Between the Acts
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.36
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Georgina Sutton
-
By:
-
Virginia Woolf
About this listen
Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, was finished in November 1940 and shortly afterwards delivered to her publisher Hogarth Press. The following March she committed suicide.
Between the Acts is often an overlooked work in her oeuvre because she did express her intention to revise it before publication, though in the event this never happened. So it comes as a surprise to find that, while it probably would have benefited from revision, it is something of an unpolished gem, at times sparkling and actually very engaging. The writing is subtle, varied in tone and purpose; at times serious and complex and at others lighthearted and even downright funny. And unpredictable.
The scene is an English country house, the home of the Olivers, presided over by the elderly Bartholomew – Bart. The date is 1939, the time of the ‘phoney war’, and the village comes to the house and gardens for the annual play put on by the locals. There are complex relationships within the family, and with the local villagers: in true Woolf style, small dramas take place, understated but quietly seismic. And the work is shot through with the phrase, the observation, the sleight of hand, the touch that is her special magic.
With Bart is his sister, the sweetly vague Lucy Swithin, his son, Giles (who works in the city) and Giles’ unsettled, unsure wife, Isa. Taking centre-stage in the story are the amateur theatricals, who undertake to perform three short scenes devised and directed by the eccentric Miss Le Trobe. These three separate scenes, one Shakespearean, one Restoration (a romp this!) and one Victorian, hold the mirror up to society. But what to make of them? The threatened rain holds off so the performances are staged outside in the garden, but the clouds of war are perceptible. Georgina Sutton’s range and sympathy makes listening to this neglected work a surprisingly engaging, very English experience.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions LtdListeners also enjoyed...
-
Assembly
- By: Natasha Brown
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: Is it time to take it all apart?
-
-
HATED IT
- By valerie on 09-24-21
By: Natasha Brown
-
The Voyage Out
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's haunting tale about a naïve young woman's sea voyage from London to a small resort on the South American coast. In symbolic, lyrical, and intoxicating prose, her outward journey begins to mirror her internal voyage into adulthood as she searches for her personal identity, grapples with love, and learns how to face life intellectually and emotionally. Its wit and exquisiteness, and its profound depth and insight into humanity, will capture the imagination of the listener.
-
-
Lovely
- By Edith on 05-24-19
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
-
-
Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Assembly
- By: Natasha Brown
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: Is it time to take it all apart?
-
-
HATED IT
- By valerie on 09-24-21
By: Natasha Brown
-
The Voyage Out
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's haunting tale about a naïve young woman's sea voyage from London to a small resort on the South American coast. In symbolic, lyrical, and intoxicating prose, her outward journey begins to mirror her internal voyage into adulthood as she searches for her personal identity, grapples with love, and learns how to face life intellectually and emotionally. Its wit and exquisiteness, and its profound depth and insight into humanity, will capture the imagination of the listener.
-
-
Lovely
- By Edith on 05-24-19
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
-
-
Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Jacob’s Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob’s Room is Virginia Woolf’s own modernist manifesto. Jacob Flanders is a mere point of contact between a crowd of people, appearing and disappearing in a tableau in which all is flux, without certainty and without a controlling viewpoint. But it seems that the author could not maintain this rigorous impersonality, and the radical technique breaks down, so that we finally see Jacob as a person, just as his world is blown apart.
-
-
It is no use trying to sum people up
- By Darwin8u on 08-18-18
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Years
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Finty Williams
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principal theme of this ambitious book is time, threading together three generations of the Pargiter family. The story begins on a day in 1880 in the household of Colonel Abel Pargiter, his dying wife, and their seven children, and it ends in the 1930s with a brilliantly depicted party at which the Pargiters, young and old, pass in review. Important events - births, deaths, marriages, wars - occur in the wings; it is the commonplace moments that are captured here in a sequence of perfectly drawn scenes.
-
-
Just Beautiful
- By Kdmd on 06-07-18
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Night and Day
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written before she began her experiments in the writing of fiction, Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day, is a story about a group of young people trying to discover what it means to fall in love. It asks all the big questions: What does it mean to fall in love? Does marriage grant happiness? What is happiness? Night and Day is a conventional novel; however, it maps out for us the world of Virginia Woolf in its wondrous prose: For her it was the beginning, leading on to a prolonged engagement with her search for the means to express the "inner life".
-
-
"After all, what is love?"
- By Eman Abd Allah on 12-13-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
A Writer's Diary
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1918 to 1941, even as she penned masterpiece upon masterpiece, Virginia Woolf kept a diary. She poured into it her thoughts, feelings, concerns, objections, interests, and disappointments -resulting in 26 volumes that give unprecedented insight into the mind of a genius. Collected here are the passages most relevant to her work and writing.
-
-
Unfortunate choice of narrator
- By DTAR on 09-08-19
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Flush
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Prunella Scales
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most famous of all literary dogs, Flush was the golden cocker spaniel belonging to Elizabeth Barrett. In this charming and heartfelt biography, Viginia Woolf tells his story: his early days as Miss Mitford's puppy running across the fields in wild abandon and fathering another, then the years spent in his invalid mistress' bedroom in Wimpole Street.
-
-
More of Woman's Best Friend
- By Aaron Elliott on 04-23-07
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Adam Bede
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 20 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Eliot's first full-length novel Adam Bede is a profound rendering of 19th century English pastoral life. This timeless story of seduction and betrayal follows the virtuous carpenter Adam Bede, whose world is soon disrupted when the all-too-beautiful Hetty betrays him for another villager. Her actions precipitate a turmoil of tragic events that shake the very foundations of their serene rural community.
-
-
Great narration
- By mom of teen on 03-20-19
By: George Eliot
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
The Enchanter
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Enchanter is the Ur-Lolita, the precursor to Nabokov’s classic novel. At once hilarious and chilling, it tells the story of an outwardly respectable man and his fatal obsession with certain pubescent girls, whose coltish grace and subconscious coquetry reveal, to his mind, a special bud on the verge of bloom.
-
-
Nabokov's black salad devouring a green rabbit
- By Darwin8u on 10-14-12
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Quicksand
- By: Nella Larsen
- Narrated by: Margaret Melosh
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helga Crane yearns to become more than she is and to feel the world more intensely. She consequently dismisses her native Chicago, New York's Harlem, Copenhagen even. She also passes on opportunities for extended family, for marriage, and for true love. What is always latent in this truly outstanding work; is how much the background of 1920's American racial segregation defines Helga's malaise, and how much - paradoxically - is of herown doing.
-
-
Missing a chapter
- By La Keisha Wright on 06-29-20
By: Nella Larsen
-
Swann's Way
- By: Marcel Proust
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 21 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Swann’s Way is the first of seven volumes in Remembrance of Things Past. It sets the scene with the narrator’s memories being famously provoked by the taste of that little cake, the madeleine, accompanied by a cup of lime-flowered tea. It is an unmatched portrait of fin-de-siècle France.
-
-
Not a book one reads but inhabits & floats through
- By Darwin8u on 02-24-13
By: Marcel Proust
Related to this topic
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
-
-
Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Ulysses
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 27 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.
-
-
Ulysses (Unabridged)
- By Peter Deane on 01-22-09
By: James Joyce
-
Lark Rise
- By: Flora Thompson
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lark Rise is Flora Thompson's childhood memories of a north Oxfordshire village, the people who lived and worked in it, and a way of life that has totally disappeared. The story is built around Laura and her brother Edmund, through whose eyes are seen 'old Sally', whose grandfather built the house she lived in before the enclosure of the heathland, children's games, the interaction of village and gentry, and the way in which the seasons governed life.
-
-
A glimpse...
- By Shananiganians on 05-31-20
By: Flora Thompson
-
The King in Yellow
- By: Robert W. Chambers
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a book that is shrouded in mystery. Some even say it's a myth. Within its pages is a play - one that brings madness and despair to all who read it. It is the play of the King in Yellow, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days. The King in Yellow is a collection of stories interwoven loosely by the elements of the play, including the central figure himself.
-
-
Great Introduction to Robert Chambers
- By David S. Mathew on 11-23-16
-
Picnic at Hanging Rock
- By: Joan Lindsay
- Narrated by: Jacqueline McKenzie
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
St Valentine’s Day, in the midst of the hot summer of 1900, a party of schoolgirls went on a picnic to Hanging Rock. Some were never to return…. An Australian classic, the disappearance of three girls and a schoolteacher at Hanging Rock has captivated and intrigued audiences for generations. Jacqueline McKenzie’s interpretation of the best-selling novel captures all of the beauty of the Rock and illustrates the eerie sense of the unknown for which the story is legendary.
-
-
NOT UNabridged!
- By Doreen on 05-09-15
By: Joan Lindsay
-
Jacob's Room
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacob's Room was the first of Virginia Woolf's novels to be published by the Hogarth Press, founded with her husband, Leonard Woolf, in their home at Hogarth House in Richmond in 1917. It is an episodic tale that attempts to evoke the inner life of Jacob Flanders and his social milieu during the first decade-and-a-half of the 20th century.
-
-
A good listen
- By Cecilie Malling on 03-21-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
-
-
Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Ulysses
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 27 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.
-
-
Ulysses (Unabridged)
- By Peter Deane on 01-22-09
By: James Joyce
-
Lark Rise
- By: Flora Thompson
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lark Rise is Flora Thompson's childhood memories of a north Oxfordshire village, the people who lived and worked in it, and a way of life that has totally disappeared. The story is built around Laura and her brother Edmund, through whose eyes are seen 'old Sally', whose grandfather built the house she lived in before the enclosure of the heathland, children's games, the interaction of village and gentry, and the way in which the seasons governed life.
-
-
A glimpse...
- By Shananiganians on 05-31-20
By: Flora Thompson
-
The King in Yellow
- By: Robert W. Chambers
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a book that is shrouded in mystery. Some even say it's a myth. Within its pages is a play - one that brings madness and despair to all who read it. It is the play of the King in Yellow, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days. The King in Yellow is a collection of stories interwoven loosely by the elements of the play, including the central figure himself.
-
-
Great Introduction to Robert Chambers
- By David S. Mathew on 11-23-16
-
Picnic at Hanging Rock
- By: Joan Lindsay
- Narrated by: Jacqueline McKenzie
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
St Valentine’s Day, in the midst of the hot summer of 1900, a party of schoolgirls went on a picnic to Hanging Rock. Some were never to return…. An Australian classic, the disappearance of three girls and a schoolteacher at Hanging Rock has captivated and intrigued audiences for generations. Jacqueline McKenzie’s interpretation of the best-selling novel captures all of the beauty of the Rock and illustrates the eerie sense of the unknown for which the story is legendary.
-
-
NOT UNabridged!
- By Doreen on 05-09-15
By: Joan Lindsay
-
Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Elaine Wise
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though he embodies neither wealth nor a lavish persona, Charles Bovary - a somewhat established doctor - takes a chance in marrying the young, vibrant, and ambitious farm girl Emma Rouault. At first, Emma is delighted to be married and away from her father's farm, but her thirst for the rich and ornate lifestyle that she witnesses other people living soon drives her away from her husband and into the arms of various suitors.
-
-
Madame Bovary doesn't disappoint
- By Arlene Olsen on 12-11-16
By: Gustave Flaubert
-
Crome Yellow
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the greatest prose writers and social commentators of the 20th century, Aldous Huxley here introduces us to a delightfully cynical, comic, and severe group of artists and intellectuals engaged in the most free-thinking and modern kind of talk imaginable. Poetry, occultism, ancestral history, and Italian primitive painting are just a few of the subjects competing for discussion among the amiable cast of eccentrics drawn together at Crome, an intensely English country manor.
-
-
Bloomsbury in a blender, 1922
- By Adeliese Baumann on 01-02-17
By: Aldous Huxley
-
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
-
The Psammead Trilogy
- By: Edith Nesbit
- Narrated by: Rosie Akerman
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Psammead trilogy, featuring Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet, has enchanted audiences of all ages for decades. Experience the entire story in this one unique collection, narrated by Rosie Akerman.
-
-
Irritating narrator
- By R Kieffer on 06-23-22
By: Edith Nesbit
-
The Return of the Soldier
- By: Rebecca West
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this lyrical and poignant story of a wounded man and the three concerned women who seek to heal him, Rebecca West explores the complexity of the mind and its subtle strategies for coping with life's painful realities. Only when Chris has the courage to face one pivotal moment of truth in his married life will he be able to awaken from his boyish fantasy and become, indeed, "every inch a soldier".
-
-
a gem
- By beatrice on 09-08-21
By: Rebecca West
-
South Riding
- By: Winifred Holtby
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this rich and memorable evocation of the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire are the lives, loves and sorrows of the central characters. There is Sarah Burton, fiery young headmistress; Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall, a councillor tormented by his own disastrous marriage; Jo Astell, a socialist fighting poverty and his own illness; and Mrs Beddows, the first woman Alderman of the district (like Winifred's own mother).
-
-
Worth Revisiting
- By Ilana on 11-04-12
By: Winifred Holtby
-
Good Poems
- Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor
- By: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and others
- Narrated by: Garrison Keillor
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence.
-
-
Very good, but. . .
- By KSmith on 01-27-11
By: Emily Dickinson, and others
-
Fifty-Two Stories
- 1883-1898
- By: Anton Chekhov, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and War and Peace: a lavish, masterfully rendered volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time.
-
-
Better alternatives for Chekhov
- By Carol V. Macvey on 03-04-21
By: Anton Chekhov, and others
-
Andersen's Fairy Tales (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Hans Christian Andersen
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uniting universal themes with a wonderfully personal vision of the world, Hans Christian Andersen found magic in the landscape of childhood. His talking animals and living toys shine a sparkling light on the strange wisdom of innocence and the deceptive nature of adulthood. These stories have now been adapted into countless classic films (including The Little Mermaid, The Red Shoes, and Frozen - which was based on “The Snow Queen”) and have become part of our everyday speech, such as when we talk about “ugly ducklings” and “the emperor’s new clothes.”
-
-
relaxing bed time book
- By Ryan on 09-27-21
-
The Phantom Coach
- A Connoisseur's Collection of the Best Victorian Ghost Stories
- By: Michael Sims
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.
-
-
Excellent Narration and Great Selection of Stories
- By Robert on 05-03-15
By: Michael Sims
-
Pnin
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the best-loved of Nabokov's novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian emigre precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.
-
-
Why not leave their private sorrows to people?
- By Darwin8u on 01-13-20
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Cocaine Blues
- By: Kerry Greenwood
- Narrated by: Stephanie Daniel
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.
-
-
A series that just gets better
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 02-01-11
By: Kerry Greenwood
What listeners say about Between the Acts
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Etoile NEOhio
- 11-24-22
Uneven
A great deal of this book was delightful; all of the literary references were like little nods to poets and authors across the breadth of (mostly) British literature. The footnotes in the Kindle version helped confirm many that I caught and pointed out many more that I did not. The portions of the book describing the play and the business between the acts was all quite delightful. The "overature" portion setting up all of the characters could have used some editing and the "postlude", after the play was over, lacked the snap and vivacity of the play itself and the associated business. Ms Woolf did always intend to get back to this offering to clean it up a bit. I'm sorry she didn't ever attend that business.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TiffanyD
- 01-14-23
Flaw in audio; other wise good
So in chapter 18 or 19 the audio cuts off in the middle of the sentence. I downloaded onto a second device to make sure it wasn't an issue with the original download. It was not. So that's annoying for perfectionists but it's only one sentence and if you have the text handy, you can just read the end of the sentence.
There's not much of a plot. Just a play taking place at an English country house during a day where rain is threatened. But there are little human dramas that play out in between. This lack of plot meant it took me a rather long time to listen considering how short it is. Nothing really compelled me forward. But it's well narrated and if you like Virginia Woolf, you will definitely like this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful