I Never Knew That About London
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Narrated by:
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Timothy Bentinck
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By:
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Christopher Winn
About this listen
Best-selling author Christopher Winn takes us on a captivating journey around London to discover the unknown tales of our capital's history. Travelling through the villages and districts that make up the world's most dynamic metropolis, I Never Knew That About London unearths the hidden gems of legends, firsts, inventions, adventures and birthplaces that shape the city's compelling and at times turbulent past.
See the Chelsea river views that inspired Turner in his final years, and find out where London's first nude statue is. Explore London's finest country house in Charlton, and unearth the secrets of the Mother of Parliaments. Spy out the village that gave its name to a car and the Russian word for railway station. Discover which church steeple gave us the design of the traditional wedding cake, where the sandwich was invented, and where in Bond Street you can see London's oldest artefact. Visit the house where Handel and Jimi Hendrix both lived. Climb the famous 311 steps of the Monument, go from East to West and back again at Greenwich and fly the world's biggest big wheel.
Brimming with facts, stories and snippets providing a spellbinding insight into the history of London, this beautiful listen is guaranteed to inform and amuse in equal measure.
Christopher Winn's first book was the best-selling I Never Knew That About England. A freelance writer and collector of trivia for over 20 years, he has worked with Terry Wogan and Jonathan Ross and sets quiz questions for television as well as for the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
He is also the associate producer of a TV series by ITV on Great Britain, airing in 2014. His website is http://www.i-never-knew-that.com.
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Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900. Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects.
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A STORY THAT TRIES TOO HARD....AND FAILS
- By The Louligan on 02-01-15
By: Donald L. Miller
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Victorian London
- The Life of a City, 1840-1870
- By: Liza Picard
- Narrated by: Anton Lesser
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
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Like her previous books, this book will be the result of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life, and the conditions in which most people lived, so often left out of history books. This period of mid-Victorian London encompasses a huge range of subjects.
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Unforgettable journey into the past
- By Adeliese Baumann on 05-27-18
By: Liza Picard
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The Nile: Travelling Downriver Through Egypt's Past and Present
- The Vintage Departures Series
- By: Toby Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nile, like all of Egypt, is both timeless and ever-changing. In this audio, renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes us on a journey downriver that is both history and travelogue. We begin at the First Nile Cataract, close to the modern city of Aswan. From there, Wilkinson guides us through the illustrious nation birthed by this great river.
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A Riverboat Cruise from the luxury of your phone
- By Amazon Customer on 02-20-20
By: Toby Wilkinson
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The Germans and Europe
- A Personal Frontline History
- By: Peter Millar
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.
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One of the best books I have listened to on here
- By Shaun on 05-17-18
By: Peter Millar
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Hong Kong
- By: Jan Morris
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Hong Kong is the world’s most exciting city, at once fascinating and exasperating, a tangle of contradictions. It is a dazzling amalgam of conspicuous consumption and primitive poverty, the most architecturally incongruous yet undeniably beautiful urban panorama of all. Through firsthand reportage, world-renowned travel writer Jan Morris takes us through the crowded streets of this enigmatic city, offering the most insightful and comprehensive study of Hong Kong thus far. She reviews Hong Kong’s early days as a British opium port controlled by pirates, cutthroats, and scoundrel tycoons, and looks ahead to the city’s future.
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An interesting but mild disappointment
- By Jeanette Finan on 06-11-14
By: Jan Morris
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London in the Nineteenth Century
- By: Jerry White
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Jerry White's London in the Nineteenth Century is the richest and most absorbing account of the city's greatest century by its leading expert. London in the nineteenth century was the greatest city mankind had ever seen. Its growth was stupendous. Its wealth was dazzling. Its horrors shocked the world. This was the London of Blake, Thackeray and Mayhew, of Nash, Faraday and Disraeli. Most of all it was the London of Dickens. As William Blake put it, London was 'a Human awful wonder of God'.
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SO DETAILED..SO VERY VERY DETAILED.
- By Count B on 06-16-19
By: Jerry White
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The Victorian City
- Everyday Life in Dickens' London
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail. From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved English novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities, and cruelties.
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UNFORTUNATLY DISAPPOINTED, IS NOT INTERESTING
- By Count B on 02-04-18
By: Judith Flanders
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A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
- By: Michael Paterson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.
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Brief, But Insightful
- By Troy on 07-17-13
By: Michael Paterson
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Travels with George
- In Search of Washington and His Legacy
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Does George Washington still matter? Best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington’s unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all 13 former colonies, which were now an unsure nation. Travels with George marks a new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into a single narrative.
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Fun listen but too much about slavery
- By Paul W. Brazis on 09-19-21
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The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveler's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history—the Regency, or Georgian England. A time of exuberance, thrills, frills, and unchecked bad behavior, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition. Conveying the sights, sounds, and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting—the past not as something to be studied, but as lived experience.
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SKIP THIS BOOK
- By Lady Aristotle on 09-05-22
By: Ian Mortimer
What listeners say about I Never Knew That About London
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sean O'Skea
- 08-21-16
I never cared to know that about London.
I Never Knew That About London by Christopher Winn is well read by Timothy Bentinck and is a mildly diverting listen for those interested in London’s long history. It is organized by neighborhood and can be hard to follow especially in the audio version without the benefit of page layout clues.
It is basically a long list of random facts about London locations organized only by their rough proximity. The information can be extremely esoteric. Along the lines of, “On this street lived Terry Dunno the drummer for an early 60s band you’ve never heard of, as well as John Whosit the green-grocer credited with introducing the avocado to London in 1912. Both houses were demolished in 1970.”
Christopher Winn frequently references the locations for film shoots, but they tend to be rather obvious such as, “Notting Hill drew international attention as the setting for the 1999 movie, Notting Hill.” Or so obscure you will wonder why he included them such as his several references to locations for the 2003 film Johnny English.
I could imagine a Londoner picking up this book at the library and learning a few interesting facts about their neighborhood to share at the pub but it’s far too trivial for anyone interested in an actual history. On Audible try London a Short History of the Greatest City in the World from the Great Courses or A. N. Wilsons’ very brief but compelling London A History. For the tourist looking for greater depth of understanding the excellent Rough Guide to London (not on Audible) gives historical context, points out hidden oddities and obscure sites, as well as giving you the practical information you need to visit the city. This guide book is written with more context and humor than Mr Winn manages.
I Never Knew That About London is entertaining and in a scattered way, informative, but it feels more like sitting down and reading the questions and answers off Trivial Pursuit cards than anything you will remember once its ten hours are over.
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- Joanna C. Hinga
- 11-22-15
Boring
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
Disjointed and generally dull. If I hadn't been born in london, this book would not make me want to visit the place.
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