The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.81
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Johanna Parker
-
By:
-
Lily Koppel
About this listen
For more than half a century, the red leather diary languished inside a steamer trunk. Rescued from a Dumpster on Manhattan's Upper West Side, it found its way to Lily Koppel, a young writer, who opened its tarnished brass lock and journeyed into an enthralling past. The diary painted a breathtaking portrait of a bygone New York' "of glamorous nights at El Morocco and elegant teas at Schrafft's during the 1920s and '30s'' - and of the headstrong, endearing teenager who filled its pages with her hopes, heartaches, and vivid recollections. Intrigued, Koppel followed her only clue, a frontispiece inscription, to its now 90-year-old owner, Florence Wolfson, and was enchanted as Florence, reunited with her diary, rediscovered a lost younger self burning with artistic fervor.
Joining intimate interviews with original diary entries, The Red Leather Diary re-creates the romance and promise of a remarkable era and brings to life the true story of a daring, precocious young dreamer.
©2008, 2011 Lily Koppel (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
-
-
A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
-
The Astronaut Wives Club
- A True Story
- By: Lily Koppel
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support and friendship. As their celebrity rose - and as divorce and tragic death began to touch their lives - they continued to rally together, and the wives have now been friends for more than fifty years.
-
-
Sea of Tranquility Ocean of Storms
- By Cynthia on 06-15-13
By: Lily Koppel
-
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
-
Less
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: Your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all.
-
-
Endearing, funny, but sometimes overly clever
- By Lili on 07-30-17
-
Just Kids
- By: Patti Smith
- Narrated by: Patti Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late 60s and 70s and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame.
-
-
Darkly Self Centered & Narrow View
- By Sara on 10-05-15
By: Patti Smith
-
The Namesake
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
-
-
My favorite book - in print and audio
- By Diana - Audible on 04-16-12
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
The Personal Librarian
- By: Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
-
-
A Treat For This Academic Librarian!
- By AlTonya on 07-14-21
By: Marie Benedict, and others
-
The Astronaut Wives Club
- A True Story
- By: Lily Koppel
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support and friendship. As their celebrity rose - and as divorce and tragic death began to touch their lives - they continued to rally together, and the wives have now been friends for more than fifty years.
-
-
Sea of Tranquility Ocean of Storms
- By Cynthia on 06-15-13
By: Lily Koppel
-
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
-
Less
- By: Andrew Sean Greer
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are a failed novelist about to turn 50. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: Your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all.
-
-
Endearing, funny, but sometimes overly clever
- By Lili on 07-30-17
-
Just Kids
- By: Patti Smith
- Narrated by: Patti Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late 60s and 70s and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame.
-
-
Darkly Self Centered & Narrow View
- By Sara on 10-05-15
By: Patti Smith
-
The Namesake
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
-
-
My favorite book - in print and audio
- By Diana - Audible on 04-16-12
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
A Story Lately Told
- Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York
- By: Anjelica Huston
- Narrated by: Anjelica Huston
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writing with an exuberant love of language and detail, Anjelica Huston shares her enchanted childhood in Ireland, her teen years in London, and her coming of age as a model and nascent actress in New York.
-
-
Impossible to stop listening
- By Bil Antoniou on 09-17-15
By: Anjelica Huston
-
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
-
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
- By: Therese Anne Fowler
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the "ungettable" Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed.
-
-
Great! From the first page to the last.....
- By L.W. on 03-30-13
-
The Price of Illusion
- A Memoir
- By: Joan Juliet Buck
- Narrated by: Joan Juliet Buck
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, comes a dazzling memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, chronicling Buck's quest to discover the difference between glitter and gold, illusion and reality, and what looks like happiness from the thing itself.
-
-
Narcissistic name dropper
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Joan Juliet Buck
-
Stolen Beauty
- A Novel
- By: Laurie Lico Albanese
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Madeleine Maby, Gibson Frazier
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the dawn of the 20th century to the devastation of World War II, this exhilarating novel of love, war, art, and family gives voice to two extraordinary women and brings to life the true story behind the creation and near destruction of Gustav Klimt's most remarkable paintings.
-
-
Stolen Beauty- Brilliance and intrigue!
- By harvey on 01-27-23
-
Come to the Edge
- A Memoir
- By: Christina Haag
- Narrated by: Christina Haag
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Christina Haag was growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep-school friends. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University and were living in New York City, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair.
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyed Come to the Edge
- By CapeCodLady on 11-15-19
By: Christina Haag
-
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
-
Once We Were Sisters
- A Memoir
- By: Sheila Kohler
- Narrated by: Sheila Kohler
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Sheila Kohler was 37, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood - one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.
-
-
An engrossing story
- By Mark P on 11-03-18
By: Sheila Kohler
-
Manderley Forever
- A Biography of Daphne du Maurier
- By: Tatiana de Rosnay
- Narrated by: Charlotte Wright
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tatiana de Rosnay is the perfect candidate to write a biography of Daphne du Maurier. As an 11-year-old de Rosnay read and reread Rebecca, becoming a lifelong devotee of Du Maurier's fiction. Now de Rosnay pays homage to the writer who influenced her so deeply, following Du Maurier from a shy seven-year-old to a rebellious 16-year-old, a 20-something newlywed, and finally a cantankerous old lady.
-
-
Well Done
- By Tanya Rogers on 09-11-21
-
My Paris Dream
- An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine
- By: Kate Betts
- Narrated by: Kate Betts
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a young woman, Kate Betts nursed a dream of striking out on her own in a faraway place and becoming a glamorous foreign correspondent. After college—and not without trepidation—she took off for Paris, renting a room in the apartment of a young BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) family and throwing herself into the local culture. She was determined to master French slang, style, and savoir faire, and to find a job that would give her a reason to stay.
-
-
Sorry but narrator puts me to sleep
- By L.W. on 05-27-15
By: Kate Betts
-
The Beautiful American
- By: Jeanne Mackin
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As recovery from World War II begins, expatriate American NoraTours travels from her home in southern France to London in search of her missing 16-year-old daughter. There she unexpectedly meets up with an oldacquaintance, famous model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. Neither has emergedfrom the war unscathed. Nora is racked with the fear that her efforts tosurvive under the Vichy regime may have cost her daughter's life. Lee suffersfrom what she witnessed as a war correspondent photographing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.
-
-
Simply wonderful
- By nursebettyknitting on 07-10-14
By: Jeanne Mackin
-
The Farewell Symphony
- A Novel
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover's death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man.
-
-
Tremendous book
- By William Thomas on 11-26-18
By: Edmund White
Related to this topic
-
The Price of Illusion
- A Memoir
- By: Joan Juliet Buck
- Narrated by: Joan Juliet Buck
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, comes a dazzling memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, chronicling Buck's quest to discover the difference between glitter and gold, illusion and reality, and what looks like happiness from the thing itself.
-
-
Narcissistic name dropper
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Joan Juliet Buck
-
Come to the Edge
- A Memoir
- By: Christina Haag
- Narrated by: Christina Haag
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Christina Haag was growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep-school friends. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University and were living in New York City, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair.
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyed Come to the Edge
- By CapeCodLady on 11-15-19
By: Christina Haag
-
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
-
American Rose
- A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age - told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered. America in the Roaring Twenties. Vaudeville was king. Talking pictures were only a distant flicker. Speakeasies beckoned beyond dimly lit doorways; money flowed fast and free.
-
-
Well done biography of a complicated Icon
- By Moire on 01-27-11
By: Karen Abbott
-
Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.
-
-
Great representation of the time
- By AvidReader22 on 06-07-19
By: Alysia Abbott
-
Pain, Parties, Work
- Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
- By: Elizabeth Winder
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 31, 1953, 20-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next 26 days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. This captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before she became an icon - a young woman with everything to live for.
-
-
Things about Mademoiselle Magazine I never knew
- By S.Batastini on 05-27-16
By: Elizabeth Winder
-
The Price of Illusion
- A Memoir
- By: Joan Juliet Buck
- Narrated by: Joan Juliet Buck
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, comes a dazzling memoir: a fabulous account of four decades spent in the creative heart of London, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, chronicling Buck's quest to discover the difference between glitter and gold, illusion and reality, and what looks like happiness from the thing itself.
-
-
Narcissistic name dropper
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Joan Juliet Buck
-
Come to the Edge
- A Memoir
- By: Christina Haag
- Narrated by: Christina Haag
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Christina Haag was growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep-school friends. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University and were living in New York City, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair.
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyed Come to the Edge
- By CapeCodLady on 11-15-19
By: Christina Haag
-
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
-
American Rose
- A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age - told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered. America in the Roaring Twenties. Vaudeville was king. Talking pictures were only a distant flicker. Speakeasies beckoned beyond dimly lit doorways; money flowed fast and free.
-
-
Well done biography of a complicated Icon
- By Moire on 01-27-11
By: Karen Abbott
-
Fairyland
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Alysia Abbott
- Narrated by: Alysia Abbott
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.
-
-
Great representation of the time
- By AvidReader22 on 06-07-19
By: Alysia Abbott
-
Pain, Parties, Work
- Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
- By: Elizabeth Winder
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 31, 1953, 20-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next 26 days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. This captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before she became an icon - a young woman with everything to live for.
-
-
Things about Mademoiselle Magazine I never knew
- By S.Batastini on 05-27-16
By: Elizabeth Winder
-
Mata Hari's Last Dance
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Moran
- Narrated by: Zara Ramm
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1917. The notorious dancer Mata Hari sits in a cold cell awaiting freedom...or death. Alone and despondent, she is as confused as the rest of the world about the charges she's been arrested on: treason leading to the deaths of thousands of French soldiers. As she waits for her fate to be decided, she relays the story of her life to a reporter who is allowed to visit her in prison.
-
-
Throughly enjoyable
- By scalante on 09-07-16
By: Michelle Moran
-
Some Girls
- My Life in a Harem
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. At 18, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman would pay pretty girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next 18 months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah....
-
-
Boring, Pretentious Book
- By Marcos on 04-23-11
By: Jillian Lauren
-
Everlasting
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Catherine Eliot was born to a world of privilege and prestige, with a family whose last name and vast fortune provide her with access to almost anything she could wish for. But what Catherine craves most is independence. So while her friends settle into comfortable lives financed by doting parents and indulgent husbands, she moves to New York City, determined to make it on her own. Taking a demanding job in a bustling flower shop, she works hard and learns the trade until, with courage and determination, she’s able to open Blooms, an exclusive floral boutique on the Upper East Side.
-
-
decent book
- By Amazon Customer on 10-10-20
By: Nancy Thayer
-
Beer Money
- A Memoir of Privilege and Loss
- By: Frances Stroh
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Stroh's earliest memories are ones of great privilege: shopping trips to London and New York, lunches served by black-tied waiters at the Regency Hotel, and a house filled with precious antiques, which she was forbidden to touch. Established in Detroit in 1850, by 1984 the Stroh Brewing Company had become the largest private beer fortune in America and a brand emblematic of the American dream itself; while Stroh was coming of age, the Stroh family fortune was estimated to be worth $700 million.
-
-
Beer boring
- By Richard E. Putt Jr. on 05-22-16
By: Frances Stroh
-
They Left Us Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Plum Johnson
- Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.
-
-
Thought provoking
- By Margaret on 05-02-17
By: Plum Johnson
-
Daring
- My Passages - A Memoir
- By: Gail Sheehy
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Candid, insightful, and powerful, Daring: My Passages is the story of the unconventional life of a writer who dared - to walk New York City streets with hookers and pimps to expose violent prostitution; to march with civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland as British paratroopers opened fire; to seek out Egypt's president Anwar Sadat when he was targeted for death after making peace with Israel.
-
-
Enjoyed unexpectedly
- By Corinne O'Rourke on 09-06-23
By: Gail Sheehy
-
The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
-
-
one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
-
The Seduction of Water
- By: Carol Goodman
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Iris, he sudden impulse to write a piece about her mother leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtime - and nestled inside is the sad story of her mother's death, a strange, untimely end in a fire 30 years ago. When Iris returns to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother's biography and search for her mother's missing manuscript, she unravels a haunting mystery that threatens to envelope her.
-
-
Disapointing
- By Susan Delaney on 02-19-09
By: Carol Goodman
-
Now, Voyager
- Femmes Fatales
- By: Olive Higgins Prouty
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself.
-
-
The Inspiration for The Movie Classic
- By Susie on 12-17-12
-
A Fine Romance
- By: Candice Bergen
- Narrated by: Candice Bergen
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Fine Romance begins with Bergen's charming first husband, French director Louis Malle, whose huge appetite for life broadened her horizons and whose occasional darkness never diminished their love for each other. But her real romance begins when she discovers overpowering love for her daughter after years of ambivalence about motherhood.
-
-
up the speed to 1.5 and Candace sounds way better
- By Susan M. Mitchell on 06-03-15
By: Candice Bergen
-
Dropped Names
- Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them
- By: Frank Langella
- Narrated by: Frank Langella
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella's myriad encounters with some of the past century's most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresistible. With sharp wit and a perceptive eye, Mr. Langella takes us with him into the private worlds and privileged lives of movie stars, presidents, royalty, literary lions, the social elite, and the greats of the Broadway stage.
-
-
Delightful
- By Kathy on 04-03-12
By: Frank Langella
-
Silver Wattle
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In fear for their lives after the sudden death of their mother, Adéla and Klára must flee Prague to find refuge with their uncle in Australia. Later, Adéla becomes a film director at a time when the local industry is starting to feel the competition from Hollywood. But even while success is imminent, the issues of family and an impossible love are never far away.
-
-
Groan, Snore and Wince!
- By OrangeWisteria on 02-12-12
What listeners say about The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Teresa
- 07-09-17
A great story from a great find in a steamer trunk!
I came across this title when I finished The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel. I liked her writing and wanted to read more. This one immediately appealed to me due to the diary aspect. I'm a genealogist and always wish I could put a human life with the written facts - birthdate, death date, etc. What a wonderful gift to find the diary's writer still living vibrantly! In my late teens, I burned my own adolescent 5 yr diary, and the journals we had to keep in high school journalism class. How I wish I had those today... but alas, back then, I didn't want anyone to know my innermost thoughts and feelings. I'm sure they would be quite laughable now.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and when I found it on Audible, I listened/reread it again!
Thought: How will I feel and reflect back on my life when I am 90? Will I have lived the life I imagined? How about you?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marilyn SC
- 06-04-23
3? Or 4? Stars?
I found this to be personally fascinating as I lived for a while on W. 82nd St., half a block from Riverside Dr. where this diary was found. I’ve always had a love affair with Manhattan although it’s a tough place to live unless you’re very young (which I was) or very rich. While reading, I enjoyed being a voyeur to this teenager’s life in NYC (and Europe) in the late 20s and early 30s. So much from that era has been demolished in Manhattan so you can only rediscover this world through pictures. My personal appreciation would give it 4 stars but for those not so enamored with the Big Apple, maybe only 3 stars.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!