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A Far Cry from Kensington
- Narrated by: Pamela Garelick
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
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Publisher's summary
Set on the crazier fringes of 1950s literary London, A Far Cry from Kensington is a delight, hilariously portraying love, fraud, death, evil, and transformation.
Mrs. Hawkins, the majestic narrator of A Far Cry from Kensington, takes us well in hand and leads us back to her threadbare years in postwar London. There, as a fat and much admired young war widow, she spent her days working for a mad, near-bankrupt publisher (“of very good books”) and her nights dispensing advice at her small South Kensington rooming house.
At work and at home, Mrs. Hawkins soon uncovered evil: shady literary doings and a deadly enemy; anonymous letters, blackmail, and suicide. With aplomb, however, Mrs. Hawkins confidently set about putting things to order, little imagining the mayhem that would ensue.
Now decades older, thin, successful, and delighted with life in Italy—quite a far cry from Kensington—Mrs. Hawkins looks back to all those dark doings and recounts how her own life changed forever. She still, however, loves to give advice: “It’s easy to get thin. You eat and drink the same as always, only half…. I offer this advice without fee; it is included in the price of this book.”
A Far Cry from Kensington has been hailed as “outstanding” (Observer), “wickedly and adroitly executed” (New York Times), and “a comedy that holds a tragedy as an eggcup holds an egg.” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
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As Good As Pym--Maybe Better!
- By Cariola on 10-27-11
By: Muriel Spark
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Mrs. Caliban
- By: Rachel Ingalls
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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It all starts with the radio. Dorothy's husband has left for work, and she is at the kitchen sink washing the dishes, listening to classical music. Suddenly, the music fades out and a soft, close, dreamy voice says, "Don't worry, Dorothy." A couple weeks later, there is a special interruption in regular programming. The announcer warns all listeners of an escaped sea monster. That afternoon, the seven-foot-tall lizard man walks through Dorothy's kitchen door. She is frightened at first, but there is something attractive about the monster, and the two begin a tender, clandestine affair.
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Unexpected In All Ways
- By Jami D. Stewart on 12-08-23
By: Rachel Ingalls
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Diaz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
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Wondrous Book!!!
- By Robert on 06-22-12
By: Junot Diaz
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Memento Mori
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Muriel Spark's blackly comic masterwork begins with a voice on the telephone warning, "Remember, you must die." The recipient of the grim message is elderly Dame Lettie Colston, but soon 10 of Lettie's oldest friends also become targets of Death's anonymous herald. A bizarre investigation lays bare an intricate network of deception and disloyalty that binds together the vulnerable group of aging eccentrics.
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More Spark, Please!
- By Cariola on 10-27-11
By: Muriel Spark
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The Girls of Slender Means
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions." Thus begins Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club building itself - "three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit" - its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal, practicing elocution and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown.
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please please try again
- By Consolation on 03-24-20
By: Muriel Spark
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Heartburn
- By: Nora Ephron
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.
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Be the Heroine , Not the Victim
- By Cynthia on 07-12-13
By: Nora Ephron
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The Mandelbaum Gate
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The Mandelbaum Gate divides the conflict-torn realm of Jerusalem, separating Israel from Jordan. Barbara Vaughn, a stubborn young English woman and half-Jewish Catholic convert, insists upon crossing the divide in order to rendezvous with her fiancé, in spite of the very real danger. Her quest sets off a series of bizarre situations and adventures, set against the backdrop of the Eichmann trial of 1961.
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Graham Greene meets PG Wodehouse...
- By connie on 10-26-09
By: Muriel Spark
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Reality and Dreams
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning author Dame Muriel Spark is internationally renowned for her witty and engaging tales of life. Short and sophisticated, Reality and Dreams follows the career of self-centered, middle-aged film director Tom Richards. As he turns colorful incidents from his life into glittery, cinematic fiction, his foreboding dreams become all too real. Tom is passionately directing his latest film when he falls from a crane on the set. Awaking in a semi-conscious fog in a hospital room, he suddenly must deal with a comic, surreal procession of doctors, nurses, and out-of-work relatives.
By: Muriel Spark
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The Sellout
- A Novel
- By: Paul Beatty
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.
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Appreciated it, but didn't like it
- By Eugenia on 04-14-16
By: Paul Beatty
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Bridget Jones’s Diary
- By: Helen Fielding
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From its beginning as a weekly column in a British newspaper, Bridget Jones’s Diary quickly became a best-seller in England. After gaining international popularity, it also shot to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. A 30-something single professional, Bridget Jones prefers a diary to a day planner for tracking her life. Each entry is an honest and hilarious step in her endless quest for self-improvement.
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Outstanding performance of a very fun story.
- By Andrea L. Whitcomb on 07-15-12
By: Helen Fielding
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Tales of the City
- Tales of the City, Book 1
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Frances McDormand
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the City is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.
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Sparkling, Witty and Touching!
- By Nancy J on 01-19-14
By: Armistead Maupin
What listeners say about A Far Cry from Kensington
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sara
- 10-03-15
Truth Teller In The Midst Of Posers & The Clueless
When I started reading this sharply written, engrossing tragicomedy I would often pause and wonder "what is this odd book really about". The story transports the listener back to post war 1950s London--the publishing world and life in a rooming house peopled by a collection of eccentric characters.
Spark's writing is spare--but with limited carefully chosen words she is able to paint multidimensional pictures and tell a richly textured story. Coupled with Pamela Garelick's fantastic narration, I felt as though I had watched a movie rather than listened to an audiobook. The scenes were vivid and the characters and their interaction entrancing.
The commentary on the world of publishing, the witless ease people have in misreading the skills and abilities of themselves and others, and the insights into personal behavior were dryly funny. Underlying all this comedy was the mystery, the tragedy and the charlatan. Oh and yes--the translation of the oft repeated french phrase that caused so much trouble is "writer who churns out rubbish".
In the end, it all becomes clear and the story is definitely worth the time spent listening. I wonder how I missed this gem until now. The writing and narration are both top-notch and perfect.
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54 people found this helpful
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- Maine Colonial 🌲
- 07-26-11
Pamela Garelick
I love the wickedly low-key humor of this book, but most of all I love the reading of Pamela Garelick. She is now my absolute favorite reader. Her voice is perfect for the book, and she gets all the intonations and moods exactly right. When she does different voices, she's just perfect. I would be thrilled if she got a lot more narration jobs.
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23 people found this helpful
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- Cariola
- 11-12-14
Clever and Witty
If she was alive today, I'd be writing to thank Muriel Spark for adding a useful phrase to my repertoire: pisseur de copie. It's a phrase that gets Mrs. Hawkins (later known as Nancy) into a good deal of trouble, but she never takes it back. Mrs. Hawkins, a large-boned and hefty 28-year-old war widow, works in the world of publishing, and she lives in a boarding house full of eccentric characters, including a Polish seamstress, a pampered daddy's girl, a clever lower class medical student, and others. It's her connection to Hector Bartlett, the pisseur de copie, that shapes the novel. Mrs. Hawkins takes an immediate dislike to the pretentious would-be author, who tries repeatedly to use his 'friendship' with popular novelist Emma Loy as an entry ticket. (Nancy suspects a sexual liaison, but Emma's revelation that Hector can quote from all of her novels--wrongly--suggests something a bit more egotistical.) When tragedy strikes the boarding house community, Mrs. Hawkins launches an investigation of her own.
'A Far Cry from Kensington' is a delightful trek into the world of publishing, ca. 1950s, and a wonderfully droll study of character. I've read only one other novel by Spark, but I'll definitely be seeking out more.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Robert R.
- 11-30-20
No Idea Why This Exists
There was absolutely no point to this. It's a slim little mystery and that's it? I kept with it to the end thinking it would all add up to something and it never did. This is probably the biggest disappointment "read" I've ever found on Audbile. Nothing to it.
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5 people found this helpful
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- LJStevie
- 12-16-18
Underwhelming.
I never quite understood the point of this story. There were several characters introduced though the book seemed to be a position of voyeur into a snippet of lives and no real reason for doing so. I think other readers enjoyed this but for me it was boring and never really presented a purpose.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Apryl Morris
- 01-10-21
I couldn't get through it.
WOW. That was exhausting!. no really, I remained confused due to the cadenza narrative. That never, fell in tune. Her voice is lovely, I must add also, her characters, that I heard, are wonderful and distinct. If she DIDNT NARRATE LIKE THE SCORE FROM JAWS, THE REALLY DRAMATIC SECONDS, RIGHT BEFORE THE SHARK ATTACKS; FOR THE ENTIRE 4 CHAPTERS I GOT THOUGH. I surely would have enjoyed finishing it.
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4 people found this helpful
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- TX lilbit
- 12-10-17
Everything I love about Muriel Spark
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Spare terse prose, dry humor, dark deviousness, odd juxtapositions of eccentric characters - Spark! Pamela Garelick is the perfect narrator for this book. It's among a handful of Audible books I've listened to repeatedly, with fresh rewards each time.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Cate F.
- 10-14-23
Joyous reacquaintance with Brilliant Muriel Spark
Years ago I went on a Muriel Spark binge so I was happy to have the Audible suggestion of A Far Cry from Kensington. For me it had an extra layer of pleasure because I had stayed with a friend in Kensington many times over the years beginning in the 1960s. London then was still very much like the London of 1955. Spark’s wit and clear language is full of humor and human foibles. If you are new to her, you have many enjoyable hours ahead.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Denise
- 03-05-21
Just a perfect, diverting listen
Excellent narration and nice story. Will look for more like this. Not too demanding and very entertaining
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1 person found this helpful
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- Audrey
- 03-18-24
The performance was brilliant!
Fun, poignant, moving, thrilling and leaves you wanting it to never end. The narrator reads with humor and depth. Brilliant performance!
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