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The Book of Kings
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 35 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's summary
The title alludes to God's prophetic warning to Samuel about the rise of man-made kings. James Thackara, as John Walsh wrote in The New Yorker, "watches Hitler's rise from a dozen different perspectives: at Nuremberg rallies; as reported in dinner table gossip; in close-up appearances at Hindenburg's side; in letters and rumors of war; in the gradually thickening atmosphere of fright and inevitability."
A work of extraordinary vision and range, The Book of Kings magnificently fuses myth and the inexorable events of history.
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Published in 1922, Fitzgerald's second novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete, and his beautiful wife, Gloria, as they await to inherit his grandfather's fortune. A devastating satire of the nouveaux rich and New York's nightlife, of reckless ambition and squandered talent, it is also a shattering portrait of a marriage fueled by alcohol and wasted by wealth. The Beautiful and Damned, Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda in 1930, "was all true."
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i loved it
- By Emily on 01-20-05
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The Golden Hour
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.
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Stick with it!
- By Colleen on 07-17-19
By: Beatriz Williams
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Bellefleur
- Gothic Saga Series, Book 1
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythic Lake Noir. They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.
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Old School Gothic Literature (Not a beach read)
- By Keijon ford on 05-01-20
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The Library of Legends
- A Novel
- By: Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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China, 1937: When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, 19-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than 100 students, faculty, and staff must walk 1,000 miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by hunger, cold, and the constant threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the student refugees who are at risk: Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure, a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.
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Wonderful and Umique!
- By D. Fields on 02-18-22
By: Janie Chang
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The Stolen Lady
- A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa
- By: Laura Morelli
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Caroline Hewitt, Paul Woodson
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From the acclaimed author of The Night Portrait comes a stunning historical novel about two women, separated by 500 years, who each hide Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa - with unintended consequences.
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hard to finish
- By jeannetteW on 01-05-22
By: Laura Morelli
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The Voyage Out
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's haunting tale about a naïve young woman's sea voyage from London to a small resort on the South American coast. In symbolic, lyrical, and intoxicating prose, her outward journey begins to mirror her internal voyage into adulthood as she searches for her personal identity, grapples with love, and learns how to face life intellectually and emotionally. Its wit and exquisiteness, and its profound depth and insight into humanity, will capture the imagination of the listener.
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Lovely
- By Edith on 05-24-19
By: Virginia Woolf
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Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Elaine Wise
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Though he embodies neither wealth nor a lavish persona, Charles Bovary - a somewhat established doctor - takes a chance in marrying the young, vibrant, and ambitious farm girl Emma Rouault. At first, Emma is delighted to be married and away from her father's farm, but her thirst for the rich and ornate lifestyle that she witnesses other people living soon drives her away from her husband and into the arms of various suitors.
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Madame Bovary doesn't disappoint
- By Arlene Olsen on 12-11-16
By: Gustave Flaubert
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The Hopkins Manuscript
- A Novel
- By: R.C. Sherriff
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton, Lameece Issaq
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Edgar Hopkins is a retired math teacher with a strong sense of self-importance, whose greatest pride is winning poultry-breeding contests. When not meticulously caring for his Bantam, Edgar is an active member of the British Lunar Society. Thanks to that affiliation, Edgar becomes one of the first people to learn that the moon is on a collision course with the earth. Members of the society are sworn to secrecy, but eventually the moon begins to loom so large in the sky that the truth can no longer be denied.
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1939 or present?
- By TimePresentTimePast on 01-23-23
By: R.C. Sherriff
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Bel Ami
- By: Guy de Maupassant
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Guy de Maupassant is revered for his naturalistic fiction, which brilliantly captures flesh-and-blood characters as it evokes the most telling details of everyday life. Considered one of the finest French novels ever written, Bel Ami follows journalist Georges Duroy and his increasing stature among the Paris elite. With an immense thirst for power, Georges is not above an almost gleeful use of wealthy mistresses to achieve his ends.
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Bel Ami or how to socially climb in 1885 Paris
- By Neil Chisholm on 12-03-13
What listeners say about The Book of Kings
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Ike
- 05-04-06
Overblown
This is billed as fine literature with a lot of gushing reviews from the literary world, but I guess that I am just an unsophisticated Phillistine as I found in overblown, difficult to follow (at times), and somewhat snooty.
I spend a lot of time in my car, so I tend to chose long unabridged audiobooks and I prefer history. I chose this one for these reasons and was prepared for a good account of the WWII years.
What I got was long tedious story of elite sophisticates, all in love with each other's spouses, long, endless and tiresome metaphors, and a story line that failed keep me involved. I found it particularly annoying that when ever there was a crucial point of the story, the author buried it in vagueness, so I kept rewinding repeatedly to see if "I got it". Also, I wish had a nickel for every time Mr. Thackera used the phrase "his/her heart lept"; there was a lot of hearts leaping. Lastly none of the characters ever seemed real to me. No one thinks and talks like these people, but then they are all rich, sophisticated, and highly educated layabouts for the most part.
However, there were some excellent accounts of Guderian's tank campaigns in France and Russia. if the rest of the 50 plus hours had been similar, this Phillistine would have enjoyed it more.
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26 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Marius
- 11-28-07
Cabbages and Kings
A rather strange book – a cross between a script for a mini-series and an attempt at a 20th century Tolstoy novel. The basic concept is intriguing, and there are elements of a good yarn here, but somehow there’s a hollowness that doesn’t ring true. It’s hard to put a finger on whether this is because of the dialogue, the emotional depth of the characters or the storyline – probably a combination of all three. Ultimately, the work is more cabbage than king.
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9 people found this helpful