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Vanity Fair [Tantor]
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
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Performance
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Story
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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A PERFECT narration of an English classic!
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Laurence Sterne’s most famous novel is a biting satire of literary conventions and contemporary 18th-century values. Renowned for its parody of established narrative techniques, Tristram Shandyis commonly regarded as the forerunner of avant-garde fiction. Tristram’s characteristic digressions on a whole range of unlikely subjects (including battle strategy and noses!) are endlessly surprising and make this one of Britain’s greatest comic achievements.
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The Magic Mountain
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
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A Magical Journey
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Publisher's summary
William Makepeace Thackeray's forte is the bon mot, and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale both picaresque and risque. Thackeray mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical "morals". His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observing the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy - and a mirror with which to view our own times.
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Nicholas Nickleby
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A treat
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balzac rocks
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Slow start, longer than needful, but enjoyable
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On the Origin of Species
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Overall
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Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and a life-long committed Darwinist, abridges and reads this special audio version of Charles Darwin's famous book. A literally world-changing book, Darwin put forward the anti-religious and scientific idea that humans in fact evolved over millions of generations from animals, starting with fish, all the way up through the ranks to apes, then to our current form.
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A Perfect Abridgement
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My Lady Ludlow
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Lady Ludlow's appalling snobbery, prejudice and bred-in-the-bone conviction as to the superiority of the English aristocracy and their feudal way of life are deliciously tested, and found wanting, in this gently radical tale of the collapse of a social system. Elizabeth Gaskell's My Lady Ludlow is a brilliant picture of the shift in power in a rural northern village, from the velvety feudal Ludlows to the glitter of the new money rattling through the system courtesy of the brazen baker from Birmingham.
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A treat
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Utterly incredible!
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balzac rocks
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The Warden - Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 1
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Loved and appreciated by all with whom he works, Harding lives an ordered, regular life in his protected religious environment. Then one day, a young reformer feels he has uncovered a mismanagement of funds and Harding is held to blame. The accusation comes as a shock not only to Harding himself but also to the cathedral community. It then comes to wider notice when the cause is taken up by a national newspaper.
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Slow start, longer than needful, but enjoyable
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The Way We Live Now
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In this world of bribes, vendettas, and swindling, in which heiresses are gambled and won, Trollope's characters embody all the vices: Lady Carbury is 'false from head to foot'; her son Felix has 'the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog'; and Melmotte - the colossal figure who dominates the book - is a 'horrid, big, rich scoundrel...a bloated swindler...a vile city ruffian'. But as vile as he is, he is considered one of Trollope's greatest creations.
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Finally!
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Narrator!
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A vivid and affectionate portrait of the residents of an English country town in the mid-19th century, Cranford describes a community dominated by its independent and refined women, relating the adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle-aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Through a series of satirical vignettes, Gaskell sympathetically portrays changing small town customs and values in mid-Victorian England....
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Quietly, subtly sweet and heartwarming
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Agnes Grey
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Story
Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose.
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Loved it
- By Kerry on 05-22-10
By: Anne Brontë
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Agnes Grey
- By: Anne Bronte
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.
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Make.it.stop.
- By Wayne on 03-18-22
By: Anne Bronte
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Anna Karenina
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Length: 35 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.
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Need to Disclose and Highlight Name of Translator
- By Charles B on 08-27-18
By: Leo Tolstoy
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The American
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Self-made American millionaire Christopher Newman arrives in Paris brimming with hope and optimism, excited to experience the culture and, hopefully, find the perfect woman to become his wife. After a chance encounter with American expatriate friends, his attention is drawn to Madame de Cintré, 25-year-old widowed daughter of the late Marquis de Bellegarde. Having fallen on hard times, the centuries-old aristocratic family permits Newman's courtship to proceed; however, they later persuade the widow to break off her engagement to the nouveau-riche businessman.
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excellent reading
- By Andorboth on 12-03-22
By: Henry James
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The Mill on the Floss
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Laura Paton
- Length: 20 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Maggie Tulliver has two lovers: Philip Wakem, son of her father’s enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie’s struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy
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Great compassion
- By nina lalumia on 12-26-16
By: George Eliot
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Man and Wife
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Nicolas Boulton
- Length: 23 hrs
- Unabridged
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Published 10 years after Collins’s most popular novel The Woman in White, Man and Wife centres on the confused and inequitable marriage laws of 19th-century Britain, reflecting the author’s own antipathy toward the institution. The plot follows the fortunes of a woman who, committed to marriage with one man, comes to believe that she may have inadvertently married his friend, according to the archaic laws of Scotland and Ireland.
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Intricate plot, good dialogue, desperately needed an editor
- By Seth on 07-25-21
By: Wilkie Collins
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Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Norma West
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Previously unpublished in unabridged audio, these three works (one novel unpublished in her lifetime and two unfinished fragments) reveal Jane Austen's development as a great artist.
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For the Austen Addict
- By Joseph R on 09-09-09
By: Jane Austen
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Lady Audley's Secret
- By: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Abridged
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A fast-paced Victorian thriller that will delight audiences today as it did 100 years ago, Lady Audley's Secret has subterfuge, kidnapping, jealousy, and fraud, all thrown into the mix and shaken up for good measure.
A mystery which keeps a listener guessing until the last moments, this production is a must-listen for anyone who enjoys playing detective.
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Narrator creates the listen
- By connie on 02-06-12
What listeners say about Vanity Fair [Tantor]
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Magritter
- 02-18-09
Wonderful from beginning to end
This is a fine classic novel, narrated superbly. I highly recommend it to all lovers of English literature.
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3 people found this helpful
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- D. Evans
- 08-12-12
Story with no real characters to root for
I love the classics. I've listened to almost 100 books, most of them classics. I know Vanity Fair is considered a classic, and as I've not read anything else by Thackeray, I thought I'd give this a try.
I had to get used to how Thackeray wrote -- it's like he's talking with the reader. His ramblings made the story somewhat longer than it had to be.
This story laughs at the ridiculousness of the upper classes -- their ignorance, their greed, their falseness.
The main characters are Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Neither one is very likable. Becky is a user and out to get whatever she can from whomever she meets. Amelia is a nice but simple-minded girl who never stands up for herself.
Becky gets far by using the upper classes to gain popularity though she has no money and constantly performs theft of services. Amelia gets nowhere by being herself and not seeing the true character of the people around her.
Amelia is loved by Dobbin, who waits years for her to return his affections. She is too in love with the memory of her dead husband to see the man her husband truly was, or to see the man she could have in Dobbin.
Overall, the story was often frustrating, perhaps because while it reflects the character of people from the 1850's, it also reflects the people of today. How many financial scandals have there been lately? And aren't people famous today simply as a circumstance, and not for any true value they give to society?
The narrator was excellent, each character had its own voice. The story was good in that you learned a lot about history (Waterloo and that time period), The characters were interesting and frustrating.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Katharine Hoefer
- 01-04-09
O Kay
It was funny, but way too long. Too much parody, however I did like the characters.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Marie
- 08-12-13
Ah, the vanities of life
This is a very, very long book. About 27 hours. Surprisingly, it held my interest for the most part, which is surprising because nothing much happens within view of the listener. The unnamed narrator is our guide through early 19th century London and the Continent, with a dash of India for good measure. The two main characters, Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, and there relationships drive the story. We follow assorted family members and hangers on through gluttony, lust, avarice, jealousy, and dishonesty. But we rarely witness the action, we only hear about the aftereffects.
All the characters suffer from serious flaws, except possibly William Dobbin, unless you consider his refusal to let go of an unrequited love and then being stupid enough to marry the woman a positive trait. His sufferance becomes annoying, as I'm sure the author intended. I think the only person who always succeeds is Becky Sharp. She may have had a few bad years, but she proves it isn't true that everyone gets what they deserve in the end. She deserves nothing yet she gets it all.
At first, I thought Thackeray didn't like women. But by the end, I became convince he just didn't like people in general. His writing is outstanding. More than once I laughed at his snide and cynical view of upper class society. Whether he was so disdainful of the poor and down trodden is hard to say. The lower classes featured in the story are generally taken advantage of and financially abused by the main characters.
Wanda McCaddon is wonderful. How she sustained her narration over 27 hours is beyond me.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Brian Abel Ragen
- 05-25-15
A Wonderful Reading of a Great Novel co
Wanda McCaddon does justice to all the well-drawn characters in Thackeray's finest novel. It is, however, as his most splendid creation that she does her best work: her voices makes vivid the narrator who the reader comes to think of as a dear friend and companion in the course of his journey through a society that is not so different from our own as one might assume.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Audrey Kadis
- 08-31-19
Fantastic
I loved every minute. Thackeray has incredible insight into human character and wit to match. I could have kept listening for another 20 hours.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Goofygirl
- 09-25-23
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve listened to this!
this book is a work of art and wonderfully read by the reader. The reader does a variety of voices realistically and I think really brings the author’s ideas and voice to us. There are so many readers who have difficulty with accents of people from different classes, genders, and countries but this is performed effortlessly. I always get something new from it every time I listen.
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- Joseph R
- 10-21-09
Clever, Witty, Splendid and Wonderful
Vanity Fair is the very definition of "bon mots" (witty remarks or clever observations). But who am I to praise Thackeray? Let me stand politely to one side for Charlotte Bronte who, as reported by her biographer Elizabeth Claghorn Gaskel, "was thankful for the opportunity of expressing her high admiration of a writer, whom, as she says, she regarded 'as the social regenerator of his day--as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped state of things. . . .His wit is bright, his humour (sic) attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius, that the mere lambent sheet-lightning, playing under the edge of the summer cloud, does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb.'"
I forgot when Vanity Fair was written but if one changes a few details here and there, it is just as fresh as the latest Drudge Report. This is a satisfying work at every level with treachery and betrayal side by side with love eternal and tender. Thackeray leads a body around by the nose. He takes total control, making one see things his way. He is a master, funny, razor sharp and spot on.
This splendid book was masterfully performed by Wanda McCaddon. I am struck with the consistent presentation for the 28-30 hours it took to complete the recording. It must have taken several weeks. My hat is off to the lady. She must have been absolutely exhausted at the end.
For me, audio books are emotionally draining in a way that the printed word has never been. It is the difference between reading Shakespeare and experiencing a performance of Shakespeare. I am constantly learning things I missed when I only read the work. I think the difference with the audio book version is there are three brains involved: the author, narrator and listener.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- David Evan Glasser
- 05-25-18
Uninspired and perfunctory
The narration was too rapid, the diction unclear, and the otherwise compelling story told without passion or conviction.
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2 people found this helpful