Less Than Angels
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Mary Sarah
-
By:
-
Barbara Pym
About this listen
A tale of a woman's romantic entanglements with two anthropologists - and the odd mating habits of humans - from the author of Jane and Prudence.
Catherine Oliphant writes for women's magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow - although she's starting to wonder if they'll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He's leaving her for a 19-year-old student.
Though stunned by Tom's betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options, she must figure out who she is and what she really wants.
With a lively cast of characters and a witty look at the insular world of academia, this novel from the much-loved author of Excellent Women and other modern classics is filled with poignant, playful observations about the traits that separate us from our anthropological forebears - far fewer than we may imagine.
©1955 Barbara Pym (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
Cold Comfort Farm
- Penguin Classics
- By: Stella Gibbons
- Narrated by: Pearl Mackie
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at 19, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last 20 years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.
-
-
Very, very amusing, a go to if one needs cheering
- By Laura G. Marcantoni on 11-05-20
By: Stella Gibbons
-
Something New
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, we have a glorious ensemble of Woodhousian characters knocking elbows to foreheads in the elegant and grand Blandings Castle. Meet Freddy Threepwood, the vagrant son of doddering old Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. Freddy has recently become engaged to Aline Peters, the American heiress of an irascible father. The snag is that Freddy seems to have at one point become enamored of a struggling actress, Joan Valentine, and written some impetuous and imprudent letters to her.
-
-
Same book as Something Fresh
- By customer on 03-07-15
By: P. G. Wodehouse
-
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Biography
- By Mary Elizabeth Herr on 07-15-23
By: Paula Byrne
-
My Family and Other Animals
- By: Gerald Durrell
- Narrated by: Hugh Bonneville
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas in which the family lived on the island. Apart from Gerald (the youngest) and Larry, the family comprised their widowed mother, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog.
-
-
Love it, but please mark as Abridged!
- By Meredith Ramirez on 09-14-21
By: Gerald Durrell
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
Cold Comfort Farm
- Penguin Classics
- By: Stella Gibbons
- Narrated by: Pearl Mackie
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at 19, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last 20 years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.
-
-
Very, very amusing, a go to if one needs cheering
- By Laura G. Marcantoni on 11-05-20
By: Stella Gibbons
-
Something New
- By: P. G. Wodehouse
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, we have a glorious ensemble of Woodhousian characters knocking elbows to foreheads in the elegant and grand Blandings Castle. Meet Freddy Threepwood, the vagrant son of doddering old Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. Freddy has recently become engaged to Aline Peters, the American heiress of an irascible father. The snag is that Freddy seems to have at one point become enamored of a struggling actress, Joan Valentine, and written some impetuous and imprudent letters to her.
-
-
Same book as Something Fresh
- By customer on 03-07-15
By: P. G. Wodehouse
-
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Biography
- By Mary Elizabeth Herr on 07-15-23
By: Paula Byrne
-
My Family and Other Animals
- By: Gerald Durrell
- Narrated by: Hugh Bonneville
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas in which the family lived on the island. Apart from Gerald (the youngest) and Larry, the family comprised their widowed mother, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog.
-
-
Love it, but please mark as Abridged!
- By Meredith Ramirez on 09-14-21
By: Gerald Durrell
-
The Josephine Tey Collection: 6 Alan Grant Novels; Brat Farrar; & Miss Pym Disposes
- The Man in the Queue; A Shilling for Candles; The Franchise Affair; To Love and Be Wise; The Daughter of Time; The Singing Sands; Miss Pym Disposes; Brat Farrar
- By: Josephine Tey
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 61 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Josephine Tey Collection includes unabridged recordings of Tey's 8 major novels in one audiobook, including all 6 of the novels in the Inspector Alan Grant series.
-
-
Thank you Audible - best spent credit ever
- By Lynn on 05-14-23
By: Josephine Tey
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
An English Murder
- By: Cyril Hare
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The snow is thick, the phone line is down, and no one is getting in or out of Warbeck Hall. All is set for a lovely Christmas, with friends and family gathered round the fire, except as the bells chime midnight, a murder is committed. But who is responsible? The scorned young lover? The lord's passed-over cousin? The social-climbing politician's wife? The Czech history professor? The obsequious butler? And perhaps the real question is: Can they survive long enough to find out?
-
-
Comfortable, safe, satisfying
- By wisconsinclark on 06-01-19
By: Cyril Hare
-
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 Crow Trap
- A Vera Stanhope Mystery
- By: Ann Cleeves
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey on the Northumberland countryside. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal....For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide.
-
-
Different but loved it
- By Audrey L Reader on 08-06-17
By: Ann Cleeves
-
The Complete Mapp and Lucia, Volume 1
- By: E. F. Benson
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 26 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heart-warming series that seems tailor-made for audio. Volume 1 contains the first three books.
-
-
At last!
- By Grace M-T on 06-15-21
By: E. F. Benson
-
The Diary of a Provincial Lady
- By: E. M. Delafield
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'Lady B. stays to tea. (Mem.: Bread-and-butter too thick. Speak to Ethel.) We talk some more about bulbs, the Dutch School of Painting, our Vicar's wife, sciatica, and All Quiet on the Western Front. (Query: is it possible to cultivate the art of conversation when living in the country all the year round?)' If the question suggests a qualified answer, there is no doubt that the art of diary writing is alive and well and very, very funny in Devonshire in the 1920s. At least in the hands of E. M. Delafield.
-
-
Pleasant and witty
- By Debbie Kirk on 10-09-18
By: E. M. Delafield
-
Language of the Heart
- By: Elizabeth Cadell
- Narrated by: Anna Guerrier
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edmund Forth, a handsome young man in his mid-30s (though admittedly, a bit stogy and sober for his years) is engaged to the beautiful but selfish Angela Wilde. His world seems perfect until lovely Fran Nash comes riding into his life on the back of a Portuguese donkey. Fran’s sunny personality melts Edmund’s reserve, and when she changes a few words of a telegram he had entrusted to her, Fran also alters the whole course of his settled existence.
-
-
So enjoyable!!!
- By mykidskeeper on 01-21-19
By: Elizabeth Cadell
-
Iris in Winter
- By: Elizabeth Cadell
- Narrated by: Alexandra Reynolds
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
High Ambo, in England, is the setting. It is winter, and Caroline West - a very human, placid, and unexcitable person - has gone there to escape her late husband's relatives. Like so many good-hearted people, she is immediately put upon. Caroline's sister Iris comes first, full of impulse and determination to be a reporter - an ambition abruptly deflected by a handsome young schoolmaster - an authority on birds. Then comes Robert, with his sweet, ingenuous fiancée Polly, and thus making the three-ring circus of a genuine Cadell household.
-
-
Oh my! It's so romantic!
- By topcatrules on 05-26-17
By: Elizabeth Cadell
-
Snow
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incomparable Booker Prize winner’s next great crime novel - the story of a family whose secrets resurface when a parish priest is found murdered in their ancestral home. Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family.
-
-
Don't read this is you have been sexually abused
- By Babs on 10-26-20
By: John Banville
-
Celia's House
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In name and by birth, Celia was a Dunne. She had inherited the beautiful old family home by the Rydd Water – but was she bound to live her life by the principles of her predecessors? Was there some hidden restraint that compelled her to heed the past? Celia’s house is a moving and poignant story of the struggle between old and young: the older generation anxious to preserve the values they have helped create while their children are determined at all costs to make lives of their own.
-
-
Boarder area of Scotland
- By Jerri C on 03-14-11
By: D. E. Stevenson
Related to this topic
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
Celia's House
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In name and by birth, Celia was a Dunne. She had inherited the beautiful old family home by the Rydd Water – but was she bound to live her life by the principles of her predecessors? Was there some hidden restraint that compelled her to heed the past? Celia’s house is a moving and poignant story of the struggle between old and young: the older generation anxious to preserve the values they have helped create while their children are determined at all costs to make lives of their own.
-
-
Boarder area of Scotland
- By Jerri C on 03-14-11
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
The Enchanted April
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a journey of both escape and discovery for four exquisitely different women, a month of bliss and privacy for four weary souls. Their refuge on the Italian Riviera provides the perfect backdrop for a story about the search for spiritual harmony within and without.
-
-
Excellent book, excellent narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-05
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
-
-
A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
Celia's House
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In name and by birth, Celia was a Dunne. She had inherited the beautiful old family home by the Rydd Water – but was she bound to live her life by the principles of her predecessors? Was there some hidden restraint that compelled her to heed the past? Celia’s house is a moving and poignant story of the struggle between old and young: the older generation anxious to preserve the values they have helped create while their children are determined at all costs to make lives of their own.
-
-
Boarder area of Scotland
- By Jerri C on 03-14-11
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
The Enchanted April
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a journey of both escape and discovery for four exquisitely different women, a month of bliss and privacy for four weary souls. Their refuge on the Italian Riviera provides the perfect backdrop for a story about the search for spiritual harmony within and without.
-
-
Excellent book, excellent narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-05
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
-
-
A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
-
Cakes and Ale
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: James Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cakes and Ale was first published in 1930 it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they recognised portraits of literary figures now no more. It is the novel for which Maugham wished to be remembered.
-
-
Delightful
- By RueRue on 04-22-16
-
Howards End
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger". When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home - Howards End - to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.
-
-
Fantastic Narration in Delightful Story
- By Wren on 05-05-18
By: E. M. Forster
-
Past Imperfect
- By: Julian Fellowes
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern--his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death.
-
-
Read Snobs instead
- By cristina on 02-14-13
By: Julian Fellowes
-
A Room with a View
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Rebecca Hall
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this rich new audio production, acclaimed British American actress Rebecca Hall brings one of E. M. Forster's most admired works to life in this classic tale of human struggle. A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, is wooed by both free-spirited George Emerson and wealthy Cecil Vyse while vacationing in Italy. Though attracted to George, Lucy becomes engaged to Cecil despite twice turning down his proposals. On hearing of the news, George confesses his love, leaving Lucy torn between marrying the more socially acceptable Cecil or George, the man she knows would bring her true happiness. Should Lucy choose social acceptance or true love?
-
-
A lovely performance, and a wonderful story
- By Robert on 01-19-19
By: E. M. Forster
-
The Lark
- By: E. Nesbit
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.
-
-
It has that wonderful charm of the tales of old...
- By Lidia Chymkowska on 10-03-18
By: E. Nesbit
-
Of Human Bondage
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 28 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Of Human Bondage is one of the greatest novels of modern times, and it is certainly Maugham's greatest achievement. It was published in 1914, when Maugham was at the height of his creative powers. The story concerns Philip Carey, afflicted at birth with a club foot, and his passionate search for truth in a cruel world. We follow his growth to manhood, his educational progress, his first loves, and the wrenching tragedies and disappointments that life has in store for him. In some of the finest prose of the 20th century, Maugham has presented us with the timeless story of one man's search for the meaning of life.
-
-
Greatly Unsettling
- By Michael on 10-04-14
-
Cold Hand in Mine
- By: Robert Aickman
- Narrated by: Reece Shearsmith
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story ("Pages from a Young Girl's Journal") but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.
-
-
Aickman is unique
- By Stark on 08-19-23
By: Robert Aickman
-
Up a Road Slowly
- By: Irene Hunt
- Narrated by: Jaselyn Blanchard
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julie would remember her happy days at Aunt Cordelia’s forever. Running through the spacious rooms, singing on rainy nights in front of the blazing fireplace. There were rides in the woods on Peter the Great, the races with Danny Trevort. Maybe best of all were the precious moments alone in her room at night, gazing at the sea of stars. But there was sadness too - the painful jealousy Julie felt after her sister got married, the tragic death of a schoolmate, and the bitter disappointment of her first love. Sometimes it all seemed like too much to handle.
-
-
Coming of age in mid century
- By Mary A. Kozy on 01-17-21
By: Irene Hunt
-
Clara Callan
- By: Richard B. Wright
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey, Joanna P. Adler
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters, small-town Ontario, 1934. Canadian author Richard Wright tells their story, from the ordinary to the extraoridinary with an eye for the commonplace and poignant sense of the larger undercurrents that change people's lives.
-
-
charming intimate refreshing
- By L on 09-10-04
-
The Quiet Professor
- By: Betty Neels
- Narrated by: Anne Cater
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Megan thought she had it all - a good job, a caring family and a fiancé whom everyone agreed would make her a wonderful husband. But then her perfectly constructed world fell apart, and she found that her one hope was Professor Jake van Belfeld. He seemed determined to rebuild her life - but why was he taking such a personal interest in her? He couldn't think that her heart needed his attention, too, could he?
-
-
Disappointed
- By Sharon D. Anderson, Ph.D. on 07-02-17
By: Betty Neels
-
How It All Began
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.
-
-
Wonderful and beautifully written
- By Molly-o on 02-15-12
By: Penelope Lively
-
Servants' Hall
- A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance
- By: Margaret Powell
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret Powell's Below Stairs became a sensation among listeners reveling in the luxury and subtle class warfare of Masterpiece Theatre's hit television series Downton Abbey. Now in the sequel Servants' Hall, Powell tells the true story of Rose, the under-parlourmaid to the Wardham Family at Redlands, who took a shocking step: She eloped with the family's only son, Mr. Gerald.
-
-
Memoir of a Bygone Era
- By Michelle N. Lynch on 04-08-15
By: Margaret Powell
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
A Glass of Blessings
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wilmet Forsyth is bored. Bored with the everyday routine of her life. Bored with teatimes filled with local gossip. Bored with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But on her 33rd birthday, Wilmet's conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend. Attractive and enigmatic, Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve. Rather than settling down, he lived in Portugal, then returned to England for a series of odd jobs. Driven by a fantasy of romance, the sheltered, naïve Englishwoman sets out to seduce Piers.
-
-
From elation to bitter disappointment
- By Bell on 07-22-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Some Tame Gazelle
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve - the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church - for 30 years. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking.
-
-
Great book, terrible reader
- By Elizabeth on 07-17-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Jane and Prudence
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of 30, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent - until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver.
-
-
Ruined by narrator
- By TX lilbit on 07-27-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Biography
- By Mary Elizabeth Herr on 07-15-23
By: Paula Byrne
-
Excellent Women
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.
-
-
Still Waters Run Deep
- By Sara on 04-13-16
By: Barbara Pym
-
A Glass of Blessings
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wilmet Forsyth is bored. Bored with the everyday routine of her life. Bored with teatimes filled with local gossip. Bored with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But on her 33rd birthday, Wilmet's conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend. Attractive and enigmatic, Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve. Rather than settling down, he lived in Portugal, then returned to England for a series of odd jobs. Driven by a fantasy of romance, the sheltered, naïve Englishwoman sets out to seduce Piers.
-
-
From elation to bitter disappointment
- By Bell on 07-22-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Some Tame Gazelle
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve - the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church - for 30 years. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking.
-
-
Great book, terrible reader
- By Elizabeth on 07-17-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Jane and Prudence
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of 30, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent - until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver.
-
-
Ruined by narrator
- By TX lilbit on 07-27-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Biography
- By Mary Elizabeth Herr on 07-15-23
By: Paula Byrne
What listeners say about Less Than Angels
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kwêvoël
- 06-30-24
Pity about the narration …
Narrator has a very pleasant voice, but the style, inexplicable pronunciation manglings and peculiar pacing of spurts of words make sections of the text unintelligible.
That is such a pity!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alexandra S. Evans
- 08-07-23
Barbara Pym excellent! Narrator a mismatch
Wonderful Barbara Pym novel. Really enjoyed it. Surprised that whomever chose The narrator was so off the mark. The narrator was just fine for another book. But not for a Barbara Pym novel. Unfortunate selection.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A. Lambirth
- 07-30-24
Need a different narrator
Narrator had misplaced emphasis -made the softness of the book appear all trite. Expected Barbara Pym writing- true to form
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- FenwayFan23
- 05-09-20
Agree Excellent Book Exerable Narrator
Love Barbara Pym and loved the recording and narrator of Excellent Women. This narrator uses a breathy over-dramatic voice that is annoying and out of sync with the material in places. Disappointed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Holly
- 05-04-20
Incisive and fun insight and irony
Among my most favorite Barbara Pym's, this one reflects her insight and irony at its most incisive while still being fun. In combination with a superbly drawn view into the life of an anthropologist at a particular time and place, this one features Catherine. Catherine, with all her foibles, is a hugely compelling character, and is the perfect (though somewhat unlikely) writer of light articles for women's magazines. Alaric Lydgate and Esther Clovis win the best supporting character awards from me. That's saying quite a lot, as I have never found a supporting character in Pym lacking in any way. Highly recommended.
It is extremely well-narrated. I wasn't fond of Tom's voice, but somehow it fit his character very well, and all the other voices were just perfect.
Many thanks to Audible for making another Barbara Pym available in the States!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Richard Lieberman
- 07-19-24
Unique story. Funny and insightful perspective into 1950s Britain.
A forgotten literary genius. I’ve read several of her books.
Worth your while
Liked it all. Recommended ( see above) Rick Lieberman
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Penny G.
- 04-23-20
Terrible narrator for a wonderful book
I have been a fan of Barbara Pym for many years. I purchased the Pym book , Excellent Women from Audible and the narrator was perfect. I was so disappointed that this book didn’t have the same narrator.
Hopefully, Audible will offer more Barbara Pym books and that they will have excellent narrators.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elizabeth Hopkins
- 02-15-24
Saccharine voice gets in way of story
This recording is so sing-song and sweet that it is almost impossible to actually pay attention to the words. She reads this like it’s a children’s book, overly feminine, and sickly sweet, which is so annoying and, looses all the subtle humor.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C. Lerza
- 10-19-24
Wonderful novel ruined by an awful narrator
I love Barbara Pym — her humor, her ability to draw powerful stories from the minute details of life and to observe human behavior with wit and compassion. It’s hard to find her books in print so I turned to Audible. What a disappointment— the narrator is abysmal and almost destroys Pym’s beautiful finely drawn prose. An American, she clearly has no idea what upper class British dialect of the era should sound like. Her mispronounced ‘A’s are painful as are her mispronounced surnames and place names. The voice she chose for the narrator was totally off— frivolous and light— and the way she pitched it affected (badly) every character she attempted to portray, especially the men. I could go on but you get the picture. Find Pym’s books to read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Virginia Shipley
- 02-01-24
Problems here with both story and performance
I always like Barbara Pym but this one was marred for me by the very dated and racist thinking, very unlike anthropology’s repect for the peoples they study.
The worst thing was the appalling British accent of the reader! Why not use a British actor or just read it in a good American accent?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!