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Bring Up the Bodies
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2012
The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times best seller, Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?
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A fiction/history cocktail, served by Simon Vance
"If a Booker Prize-winning novel about Thomas Cromwell’s machinations to depose Anne Boleyn seems intimidating, here’s a little secret: everything in the book takes place from Cromwell’s (completely engaging) point of view. Simon Vance performs each scene, word, and thought with the perfect clarity of a genius courtier trying to make his mark on the world. In the game of (Tudor) thrones, you listen or you lose out!"
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The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn
- By: Robin Maxwell
- Narrated by: Suzan Crowley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Robin Maxwell’s debut novel introduces Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Elizabeth: one was queen for a thousand days, the other for more than 40 years. Both were passionate, headstrong women, loved and hated by Henry VIII. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, her mother’s private diary is given to her by a mysterious lady. In reading it, the young ruler - herself embroiled in a dangerous love affair - discovers a great deal about her much maligned mother.
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One of the Best Tudor Novels Availalbe
- By Bonnie-Ann on 03-02-13
By: Robin Maxwell
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In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
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One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
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Empress
- Godspeaker, Book 1
- By: Karen Miller
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 20 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In a family torn apart by poverty and violence, Hekat is no more than an unwanted mouth to feed, worth only a few coins from a passing slave trader. But Hekat was not born to be a slave. For her, a different path has been chosen. It is a path that will take her from stinking back alleys to the house of her God, from blood-drenched battlefields to the glittering palaces of Mijak. This is the story of Hekat, slave to no man.
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depressing and left me feeling empty
- By Bonnie on 09-16-09
By: Karen Miller
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The Boleyn King
- Boleyn Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Laura Andersen
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Just seventeen years old, Henry IX, known as William, is a king bound by the restraints of the regency yet anxious to prove himself. With the French threatening battle and the Catholics sowing the seeds of rebellion at home, William trusts only three people: his older sister Elizabeth; his best friend and loyal counselor, Dominic; and Minuette, a young orphan raised as a royal ward by William’s mother, Anne Boleyn.
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Great idea, bad story
- By S. D. Ristick on 09-22-14
By: Laura Andersen
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First of the Tudors
- By: Joanna Hickson
- Narrated by: Tom Clegg, Non Haf
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Jasper Tudor, son of Queen Catherine and her second husband, Owen Tudor, has grown up far from the intrigue of the royal court. But after he and his brother Edmund are summoned to London, their half brother, King Henry VI, takes a keen interest in their future. Bestowing earldoms on them both, Henry also gives them the wardship of the young heiress Margaret Beaufort. Although she is still a child, Jasper becomes devoted to her and is devastated when Henry arranges her betrothal to Edmund.
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War of the Roses, Again
- By Laurel on 03-27-17
By: Joanna Hickson
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Green Darkness
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 23 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The marriage of the Englishman Richard Marsdon and his young American wife, Celia, slowly turns tragic as Richard withdraws into himself and Celia suffers a debilitating emotional breakdown. A wise mystic realizes that Celia can escape her past only by reliving it. She journeys back four hundred years to her former life as the servant girl Celia de Bohun during the reign of Edward VI - and to her doomed love affair with the chaplain Stephen Marsdon.
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A different narrator would have made all the difference.
- By J on 06-04-15
By: Anya Seton
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A Dangerous Inheritance
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Maggie Mash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Historian and New York Times best-selling author Alison Weir is acclaimed for her absorbing works about the infamous House of York and House of Tudor lines. In A Dangerous Inheritance, Weir uses her wealth of knowledge to craft a compelling novel about two women, living 70 years apart, who are linked through the mysterious disappearance of King Richard III's nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury - also known as the Princes in the Tower.
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Not Weir's Best
- By Joshua on 01-08-13
By: Alison Weir
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Katherine
- A Novel
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Lorna Bennett
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the vibrant fourteenth century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II—who rule despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already-married Katherine. Their affair persists through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption.
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my favorite novel brought to life
- By Heather on 10-04-23
By: Anya Seton
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The Confessions of Catherine de Medici
- A Novel
- By: C. W. Gortner
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In this brilliantly imagined novel, acclaimed author C. W. Gortner brings Catherine to life in her own voice, allowing us to enter the intimate world of a woman whose determination to protect her family’s throne and realm plunged her into a lethal struggle for power. From the fairy-tale chateaux of the Loire Valley to the battlefields of the wars of religion to the mob-filled streets of Paris, this is the extraordinary untold journey of one of the most maligned and misunderstood women ever to be queen.
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Pretty good but historical details are terrible
- By Kindle Customer on 07-10-11
By: C. W. Gortner
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The Iron King
- The Accursed Kings, Book 1
- By: Maurice Druon
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
From the publishers that brought you A Game of Thrones comes the series that inspired George R.R. Martin’s epic work. France became a great nation under Philip the Fair - but it was a greatness achieved at the expense of her people, for his was a reign characterised by violence, the scandalous adulteries of his daughters-in-law, and the triumph of royal authority.
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Historical Goodie
- By Syd Young on 08-03-13
By: Maurice Druon
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A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
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Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.
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When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: Dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time.
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In Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us - with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own - how we really (no, really) live now.
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What listeners say about Bring Up the Bodies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Ry Young
- 09-18-12
Perfection in story and the telling
Would you listen to Bring Up the Bodies again? Why?
After listening to this and the preceding Wolf Hall, I despair of ever having so much satisfaction on an audiobook and its performance. Mantel's writing is exquisite. Each sentence is carefully crafted, balanced, purposeful. The story is amusing, engrossing, horrifying, comforting, and always compelling. If feels like history but somehow one is transported into Cromwell's head and behind his eyes.
And Vance must feel the same way I do. His reading...his performance....is absolutely spot on.
I will NOT enjoy any other book, or pair of books, as much. It's all downhill from here.
I just wish we would get another volume...perhaps it will yet come. The last words in the book state that the end is the beginning.
What other book might you compare Bring Up the Bodies to and why?
I feel like I have had a course in Tudor history, but with a lot more of the important social and economic detail than you would ever get in a classroom.
Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Pure magic. Seriously, there must be a lot of scholarship....the details are so dense and believable. But the primary thing is the lyrical writing.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
It was too short.
Any additional comments?
Regret that I am done with it. Play it again, Sam.
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35 people found this helpful
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- Theodore
- 06-12-13
Enjoyed this one!
I am slowly but surely becoming a fan of Hillary Mantel here. The combination between her and Simon Vance is was very much fitting here. Most persons I have heard speaking about "Bring Up the Bodies" generally tends to say that they preferred the book in the series, "Wolf Hall", to this. Personally though, I found that I enjoyed "Bring Up the Bodies" more.
I've always liked to read about this particular era in British History... the era of the Boleyn's. The downfall of Anne and the sensationalism that surrounded this time is something that I would never predict to happen in real life. Seeing what happens through the vantage point of Thomas Cromwell is pretty fascinating if you ask me. Having to manipulate and contort the law the way he did to fit the whims and fancies of the King of England at the time, Henry VIII. The narration was what I have come to expect from Simon Vance to be honest. Simply flawless.
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- Marianne
- 08-17-17
The story is slightly less interesting than Wolf Hall, but it is just a beautifully written and read.
I am sorry that I have finished both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies as they were so amazing to listen to!
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- Patrick King
- 12-10-13
Makes one appreciate The Bill of Rights
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Beautifully and evocatively written, this is the story of the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn and her family. It is told through the eyes of Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. King Henry appears to be a narcissistic psychopath, a problem if not caused by, certainly exacerbated by his lofty all-powerful political position.
Cromwell, on the other hand, is perfectly aware that what he is doing on the King's behalf is morally and legally wrong. He is simply doing his best to avoid being executed himself. If he takes a deadly revenge for verbal slights along the way he pretends not to enjoy it. At the beginning of this novel, Thomas Moore and Cardinal Wolsey, intimate advisers to the King, have already been publicly humiliated and executed. There is no benefit that would allow a shrewd person to get close to this monarch. He is dangerously paranoid and kills everyone he loves.
I'd particularly recommend this book to people who think capital punishment is a valid legal exercise and that public shaming serves some useful purpose. At one point Cromwell is asked by his son if he believes the queen and her "lovers" are guilty. He says, "They're guilty but not as charged." I have to wonder if, even in our own day, people are wrongfully convicted of crimes and even executed just to get them out of the way.
Who was your favorite character and why?
This is a book teeming with great characters. Nonetheless I became most interested in Thomas Cromwell the protagonist. His thinking is obtuse. His decisions as sly at Machiavelli's. His ability to see three moves ahead in this dangerous and hypocritical court lifestyle raised him from a blacksmith's abused son to The Earle of Essex.
Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have and Simon Vance is one of the finest readers of audio books we have currently. His work is consistently engaging and well-researched. His pronunciation is nearly flawless.
If you could take any character from Bring Up the Bodies out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Honestly I'd be apprehensive about getting close to anyone in this scenario. I don't think my life would be worth the price of the dinner. That said I'd probably enjoy a conversation with the Princess Elizabeth even at her young age in this story. She was the one who survived and to some extent lifted England out of the depression of these dark days. She did not survive because she had so many supporters. She survived because she knew when to hold back and when to push forward.
Any additional comments?
Beautifully written, suspenseful, loaded with both physical and mental action. Historical fiction doesn't get better than this.
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- Pascal J.
- 05-13-15
Loved it.
Beautifully written. Poetic yet vivid use of the language transports you into the heart of Tudor England. I highly recommend it.
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- J. M. Massi
- 07-30-15
Whoever thought this book was possible?
Cromwell was the last person on earth whom I could have envisioned as sympathetic in some way. A wonderful re telling of a difficult set of facts.
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- LW Moore
- 11-02-15
Hillary Mantel at her best!
Where does Bring Up the Bodies rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
1 or 2
What was one of the most memorable moments of Bring Up the Bodies?
No particular moment, not a good question in my opinion.
Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Yes, well done as usual
Any additional comments?
"what goes around comes around"
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-07-23
Brilliant!
This Audible selection is one of the best ever!! I loved it and will listen to it again and again…
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- R. G. Shalhoub
- 06-07-12
Wolf Hall Part 2 does not disappoint
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I'd recommend it anyone who has enjoyed reading "Wolf Hall" or enjoyed listening to Simon Slater's rendering of Part 1. It seems about half as long.
What did you like best about this story?
The character of Thomas Cromwell...brilliant and badass...
What does Simon Vance bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The dialogue has an additional dimension...and the story requires a superior reader...which Vance is...as was Simon Slater in Wolf Hall.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Yes...a number of laughs at the wit of Mantel's channeling of Cromwell.
Any additional comments?
I don't know why Simon Slater wasn't chosen to read...since his rendering of Wolf Hall was one of the greatest performances I've heard but Vance does a very good job of it...and the Cromwell voice choices he makes echo Slater's in the earlier book. Hilary Mantel is a superb writer...a witty and brilliant vision of how things may have been in a very mean and ruthless time period. I enjoyed seeing the fall of several of Cromwell's (and Woolsley's) enemies.
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- Kathleen
- 09-29-12
Sequel to Wolf Hall. Very good.
This is the sequel to Hilary Mantel’s award-winning “Wolf Hall”. Here we follow Thomas Cromwell, secretary and advisor to King Henry VIII to the beheading of Anne Boleyn. While King henry was enamoured of Anne Boleyn for seven years, which included his divorce and annulment of his 20-year marriage to Katherine of Aragon, his exiting from the Catholic church and starting his own church in England, and his ultimate marriage to Anne, he soon becomes disenchanted with her. Their marriage lasts three years; no son is born alive, and only a daughter, Elizabeth, lives. Katherine finally dies, and within a few weeks of her death, the gossip surrounding Anne grows to a climax as people perceive the king is willing to hear rumors and innuendos about her unfaithfulness to him. Again, Thomas Cromwell is the primary focus of the novel and we see events unfold through his eyes. We see a man who rose to his high office but remains, so far as nobility is concerned, a commoner. He has dedicated his life and service to King Henry VIII but with no illusions that the king and the nobility could turn on him in a moment. He retains his position through his wit, intelligence and long memory regarding the people around him. The weeks involving Anne Boleyn’s trial, and the trial of other men tried for treason for allegedly taking liberties with her, is terrifying. The actual beheading of Anne Boleyn is gut wrenching, particularly when you learn that she must kneel but will have no block to rest her head on. She must kneel perfectly still in one place so the head will come off with one stroke. Reading about this period reminds me very much of the French Revolution period of chaos. I don’t know if Mantel plans more books leading to the eventual downfall of Cromwell or if this is it. Simon Vance does his usual wonderful job of narration with each character having its own vocal expressions, Cromwell always remaining slightly remote and cool. I assume this book will get some awards as well. It is very good.
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