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Portobello
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
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Publisher's summary
Ruth Rendell is widely considered to be crime fiction’s reigning queen. In Portobello, she delivers a captivating and intricate tale that weaves together the troubled lives of several people in the gentrified neighborhood of London’s Notting Hill.
Walking to the shops one day, 50-year-old Eugene Wren discovers an envelope on the street bulging with cash. A man plagued by a shameful addiction - and his own good intentions - Wren hatches a plan to find the money’s rightful owner. Instead of going to the police, or taking the cash for himself, he prints a notice and posts it around Portobello Road. This ill-conceived act creates a chain of events that links Wren to other Londoners - people afflicted with their own obsessions and despairs. As these volatile characters come into Wren’s life - and the life of his trusting fiancée - the consequences will change them all. Portobello is a wonderfully complex tour de force featuring a dazzling depiction of one of London’s most intriguing neighborhoods - and the dangers beneath its newly posh veneer.
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Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008, The Road Home is the best-selling story of Lev, a middle-aged migrant from Eastern Europe, who moves to London in search of work after losing his wife and job. Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency. The world Tremain creates is both convincing and poignant.
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OK - nice narration - good characters
- By bea on 02-21-11
By: Rose Tremain
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The Brightest Star in the Sky
- A Novel
- By: Marian Keyes
- Narrated by: Caitriona Keyes
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The Brightest Star in the Sky follows seven neighbors whose lives become entangled when a sassy and prescient spirit pays a visit to their Dublin townhouse with the intent of changing at least one of their lives. But what will this metamorphosis be and who will the sprite choose?
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Terrible sound quality, worse narration
- By Jan on 02-23-10
By: Marian Keyes
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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
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Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
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A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
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The Perfect Lie
- By: Emily Barr
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond, Penelope Rawlins, Julia Franklin
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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For Lucy Riddick, Venice has always been the dream destination, the ideal place to lose herself. And now she needs to do just that. The secret she's been keeping has finally caught up with her and Lucy needs to disappear - fast. But what if, when she sets foot in Venice, Lucy finds the one thing she has been running from?
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Fun and Absorbing
- By Jen Griffin on 10-15-15
By: Emily Barr
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Eva's Eye
- Inspector Sejer Mystery, Book 1
- By: Karin Fossum
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Eva Magnus and her daughter are out walking by the river when a man's body floats to the water's surface. Eva goes to call the police, but when she reaches the phone, she dials another number altogether.
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Very little of Sejer, a whole lot of Eva
- By John Barnett on 07-04-17
By: Karin Fossum
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Written in Dead Wax
- The Vinyl Detective, Book 1
- By: Andrew Cartmel
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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He is a record collector and a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the Vinyl Detective, and some people take this more literally than others. For example, the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of an extremely wealthy yet shadowy client. And so begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all....
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Outstanding narration!
- By John S. on 01-31-17
By: Andrew Cartmel
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The Year of the Runaways
- By: Sunjeev Sahota
- Narrated by: Sartaj Garewal
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Thirteen young men live in a house in Sheffield, each in flight from India and in desperate search of a new life. Tarlochan, a former rickshaw driver, will say nothing about his past in Bihar, and Avtar has a secret that binds him to protect the choatic Randeep. Randeep, in turn, has a visa wife in a flat on the other side of town: a clever, devout woman whose cupboards are full of her husband's clothes, in case the immigration men surprise her with a call.
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Maybe easier to read than to listen to.
- By Eric on 06-15-16
By: Sunjeev Sahota
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A Share in Death
- By: Deborah Crombie
- Narrated by: Michael Deehy
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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A week's holiday in a luxurious hotel is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But his vacation ends dramatically with the discovery of a dead body in the whirlpool bath. Despite a suspicious lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised significantly when a second murder occurs....
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series readers, start here
- By connie on 02-09-13
By: Deborah Crombie
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As always, Rendell writes a very engaging yarn!
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A Signature Performance: Tim Curry, the source of our inspiration, returns – this time, he captures the quirky enthusiasm of this goofily visionary adventure.
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Feels like Jules Verne
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What listeners say about Portobello
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- nina
- 01-07-16
Marvelous story and reader
Tim curry should read everything! Wonderful reader. And I love the characters in Ruth Randell's books. I am addicted, although not to chic orange candies. Would like to try, though.....
Highly recommend!!!
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3 people found this helpful
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- book listener
- 09-30-24
NARRATOR!
Short revue as still listening, however, must add that the narrator is totally 'overdoing' the cockney voices, making all characters with it sound like stupid cartoon characters of themselves. Totally over the top. Sad, Tim Curry is fine actor/entertainer. Im finding it off putting but will have to suffer through it.
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- Placeholder
- 11-26-10
spooky comes to life
I you love London from afar, this is a great book. Tim Curry is simply marvelous and brings all the characters to life.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Nancy A. Garreaud
- 11-05-23
Wonderful narration by Tim Curry
Curry’s narration really enhances the plot and Rendell’s characteristically quirky and in some cases very funny characters keep one’s interest
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- Marian
- 10-23-10
FASCINATING AND WELL-READ
The interweaving of the various plots and characters is masterful. This is one of the best of Rendell's novels I've read. The characters are fascinating. Their failings and struggles are involving and often touching. And, miracle of miracles, it doesn't end in misery! The narrator does a wonderful job with all the different accents. He portrays women well, which is challenging. This is an audiobook that you can read over and over again. Ten stars.
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17 people found this helpful
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- Agatha
- 12-17-22
Haunting, edgy
The scariest part of this tale is that a little of Eugene may be in all of us. Like the video game you can't put down - the cell phone you have to keep checking - the 'likes' and retweets on social media... or choc-orange... Tim Curry does a wonderful job narrating - as usual!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Lynn
- 09-16-10
Portobello's Lovely Mean Streets
Poignant, funny, human and sardonic, a spellbinding evocation by Ruth Rendell of a time - 2007 - and a place - the Portobello neighborhood of London - both distinct and universal. Rendell's rich and sensuous narrative draws us into the complicated and vivid lives of upper middle class, lower middle class, criminal, and slacker Londoners as if met on a stroll through Portobello. Each wants something elusive - security, sanity, love, food, or simply human contact - and we feel their longings as we wonder what will happen next in the convoluted, Dickensian plot driven by conflicting desires and obsessions. Tim Curry's narration splendidly summons the beauty and ugliness of the characters and their deeds.
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23 people found this helpful
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- Susan
- 12-27-22
Unusual character focus
Rendell's extraordinary attention to character development makes this book feel less like a muder mystery. Drama builds slowly but relentlessly, entangling the players more tightly with each chapter. If at the end, you feel a craving for sugar free chocolate, DO NOT give in. 🙂
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1 person found this helpful
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- Safia Moffatt
- 09-08-21
Kinda boring, still a good read
This book is not your typical Rendell story. It's not full of colorful characters, just ordinary people trying to overcome everyday obstacles of living day to day, showing how they cope with said obstacles. But there was something also motivating to me about this book. Maybe it was Tim Curry's excellent narration. Let's face it, Tim Curry could read the phone book to you and make it sound interesting. Well, that was part of what kept me pressing on here. Another thing was I found these mundane situations and characters oddly relatable. Like I could be one of them, and oddly, I found myself weaning myself of an addition to an OTC medication I had been taking due to reading this ! There's one character that starts eating orange candies with artificial sweetener and finds himself addicted to them and then kicks his addiction. There was something oddly empowering in this story for me, because it's about most of us who are just trying to survive life in our own ways. Some of us finding ourselves forming unhealthy habits but finding the will to kick them, whatever they are. The little victories, which are what most of us have. Things that none else knows about except for us. Most of the time. I liked this book.
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- Actormd
- 04-26-16
Literary equivalent of a choc orange.
Some will like it. Some will not. Most, I believe will enjoy the performance of Tim Curry's chocolate voice but the narrative will leave a sour taste behind.
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2 people found this helpful