-
Wolf Hall
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 24 hrs and 15 mins
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 $25.58
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
National Book Critics Circle, Fiction, 2010
Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2009
Tudor England. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is charged with securing his divorce. Into this atmosphere of distrust comes Thomas Cromwell - a man as ruthlessly ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Wolf Hall
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 25 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
-
-
Superb narration, but keep a character index at hand
- By Oculus on 12-27-20
By: Hilary Mantel
-
I, Claudius
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.
-
-
Unsurpassed, addictive brilliance
- By Chris on 06-09-09
By: Robert Graves
-
The Evening and the Morning
- Kingsbridge, Book 4
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
-
-
I was really waiting for this book!
- By Firebolt on 09-20-20
By: Ken Follett
-
Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
-
-
Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Wolf Hall
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 25 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
-
-
Superb narration, but keep a character index at hand
- By Oculus on 12-27-20
By: Hilary Mantel
-
I, Claudius
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is one of the best historical novels ever written. Lame, stammering Claudius, once a major embarrassment to the imperial family and now emperor of Rome, writes an eyewitness account of the reign of the first four Caesars: the noble Augustus and his cunning wife, Livia; the reptilian Tiberius; the monstrous Caligula; and finally old Claudius himself. Filled with poisonings, betrayal, and shocking excesses, I Claudius is history that rivals the most exciting contemporary fiction.
-
-
Unsurpassed, addictive brilliance
- By Chris on 06-09-09
By: Robert Graves
-
The Evening and the Morning
- Kingsbridge, Book 4
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
-
-
I was really waiting for this book!
- By Firebolt on 09-20-20
By: Ken Follett
-
Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
-
-
Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
-
-
We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
-
-
The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
Henry VIII: King and Court
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.
-
-
A concise focus with tremendous detail
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 05-24-17
By: Alison Weir
-
The Huntress
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 19 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina's bravery and cunning will keep her alive.
-
-
EVEN BETTER THAN ALICE NETWORK
- By Nina on 03-02-19
By: Kate Quinn
-
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This acclaimed best seller from popular historian Alison Weir is a fascinating look at the Tudor family dynasty and its most infamous ruler. The Six Wives of Henry VIII brings to life England’s oft-married monarch and the six wildly different but equally fascinating women who married him. Gripping from the first sentence to the last and loaded with fascinating details, Weir’s rich history is a perfect blend of scholarship and entertainment.
-
-
Overview AND Sordid Details
- By Troy on 10-29-13
By: Alison Weir
-
Thomas Cromwell
- The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Cromwell has long been reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power. As Henry VIII's right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation, secured Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of Anne Boleyn, and upon his arrest, was accused of trying to usurp the King himself. But here Tracy Borman reveals a different side of one of the most notorious figures in history.
-
-
narration is very well done & book is quite good
- By horoscopy on 02-18-15
By: Tracy Borman
-
The Wars of the Roses
- The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 15th century saw the longest and bloodiest series of civil wars in British history. The crown of England changed hands five times as two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought to the death for the right to rule. Now, celebrated historian Dan Jones describes how the longest reigning British royal family tore itself apart until it was finally replaced by the Tudors. Some of the greatest heroes and villains in history were thrown together in these turbulent times.
-
-
No Need for a Score Card
- By Troy on 01-16-15
By: Dan Jones
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 32 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
-
-
Hang in there!
- By D. McMillen on 05-31-05
By: Susanna Clarke
-
The Name of the Rose
- By: Umberto Eco, William Weaver - translator
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Neville Jason, Nicholas Rowe
- Length: 21 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. But his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths that take place in seven days and nights of apocalyptic terror. Brother William turns detective, and a uniquely deft one at that. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon-- all sharpened to a glistening edge by his wry humor and ferocious curiosity.
-
-
The meaning of the mystery & mystery of meaning
- By Ryan on 02-14-14
By: Umberto Eco, and others
-
Cleopatra
- A Life
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order.
-
-
Approach this book with caution
- By GolfZilla on 12-02-10
By: Stacy Schiff
-
A Tale of Two Cities [Tantor]
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Doctor Manette was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years without trial by the aristocratic authorities.
-
-
it's the singer not the song*
- By Maynard on 11-09-13
By: Charles Dickens
Critic reviews
"...as soon as I opened the book I was gripped. I read it almost non-stop. When I did have to put it down, I was full of regret the story was over, a regret I still feel. This is a wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle - one that makes the drama unfolding nearly five centuries ago look new again, and shocking again, too. " ( The Times)
"The reader, Simon Slater, skilfully adopts contrasting voices and the narrative has an immediacy close to a dramatisation... Provocative, rewarding listening." (The Times)
Related to this topic
-
The Serpent Garden
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Susanna Dallet is the daughter of a Flemish painter and wife to a philandering husband, living in the court of Henry VIII. When her husband is murdered, Susanna is suddenly left with a household to provide for and nothing to her name. Her days of anonymity are over when Susanna finds that guild rules preventing women from working do not apply at the king’s court, and she manages to secure a position as a miniature-portrait painter. Before long, she has not only made a name for herself, she is close to those who surround Princess Mary. But even in this lofty company, Susanna is not safe....
-
-
DON'T FALL FOR THE PRINT VERSION AMAZON REVIEWS
- By The Louligan on 03-06-14
-
In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
-
-
One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
-
Reign of Madness
- By: Lynn Cullen
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Juana of Castile, third child of the Spanish monarchs Isabel and Fernando, grows up with no hope of inheriting her parents' crowns, but as a princess knows her duty: to further her family's ambitions through marriage. Yet stories of courtly love, and of her parents' own legendary romance, surround her. When she weds the Duke of Burgundy, a young man so beautiful that he is known as Philippe the Handsome, she dares to hope that she might have both love and crowns.
By: Lynn Cullen
-
Isabella: Braveheart of France
- By: Colin Falconer
- Narrated by: Anne Johnstonbrown
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
12-year-old Isabella, a French princess marries the King of England - only to discover he has a terrible secret. Ten long years later she is in utter despair - does she submit to a lifetime of solitude and a spiritual death - or seize her destiny and take the throne of England for herself? Isabella is just twelve years old when she marries Edward II of England. For the young princess it is love at first sight - but Edward has a terrible secret that threatens to tear their marriage - and England apart.
-
-
A Bizarre "Reader's Digest" Version of History...
- By Sara on 01-06-15
By: Colin Falconer
-
The Memoirs of Mary, Queen of Scots
- By: Carolly Erickson
- Narrated by: Rebekah Germain
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born Queen of Scotland, married as a young girl to the invalid young King of France, Mary took the reins of the unruly kingdom of Scotland as a young widow and fought to keep her throne. A second marriage to her handsome but dissolute cousin Lord Darnley ended in murder and scandal, while a third marriage to the dashing, commanding Lord Bothwell, the love of her life, gave her joy but widened the scandal and surrounded her with enduring ill repute.
-
-
Fiction being the key word
- By Bonnie-Ann B on 09-25-09
By: Carolly Erickson
-
The Town House
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Juliet Prague, Martyn Read
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.
-
-
Another winner by Norah Lofts
- By Bird Lady 147 on 10-03-17
By: Norah Lofts
-
The Serpent Garden
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Susanna Dallet is the daughter of a Flemish painter and wife to a philandering husband, living in the court of Henry VIII. When her husband is murdered, Susanna is suddenly left with a household to provide for and nothing to her name. Her days of anonymity are over when Susanna finds that guild rules preventing women from working do not apply at the king’s court, and she manages to secure a position as a miniature-portrait painter. Before long, she has not only made a name for herself, she is close to those who surround Princess Mary. But even in this lofty company, Susanna is not safe....
-
-
DON'T FALL FOR THE PRINT VERSION AMAZON REVIEWS
- By The Louligan on 03-06-14
-
In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
-
-
One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
-
Reign of Madness
- By: Lynn Cullen
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Juana of Castile, third child of the Spanish monarchs Isabel and Fernando, grows up with no hope of inheriting her parents' crowns, but as a princess knows her duty: to further her family's ambitions through marriage. Yet stories of courtly love, and of her parents' own legendary romance, surround her. When she weds the Duke of Burgundy, a young man so beautiful that he is known as Philippe the Handsome, she dares to hope that she might have both love and crowns.
By: Lynn Cullen
-
Isabella: Braveheart of France
- By: Colin Falconer
- Narrated by: Anne Johnstonbrown
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
12-year-old Isabella, a French princess marries the King of England - only to discover he has a terrible secret. Ten long years later she is in utter despair - does she submit to a lifetime of solitude and a spiritual death - or seize her destiny and take the throne of England for herself? Isabella is just twelve years old when she marries Edward II of England. For the young princess it is love at first sight - but Edward has a terrible secret that threatens to tear their marriage - and England apart.
-
-
A Bizarre "Reader's Digest" Version of History...
- By Sara on 01-06-15
By: Colin Falconer
-
The Memoirs of Mary, Queen of Scots
- By: Carolly Erickson
- Narrated by: Rebekah Germain
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born Queen of Scotland, married as a young girl to the invalid young King of France, Mary took the reins of the unruly kingdom of Scotland as a young widow and fought to keep her throne. A second marriage to her handsome but dissolute cousin Lord Darnley ended in murder and scandal, while a third marriage to the dashing, commanding Lord Bothwell, the love of her life, gave her joy but widened the scandal and surrounded her with enduring ill repute.
-
-
Fiction being the key word
- By Bonnie-Ann B on 09-25-09
By: Carolly Erickson
-
The Town House
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Juliet Prague, Martyn Read
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.
-
-
Another winner by Norah Lofts
- By Bird Lady 147 on 10-03-17
By: Norah Lofts
-
Green Darkness
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 23 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The marriage of the Englishman Richard Marsdon and his young American wife, Celia, slowly turns tragic as Richard withdraws into himself and Celia suffers a debilitating emotional breakdown. A wise mystic realizes that Celia can escape her past only by reliving it. She journeys back four hundred years to her former life as the servant girl Celia de Bohun during the reign of Edward VI - and to her doomed love affair with the chaplain Stephen Marsdon.
-
-
A different narrator would have made all the difference.
- By J on 06-04-15
By: Anya Seton
-
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
- By: Margaret George
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 41 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.
-
-
Perfection!
- By Amy M. Walts on 10-20-07
By: Margaret George
-
A Vision of Light
- A Margaret of Ashbury Novel, Book 1
- By: Judith Merkle Riley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in 14th-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness.
-
-
Old fashioned heroine
- By Margaret on 06-22-13
-
The Agincourt Bride
- By: Joanna Hickson
- Narrated by: Catherine Harvey
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When her own first child is tragically still-born, the young Mette is pressed into service as a wet-nurse at the court of the mad king, Charles VI of France. Her young charge is the princess, Catherine de Valois, caught up in the turbulence and chaos of life at court. Mette and the child forge a bond, one that transcends Mette’s lowly position. But as Catherine approaches womanhood, her unique position seals her fate as a pawn between two powerful dynasties.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Michelle on 02-16-13
By: Joanna Hickson
-
Empress
- Godspeaker, Book 1
- By: Karen Miller
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 20 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a family torn apart by poverty and violence, Hekat is no more than an unwanted mouth to feed, worth only a few coins from a passing slave trader. But Hekat was not born to be a slave. For her, a different path has been chosen. It is a path that will take her from stinking back alleys to the house of her God, from blood-drenched battlefields to the glittering palaces of Mijak. This is the story of Hekat, slave to no man.
-
-
depressing and left me feeling empty
- By Bonnie on 09-16-09
By: Karen Miller
-
A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
-
-
Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Winthrop Woman
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 27 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1631 Elizabeth Winthrop, newly widowed with an infant daughter, set sail for the New World. Against a background of rigidity and conformity she dared to befriend Anne Hutchinson at the moment of her banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony; dared to challenge a determined army captain bent on the massacre of her friends, the Siwanoy Indians; and, above all, dared to love a man as her heart and her whole being commanded.
-
-
Historical Fiction that Aged Very Well
- By Lulu on 11-26-14
By: Anya Seton
-
Mistress of the Art of Death
- A Novel
- By: Ariana Franklin
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In medieval England, four children have been murdered, and the townsfolk blame their Jewish neighbors. The doctor chosen to investigate is a woman, Adelia. As she examines the victims and retraces their last steps, she must conceal her true identity in order to avoid accusations of witchcraft. Along the way, she's assisted by Sir Rowley Picot, a man with a personal stake in the investigation. A former Crusader knight, Rowley may be a needed friend - or the fiend for whom they are searching.
-
-
History-Mystery of the Year & its only March
- By Irenehope on 03-02-07
By: Ariana Franklin
-
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
- By: Sandra Gulland
- Narrated by: Kim Handysides
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true.
-
-
Performance...ugh
- By Lisa on 02-17-18
By: Sandra Gulland
-
Swordspoint
- A Melodrama of Manners
- By: Ellen Kushner
- Narrated by: Ellen Kushner, Dion Graham, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless--until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.
-
-
Ellen Kushner Owes me 30$
- By Daryl on 12-04-11
By: Ellen Kushner
-
Royal Mistress
- By: Anne Easter Smith
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Lambert, the quick-witted and alluring daughter of a silk merchant, is twenty-two and still unmarried. When Jane’s father finally finds her a match, she’s married off to the dull, older silk merchant William Shore. Marriage doesn’t stop Jane from flirtation, however, and when the king’s chamberlain, Will Hastings, comes to her husband’s shop, Will knows King Edward will find her irresistible.
-
-
All history, no romance!
- By Erin on 07-05-13
-
The Speckled Monster
- A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
- By: Jennifer Lee Carrell
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Speckled Monster is both a hair-raising tale of courage in the face of the deadliest disease that has ever struck mankind, and a gripping account of the birth of modern immunology. Jennifer Lee Carrell's dramatic story follows two parents who, after barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, flouted 18th century European medical tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. Their heroic struggles gave rise to immunology.
-
-
Wish it was another 19 hours long!
- By Book reader on 06-10-14
What listeners say about Wolf Hall
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Richard Calkin
- 09-13-14
She is a genius. Loved it.
What made the experience of listening to Wolf Hall the most enjoyable?
The descriptions and the characters. I loved learning about Cromwell and the time he lived in
What other book might you compare Wolf Hall to and why?
Bring up the Bodies. Both excellent.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Here is a man that rose to one of the most influential positions in the English court from nothing. Fascinating. From a life of abject poverty and cruelty. Fascinating. This book chronicles the rise of Thomas Cromwell. I loved it.
Any additional comments?
Must read both. Fabulous.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ian C Robertson
- 02-03-13
Brilliant Simplicity
I have literally just finished listening to this wonderful work, part novel, part history, part biography and wholly a revelation. It is difficult to comprehend how the well traveled road of Henry VIII, the Boylens, Thomas More, Wolsey and others could be given a new perspective. Ms Mantel has done just that, and from the point of view of the apparently least sympathetic character, Thomas Cromwell. Of course we all know how it ends, but that is in part the genius of the narrative. Even knowing that, the story presents itself, in the true sense, as novel. I was not tempted to the dictionary with regularity nor to the history books. Because the history is well know, the essentials don't need to be cross-checked (as they often have to with other historical novels). The incidentals don't press you to be checked (because they illuminate the characters in preference to the events).
I particularly like the seeming transition from the third person to the first person that the author has employed with great skill. Through it, and the simple device of capturing the day to day, she conveys what some other historical novelists miss: the inner character of the historical figures. For example, whereas Thomas More's martyrdom seems like the hallmark of his struggle with Henry, as an event for Cromwell it is much more. Cromwell respects and disrespects More in proportion, but he hates that great thinkers must be sacrificed. Yet sacrifice is the artifice of government. That dilemma for Cromwell is palpable from the narrative. For all that, the language is simple throughout, reflecting a Protestant value true to Cromwell's aspiration. It also reflects with wonderful eloquence a simpler time when there was a right and a wrong (although they could change overnight at the monarch's whim); England in the 1530s. I was tempted to keep reading, moving to the second in the trilogy at once. I have resisted only to make that reading even more auspicious.
As to the performance by Simon Slater, I think him the perfect selection to read this work. His voices were attuned to each character, particularly Cromwell and More. The stretch narrative was conveyed at a lovely pace. I am pleased to see he has also read a version of the sequel. It is on my Wish List.
In my opinion, Ms Mantel deserved the Man-Booker Prize for this work and readers of good books deserve to have books of this quality win prestigious awards.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jonathan
- 03-31-18
The second best audiobook I have heard
Would you listen to Wolf Hall again? Why?
Well, what a wonderful book. Beautifully written and such incredible research. It is almost as good as JK Rowling's Casual Vacancy and that is high praise!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Emma Pooley
- 05-08-16
An enjoyable listen
I really enjoyed listening to this and it kept my interest throughout. If you enjoy Tudor history the way I do this would be well worth a listen. I am certainly going to get the sequel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Hilary
- 12-06-09
Thoroughly Satisfying
This was my first time listening to a novel on my I-Pod, and I was thrilled and totally satisfied. When the novel, which is lengthy, came to a conclusion, I almost found myself crying with disappointment. I can't wait to hear when the sequel to 'Wolf Hall' is published.
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
- Lauren L
- 09-08-17
Interesting yet dull
Mantel's Wolf Hall has been reviewed to death so I'm just going to hit the high and low notes. The age is richly invoked and the novel opens an absolutely fascinating window onto the past. Mantel also succeeds in putting flesh on the bones of the main historical characters, notably an impetuous Henry VIII, a scheming Ann Boleyn and Cromwell himself, and the central plot revolving around the reformation in England interwoven with Henry's infamous marital affairs keeps you turning the page (or listening, as the case may be). However, that's where my praise dries up - for all its merits, Wolf Hall became a rather dull slog for me. The enormous cast of characters (not entirely the author's fault - this isn't fiction) meant that most are very anaemic and they had a tendency to merge into one another (frankly even the main protagonists remained elusive), and since so many share the same first name - christendom in the early fifteen hundreds was evidently populated exclusively by people named either Thomas or Mary - and Mantel felt no compulsion stick to last names, I (like so many others) was constantly confused about who was who, a problem undoubedtly aggravated by the peculiar perspective in which Mantel has chosen to write. Moreover, the plot is driven hugely by dialogue and as a result, history unfolds through the mechanics of dry discourse between players and the drama is lost in the process. England's cataclysmic wrench from the yoke of the Catholic church should have been more dramatic and exciting, instead the pace sags under the weight of ponderous discourse and minutiae rather than grand exposition. Above all, the novel lacks the marbellous contrivance of a set up - you just never feel like you are holding your breath waiting for the fates and fortunes of the characters to be decided by the outcome of an event - you just surmise through the course of an exchange between characters that the next event has happened and what the consequences might be. Still, I made it to the end, testament to its pull of its fine prose, I suspect - or the narration which was superb.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susana Fraga
- 08-13-16
Wonderful book
I was surprised how much I loved this book and Cromwell 's character.
I just have to say that I hated how the audiobook was broken up ad hoc not according to the chapters in the book.
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
- Nick Fryer
- 10-06-12
As close to perfection as it gets
Never has a book so nearly given me the impression of looking out of the eyes of another human being. The Thomas Cromwell depicted in this nearly perfect novel is a complex, real man, the product of his upbringing and his society, shaped by tragedies and triumphs as narrow in scope as his brilliantly drawn household and as broad as all Christendom, and himself the shaper of a whole new England - one that would in due course change the world forever.
Slater's narration is also simply magical. He gives each character his or her (and there are many significant hers) own voice, manner and personality. I swore when I learned that the sequel is not narrated by him, because I wanted desperately for this astonishing experience to continue seamlessly for the length of another novel. At least.
The rating I have given is not accustomed hyperbole - in half a dozen reviews this is my first 5/5/5 stars, and richly deserved for the delight I have had over the last few days. Enjoy.
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
- Tracey
- 03-11-14
Fabulous Narration Brings Big Story Alive
What did you love best about Wolf Hall?
Hilary Mantel brings this era to life in one's mind's eye, with her accurate descriptions and real flesh and blood characters that are solid to the bone. The title, however, has very little to do with the story, Wolf Hall being the home of Jane Seymour's family, and this book is mainly concerned with the life and career of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief adviser and counsel, and that of the seven years it took to see Queen Catherine deposed, and Anne Boleyn installed as Henry's second bride. It follows the tensions of the religious beliefs and superstitions of the day, the tumult of the turning of England away from the rule of Catholicism and the very conception of the Church of England. Strewn with court gossip and delicate descriptions of allegiances and connivings among the courtiers, and more than the odd grisly execution and plague, and one feels and breathes the atmosphere that Mantel so carefully weaves her reader (listener) into.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Thomas Cromwell won my heart. Hilary constantly refers to Thomas as 'he' and then later in the book, as 'he, Cromwell'. Apparently history did not do Thomas Cromwell any kindnesses, but Hilary's depiction of him is of almost a modern thinking man, incredibly intelligent, stealthy, trustworthy and even compassionate. I had no idea that the modern political system was actually largely influenced by this man, and with that, the creation of the Church under the British Monarch, instead of being ruled by Rome from afar, where the well-being of the nation of England was far from the Roman Pope's concern.
What does Simon Slater bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Simon Slater, I want to marry you... Oh to wake up each day and hear your dulcet tones would be as milk and honey for my ears. Simon brings each character alive, how he remembers all the voices he creates for each character and remains true to them right to the end is beyond me. Far from just being entertaining, it helps one to remember each character and their part in the story, as it is a vastly populated story, and one could easily forget who and what each character is/does. Simon read the story to me where I would have easily stopped reading the book, as it is wordy, and the plots are convoluted. I can see why there are many reviews on book sites where readers say they just gave up on this book without finishing it. I would have too had I not had it in Audible version. And I never grew tired of hearing his voice. Simon has a clearly enunciated but relaxed style of speaking, a beautiful well-rounded resonant baritone, a real 'man's voice', and yet, reading the women's voice parts, he did those so well too. And all the foreign accents. The Putney accent made me laugh. I hope the sequel "Bring Up the Bodies" is as good, although it is not narrated by Simon.
Who was the most memorable character of Wolf Hall and why?
Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII and the conniving, ill-tempered, Anne Boleyn. This book made me want to research this period of history so I could better understand the political and religious contexts. The master painter Hans Holbein, the Court painter of the time, so wonderfully captured each one of these artful players from England's history. I now have a better understanding and appreciation of the influence on our current political system after having done this small bit of research. Who knew Thomas Cromwell? No-one, yet he is responsible for so much of the way our modern societal systems work.
Any additional comments?
I thoroughly recommend this book in Audible format. I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you Hilary for your incredible creation and thank you Simon for making it come to life.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christopher
- 08-19-12
Like taking a bath in words
Where does Wolf Hall rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
A great book, beautifully written by an author at the top of her game. What is utterly striking is the way that some of the most dramatic events in history are portrayed through everyday life seemingly without the curse of hindsight. You feel like you are really living the events side by side with Cromwell.
Have you listened to any of Simon Slater’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Simon slater must be one of the best narrators anywhere, his staging,voice and delivery are beyond gorgeous.i loved every minute of his performance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!