-
Mantel Pieces
- Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books
- Narrated by: Olivia Dowd, Hilary Mantel - introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
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 $26.13
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A stunning collection of essays and memoir from two-time Booker Prize winner and international best seller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light.
In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of 20 reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three decades tells the story of what happened next.
Her subjects range far and wide: Robespierre and Danton, The Hite Report, Saudi Arabia, where she lived for four years in the 1980s, the Bulger case, John Osborne, the Virgin Mary as well as the pop icon Madonna, a brilliant examination of Helen Duncan, Britain’s last witch. There are essays about Jane Boleyn, Charles Brandon, Christopher Marlowe and Margaret Pole which display the astonishing insight into the Tudor mind we are familiar with from the best-selling Wolf Hall Trilogy.
Her famous lecture, Royal Bodies, which caused a media frenzy, explores the place of royal women in society and our imagination. Here too are some of her LRB diaries, including her first meeting with her stepfather and a confrontation with a circus strongman. Constantly illuminating, always penetrating and often very funny, interleaved with letters and other ephemera gathered from the archive, Mantel Pieces is an irresistible selection from one of our greatest living writers.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Wolf Hall
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 25 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
-
-
Superb narration, but keep a character index at hand
- By Oculus on 12-27-20
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Learning to Talk
- Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jane Collingwood, Patrick Moy
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out.
-
-
Stories only Hilary Mantel could write
- By BG on 04-26-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Wolf Hall
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 25 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
-
-
Superb narration, but keep a character index at hand
- By Oculus on 12-27-20
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Learning to Talk
- Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jane Collingwood, Patrick Moy
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out.
-
-
Stories only Hilary Mantel could write
- By BG on 04-26-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Vacant Possession
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years have passed since Muriel Axon was locked away for society's protection, but psychiatric confinement has only increased her malice and ingenuity. At last free, she sets into motion an intricate plan to exact revenge on those who had her put away. Her former social worker, Isabel, and her old neighbors have moved on, but Muriel, with her talent for disguise, will infiltrate their homes and manipulate their lives, until all her enemies are brought together for a gruesome finale.
-
-
Strange
- By zizzaka on 05-09-21
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Giant, O'Brien
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Patrick Moy
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in myths, fairies, miracles, and little people. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. O'Brien's opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter, who lusts after the Giant's corpse as a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge.
-
-
Brilliant, terrifying, relevant
- By Amelia Saul on 07-14-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Every Day Is Mother's Day
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evelyn Axona is a medium by trade; her daughter, Muriel, is a half-wit by nature. Barricaded in their crumbling house, surrounded by the festering rubbish of years, they defy the curiosity of their neighbors and their social worker, Isabel Field. Isabel is young and inexperienced and has troubles of her own: an elderly father who wanders the streets, and a lover, Colin, who wants her to run away with him. But Colin has three horrible children and a shrill wife who is pregnant again - how is he going to run anywhere?
-
-
I could not finish
- By Remy on 06-02-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
- By: Homer
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
-
-
Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
-
Super-Infinite
- The Transformations of John Donne
- By: Katherine Rundell
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. In his myriad lives he was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, an MP—and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. Along the way he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year old girl without her father’s consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children, and was often ill and in pain.
-
-
Oh but the narration…
- By David Benjamin on 01-01-23
-
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
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
Foundation
- The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors: The History of England, Book 1
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Foundation the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past - a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house.
-
-
The Most Annoying Narrator EVER
- By JudieBee on 12-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
-
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
-
Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I
- The Mother and Daughter Who Forever Changed British History
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Tracy Borman
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anne Boleyn may be best known for losing her head, but as Tudor expert Tracy Borman reveals in a book that recasts British history, her greatest legacy lies in the path-breaking reign of her daughter, Elizabeth.
-
-
Brimming with Inaccuracies
- By Marie A. on 06-20-23
By: Tracy Borman
-
The Lost King of France
- How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated and their fate thrust into the hands of the revolutionaries who wished to destroy the monarchy.
-
-
Not For the Faint of Heart
- By Liane on 01-23-20
By: Deborah Cadbury
-
The Half Known Life
- In Search of Paradise
- By: Pico Iyer
- Narrated by: Pico Iyer
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?
-
-
Would enjoy Meeting Pico and having a deep Conversation while having some good tea.
- By M. on 02-13-23
By: Pico Iyer
Critic reviews
"It shows the evolution in Mantel’s style, which has been considerable. Some of the pieces are segments of memoir, some are deeply informed historical essays loosely attached to discussions of books. In the earliest reviews – before she is given subjects big enough for her to walk around in – Mantel is sarky and snarky as well as brisk and breezy.... Mantel’s own segments of memoir, which were published as diary pieces, are virtuoso performances.... As a memoirist, Mantel is without parallel.... It is only when her essays are laid out like this that we can see the inside of Mantel’s huge head, bulging with knowledge and a million connections. 5/5 stars." (Telegraph)
"This is a work that is brisk and breezy, and further enhanced by her capacity to examine our hearts, register our feelings, and bring up with tenderness the enduring question of our frail and vulnerable bodies’ Evening Standard ‘Worth buying for the title pun alone, Mantel Pieces brings together three decades’ worth of Hilary Mantel’s criticism in the London Review of Books.... her uncomplicated prose style is no less authorative for being highly readable." (Sunday Times)
"A volume of critical writing which often feels as if one is in the company of an exceptionally wise and generous friend, exept very few of us have friends who can be as erudite on Madonna as they are on Anne Boylen" (Sara Collins)
Related to this topic
-
The Man in the Red Coat
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....
-
-
Pathetic narration makes this title unbearable
- By Chris Quigg on 02-27-20
By: Julian Barnes
-
Prince Albert
- The Man Who Saved the Monarchy
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
-
-
Excellent Bio!
- By Nancy on 04-24-24
By: A. N. Wilson
-
The Creation of Anne Boleyn
- A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen
- By: Susan Bordo
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.
-
-
Most Enjoyable Biography--Win!
- By Roswatheist on 03-29-14
By: Susan Bordo
-
Anne Boleyn
- 500 Years of Lies
- By: Hayley Nolan
- Narrated by: Hayley Nolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
History has lied. Anne Boleyn has been sold to us as a dark figure, a scheming seductress who bewitched Henry VIII into divorcing his queen and his church in an unprecedented display of passion. Quite the tragic love story, right? Wrong. In this electrifying exposé, Hayley Nolan explores for the first time the full, uncensored evidence of Anne Boleyn’s life and relationship with Henry VIII, revealing the shocking suppression of a powerful woman.
-
-
Very annoying narrator!
- By momo chan on 12-02-19
By: Hayley Nolan
-
Genius & Anxiety
- How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947
- By: Norman Lebrecht
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.
-
-
Post-anxiety
- By Amaze on 03-27-20
By: Norman Lebrecht
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
The Man in the Red Coat
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....
-
-
Pathetic narration makes this title unbearable
- By Chris Quigg on 02-27-20
By: Julian Barnes
-
Prince Albert
- The Man Who Saved the Monarchy
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
-
-
Excellent Bio!
- By Nancy on 04-24-24
By: A. N. Wilson
-
The Creation of Anne Boleyn
- A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen
- By: Susan Bordo
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.
-
-
Most Enjoyable Biography--Win!
- By Roswatheist on 03-29-14
By: Susan Bordo
-
Anne Boleyn
- 500 Years of Lies
- By: Hayley Nolan
- Narrated by: Hayley Nolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
History has lied. Anne Boleyn has been sold to us as a dark figure, a scheming seductress who bewitched Henry VIII into divorcing his queen and his church in an unprecedented display of passion. Quite the tragic love story, right? Wrong. In this electrifying exposé, Hayley Nolan explores for the first time the full, uncensored evidence of Anne Boleyn’s life and relationship with Henry VIII, revealing the shocking suppression of a powerful woman.
-
-
Very annoying narrator!
- By momo chan on 12-02-19
By: Hayley Nolan
-
Genius & Anxiety
- How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947
- By: Norman Lebrecht
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.
-
-
Post-anxiety
- By Amaze on 03-27-20
By: Norman Lebrecht
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
Love and Louis XIV
- The Women in the Life of the Sun King
- By: Antonia Fraser
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The self-proclaimed Sun King, Louis XIV, ruled over the most glorious and extravagant court in 17th-century Europe. Now, Antonia Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of Louis' accomplishments and follies, exploring in riveting detail his intimate relationships with women.
-
-
Excellent!
- By Louise on 04-27-08
By: Antonia Fraser
-
Children of Nazis
- The Sons and Daughters of Himmler, Göring, Höss, Mengele, and Others - Living with a Father’s Monstrous Legacy
- By: Tania Crasnianski, Molly Grogan - translator
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, the German sons and daughters of infamous Nazi dignitaries Himmler, Göring, Hess, Frank, Bormann, Speer, and Mengele were children of privilege at four, five, or 10 years old, surrounded by affectionate, all-powerful parents. Although innocent and unaware of what was happening at the time, they eventually discovered the extent of their fathers' occupations: These men were leaders of the Third Reich and would later be convicted as monstrous war criminals.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Anonymous User on 12-30-22
By: Tania Crasnianski, and others
-
Heroes
- From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this enlightening and entertaining work, Johnson presents heroism through examples in history. From Alexander to Joan of Arc and George Washington to Marilyn Monroe, here are men and women from every age and corner of the world who have inspired and transformed their cultures and the world itself.
-
-
Interesting, but deeply flawed
- By Kennet on 12-27-07
By: Paul Johnson
-
Heiresses
- The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies
- By: Laura Thompson
- Narrated by: Laura Thompson
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heiresses: Surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions.
-
-
tough listen and tough to keep track
- By Amazon Customer on 03-29-23
By: Laura Thompson
-
The Life and Times of Chaucer
- By: John Gardner
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisite biography, John Gardner brings to life Geoffrey Chaucer, illuminating his writings and their inspiration like never before. Through exhaustive research and expert storytelling, Gardner takes readers through Chaucer’s varied career - from writing The Canterbury Tales to performing diplomatic work at the Parliament - and creates a fully realized portrait of an author whose work would remake the English language forever. Written with passion and insight, this a must-listen for those interested in Chaucer and the medieval time period.
-
-
Good book, but quoted passages are in Old English
- By Kathi on 02-26-14
By: John Gardner
-
Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
- By: Elizabeth Winkler
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
-
-
Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
-
Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely
- By: Andrew S. Curran
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.
-
-
lifelong coverage of his life.
- By Michael Daly on 03-22-21
By: Andrew S. Curran
-
Victoria
- A Life
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The longest reigning British monarch and female sovereign in history, Queen Victoria was a figure of profound paradox who has mystified historians for over a century. Now in this magisterial biography, A.N. Wilson rebukes the conventional wisdom about her life - that she was merely a "funny little woman in a bonnet" who did next to nothing - to show she was in fact intensely involved in state affairs despite a public façade of inaction.
-
-
This book has old and new info
- By Dr. A. on 10-29-14
By: A. N. Wilson
-
Princesses Behaving Badly
- Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings
- By: Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You think you know her story. You've read the Brothers Grimm, you've watched the Disney cartoons, you cheered as these virtuous women lived happily ever after. But the lives of real princesses couldn't be more different. Sure, many were graceful and benevolent leaders - but just as many were ruthless in their quest for power, and all of them had skeletons rattling in their royal closets.
-
-
Princesses Researched Well
- By Mary Elizabeth Reynolds on 04-14-14
-
God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
-
-
Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
-
Dying Every Day
- Seneca at the Court of Nero
- By: James S. Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman.
-
-
Outstanding
- By michael bobadilla on 05-04-23
By: James S. Romm
-
Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
-
-
Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Learning to Talk
- Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jane Collingwood, Patrick Moy
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out.
-
-
Stories only Hilary Mantel could write
- By BG on 04-26-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black and More
- A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Hilary Mantel, Alison Steadman, Rosie Cavaliero, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the 21st century's most celebrated authors, Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice: for 2009's Wolf Hall, the first in her phenomenally successful Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies. The third novel in the series, 2020's The Mirror and the Light, won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This collection includes three of her best works of contemporary fiction, ranging from the Gothic to the blackly comic.
-
-
Finally made it to the end
- By anonymous D on 10-06-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Memoir of My Former Self
- A Life in Writing
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Ben Miles, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The writing. I would read the phone directory if Mantel wrote it. wonderful collection.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Learning to Talk
- Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jane Collingwood, Patrick Moy
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out.
-
-
Stories only Hilary Mantel could write
- By BG on 04-26-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
-
-
Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black and More
- A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Hilary Mantel, Alison Steadman, Rosie Cavaliero, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the 21st century's most celebrated authors, Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice: for 2009's Wolf Hall, the first in her phenomenally successful Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies. The third novel in the series, 2020's The Mirror and the Light, won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This collection includes three of her best works of contemporary fiction, ranging from the Gothic to the blackly comic.
-
-
Finally made it to the end
- By anonymous D on 10-06-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Giant, O'Brien
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Patrick Moy
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in myths, fairies, miracles, and little people. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. O'Brien's opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter, who lusts after the Giant's corpse as a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge.
-
-
Brilliant, terrifying, relevant
- By Amelia Saul on 07-14-23
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Vacant Possession
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years have passed since Muriel Axon was locked away for society's protection, but psychiatric confinement has only increased her malice and ingenuity. At last free, she sets into motion an intricate plan to exact revenge on those who had her put away. Her former social worker, Isabel, and her old neighbors have moved on, but Muriel, with her talent for disguise, will infiltrate their homes and manipulate their lives, until all her enemies are brought together for a gruesome finale.
-
-
Strange
- By zizzaka on 05-09-21
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Every Day Is Mother's Day
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evelyn Axona is a medium by trade; her daughter, Muriel, is a half-wit by nature. Barricaded in their crumbling house, surrounded by the festering rubbish of years, they defy the curiosity of their neighbors and their social worker, Isabel Field. Isabel is young and inexperienced and has troubles of her own: an elderly father who wanders the streets, and a lover, Colin, who wants her to run away with him. But Colin has three horrible children and a shrill wife who is pregnant again - how is he going to run anywhere?
-
-
I could not finish
- By Remy on 06-02-24
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Frances Shore joins her engineer husband in Jeddah, she is warned not to ask questions. But bored, she begins to speculate about her neighbors and the empty flat above her. At first she believes the flat is being used as a lover's tryst - then she suspects something more sinister.
-
-
Vintage Mantel, ahead of its time
- By Pita on 06-01-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jane Carr
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most accomplished, acclaimed, and garlanded writers, Hilary Mantel delivers a brilliant collection of contemporary stories. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher displays a magnificent writer at the peak of her powers.
-
-
Superhuman Prose that Defies Gravity
- By Darwin8u on 02-16-15
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Wolf Hall
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 25 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
-
-
Superb narration, but keep a character index at hand
- By Oculus on 12-27-20
By: Hilary Mantel