
Oil and Marble
A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo
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Narrated by:
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P. J. Ochlan
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By:
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Stephanie Storey
About this listen
From 1501 to 1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was a charming, handsome 50-year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-20s, desperate to make a name for himself.
Michelangelo is a virtual unknown when he returns to Florence and wins the commission to carve what will become one of the most famous sculptures of all time: David. Even though his impoverished family shuns him for being an artist, he is desperate to support them. Living at the foot of his misshapen block of marble, Michelangelo struggles until the stone finally begins to speak. Working against an impossible deadline, he begins his feverish carving.
Meanwhile, Leonardo's life is falling apart: He loses the hoped-for David commission; he can't seem to finish any project; he is obsessed with his ungainly flying machine; he almost dies in war; his engineering designs disastrously fail; and he is haunted by a woman he has seen in the market - a merchant's wife, whom he is finally commissioned to paint. Her name is Lisa, and she becomes his muse.
Leonardo despises Michelangelo for his youth and lack of sophistication. Michelangelo both loathes and worships Leonardo's genius.
Oil and Marble is the story of their nearly forgotten rivalry. Storey brings early 16th-century Florence alive and has entered with extraordinary empathy into the minds and souls of two Renaissance masters. The book is an art history thriller.
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Great history with terrible narration
- By Whiskey Mike on 12-16-21
By: Ross King
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I, Claudius
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.
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Unsurpassed, addictive brilliance
- By Chris on 06-09-09
By: Robert Graves
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Death at La Fenice
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.
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Hercule Poirot in Venice...!!!
- By Emil Grancagnolo on 10-09-22
By: Donna Leon
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The Chosen
- By: Chaim Potok
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Though they've lived their entire lives less than five blocks from each other, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders exist in very different worlds. Reuven blends easily into both his secular Jewish faith and his typical American teen life, while Danny's conservative Hasidic clothes and appearance make him stick out in any crowd. Their improbable friendship teaches them that the differences separating people through cultures and generations are never as great as they seem.
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truly rates overused "classic" label
- By connie on 11-05-08
By: Chaim Potok
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The Serpent and the Pearl
- Borgias, Book 1
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Leila Birch, Maria Elena Infantino, Ronan Vibert
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Rome, 1492: The Holy City is drenched with blood and teeming with secrets. A pope lies dying and the throne of God is left vacant, a prize awarded only to the most virtuous - or the most ruthless. The Borgia family begins its legendary rise, chronicled by an innocent girl who finds herself drawn into their dangerous web.... Vivacious Giulia Farnese has floor-length golden hair and the world at her feet: beauty, wealth, and a handsome young husband. But she is stunned to discover that her glittering marriage is a sham.
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Half a book
- By Margaret on 03-03-14
By: Kate Quinn
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The Man Who Was Thursday
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Toby Longworth
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Chesterton's allegorical masterpiece is a surreal, psychologically thrilling novel that centres on seven anarchists in turn of the century London who call themselves by the names of days of the week. The story begins when poet Gabriel Syme is recruited as a detective to a secret anarchist division of Scotland Yard by a shrouded, nameless person. Syme infiltrates a secret meeting of anarchists who are intent on destroying the world and becomes known as 'Thursday', one of the seven members of the Central Anarchist Council.
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A clever Christian allegory
- By Darwin8u on 02-11-13
By: G. K. Chesterton
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Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. During the four extraordinary years that Michelangelo spent laboring over the ceiling, power politics and personal rivalries swirled around him. He battled ill health, financial and family difficulties, inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, and the Pope's impatience - a history that is more compelling than most novels.
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History brought to life!
- By Anne on 05-17-03
By: Ross King
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CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys
- How and Why US Agents Conspired to Assassinate JFK and RFK
- By: Patrick Nolan, Dr. Henry C. Lee - foreword
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys, Patrick Nolan fearlessly investigates the CIA’s involvement in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy - why the brothers needed to die and how rogue intelligence agents orchestrated history’s most infamous conspiracy. Nolan furthers the research of leading scholars who agree that there remain serious unanswered questions regarding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
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Where are we now?
- By Payton on 04-12-17
By: Patrick Nolan, and others
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Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
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A Magnificent Tour de Force
- By Harry Haller on 01-31-20
By: Gore Vidal
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The Space Between Us
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Thrity Umrigar won the Nieman Fellowship and earned a finalist spot for the PEN/Beyond Margins award with The Space Between Us. Set in modern-day India, this evocative novel follows upper-middle-class Parsi housewife Sera Dubash and 65-year-old illiterate household worker Bhima as they make their way through life. Though separated by their stations in life, the two women share bonds of womanhood that prove far stronger than the divisions of class or culture.
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A Story that stays with you
- By gardener97 on 04-25-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
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The Architect's Apprentice
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Piter Marek
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1540, 12-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan's menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan's beautiful daughter Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire's chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota's help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history.
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I feel like I should like it more than I do
- By nyog on 04-19-17
By: Elif Shafak
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Perestroika in Paris
- By: Jane Smiley
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years Trilogy, a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals - and a young boy - whose lives intersect in Paris.
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C’est Si Bon
- By Snorkel Queen on 12-28-20
By: Jane Smiley
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The Adolescent
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a naive 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others.
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An Oft-Forgotten Dostoevsky Gem
- By Ben on 02-09-20
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
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The Bookseller of Florence
- The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.
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Great book, Horrible narrator
- By Sergio Remon on 07-01-21
By: Ross King
I rarely read book reviews until after I have read the book and posted my own, but in this case I made an exception because the genre is so far outside of that which I usually read. What I found were some wonderful reviews written by some very enthusiastic and seemingly knowledgeable art lovers, so, as one who knows very little about art, my review will be from a very non-arty-type point of view.
I did find it a little hard to get immersed in the story, but once I changed my mindset from worrying about what is fact and what is fiction to one of simply listening to and enjoying the story for what it is, (fiction loosely based on fact) I really got into it and enjoyed it.
No art expertise required!
The main story is, of course, based on the rivalry between da Vinci and Michelangelo, both being attributed with artistic temperaments and each man being highly reactive to the achievements of the other. Each artist is featured in alternating chapters; their lives, families, loves and their careers, the highs and the lows.
Despite the rivalry and dislike between the two men, the older daVinci is shocked and distressed when he hears that Michelangelos' completed statue of David might have suffered damage at the hands of vandals. This revealed another side to his character; the side that believes that, above all else, art is everything.
I enjoyed the chapters about daVinci more so than those about Michelangelo, I'm not sure why, maybe because he was older and had more interesting things going on in his life; the account of his attempt to re-route the river in order to prevent flooding was fascinating to me. He seemed always to be working on various projects, improving the old and inventing the new.
Michelangelo seemed to have but one obsession, his "David", he also seemed to spend a great deal of time feeling hard done by and sorry for himself, but then, those characteristics may have been the result of the authors artistic licence.
I loved the accounts of how people lived in those times, the streets, the buildings, the food and drink, their clothing. I can't imagine how many hours that the author would have spent in researching this for her work, dedication indeed!
I would highly recommend this book to those who love historical fiction, but art lovers, especially those who are really knowledgable, do need to bear in mind that, despite the factual content, it is a work off fiction.
Narrator
A narration of well over 13 hours and with many characters is no mean undertaking and I admire the narrator, P. J. Ochlan, for his consistency. Each character has an Italian accent and P.J. Ochlan succeeded in giving each one a distinct voice, I enjoyed them all, I thought he captured the complaining tone of Michelangelo perfectly.
I did find that listening to the Italian accents a bit wearing, but that really is just a personal preference, many audiobook listeners believe that accents add a nice touch of authenticity.
Audiobook provided by the author, narrator or publisher in return for an unbiased review
Fact and Fiction Fuse for a Great Listen
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The narrator is excellent.
Don't miss this book!
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A bit forced
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Great story
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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Not really. The narrator gave a distracting, unconvincing Bella Lugosi accent that I was unable to get past.Was Oil and Marble worth the listening time?
NOT really.Terrible narration.
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Beauty at what cost
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Breathes life into art
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Too many liberties with the history.
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A true 5 star listen
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Enlightening and entertaining!
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