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The Designer
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
In 1944, newly married Copper Reilly arrives in Paris soon after the liberation. While the city celebrates its freedom, she's stuck in the prison of an unhappy marriage. When her husband commits one betrayal too many, Copper demands a separation.
Alone in Paris, she finds an unlikely new friend: an obscure, middle-aged designer from the back rooms of a decaying fashion house whose timid nature and reluctance for fame clash with the bold brilliance of his designs. His name is Christian Dior.
Realising his genius, Copper urges Dior to strike out on his own, helping to pull him away from his insecurities and towards stardom. With just a camera and a typewriter, she takes her own advice and ventures into the wild and colourful world of fashion journalism.
Soon Copper finds herself torn between two very different suitors, questioning who she is and what she truly wants. As the city rebuilds and opulence returns, can Copper make a new, love-filled life for herself?
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The lives of two very different couples - an officer and his aristocratic wife, and a young soldier and his childhood sweetheart - are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight - and those who don't - and a poignant testament to the enduring power of love.
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Just read it!! Or rather, listen!
- By Annie M. on 08-31-14
By: Louisa Young
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The Mayfair Bookshop
- A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Eliza Knight
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.
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Perfectly Voices, Upliftingly Fun
- By Syd Young on 04-15-22
By: Eliza Knight
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
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The Confessions of Max Tivoli
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Brian Keeler
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Max Tivoli is uniquely cursed. His mind ages normally, but he is born with the withered body of a 70-year-old man, and his body ages in reverse. Despite this torment, Max manages three times to cross paths with Alice, the woman who captures his heart. Because he appears to be a different person each time they meet, Max has three chances for true love.
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odd premise, but it works!
- By Sean Dunnahoo on 03-03-04
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Golden Earrings
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Catalina, grand-daughter of Spanish refugees, is a disciplined student with the School of the Paris Opera Ballet. Little gets inthe way of her career until the visit of an otherworldly being, who leaves her a mysterious pair of golden earrings. Given a quest, Catalina realises she must explore her own Spanish heritage and makes the connection between the visitor and ‘La Rusa’, a young Andalusian flamenco star. La Rusa died in exile in Paris in 1952, her death ruled as suicide. But as Catalina begins to discover, there were those in the community, who had good reason for wanting La Rusa dead.
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Fabulous story
- By Paddington on 10-19-12
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Josephine Baker's Last Dance
- By: Sherry Jones
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 13 hrs
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In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones spans Josephine Baker's early years in servitude and poverty in America to her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt to her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century comes to stunning life on the page. With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings Josephine Baker into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor.
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Josephine Bakers Last Dance
- By Robin on 09-02-20
By: Sherry Jones
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Lights Out Liverpool
- By: Maureen Lee
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
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Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
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A Spear of Summer Grass
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savanna manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.
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Disappointed
- By Vinity on 07-13-13
By: Deanna Raybourn
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London Fields
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.
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Big chewy novel, excellent narration
- By Sand on 08-21-14
By: Martin Amis
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Marlene
- A Novel
- By: C. W. Gortner
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Raised in genteel poverty after the First World War, Maria Magdalena Dietrich dreams of a life on the stage. When a budding career as a violinist is cut short, the willful teenager vows to become a singer, trading her family's proper middle-class society for the free-spirited, louche world of Weimar Berlin's cabarets and drag balls.
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One of the best books I’ve ever read!!!
- By Rimma Rose on 01-26-18
By: C. W. Gortner
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Before I Met You
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Helen Duff
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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After her grandmother Arlette's death, Betty is finally ready to begin her life. She had forfeited university, parties, boyfriends, summer jobs in order to care for Arlette. Now she's ready for whatever life throws at her, and, since the will included a beneficiary unknown to her who lives in the city, she heads there to find the mysterious woman. In 1920s London, Arlette is starting her new life in a time of postwar change. Beautiful and charismatic, she's drawn into a hedonistic world, but then tragedy strikes, and she flees back to her childhood home....
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Awful
- By cristina on 08-13-18
By: Lisa Jewell
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What listeners say about The Designer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Linda
- 10-18-17
Copper Is A Feminist Before It Was Cool—1944!
I got this book as a free book of the month from Amazon. It was delightful. I also bought the audible version and enjoyed listening to the narrative. I always like to listen to a good story read to me. This story was about Copper Reilly, a woman ahead of her time, from the U.S. living in Paris with her journalist husband. She wanted to write but he Pooh-poohed the idea as she was just a woman. She wound up writing for a friend who was there to write fashion stories but was usually too drunk or hung over to meet his deadline. She stepped in and found her work was liked and then...he died. She mourned the loss but then sent in his article and photographs under her own name and found that Harper’s Bazaar liked her. Copper became friends with Dior and his wild crowd of bohemians. She was young and beautiful and her husband was an unfaithful lout. She divorced him and became a well known writer and photographer. The book revealed much about the life in Paris in the early 40’s after it was liberated from the Germans. The book was interesting, historical, and had a good female character and everyone in general was excellent. I was unfamiliar with the author but will be looking for his books now. Interesting that he wrote under a female name and wrote romance novels until he could come out under his own name. Quite a well respected author;. Fun to find these free books and be introduced to new author or old authors you just heard about. A real treat. Saskis Maarleveld was great as narrator.
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69 people found this helpful
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- AKA1
- 03-16-18
Great listen!
I had no idea what to expect from this book. Frankly, I was drawn to the cover photo. Our book club had recently read The Lilac Girls, and since this book is about Paris during the same period, I thought this might compliment that. Also, I know next to nothing about how the fashion world operated so found that part of the book fastenating.
I had never listened to Ms Maarleveld before and found her performance exceptional. I will look for more books she performs in the future. I don't speak French, but found her pronunciation and accent to be authentic.
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4 people found this helpful
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- THRIFTY LAWYER
- 07-23-18
Frustrating, unrealistic
I did not like this story for the following reasons:
*Overt sexual abuse- Copper, the protagonist, is repeatedly subject to attention from another female character that, were it coming from a male character, would qualify as sexual assault. Somehow, the reader is supposed to accept this character as an embodiment of one of two legitimate paths for Copper to take (ambiguous sexuality and a bohemian lifestyle vs. heterosexuality and a traditional lifestyle), yet I can't imagine any woman being comfortable with or turned on by the actions of the female lover in this story. Copper's reactions read like a clueless man speculating about how a woman would respond to another smelly, unwashed woman making unwanted sexual advances toward her, instead of how a woman would actually think/respond
*Overly sympathetic portrayal of Nazi collaborators/overly simplified portrayal of those trying to root out Nazi collaborators- I get that after war the victors can be over-zealous in rooting out collaborators, and one small good point for this book was the harrowing depiction early on of the suffering a woman who had a child with a German soldier was forced to go through. That being said, the Nazis were, well, the Nazis, yet the author presents those who entertained or collaborated with them in a relatively positive light, and those who try to root them out are presented almost to a one as boors
*Unlikable/Unrelatable and stereotypical main character- Copper adheres to the stereotypical trope of a young, beautiful yet tomboyish woman who somehow, despite being slim, pretty, striking, etc., has no idea how beautiful she is, yet still manages to spread enlightenment everywhere she goes. She inspires Christian Dior to create clothes for a new silhouette, drives those around her crazy with passion for her, and yet somehow has no idea why. She is also pretty annoying in that she does not seem to be able to stand up for herself. Overall she reads like a woman written by a man, which I guess she is.
To be fair, there were a couple of high points for this book. The author did a good job of setting the scene, and one could really picture Paris at the end of the war. The fashion history was also fascinating, including in particular the history of Christian Dior's sister, who was imprisoned and tortured at Ravensbruck, and story of the Theatre de la Mode. Narration was good and the reader did a credible French accent that was not over the top.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Michelle
- 04-19-19
Refreshing
To find a Book from World War II that does not focus on it’s horrors too much
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1 person found this helpful
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- K Shaughnessy
- 11-17-17
Good story, some parts felt forced and unnecessary
Overall, this was an enjoyable story. I felt that the lesbian storyline was too forced and wasn't necessary to the overall story. Love the portrayal of Dior and his friends.
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27 people found this helpful
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- IRENE
- 05-06-18
A wonderful story!
The story and the reader kept me engaged from the first to last page. I will definitely be looking for more books by this author and narrator.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-11-18
Delightful!
I loved this book. From the very first chapter through to the last paragraph, it held my rapt attention. The narrator is pleasant and easy to listen to. The characters are very easy to relate to, and I expect I'll be contemplating Copper's measured and non-judgmental responses for a long time.
It was very fun taking this ride beside Christian Dior, and strolling the streets of Paris. Copper's sensible and down-to-earth manner, as well as her independence and courage makes her immensely likable.
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- MJ Gairns
- 06-23-18
Good story about fashion but wanted more Dior.
It was a good story with a few surprises. The narrator did a great job with French pronunciation. However, it would have been nice to hear more about Dior and his journey toward success. Dior's history with Gascon and Yves St. Lauren would have been good.
However there was a lot about the history of the fashion industry at the end of the war that I learned. It also aroused my curiosity to find out more about Dior and found there was a lot of research about his sister, family and obsession with prediction of the future. I learned a lot.
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- Amy Tiffany
- 04-05-20
Big names in fashion, art, literature abound
Both stories of Christian Dior and Paris at the end of WWII were very interesting and compelling. I could do without the American journalist and her part in the romantic historical fiction. She was not believable although necessary to bring forward other issues and happenings around the period in question.
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- Shelli Kercher
- 05-07-18
Absolutely loved it!
I seriously loved this book! Totally worth a credit! I was engaged almost immediately and it kept me listening all the way through. I didn't want to shut it off...
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