Behind the Scenes at the Museum
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Pearl Hewitt
-
By:
-
Kate Atkinson
About this listen
A deeply moving family story of happiness and heartbreak, Behind the Scenes at the Museum is best-selling author Kate Atkinson's award-winning literary debut.
National Best seller
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year
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.
Kate Atkinson's first novel is "a multigenerational tale of a spectacularly dysfunctional Yorkshire family and one of the funniest works of fiction to come out of Britain in years" (The New York Times Book Review).
©1995 Kate Atkinson (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
Hamnet
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
-
-
A masterpiece
- By Molly-o on 08-03-20
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Paris in the Present Tense
- By: Mark Helprin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life, with its days bright with music, family, and rowing on the Seine, Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist who is a third his age.
-
-
Greatest living "novelist". Top 10 narrator.
- By BellevueMike on 10-14-17
By: Mark Helprin
-
The Impossible Girl
- By: Lydia Kang
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Manhattan, 1850. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and a nameless immigrant, Cora Lee can mingle with the rich just as easily as she can slip unnoticed into the slums and graveyards of the city. As the only female resurrectionist in New York, she’s carved out a niche procuring bodies afflicted with the strangest of anomalies. Anatomists will pay exorbitant sums for such specimens—dissecting and displaying them for the eager public. Cora’s specialty is not only profitable, it’s a means to keep a finger on the pulse of those searching for her. She’s the girl born with two hearts....
-
-
A well-told story!
- By Carole Wooten on 10-31-18
By: Lydia Kang
-
Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
-
-
Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
-
-
The Great American Novel is finally inclusive.
- By Margaret on 12-28-21
-
Hamnet
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
-
-
A masterpiece
- By Molly-o on 08-03-20
By: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Paris in the Present Tense
- By: Mark Helprin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life, with its days bright with music, family, and rowing on the Seine, Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist who is a third his age.
-
-
Greatest living "novelist". Top 10 narrator.
- By BellevueMike on 10-14-17
By: Mark Helprin
-
The Impossible Girl
- By: Lydia Kang
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Manhattan, 1850. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and a nameless immigrant, Cora Lee can mingle with the rich just as easily as she can slip unnoticed into the slums and graveyards of the city. As the only female resurrectionist in New York, she’s carved out a niche procuring bodies afflicted with the strangest of anomalies. Anatomists will pay exorbitant sums for such specimens—dissecting and displaying them for the eager public. Cora’s specialty is not only profitable, it’s a means to keep a finger on the pulse of those searching for her. She’s the girl born with two hearts....
-
-
A well-told story!
- By Carole Wooten on 10-31-18
By: Lydia Kang
-
Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
-
-
Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- By: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
-
-
The Great American Novel is finally inclusive.
- By Margaret on 12-28-21
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
-
-
Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Homecoming
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Claire Foy
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.
-
-
Loved the compelling audiobook version!
- By Melissas Bookshelf on 04-07-23
By: Kate Morton
-
A Week in Winter
- By: Maeve Binchy
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stoneybridge is a small town on the west coast of Ireland where all the families know one another. When Chicky Starr decides to take an old, decaying mansion set high on the cliffs overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, everyone thinks she is crazy. Helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the house) and Orla, her niece (a whiz at business), Chicky is finally ready to welcome the first guests to Stone House’s big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms.
-
-
Didn't want it to end.....
- By Vicki Unger on 02-26-13
By: Maeve Binchy
-
North Woods
- A Novel
- By: Daniel Mason
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Michael Crouch, Jason Culp, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets.
-
-
An American Masterpiece
- By Psumissyh on 09-21-23
By: Daniel Mason
-
The Things We Cannot Say
- By: Kelly Rimmer
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon, Nancy Peterson
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now 15 and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears.
-
-
Don’t Miss This One!
- By Mary Smiroldo on 08-06-19
By: Kelly Rimmer
-
The Lost Girls of Devon
- By: Barbara O'Neal
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd, Esther Wane, Sarah Naughton, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's been years since Zoe Fairchild has been to the small Devon village of her birth, but the wounds she suffered there still ache. When she learns that her old friend and grandmother's caretaker has gone missing, Zoe and her fifteen-year-old daughter return to England to help. Zoe dreads seeing her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world. As the four generations of women reunite, the emotional pain of the past is awakened. And to complicate matters further, Zoe must also confront the ex-boyfriend she betrayed many years before.
-
-
Slow Moving
- By Jenny on 10-08-20
By: Barbara O'Neal
-
We Must Be Brave
- By: Frances Liardet
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle, Juliet Mills
- Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
December 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, England, the city's residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly married Ellen Parr finds a girl asleep, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone. Ellen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home, the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband, Selwyn, had dreamed for themselves. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all.
-
-
Nasty reviews, why? Beautiful book.
- By Kelly on 11-27-19
By: Frances Liardet
-
Coming Home
- By: Rosamunde Pilcher
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 40 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.
-
-
Marvelous story line, Excellent narration
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-18
-
Next Year in Havana
- By: Chanel Cleeton
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia, Frankie Maria Corzo
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, 19-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest - until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee during the revolution. Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate.
-
-
Amazing story line but the performance...
- By Grace F on 07-10-18
By: Chanel Cleeton
-
The Secret Letter
- By: Debbie Rix
- Narrated by: Jacqueline King
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Germany, 1939. A tumbledown farmhouse, on the outskirts of a close-knit village in the heart of the rolling hills of Bavaria. A once happy family home torn apart by Nazi rule. And one young girl who refuses to give up on what she believes in...London, 2018: When 94-year-old Imogen receives a letter addressed to her in neat, unfamiliar handwriting, she notices the postmark is stamped from Germany - and it sends shivers down her spine....
-
-
Compelling
- By Book Nerd on 01-06-20
By: Debbie Rix
Related to this topic
-
East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
-
-
Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson
-
The Things We Never Said
- By: Susan Elliot Wright
- Narrated by: Kate Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1964, Maggie wakes to find herself in a mental asylum, with no idea who she is or how she got there. Remnants of memories swirl in her mind - a familiar song, a storm, a moment of violence. Slowly, she begins to piece together the past and the events which brought her to this point.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-22
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Lights Out Liverpool
- By: Maureen Lee
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
Owls Do Cry
- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters.'
-
-
well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
-
East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
-
-
Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson
-
The Things We Never Said
- By: Susan Elliot Wright
- Narrated by: Kate Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1964, Maggie wakes to find herself in a mental asylum, with no idea who she is or how she got there. Remnants of memories swirl in her mind - a familiar song, a storm, a moment of violence. Slowly, she begins to piece together the past and the events which brought her to this point.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-22
-
The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
-
Lights Out Liverpool
- By: Maureen Lee
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
Owls Do Cry
- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters.'
-
-
well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
-
Pennies for Hitler
- By: Jackie French
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
This could be a Bryce Courtenay novel
- By K Cornwinkle on 07-02-14
By: Jackie French
-
Crooked Heart
- A Novel
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge - a 36-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it.
-
-
Surviving The Blitz In WWII Great Britain
- By Sara on 04-24-16
By: Lissa Evans
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Life Class
- By: Pat Barker
- Narrated by: Russell Boulter
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1914, a group of young students gather in an art studio for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke are two components of a love triangle, and at the outset of the war, they turn to each other. After volunteering for the Red Cross, Paul must confront the fact that life, love, and art will never be the same for him.
-
-
In Love and War
- By Cariola on 07-28-09
By: Pat Barker
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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.
-
-
Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
-
The Secret of Platform 13
- By: Eva Ibbotson
- Narrated by: Angela Thorne
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the everyday world of King's Cross Station lies an island of oddities and magic. When their infant Prince is stolen, the island's magical residents form a team to rescue him. The only trouble is, they can't get to him for nine years.
-
-
Light, funny, magical listen.
- By E. Onaya on 06-01-17
By: Eva Ibbotson
-
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
- By: Leslye Walton
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender.
-
-
Beautiful and Haunting Fairytale
- By FanB14 on 07-24-15
By: Leslye Walton
-
There'll Be Blue Skies
- By: Ellie Dean
- Narrated by: Annie Aldington
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End – but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally – their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.
-
-
The audible reading was poor
- By Connie Palla on 03-02-19
By: Ellie Dean
-
The Road Home
- By: Rose Tremain
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
OK - nice narration - good characters
- By bea on 02-21-11
By: Rose Tremain
-
Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English
- By: Natasha Solomons
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the start of World War II, Jack and Sadie Rosenblum flee Berlin for London with their baby daughter, Elizabeth. Upon arrival, Jack receives a pamphlet from the German Jewish Aid Committee on how to act like a proper Englishman. He follows it to the letter -Saville Row suits, the BBC, trips to Covent Garden, a Jaguar - and it works like a charm. The Rosenblums settle into a prosperous new life.
-
-
Endearing
- By Emily on 09-09-11
By: Natasha Solomons
-
The Darkest Secret
- A Novel
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Real estate mogul Sean Jackson is throwing himself a splashy 50th birthday party, but trouble starts almost immediately: His ex-wife has sent his teenage daughters to the party without telling him; his current wife has fired the nanny; and he's finding it difficult to sneak away to his mistress. Then something truly terrible happens: one of his three-year-old twins goes missing. No trace of her is ever found. The attendees of the party, nicknamed the Jackson Associates by the press, become infamous overnight.
-
-
Wow
- By Christina on 09-14-16
By: Alex Marwood
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
-
-
Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
-
-
Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Shine, Pamela! Shine!
- Out of Line collection
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Christie
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pamela is a newly retired teacher with time on her hands. She’s finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for what’s ahead: exhausting postdivorce dating rituals and an uneasy relationship with her emotionally stunted, live-at-home son. But for Pamela, there’s a surprise in store that could challenge the status quo and, against all expectations, make life interesting again.
-
-
Really terrible
- By Teatime2 on 09-13-20
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Suttree
- By: Cormac McCarthy
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 20 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No discussion of great modern authors is complete without mention of Cormac McCarthy, whose rare and blazing talent makes his every work a true literary event. A grand addition to the American literary canon, Suttree introduces readers to Cornelius Suttree, a man who abandons his affluent family to live among a dissolute array of vagabonds along the Tennessee river.
-
-
The River of Sewers, Stars, Life, and Death
- By Jefferson on 08-08-13
By: Cormac McCarthy
-
When We Were Very Young
- A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics, Volume 3
- By: A. A. Milne
- Narrated by: Peter Dennis
- Length: 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blackstone Audiobooks presents, from the unabridged collection A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics, the 44 poems and verses from When We Were Very Young performed by Peter Dennis. This is the only reading of these delightful verses authorized by A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin.
-
-
Great content for a little mind.
- By Noel West on 06-10-16
By: A. A. Milne
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
A very satisfying two days!
- By Frances on 09-30-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
-
-
Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Normal Rules Don't Apply
- Stories
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Paterson Joseph
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that listeners love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
-
-
Playful jigsaw puzzle of stories
- By ReallyNelie on 02-24-24
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Shine, Pamela! Shine!
- Out of Line collection
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Gwendoline Christie
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pamela is a newly retired teacher with time on her hands. She’s finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for what’s ahead: exhausting postdivorce dating rituals and an uneasy relationship with her emotionally stunted, live-at-home son. But for Pamela, there’s a surprise in store that could challenge the status quo and, against all expectations, make life interesting again.
-
-
Really terrible
- By Teatime2 on 09-13-20
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Suttree
- By: Cormac McCarthy
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 20 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No discussion of great modern authors is complete without mention of Cormac McCarthy, whose rare and blazing talent makes his every work a true literary event. A grand addition to the American literary canon, Suttree introduces readers to Cornelius Suttree, a man who abandons his affluent family to live among a dissolute array of vagabonds along the Tennessee river.
-
-
The River of Sewers, Stars, Life, and Death
- By Jefferson on 08-08-13
By: Cormac McCarthy
-
When We Were Very Young
- A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics, Volume 3
- By: A. A. Milne
- Narrated by: Peter Dennis
- Length: 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blackstone Audiobooks presents, from the unabridged collection A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics, the 44 poems and verses from When We Were Very Young performed by Peter Dennis. This is the only reading of these delightful verses authorized by A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin.
-
-
Great content for a little mind.
- By Noel West on 06-10-16
By: A. A. Milne
-
Bleak House
- By: Charles Dickens, Marty Ross
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton, Ambika Mod, Mackenzie Crook, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London. A city drowning in fog. Amid that fog, a man with no name dies above a strange junkshop. Threads of mist and intrigue weave around a court case with no resolution, linking great country houses with the lowest slum in the city, mingling the high-born with a boy who sweeps the filthy streets, enshrouding devious plots and sudden murder, bringing together two extraordinary women – Lady Dedlock and Esther Summerson - who seem to have nothing whatsoever in common but who will find themselves inextricably linked.
-
-
What can one say - it’s Dickens!
- By Patsy on 09-29-24
By: Charles Dickens, and others
-
The Jungle Books
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: Madhav Sharma
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kiplings' tales of Mowgli and his exciting life in the Indian jungle have been loved by children and adults alike ever since their publication in 1895. Mowgli the 'man-cub' must learn to fend for himself against terrible foes like Shere Khan the tiger, but he can always call upon his friends Baloo the Bear, Bagheera the Black Panther, and Kaa the Rock Python from whom he learns the Law of the jungle.
-
-
Excellent
- By Stephen on 04-12-06
By: Rudyard Kipling
-
Becoming Fluent
- How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language
- By: Richard Roberts, Roger Kreuz
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Becoming Fluent, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do, they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children.
-
-
Learning strategies
- By S. T. on 07-23-17
By: Richard Roberts, and others
-
Unprotected
- A Memoir
- By: Billy Porter
- Narrated by: Billy Porter
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the Tony Award-winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, and all-around diva, Porter was a young boy who didn’t fit in.
-
-
I didn't know his name
- By Julie Newkirk on 01-04-22
By: Billy Porter
-
East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
-
-
Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson
-
Undertow
- By: Michael Buckley
- Narrated by: Jennifer Grace
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lyric Walker was 14 years old, her life was turned upside down when she witnessed a world-changing event - the arrival of the Triton, a five-nation race of warrior merpeople who walked out of the sea and camped on the beaches of modern-day Coney Island. Suddenly her neighborhood was home to a new minority group numbering in the tens of thousands. But the Triton's arrival also revealed a shocking family secret: Her own mother was a mermaid.
-
-
I loved “Undertow” by Michael Buckley.
- By love2dazzle on 11-13-17
By: Michael Buckley
-
Out of Line
- Women on the Verge of a Breakthrough
- By: Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Caroline Kepnes, and others
- Narrated by: Kristen Bell, Samira Wiley, Lea Salonga, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when women step out of line and take control of their own stories? Big fears, small frustrations, and the power of hope collide as seven award-winning authors explore the possibilities. From demanding equal pay to resisting a genetically engineered future, this collection offers up visions that are grimly funny, deeply touching, and chillingly conceivable.
-
-
A “black mirror” view on womanhood
- By Taty on 09-29-22
By: Cheryl Strayed, and others
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Cockroach
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Bill Nighy
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain - and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way; not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy. In this bitingly funny Kafkaesque satire, Ian McEwan engages with scabrous humor a very recognizable political world and turns it on its head.
-
-
An excellent parody on life during Brexit
- By Kate Juliff on 11-28-19
By: Ian McEwan
-
Companion Piece
- A Novel
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Natalie Simpson
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With an eye for rendering the timely in a timeless way and enchanting audiences with lyrical prose and grace, Ali Smith's ambitious Seasonal Quartet—a series of four stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected—artfully guided us through #MeToo, Brexit, the refugee crisis, a global pandemic, and more. Now, Smith's highly anticipated Companion Piece looks to the future and builds upon this "time-sensitive project". This new novel stands apart from the Quartet, which remains discrete unto itself.
-
-
She said she said she said
- By Cate on 05-29-22
By: Ali Smith
-
This Must Be the Place
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California; a father he loathes in Brooklyn; and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway. He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with 20 years ago, and this discovery will send him off course, far away from wife and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?
-
-
A good story spoiled
- By White rose on 03-24-17
By: Maggie O'Farrell
What listeners say about Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tom
- 03-21-20
women rule this family saga
It makes sense that narrator Ruby's scorn for her mother, Bunty starts in the womb because this is a novel about how women run the show through the generations. Though she will never make Mother of the Year, Bunty at least endures her daughter's relentlessly scorn-filled memories with fortitude and at least a little dignity intact. Further, because she is the narrator's connection to her grandmother, aunts, great-aunts, and great-grandmother, her presence provides crucial continuity for this tale of generations of working class women in Yorkshire and one in which men are the bit players--good to start the occasional unwed pregnancy, romance someone away from her life made miserable by another, die prematurely, die in war, die at sea, or, in Bunty's case, to stay until death but make her undone with his philandering. Though she suffers greatly from her daughter's opinion, she is paid the ultimate compliment of becoming the book's most memorable presence.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vwbh
- 06-05-21
Hard to figure out who everybody is at first, but worth the trouble
A well written intriguing book, but at times hard to figure out who the characters were from prior chapters. I imagine that reading it, rather than listening, would eliminate most of the initial confusion.Well worth the trouble, and once you get into the flow, really a great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lissa Goldman
- 07-19-21
Not the best Kate Atkinson
This was the only KA novel I hadn’t yet read so I had to give it a go. I almost stopped several times because the story didn’t seem to go anywhere. You can tell it is her first novel; and it is ambitious for a first novel. Still, it was long and a bit tedious at parts.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barbara
- 07-01-21
Wonderful!
I was delighted to see that Audible had this early book by Kate Atkinson! It shares many of the characteristics of her two great novels, Life after Life and A God in Ruins, namely back-and-forth woven family history involving the World Wars, humour, and dogs. A pretty delightful read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- cdo
- 07-09-22
Quite a Biography
From conception to her mother’s death, Ruby Lennox tells her lifetime story. Amazing writing.
And I love that Pearl Hewitt narrates. Her voice is perfect for Ruby.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- anon
- 04-20-24
Excellent
Never met a Kate Atkinson book I didn't love. This is no exception. Having read and listened to the book, my only question is, can anyone explain the picture on the cover of this Audible edition?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-18-24
So Creative
Wow such a creative and dynamic reflection on family dysfunction. Really enjoyed the writing. The vocabulary choices gave incredible depth and nuance to the feelings of the characters.
The narrator did a terrific job bringing the story alive and understandable in a multigenerational and nonlinear story. Most importantly (for me) narrator did not overly perform the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Turid
- 01-14-19
A bit choppy
This novel darts around in time which makes for considerable confusion in remembering which family members belong to whom. I loved the reflective prose and even got to appreciate the reader’s accent after a while. As with many novels the last chapter was a hurried tying up of loose ends which detracted from the overall novel’s pace.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cortney Davis
- 06-14-21
smart and funny
Quirky, smart and funny. I really enjoyed the story and it's characters were interesting. the narration was fantastic also.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 06-27-21
memorable wedding and world cup collision
Reading of this section of the book was hysterical....I wasn't quite vested in the story or series of story lines, but some of the reading moments...this one in particular...were very well executed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!