And a Nightingale Sang
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Narrated by:
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Florence Russel
About this listen
My late mother, Marianne (potential debutante, Barnardos children's nurse, and granddaughter of Sir Richard Gregory), had been writing her memoirs, about her childhood living in rural Sussex during WWII, for half my life. Admittedly, I never had much interest in her writing, but when she passed away in July 2017--five and a half long years after a long battle with vascular dementia--I collated all her paperwork (scattered everywhere throughout the family home as her mind worsened) and took it upon myself to self-publish her audiobook.
It took many long and painful months to finally get it into a tangible format before I could produce what you have here. She was always good at entertaining and telling wild stories. Admittedly, whilst reading this I realized what a beautiful, funny, and equally heart-breaking story it is.
©2018 Claire Sells (P)2022 Claire SellsListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
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Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
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Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland
- By: Lisa Schneidau
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The islands of Britain and Ireland hold a rich heritage of plant folklore and wisdom, from the magical yew tree to the bad-tempered dandelion. Here are traditional tales about the trees and plants that shape our landscapes and our lives through the seasons. They explore the complex relationship between people and plants, in lowlands and uplands, fields, bogs, moors, woodlands and towns.
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Wee Folk, Giants and Witches. Oh, My!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-14-21
By: Lisa Schneidau
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The Dream House
- By: Craig Higginson
- Narrated by: Terry Lloyd-Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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A farmhouse is being reproduced a dozen times, with slight variations, throughout a valley. Three small graves have been dug in the front garden, the middle one lying empty. A woman in a wheelchair sorts through boxes while her husband clambers around the old demolished buildings, wondering where the animals have gone. A young woman – called ‘the barren one’ behind her back – dreams of love, while an ageing headmaster contemplates the end of his life.
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Brilliant Dream House Narration
- By Simon Griffiths on 05-05-21
By: Craig Higginson
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Wait for Me!
- Memoirs
- By: Deborah Mitford Duchess of Devonshire
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire.
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The last of the Mitford Sisters
- By Irene on 01-11-11
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Pennies for Hitler
- By: Jackie French
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils' heads to see which of them have the most 'Aryan'- shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy seas to Australia where he must forget his past and who he is in order to survive. Hatred is contagious, but Georg finds that kindness can be, too.
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This could be a Bryce Courtenay novel
- By K Cornwinkle on 07-02-14
By: Jackie French
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One of Ours
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Louis B. Jack
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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This is One of Ours, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Willa Cather, America’s greatest writer of the prairie heartland. It is set in rural Nebraska in the early 20th century prior to the first World War that enveloped Europe and eventually the United States. The story focuses on the young Claude Wheeler, a well-to-do farmer’s son who secretly longs for something to take him away from the hum-drum agrarian life he has inherited. As he prepares to take over his family’s farm business, war intrudes.
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Opened my heart
- By georgette bartell on 06-28-19
By: Willa Cather
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Beautiful Joe
- By: Margaret Marshall Saunders
- Narrated by: John Michaels
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1893 as a children's book to encourage the humane treatment of animals, Beautiful Joe has taken it's place along with Black Beauty, becoming a favorite of several generations of youngsters. Beautiful Joe narrates the story of his mutilation at the hands of a cruel master and the love he finds in the home of a caring family full of kids and animals.
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My Appeeciation
- By Linda Niebanck on 04-28-17
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The Story of the Treasure Seekers
- By: E. Nesbit
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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All six Bastable children - Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel and Horace Octavius - are ambitious adventurers, digging detectives and intrepid treasure seekers by nature. Unfortunately, the Bastable family is currently facing an uncertain financial future. When father takes ill, and his business partners abandon him, the six children team up in an effort to restore their family’s wealth. Although they devise some ingenious escapades, their efforts usually end up unprofitable but fun - and sometimes their digging gets downright dangerous.
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Fun and Engaging Book
- By KF on 06-28-17
By: E. Nesbit
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Mukiwa
- A White Boy in Africa
- By: Peter Godwin
- Narrated by: Peter Godwin
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In unforgettable tales of innocence lost under African skies, we follow Godwin's awakening to the often savage struggle between Whites and Blacks, his horror when he is forced to fight in a civil war he detests, and his experiences as a journalist covering the country's violent transition to Black rule as Rhodesia's colonial era comes to an end and the new state of Zimbabwe is born from its bloody ashes. Mukiwa is a poignant, compelling memoir and an invaluable addition to the literature of southern Africa.
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Captivating, poignant memoir.
- By Nakaale on 10-04-20
By: Peter Godwin
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All for Nothing
- By: Walter Kempowski, Anthea Bell - translator, Jenny Erpenbeck - introduction
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In East Prussia, January 1945, the German forces are in retreat, and the Red Army is approaching. The von Globig family's manor house, the Georgenhof, is falling into disrepair. Auntie runs the estate as best she can since Eberhard von Globig, a special officer in the German army, went to war, leaving behind his beautiful but vague wife, Katharina, and her bookish 12-year-old son, Peter. As the road fills with Germans fleeing the occupied territories, the Georgenhof begins to receive strange visitors - a Nazi violinist, a dissident painter, a Baltic baron, even a Jewish refugee.
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All for Nothing
- By Lynn on 03-16-19
By: Walter Kempowski, and others
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The Secret Holocaust Diaries
- The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister
- By: Nonna Bannister, Denise George, Carolyn Tomlin
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gallagher
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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For half a century, a terrible secret lay hidden, locked in a trunk in an attic... photos, official documents, and scraps of a diary written by a young girl. "The time has come when I must share my life story... some facts from the past that could make a contribution, however small it may be, to the history of mankind." The Secret Holocaust Diaries is a haunting eyewitness account of Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister, a remarkable Russian-American woman who saw and survived unspeakable evils as a young girl.
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I respect Nonna
- By Susan on 12-26-11
By: Nonna Bannister, and others