea why someone thought this book would make a good audio book. It did make interested enough to learn the difference between an embroidery and a tapestry and a few other points in the book.
I did want to learn more about the tapestry and I purchased the book "The Bayeux Tapestry" by David M Wilson. This book has half scale color pictures (10" tall) that show all of the beautiful details of the tapestry including the stitching. It is vastly superior to even the images found on the internet.
I suggest skipping this painful audio book, and purchasing the impressive real book.
Very Painful Audio Book
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