
The Life of Samuel Johnson
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Narrated by:
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David Timson
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By:
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James Boswell
About this listen
Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature.
The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Wilkes, Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick, while also giving a compelling insight into Johnson's complex humanity - his depression, fear of death, intellectual brilliance and rough humor.
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Story
First published in 1952, Witness came on the heals of America's trial of the century, in which Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss, a full-standing member of the political establishment, of spying for the Soviet Union. In this penetrating philosophical memoir, Chambers recounts the famous case as well as his own experiences as a Communist agent in the United States, his later renunciation of communism, and his conversion to Christianity.
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Great history about Communism
- By Susan on 03-04-10
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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume One
- By: Edward Gibbon
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 40 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Gibbon's masterpiece on Rome is a monument of literature and a model of modern historical research. There has never been anything quite like it since its publication between 1776 and 1788. Although some of Gibbon's views are considered controversial today, there is no doubt that his research and patient devotion to scholarship produced one of the most valuable and renowned histories of all time.
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the standard
- By Mark on 11-22-13
By: Edward Gibbon
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Don Juan
- By: Lord Byron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Lord Byron's satirical take on the legend of Don Juan is a moving and witty poem that sees the young hero in a reversal of roles. Juan sheds his image as a womanizer and instead becomes the victim of circumstance as he is relentlessly pursued by every woman he meets. Comprising 17 cantos of rhyming iambic pentameter, the poem is a crisp and accessible meditation on the madness of the world.
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The Impertinence of Being Earnest
- By Jabba on 03-20-16
By: Lord Byron
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Citizens
- A Chronicle of the French Revolution
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the truly preeminent historians of our time, this is a landmark book chronicling the French Revolution. Simon Schama deftly refutes the contemporary notion that the French Revolution represented an uprising of the oppressed poor against a decadent aristocracy and corrupt court. He argues instead that the revolution was born of a rift among the elite over the speed of progress toward modernity and science, social and economic change.
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Audio Skips!!
- By Joseph M. Arnold on 07-02-15
By: Simon Schama
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The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
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The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
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Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
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Gargantua and Pantagruel
- By: François Rabelais
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 34 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is a grotesque and carnivalesque collection of exuberant, fantastical stories that takes us from the ancient world through to the European Renaissance. At the heart of these tall tales are the giant Gargantua and his equally seismic son, Pantagruel. Containing magical adventures, maniacal punning, slapstick humor, erudite allusions, and just about any bodily function one can think of, here is quite possibly the zaniest, most risqué book ever written.
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The king of all the narrators
- By amazon on 02-13-20
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Sons and Lovers
- By: D. H. Lawrence
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.
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Momma's Boy (The Dangers of Overbearing Parenting)
- By W Perry Hall on 02-01-14
By: D. H. Lawrence
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Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays
- By: Michel de Montaigne
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 53 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death.
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Histories
- By: Herodotus
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority, and style. Perhaps most famously, the book tells the heroic tale of the Greeks' resistance to the vast invading force assembled by Xerxes, king of Persia. Here are not only the great battles - Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis - but also penetrating human insight and a powerful sense of epic destiny at work.
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Best of Audible's "The Histories" by Herodotus
- By Emily on 07-19-16
By: Herodotus
For the serious fan only, maybe?
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Excellent
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A Masterful Reading Of The Classic Biography
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There's one part that I was particularly impressed with: Boswell quotes Hawkins quoting Johnson, after Boswell expresses doubts about the authenticity of the quote. The reader read the quote in Johnson's "voice", but subtly added the accent from the Hawkins "voice" to it. I was impressed that that much attention was paid to details.
Stunningly thorough
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Brilliant
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Unique
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There is one other recording of the complete Life available on Audible. While both are excellent, Timson’s delivery is more engaging and the sound quality of this recording is better.
Don’t think of it as a mammoth undertaking. Think of it as something to listen to for an hour a day - at that rate you’ll have gone through the whole thing in less than two months. You can even take weekends off.
Wonderful!
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Amazing quality
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The voice of Johnson
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The finest literary biography
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