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Fabric
- The Hidden History of the Material World
- Narrated by: Carla Kissane
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
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Fabric
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Publisher's summary
A magnificent work of original research that unravels history through textiles and cloth—how we make it, use it, and what it means to us.
How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest? Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town? How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe? What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny?
In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it.
She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama.
She began her research just after the deaths of both her parents—and entwined in the threads she found her personal story, too. Fabric is not just a material history of our world, but Finlay's own journey through grief and recovery.
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Life and Death in the Andes
- On the Trail of Bandits, Heroes, and Revolutionaries
- By: Kim MacQuarrie
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
The Andes Mountains are the world's longest mountain chain, linking most of the countries in South America. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and author Kim MacQuarrie takes us on a historical journey through this unique region, bringing fresh insight and contemporary connections to such fabled characters as Charles Darwin, Pablo Escobar, Che Guevara, and many others.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Great by Kim MacQuarrie
- By Than on 03-25-24
By: Kim MacQuarrie
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In Manchuria
- A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China
- By: Michael Meyer
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
For three years Meyer rented a home in the rice-farming community of Wasteland, hometown of his wife's family, and their personal saga mirrors the tremendous change most of rural China is undergoing in the form of a privately held rice company that has built new roads, introduced organic farming, and constructed high-rise apartments into which farmers can move in exchange for their land rights.
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you liked the Wonder Years...?
- By Judas Mallory on 05-19-15
By: Michael Meyer
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The Marches
- A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland
- By: Rory Stewart
- Narrated by: Rory Stewart
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Ten years after the walk across Central Asia and Afghanistan that he memorialized in The Places in Between, Rory Stewart set out on a new journey, traversing a thousand miles between England and Scotland. Stewart was raised along the border of the two countries, the frontier taking on poignant significance in his understanding of what it means to be both Scottish and English, of his relationship with his father, who's lived on this land his whole life, and of his ties to the rich history and culture of the region.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven and unexpected, still worth it.
- By Nassir on 04-29-17
By: Rory Stewart
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Indonesia, Etc.
- Exploring the Improbable Nation
- By: Elizabeth Pisani
- Narrated by: Jan Cramer
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
Bewitched by Indonesia for twenty-five years, Elizabeth Pisani recently traveled 26,000 miles around the archipelago in search of the links that bind this impossibly disparate nation. Fearless and funny, Pisani shares her deck space with pigs and cows, bunks down in a sulfurous volcano, and takes tea with a corpse. Along the way, she observes Big Men with child brides, debates corruption and cannibalism, and ponders "sticky" traditions that cannot be erased.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bill Bryson channels Margaret Mead
- By John S. on 09-01-14
By: Elizabeth Pisani
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House of Stone
- A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
- By: Anthony Shadid
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 77
When Anthony Shadid—one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya as the region erupted—was freed, he went home, not to Boston, Beirut, or Oklahoma, where he was raised by his Lebanese American family, but to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather, a place filled with memories of a lost era when the Middle East was a world of grace, grandeur, and unexpected departures.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bit depressing
- By Astrid Dahl on 03-17-12
By: Anthony Shadid
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In an Antique Land
- History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 84
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 66
Once upon a time an Indian writer name Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some 700 years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with 20th-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Mixed Worlds
- By Roger on 10-26-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Varina
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Molly Parker
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 799
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 693
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 690
With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Read it rather than listen
- By Anonymous on 08-31-18
By: Charles Frazier
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The Dragon Behind the Glass
- A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the World's Most Coveted Fish
- By: Emily Voigt
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 262
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 221
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 219
A young man is murdered for his prized pet fish. An Asian tycoon buys a single specimen for $150,000. Meanwhile, a pet detective chases smugglers through the streets of New York. Delving into an outlandish realm of obsession, paranoia, and criminality, The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A "must read" for all fish professionals.
- By Fishgen on 06-26-16
By: Emily Voigt
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Travels in Siberia
- By: Ian Frazier
- Narrated by: Ian Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 417
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 304
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 303
Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the 40-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind....
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5 out of 5 stars
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I Loved This Book
- By Sara on 01-05-14
By: Ian Frazier
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Bad Indians
- A Tribal Memoir
- By: Deborah A. Miranda
- Narrated by: Deborah Miranda
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 40
This beautiful and devastating book - part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir - should be required for anyone seeking to learn about California Indian history, past and present. Deborah A. Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems. The result is a work of literary art that is wise, angry, and playful all at once, a compilation that will break your heart and teach you to see the world anew.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bad recording
- By Aspyn Maes on 09-18-21
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The Last Jews of Kerala
- The Two Thousand Year History of India’s Forgotten Jewish Community
- By: Edna Fernandes
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
When a people die out, can their story survive?Two thousand years ago, trade routes and the fall of Jerusalem took Jewish settlers seeking sanctuary across Europe and Asia. One little-known group settled in Kerala, in tropical southwestern India. Eventually numbering in the thousands, with eight synagogues, they prospered. Some came to possess vast estates and plantations, and many enjoyed economic privilege and political influence.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting topic, unethical author, uninformed reader
- By Cameron Crane on 03-08-18
By: Edna Fernandes
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At Home
- A Short History of Private Life
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,437
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,690
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,674
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
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American Ghost
- A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
- By: Hannah Nordhaus
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 150
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 129
The dark-eyed woman in the long, black gown was first seen in the 1970s, standing near a fireplace. She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
A true American tale
- By Cleo Colorado on 05-29-15
By: Hannah Nordhaus
-
Country Driving
- A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 565
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 373
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 365
In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Pass the white rice please
- By Nick on 02-18-10
By: Peter Hessler
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All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
-
Slaves in the Family
- By: Edward Ball
- Narrated by: Edward Ball
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 177
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 157
The Ball family hails from South Carolina - Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to 4,000 Black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gives a good insight for moving forward today
- By Wendy Wood on 05-05-19
By: Edward Ball
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Jewels
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- By: Victoria Finlay
- Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 7
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7
Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. In this scintillating book, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for the real stories behind some of the gems we prize most. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research, and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a great primer for those into gems
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The Fabric of Civilization
- How Textiles Made the World
- By: Virginia I. Postrel
- Narrated by: Caroline Cole
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
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The story of humanity is the story of textiles - as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pop journalism article lengthened into a book
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The Golden Thread
- How Fabric Changed History
- By: Kassia St. Clair
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 263
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 223
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization - from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent for those interested in textiles
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-14-19
By: Kassia St. Clair
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Color
- A Natural History of the Palette
- By: Victoria Finlay
- Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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Story5 out of 5 stars 16
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes—painted all the more dazzling by Finlay’s engaging style. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A scrumptious, colorful adventure. Must read
- By Esio Trot on 07-26-23
By: Victoria Finlay
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A Short History of the World According to Sheep
- By: Sally Coulthard
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
From the plains of ancient Mesopotamia to the rolling hills of medieval England to the vast sheep farms of modern-day Australia, sheep have been central to the human story. Starting with our Neolithic ancestors' first forays into sheep-rearing nearly 10,000 years ago, these remarkable animals have fed us, clothed us, changed our diet and languages, helped us to win wars, decorated our homes and financed the conquest of large swathes of the earth.
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1 out of 5 stars
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a UK/euro-centric bore. struggled to finish
- By J. Clark on 02-12-21
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Worn
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- By: Sofi Thanhauser
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and where they come from, illuminating our world in unexpected ways. She takes us from the opulent court of Louis XIV to the labor camps in modern-day Chinese-occupied Xinjiang. We see how textiles were once dyed with lichen, shells, bark, saffron, and beetles, displaying distinctive regional weaves and knits, and how the modern Western garment industry has refashioned our attire into the homogenous and disposable uniforms popularized by fast-fashion brands.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Horrors of the industrial revolution Continued
- By Susan on 01-28-22
By: Sofi Thanhauser
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Jewels
- A Secret History
- By: Victoria Finlay
- Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 7
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7
Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. In this scintillating book, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for the real stories behind some of the gems we prize most. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research, and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a great primer for those into gems
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The Fabric of Civilization
- How Textiles Made the World
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- Narrated by: Caroline Cole
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
The story of humanity is the story of textiles - as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pop journalism article lengthened into a book
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The Golden Thread
- How Fabric Changed History
- By: Kassia St. Clair
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 263
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 223
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization - from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent for those interested in textiles
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-14-19
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Color
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- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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Story5 out of 5 stars 16
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes—painted all the more dazzling by Finlay’s engaging style. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A scrumptious, colorful adventure. Must read
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From the plains of ancient Mesopotamia to the rolling hills of medieval England to the vast sheep farms of modern-day Australia, sheep have been central to the human story. Starting with our Neolithic ancestors' first forays into sheep-rearing nearly 10,000 years ago, these remarkable animals have fed us, clothed us, changed our diet and languages, helped us to win wars, decorated our homes and financed the conquest of large swathes of the earth.
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1 out of 5 stars
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a UK/euro-centric bore. struggled to finish
- By J. Clark on 02-12-21
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Worn
- A People's History of Clothing
- By: Sofi Thanhauser
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and where they come from, illuminating our world in unexpected ways. She takes us from the opulent court of Louis XIV to the labor camps in modern-day Chinese-occupied Xinjiang. We see how textiles were once dyed with lichen, shells, bark, saffron, and beetles, displaying distinctive regional weaves and knits, and how the modern Western garment industry has refashioned our attire into the homogenous and disposable uniforms popularized by fast-fashion brands.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Horrors of the industrial revolution Continued
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Women's Work
- The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
- By: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 153
Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women. Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Respectful treatment of the archeological record.
- By fiberflair on 02-23-21
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Dress Codes
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- By: Richard Thompson Ford
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story4 out of 5 stars 23
For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Dress codes evolved along with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always reflected struggles for power and status.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Unlistenable
- By Lauren on 08-01-23
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The Secret Lives of Color
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- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 313
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 277
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 271
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of 75 fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from into a unique study of human civilization.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More about pigments than social history
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Unraveling
- What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater
- By: Peggy Orenstein
- Narrated by: Peggy Orenstein
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Nailed it!
- By Miss Effie on 02-19-23
By: Peggy Orenstein
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The Dress Diary
- Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe
- By: Kate Strasdin
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 8
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 8
In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments—some her own, others donated by family and friends—she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of their lives. Her name was Mrs. Anne Sykes. Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Using her expertise, Strasdin spent the next six years unraveling the secrets contained within the album's pages, and the lives of the people within.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating History
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Fibershed
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- By: Rebecca Burgess
- Narrated by: Tia Rider
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
There is a major disconnect between what we wear and our knowledge of its impact on land, air, water, labor, and human health. Even those who value access to safe, local, nutritious food have largely overlooked the production of fiber, dyes, and the chemistry that forms the backbone of modern textile production. While humans are 100 percent reliant on their second skin, it’s common to think little about the biological and human cultural context from which our clothing derives.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interested In Sustainable Life, Not Just Food?
- By becky on 11-21-19
By: Rebecca Burgess
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Overdressed
- The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion
- By: Elizabeth L. Cline
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
Cheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. Stores ranging from discounters like Target to fast fashion chains like H&M now offer the newest trends at unprecedentedly low prices. Retailers are producing clothes at enormous volumes in order to drive prices down and profits up, and they've turned clothing into a disposable good.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very informative and worth a listen.
- By Suuki on 12-06-18
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Threads of Life
- A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle
- By: Clare Hunter
- Narrated by: Siobhan Redmond
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Textile bucket list.
- By Amazon Customer on 10-18-21
By: Clare Hunter
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Lapidarium
- The Secret Lives of Stones
- By: Hettie Judah
- Narrated by: Nina Wadia
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 8
Stones have furnished our earliest technologies and our first art materials. As jewelry and talismans, they have accompanied us in our journeys into the afterlife. We have carried stones over vast distances, erecting temples with them where we gathered to worship our gods. The earliest scientists ground and processed minerals in a centuries-long quest for a mythic stone that would prolong human life. Michelangelo climbed mountains in Tuscany searching for the sugar-white marble that would yield his sculptures.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lovely Bite-Sized Stories
- By Anonymous User on 07-20-23
By: Hettie Judah
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Stoned
- Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World
- By: Aja Raden
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 212
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
What makes a stone a jewel? What makes a jewel priceless? And why do we covet beautiful things? In this brilliant account of how eight jewels shaped the course of history, jeweler and scientist Aja Raden tells an original and often startling story about our unshakeable addiction to beauty and the darker side of human desire.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Cringe-inducing, vapid, and self-conscious
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-27-16
By: Aja Raden
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Embroidering Her Truth
- Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power
- By: Clare Hunter
- Narrated by: Siobhan Redmond
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 9
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9
At her execution Mary, Queen of Scots wore red. Widely known as the colour of strength and passion, it was in fact worn by Mary as the Catholic symbol of martyrdom. In 16th-century Europe, women's voices were suppressed and silenced. Even for a queen like Mary, her prime duty was to bear sons. In an age when textiles expressed power, Mary exploited them to emphasise her female agency.
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4 out of 5 stars
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NO PICTURES????
- By Susan Diane Frincke Perry on 02-14-24
By: Clare Hunter
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A Perfect Red
- By: Amy Butler Greenfield
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal.
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4 out of 5 stars
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History of a peculiar substance through the ages
- By Tobia on 08-17-16
What listeners say about Fabric
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- oblivion7
- 02-15-24
Great history of textiles...
...but too much personal details about family. I struggled while listening to the first two chapters, but it really kept my attention from there on. The travelog info gave a new perspective on where & how we have today's fabrics, & I really enjoyed that she covered "artificial" as well as natural cloth.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- LaVonne
- 11-18-23
Perfect Book for Needleworking
I listened to this book while cross stitching and knitting. I have read many many books on textiles and their history but this book captured and held my interest like no other. So many well researched areas but never going on and on. I learned about textiles near my home and half a world away. Narrator is soothing which is important because this book is as much about the author’s experience or journey just before and after her parents’s death as it is about textiles. Highly recommend it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Snoopy
- 03-31-23
History and Travelogue
Well researched book on fabric. Loved reading about what she learned on her travels. Engaged the reader the entire time.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mahima M
- 07-30-23
Unique + Interesting!
It was so awesome to gain insight about what it takes to produce specific fabrics - A tapestry of human history in itself! Must read!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 11-29-22
Transporting
I like the short prefaces as an introduction to a new chapter. I enjoyed learning the origin and history of fabric and textiles I use everyday.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-30-23
Detailed history
Loved the detail of history on each fabric. There is so much I didn’t know about the process that the raw material requires to get it to the finished product.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- NickNAlexMom
- 04-15-24
Thrilling!!
If you enjoy finding out how things work and fun stories about “why” and art history OR just any two of these, this is an enthralling book. The narrator is lovely. The author and her family are poetry. I will enjoy and appreciate fabric more. Victoria Finlay makes my world bigger, brighter, and more colorful. Thank you Victoria!! Now I am off to get her next book…..
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