
Shakespeare
The Biography
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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Peter Ackroyd
About this listen
This is the big one from Peter Ackroyd—and a worthy companion to London: The Biography.
Only Peter Ackroyd can combine narrative and unique observation with a sharp eye for the fascinating fact. His method is to position Shakespeare in the close context of his world. In this way, he not only richly conjures up the texture of Shakespeare’s life, but also imparts an amazing amount of vivid, interesting material about place, period and background.
Some snippets: Shakespeare was secretly a Roman Catholic; the witches in Macbeth were not hags but nymphs played by boys; the “best” bed was for guests which was why he bequeathed his wife his “second best” bed (the matrimonial bed in which he probably died); “ham acting” derives from the strutting walk which showed off the ham-strings; an actor called “Will” played female parts—could it have been Shakespeare himself? And, the strongest bond in the plays is between father and daughter, perhaps reflecting Shakespeare’s own family life.
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“It really is a stupendous achievement . . . Peter Ackroyd is back at the height of his powers.”–Phil Baker, Sunday Times
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- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Jonathan Bate
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Shakespeare’s world is never too far different from our own, permeated with the same tragedies, the same existential questions and domestic worries. In this extraordinary book, Jonathan Bate brings then and now together. He investigates moments of his own life—losses and challenges—and asks whether, if you persevere with Shakespeare, he can offer a word of wisdom or a human insight for any time or any crisis.
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Splendid
- By International Roamer on 08-25-22
By: Jonathan Bate
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Alfred Hitchcock
- A Brief Life
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become one of the most respected film directors of the 20th century?
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Excellent intro to a great film director's legacy
- By An Alexandria music lover on 11-13-16
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Globe
- Life in Shakespeare’s London
- By: Catharine Arnold
- Narrated by: Clare Staniforth
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In Globe Catherine Arnold takes the listener on a tour of Shakespeare's London, looking at how they shaped each other. Acting turned into a trade, and troupes of touring players perfected their craft. Shakespeare's own company, the Chamberlain's Men, opened the Globe Playhouse on Bankside in 1599, creating a new focal point for the city.
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Is this reader a human being?
- By Geimle Burzeen on 03-05-22
By: Catharine Arnold
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Living with Shakespeare
- Essays by Writers, Actors, and Directors
- By: Harold Bloom - foreword, Susannah Carson - editor
- Narrated by: Michael McConnahie, Simon Prebble, Napoleon Ryan, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Why Shakespeare? What explains our continued fascination with his poems and plays? In Living with Shakespeare, Susannah Carson invites 40 actors, directors, scholars, and writers to reflect on why his work is still such a vital part of our culture.
By: Harold Bloom - foreword, and others
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London Under
- The Secret History Beneath the Streets
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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There is a Bronze Age trackway below the Isle of Dogs, Anglo-Saxon graves rest under St. Pauls, and the monastery of Whitefriars lies beneath Fleet Street. To go under London is to penetrate history, and Ackroyd's book is filled with the stories unique to this underworld: the hydraulic device used to lower bodies into the catacombs in Kensal Green cemetery; the door in the plinth of the statue of Boadicea on Westminster Bridge that leads to a huge tunnel packed with cables for gas, water, and telephone; the sulphurous fumes on the Underground's Metropolitan Line.
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Overwrought twaddle
- By L. Thompson on 11-18-24
By: Peter Ackroyd
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This Is Shakespeare
- By: Emma Smith
- Narrated by: Emma Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn't tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant.
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Excellent and accessible listen
- By Amanda L. Hughes on 01-05-21
By: Emma Smith
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Iron and Blood
- A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Rory Alexander
- Length: 34 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative. Looking beyond Prussia to German-speaking Europe across the last five centuries, Wilson finds little unique or preordained in German militarism or warfighting. Iron and Blood takes as its starting point the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, which created new mechanisms for raising troops but also for resolving disputes diplomatically.
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Awesome
- By Will Georgiadis on 04-11-23
By: Peter H. Wilson
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The Feud that Sparked the Renaissance
- How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World
- By: Paul Robert Walker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, the great cathedral of Florence, is among the most enduring symbols of the Renaissance, an equal to the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Its designer was Filippo Brunelleschi, a temperamental architect and inventor who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. Yet the completion of the dome was not Brunelleschi’s glory alone. He was forced to share the commission with his archrival, the canny and gifted sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.
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Detailed history of the early Italian Renaissance
- By Roger on 11-30-22
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The Eagle and the Hart
- The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
- By: Helen Castor
- Narrated by: Helen Castor
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor.
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A thrilling read
- By Rich C on 11-30-24
By: Helen Castor
A balanced appreciation of theater's incomparable genius
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A marvelous biography
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An excellent listen.
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I am so glad I chose this book!
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The reader, Simon Vance, was excellent and must have tried to connect Shakespeare's friend John Aubry with Patrick O'Brian's Captain of the "Surprise".
Much ado about something
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One of the interesting things about this book is that it calls up all of the points of refute used in the authorship debate and smooths out virtually every wrinkle without trying, in a manner akin to a scholastic aikido. Where little is known, the norms of the time and place are called forth in conjunction with lines and scenes from the plays or the poems, in some cases giving us double and even triple meanings.
Shakespeare not only emerges from this book as a fully-realized and considerably less romanticized individual, but so too do many of his contemporaries, as well as the locales, and the politics and turmoils of the age. I feel privileged to have found this book after so many fall starts and discouragements.
As narrator, Simon Vance is the ideal choice. Vance is consistently one of two tied in the #1 spot for my favorite narrator due to his clarity, eloquence, and ability to sound both enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the material. It feels as though he's not reading a book, but rather engaging in personal discourse about it... except, of course, where he reads chapter headings.
A Definitive Portrait of the Bard
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Vivid Portrait of an Elusive Man
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Engrossing
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A Must Read
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Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd
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