The Paper Garden
An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jill Tanner
-
By:
-
Molly Peacock
About this listen
In The Paper Garden, celebrated poet Molly Peacock explores the remarkable life of 18th-century British gentlewoman-turned-artist Mary Delany. In the 1770s, at the age of 72, the twice-widowed and nearly broke Delany turned her interest in botany into beautiful paper “mosaick” flowers still revered today.
©2010 Molly Peacock (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Your Brain on Art
- How the Arts Transform Us
- By: Susan Magsamen, Ivy Ross
- Narrated by: Ellyn Jameson
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is art? Many of us think of the arts as entertainment—a luxury of some kind. In Your Brain on Art, authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross show how activities from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture, and more are essential to our lives.
-
-
Practical, even utilitarian ways of leveraging art
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 04-07-23
By: Susan Magsamen, and others
-
The Alice Network
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
-
-
We are standing on the shoulders of giants...
- By Marie on 02-25-18
By: Kate Quinn
-
Flower Diary
- In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door
- By: Molly Peacock
- Narrated by: Alicia Payne
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary fought for a place as a professional artist without having to live as a tragic heroine. She married George Reid, Canadian muralist, and while their relationship was more equal than most, this was still the Edwardian age. How do you find time to paint when you need to get to the market to buy a chicken for dinner?
-
-
A Brilliant Biography Read Beutifully
- By Davidson Garrett on 02-21-22
By: Molly Peacock
-
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
-
-
Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Hagitude
- Reimagining the Second Half of Life
- By: Sharon Blackie
- Narrated by: Sharon Blackie
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture's focus on youthfulness. In her exciting new book, mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie explores these archetypes, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples, women can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and their elder years as a path to dynamic power.
-
-
Reminds me of my value as an elder.
- By Kindle Customer on 12-21-22
By: Sharon Blackie
-
The Dictionary of Lost Words
- A Novel
- By: Pip Williams
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
-
-
Enchanted
- By Lulu Can on 04-07-21
By: Pip Williams
-
Your Brain on Art
- How the Arts Transform Us
- By: Susan Magsamen, Ivy Ross
- Narrated by: Ellyn Jameson
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is art? Many of us think of the arts as entertainment—a luxury of some kind. In Your Brain on Art, authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross show how activities from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture, and more are essential to our lives.
-
-
Practical, even utilitarian ways of leveraging art
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 04-07-23
By: Susan Magsamen, and others
-
The Alice Network
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
-
-
We are standing on the shoulders of giants...
- By Marie on 02-25-18
By: Kate Quinn
-
Flower Diary
- In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door
- By: Molly Peacock
- Narrated by: Alicia Payne
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary fought for a place as a professional artist without having to live as a tragic heroine. She married George Reid, Canadian muralist, and while their relationship was more equal than most, this was still the Edwardian age. How do you find time to paint when you need to get to the market to buy a chicken for dinner?
-
-
A Brilliant Biography Read Beutifully
- By Davidson Garrett on 02-21-22
By: Molly Peacock
-
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
-
-
Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Hagitude
- Reimagining the Second Half of Life
- By: Sharon Blackie
- Narrated by: Sharon Blackie
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture's focus on youthfulness. In her exciting new book, mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie explores these archetypes, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples, women can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and their elder years as a path to dynamic power.
-
-
Reminds me of my value as an elder.
- By Kindle Customer on 12-21-22
By: Sharon Blackie
-
The Dictionary of Lost Words
- A Novel
- By: Pip Williams
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
-
-
Enchanted
- By Lulu Can on 04-07-21
By: Pip Williams
-
The Golden Thread
- How Fabric Changed History
- By: Kassia St. Clair
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization - from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole).
-
-
Excellent for those interested in textiles
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-14-19
By: Kassia St. Clair
-
Effie
- The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais
- By: Suzanne Fagence Cooper
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.
-
-
Fascinating Story--Victoriana
- By Cariola on 06-29-12
-
State of Wonder
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Research scientist Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. The last person who was sent to find her died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers to the questions about her friend's death, her company's future, and her own past.
-
-
Do yourself a favor and listen to this book!
- By F. B. H. In TN on 06-10-11
By: Ann Patchett
-
Agatha Christie
- An Elusive Woman
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Lucy Worsley
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
-
-
A delight and a revelation
- By theenglishmajor on 12-02-22
By: Lucy Worsley
-
Ninth Street Women
- Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
- By: Mary Gabriel
- Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
- Length: 40 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting - not as muses but as artists.
-
-
Painful pronunciation issues!
- By Curious Artist Librarian on 05-20-19
By: Mary Gabriel
-
Over the Hills and Far Away
- The Life of Beatrix Potter
- By: Matthew Dennison, Cassandra de Cuir - director
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-selling, most cherished authors of children's literature whose books have enchanted generations for over a hundred years. Yet how she achieved this legendary status is just one of several stories of her remarkable and surprising life. Inspired by her 23 "tales", Matthew Dennison takes a selection of quotations from Potter's stories and uses them to explore her multifaceted life and character: repressed Victorian daughter; thwarted lover; artistic genius; formidable countrywoman.
-
-
Amazing Story
- By Paraskevi on 03-07-23
By: Matthew Dennison, and others
-
Savage Beauty
- The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
- By: Nancy Milford
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 24 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If F. Scott Fitzgerald was the hero of the Jazz Age, Edna St. Vincent Millay, as flamboyant in her love affairs as she was in her art, was its heroine. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Millay was dazzling in the performance of herself. Her voice was likened to an instrument of seduction, and her impact on crowds and on men was legendary. Yet beneath her studied act, all was not well.
-
-
Fascinating Woman
- By David P on 04-29-22
By: Nancy Milford
-
The Hare with Amber Eyes
- A Hidden Inheritance
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in 19th-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection.
-
-
A vagabond through history, clutching a tiny carvi
- By SB Price on 01-19-12
By: Edmund de Waal
-
Sargent's Women
- Four Lives Behind the Canvas
- By: Donna M. Lucey
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With unprecedented access to newly discovered sources, Donna M. Lucey illuminates the lives of four extraordinary women painted by the iconic high-society portraitist John Singer Sargent. With uncanny clairvoyance, Sargent's portraits hint at the mysteries, passions, and tragedies that unfolded in his subjects' lives.
-
-
Bust for a big Sargent fan!
- By Jennifer on 11-26-17
By: Donna M. Lucey
-
Louisa May Alcott
- The Woman Behind Little Women
- By: Harriet Reisen
- Narrated by: Harriet Reisen
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louisa May Alcott portrays a writer as worthy of interest in her own right as her most famous character, Jo March, and addresses all aspects of Alcott's life: the effect of her father's self-indulgent utopian schemes; her family's chronic economic difficulties and frequent uprootings; her experience as a nurse in the Civil War; and the loss of her health and frequent recourse to opiates in search of relief from migraines, insomnia, and symptomatic pain.
-
-
interesting life, strange reader
- By h and l on 01-10-10
By: Harriet Reisen
-
Thomas Hardy
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hardy's work challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other authors of the time dared. Though his modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him, or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experience: time, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, death. This engrossing biography identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.
-
-
A Sensitive Portrait
- By peter on 04-10-07
By: Claire Tomalin
-
Jane Austen at Home
- A Biography
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Ruth Redman
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses - both grand and small - of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.
-
-
As a Devoted Janeite - I loved this book!
- By Dorothy on 07-17-17
By: Lucy Worsley
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
Effie
- The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais
- By: Suzanne Fagence Cooper
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.
-
-
Fascinating Story--Victoriana
- By Cariola on 06-29-12
-
Those Wild Wyndhams
- Three Sisters at the Heart of Power
- By: Claudia Renton
- Narrated by: Claudia Renton
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.
-
-
SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
- By The Louligan on 01-22-19
By: Claudia Renton
-
The Housekeeper's Tale
- The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
- By: Tessa Boase
- Narrated by: Tessa Boase
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Using secret diaries, unpublished letters, and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.
-
-
Utterly intriguing
- By Pamela Jane on 09-14-17
By: Tessa Boase
-
Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
-
-
Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
-
Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
-
-
The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
-
Alice Behind Wonderland
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 2 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.
-
-
Not Long Enough
- By thefrogman on 06-18-12
By: Simon Winchester
-
Effie
- The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais
- By: Suzanne Fagence Cooper
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.
-
-
Fascinating Story--Victoriana
- By Cariola on 06-29-12
-
Those Wild Wyndhams
- Three Sisters at the Heart of Power
- By: Claudia Renton
- Narrated by: Claudia Renton
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.
-
-
SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
- By The Louligan on 01-22-19
By: Claudia Renton
-
The Housekeeper's Tale
- The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
- By: Tessa Boase
- Narrated by: Tessa Boase
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Using secret diaries, unpublished letters, and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.
-
-
Utterly intriguing
- By Pamela Jane on 09-14-17
By: Tessa Boase
-
Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
-
-
Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
-
Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
-
-
The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
-
Alice Behind Wonderland
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 2 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.
-
-
Not Long Enough
- By thefrogman on 06-18-12
By: Simon Winchester
-
The Husband Hunters
- American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Towards the end of the 19th century and for the first few years of the 20th, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, 50 years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess", married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage....
-
-
Bondfide Valuable History Lesson
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 09-21-18
By: Anne de Courcy
-
Wait for Me!
- Memoirs
- By: Deborah Mitford Duchess of Devonshire
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire.
-
-
The last of the Mitford Sisters
- By Irene on 01-11-11
-
Proust's Duchess
- How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris
- By: Caroline Weber
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 29 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style."
-
-
Enthralling, entertaining and brilliant
- By Uli Baer on 01-14-19
By: Caroline Weber
-
House of Dreams
- The Life of L.M. Montgomery
- By: Liz Rosenberg, Julie Morstad - illustrator
- Narrated by: Susan Hanfield
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maud who adored stories. When she was fourteen years old, Maud wrote in her journal, "I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them." Not only did Maud grow up to own lots of books, she wrote twenty-four of them herself as L. M. Montgomery, the world-renowned author of Anne of Green Gables. For many years, her lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression, her "year of mad passion" and her difficult married life were buried deep within her unpublished personal journals....
-
-
Home’o’dreams
- By Steve G. on 02-25-20
By: Liz Rosenberg, and others
-
The Quest for Queen Mary
- By: James Pope-Hennessy, Hugo Vickers - editor
- Narrated by: Tim Bentinck, Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The highly acclaimed unexpurgated notes taken by James Pope-Hennessy for his official biography of Queen Mary, the present Queen's grandmother. Published in full for the first time and edited by much-admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers. When James Pope-Hennessy began his work on Queen Mary's official biography, it opened the door to meetings with royalty, court members and retainers around Europe. The series of candid observations, secrets and indiscretions contained in his notes were to be kept private for 50 years....
-
-
obscure but poor gold
- By Dr. A. on 11-20-18
By: James Pope-Hennessy, and others
-
The Glitter and the Gold
- The American Duchess - In Her Own Words
- By: Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Consuelo Vanderbilt was young, beautiful and the heir to a vast family fortune. She was also deeply in love with an American suitor when her mother chose instead for her to fulfill her social ambitions and marry an English Duke. Leaving her life in America, she came to England as the Duchess of Marlborough in 1895 and took up residence in her new home: Blenheim Palace. The ninth Duchess gives unique first-hand insight into life at the very pinnacle of English society in the Edwardian era.
-
-
Facinating Story- Terrible reading
- By Ashley D on 03-27-14
-
Bunny Mellon
- The Life of an American Style Legend
- By: Meryl Gordon
- Narrated by: Vanessa Cortland
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art, and fashion.
-
-
Well written bio.
- By Minda Leah Kahn on 09-01-18
By: Meryl Gordon
-
Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman
- By: Judy Taylor
- Narrated by: Patricia Routledge
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Starting with the publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in 1902, Beatrix Potter went on to become one of the world’s most successful children’s authors. This biographical audiobook takes the reader through the whole of her life, from her Victorian childhood in London to her final years farming in the Lake District. Regarded as a standard work on Beatrix Potter’s life, this work has been updated regularly to include fresh material that has come to light as interest in Beatrix Potter continues to grow.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Kimberly on 06-14-17
By: Judy Taylor
-
In the Great Green Room
- The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown
- By: Amy Gary
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret's books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children's book publishing revolution.
-
-
Excruciatingly boring
- By Melissa S. on 01-31-19
By: Amy Gary
-
Romantic Outlaws
- The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
- By: Charlotte Gordon
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.
-
-
Tons of info, poor format choice.
- By Gotta Tellya on 02-06-17
By: Charlotte Gordon
-
And After the Fire
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Belfer
- Narrated by: Xe Sands, Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruins of Germany in 1945, at the end of World War II, American soldier Henry Sachs takes a souvenir, an old music manuscript, from a seemingly deserted mansion and mistakenly kills the girl who tries to stop him. In America in 2010, Henry's niece, Susanna Kessler, struggles to rebuild her life after she experiences a devastating act of violence on the streets of New York City. When Henry dies soon after, she uncovers the long-hidden music manuscript.
-
-
Very disappointing
- By Margalarg on 06-28-19
By: Lauren Belfer
-
Royal Sisters
- Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret
- By: Anne Edwards
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Royal Sisters, Anne Edwards, author of the best-selling Vivien Leigh: A Biography and Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor, has written the first dual biography of Elizabeth, the princess who was to become Queen, and her younger sister, Margaret, who was to be her subject. From birth to maturity, they were the stuff of which dreams are made.
-
-
Where's The Rest?
- By Simone on 12-19-17
By: Anne Edwards
What listeners say about The Paper Garden
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jul
- 02-10-23
Inspirational
I loved this book. So much so I bought another book about the Mrs. Delaney. The book not only offered glimpses of what it was like to be a woman during the 17th century. but shared the story of a life that endured, sustained , and ‘bloomed’ despite a social structure where woman have less merit, opportunities, and choice. Mrs. Delaney went so far to create an identity at the late age of 72 that has endured well past the oppressors of her time. Truly inspirational.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Toya Dubin
- 04-14-16
Most inspiring book of the year.
The Paper Garden is an inspiration for anyone interested in gardens,crafts, and the challenges faced by the transitional periods in our lives. I feel truly grateful to Molly Peacock for her sensitive handling of the subject matter and her willingness to allow her language to go past the mundane standard biography.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Colleen Coleman
- 04-09-20
Purely enjoyable
I enjoyed being transported into the life and time of Mary Delaney and the author's ponderings of her creative life..
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane Challenor
- 10-25-12
Loved it!
This story was a lovely ramble through the life of Mary Delaney. It isn't a subject that I thought I'd enjoy but I did because it is very well written and narrated and Mary Delaney was extra-ordinary.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A.E.D.
- 02-03-22
Great read!
I loved the poetic and very detailed descriptions Molly Peacock gives each flower that MD created both in it’s real and artistic concept. I enjoyed the intertwining stories of both MDelany and the author. Although other comments thought she talked too much about her our life stories, I thought well done!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- marisa l.
- 04-29-23
Didn’t like narration
This is a fascinating book. I might just have to read it to myself though. As an American who doesn’t understand nearly enough about English accents all can say is that the narrator’s accent sounds harsh and sharp and unpleasant to me. I think she’s trying to read with clear articulation so i feel terrible that i don’t appreciate her voice. This is the exact kind of accent that probably started the revolutionary war.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mimi Routh
- 04-07-13
DISAPPOINTING FOR MANY REASONS
First of all, this is a book about visual art. Unless a person is actually blind, we still have to find the pictures which are included in the bound book. Now, I am going to sound really mean-spirited, but here goes! I bought this audio because it is about a woman who suddenly becomes an artist at 72 -- she discovers her life's work. I thought that would be inspiring! I imagined a whole new beginning as I assume Whistler's mother began painting. The sales pitch didn't say what kind of art this old lady did, just that it was her life's work.
The artist who is the subject of the book is Mary Delaney who lived from 1700 to 1788. She was married twice and lived in Ireland and England. She had no children. She was accomplished in all the upscale pursuits of ladies of the time. From age 6 or so she was learning to embroider, cut paper dolls and designs, sew, play the harpsichord, and behave in high society. She was married off at 17 to a most distasteful man in his 60's. As it turned out, he wasn't even wealthy, and it was an effort for her to mind her wifely manners and just barely tolerate the alliance. When he died, she remained unmarried for 20 years. I don't see any pictures of her except when she was quite old with a plump face and extra chin. She liked men and she knew how to dress well, but denied all offers. At 43 she married for love. She enjoyed a beautiful friendship with that man. He left her a widow at 68. Four years later she hit on her own new variation of the paper cutting craft. Her colorful and accurate renditions of flowers against black are loved and studied by many.
What is causing me some frustration is that the author, Molly Peacock, a poet I never heard of, is writing about her own long life as well as Mary Delaney's. Molly knows a little about twentieth century crafts, cross-stitch kits and the like. She must have done some research. Her husband took her to Ireland to look around. Also the British Museum to handle the original paper collages. While she is very creative, she is not a visual artist at all. And she is torturing us by waxing poetic about these flower mosaics that we are not able to see. I did google and wiki-search around and I did try to listen to one quite egregious poem. I do understand how women in their 60's like to begin winding up their lives and imagining how things have all fitted together nicely. Good for Molly, but that is another book that you couldn't pay me to read! I've had a quite wonderful and tumultuous life -- and I have decided to move to Tahoe and clean the bear house rather than sit around telling the world about my dysfunctional family, the USAF, the late marriage, the outrageous family dramas, etc. ad nauseum. With no guidance about colleges, I was accepted at USC only to be told that my physician father who always drove a Mercedes would have to save for my brother coming along five years behind me! The world is full of stories of promising young people being kicked in the chin. My dear husband was euthanized against his will after a motorcycle accident; that almost became a TV movie! The wildlife rehab is my late life new career, and I still knit and sew and design. Most of us have been to Hell and back, and many of us are marvelous artists in our own way. This is why I am pained to hear about Molly's drunken father and her comparisons of Mary's life to her own.
Another great irritation is the use of language, something Molly should know all about. Her use of modern slang sounds so wrong! Don't tell us how an 18th Century lady relieves herself while dressed in all her finery -- and use the word "pee!." The word is "urinate." Don't tell us Mary and her friend got up early to get ready for the Coronation and were out the door at 0430 and then were "hanging out" at a coffee house! Perhaps they lingered.
This whole book seems to me just an ego trip for Molly because at least a couple of books have already been written about Mary Delaney. Her letters have been saved and edited. I don't think Molly has a clue how Delaney went about her art. I am very creative at this late date, and when I design a dress or begin an original embroidery, I am not thinking about "how they did it to me" all those years ago. I am reaching for the frisky girl who despite all the abuse had enough resilience to get through officer training and type blazing fast as a temp all over San Francisco. As for manual dexterity and attention to detail, gee whiz, Molly! When my husband was in ICU, only working with seed beads kept me sane. When my love was gone, I had to do my life. Very close work like Mary's paper cutting, or beads or embroidery -- these are all a kind of meditation. I used to look at church vestments and think of the poor silly nuns who made them. I was wrong; they loved their work! No, Molly is pasting her own life and her own unwelcome take on things over this other life. I admire Abigail Adams, for example, but I would never try to write my own life over hers. In fact, I think this effort cheapens Molly's own life story. There really is no comparison. I don't want Molly's rambling poetic expression and I don't want her life. Just this dear woman from the past.
Shame on audible.com for marketing this to us without offering a way to see the accompanying pictures! I will definitdly not buy the print edition. Go to amazon.com and you will see a similar criticism of the print book. Too much about Molly! I am indeed very glad to have met Mary, however.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful