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The Absolutist
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
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Mary Doyle arrives in Dublin in 1913, doomed, she fears, to a life of domestic service. Instead, however, she finds herself deeply affected by the social and political turmoil of a fledgling nation struggling for independence. Suddenly, all that was once inevitable is no longer a certainty as she is embroiled in the very heart of the Easter Rising.
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Loved this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-20
By: Jean Grainger
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The Gentleman
- A Novel
- By: Forrest Leo
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin, John Keating
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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When Lionel Savage, a popular poet in Victorian London, learns from his butler that they're broke, he marries the beautiful Vivien Lancaster for her money, only to find that his muse has abandoned him. Distraught and contemplating suicide, Savage accidentally conjures the devil - the polite "Gentleman" of the title - who appears at one of the society parties Savage abhors. The two hit it off: The devil talks about his home, where he employs Dante as a gardener; Savage lends him a volume of Tennyson.
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Brilliant!
- By Lori McVay on 10-06-16
By: Forrest Leo
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The Charioteer
- By: Mary Renault
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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After surviving the Dunkirk retreat, Laurie Odell, a young homosexual, critically examines his unorthodox lifestyle and personal relationships, as he falls in love with a young conscientious objector and becomes involved with a circle of world-weary gay men.
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A Gay Classic!
- By Christopher on 02-05-16
By: Mary Renault
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My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
- A Novel
- By: Louisa Young
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The lives of two very different couples - an officer and his aristocratic wife, and a young soldier and his childhood sweetheart - are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight - and those who don't - and a poignant testament to the enduring power of love.
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Just read it!! Or rather, listen!
- By Annie M. on 08-31-14
By: Louisa Young
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Winter in Madrid
- By: C. J. Sansom
- Narrated by: Gordon Gordon
- Length: 21 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Winter in Madrid is set just after the bloody Spanish Civil War, with World War II looming over Europe. Reluctantly, Harry Brett looks for an old schoolmate who's become a person of interest for British intelligence.
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realistic characters in historical context
- By Annie on 10-04-09
By: C. J. Sansom
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Daughters of Eden
- By: Charlotte Bingham
- Narrated by: Kim Hicks
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Daughters of Eden focuses on the lives and fortunes of four very different young women at the outbreak of the Second World War. Marjorie, left at a boarding school by her emigrating mother; plain Poppy, pushed into marriage with a mean-spirited aristocrat; Kate, despised by her father, but determined to prove herself; and man-mad Lily, who turns out to be the bravest of them all. That all of them are chosen to work undercover for the espionage unit at Eden Park is a surprise, not least to them.
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An amazing book everyone should read.
- By XX on 09-11-05
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A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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The 13th Apostle
- A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising
- By: Dermot McEvoy
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the first great revolution of the twentieth century began as working-class men and women occupied buildings throughout Dublin, Ireland, including the general post office on O’Connell Street. Among the commoners in the GPO was a young staff captain of the Irish Volunteers named Michael Collins. He was joined a day later by a fourteen-year-old messenger boy, Eoin Kavanagh.
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Enjoyed the history, not the bad sex
- By Mark on 05-04-16
By: Dermot McEvoy
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Devils
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 28 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Exiled to four years in Siberia, but hailed by the end of his life as a saint, prophet, and genius, Fyodor Dostoevsky holds an exalted place among the best of the great Russian authors. One of Dostoevsky’s five major novels, Devils follows the travails of a small provincial town beset by a band of modish radicals - and in so doing presents a devastating depiction of life and politics in late 19th-century Imperial Russia.
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Excellent translation and narration
- By L. Kerr on 09-06-13
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Murder at the Mill
- A Mystery (Iris Grey Mysteries, Book 1)
- By: M. B. Shaw
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
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Overall
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Iris Grey rents a quaint cottage in a picture-perfect Hampshire village, looking to escape from her crumbling marriage. She is drawn to the neighboring Wetherby family and is commissioned to paint a portrait of Dominic Wetherby, a celebrated crime writer. At the Wetherby's Christmas Eve party, the mulled wine is in full flow - but so are tensions and rivalries among the guests. On Christmas Day, the youngest member of the Wetherby family, Lorcan, finds a body in the water. A tragic accident? Or a deadly crime?
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Iris Grey Mysteries
- By Beatrice on 12-09-18
By: M. B. Shaw
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Last Town on Earth
- By: Thomas Mullen
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The Last Town on Earth centers on the inhabitants of a small logging town in Washington and what happens when they take drastic measures (quarantine) to try and protect themselves from the virulent and deadly flu epidemic of 1918. When a deserting WWI soldier demands sanctuary, events are set in motion that change the town forever.
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Thrill for a Reader. Model for a Writer
- By Angela on 03-04-11
By: Thomas Mullen
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What listeners say about The Absolutist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Cariola
- 01-27-13
Love, War, and Guilt
It's 1916, and Tristan Sadler has lied about his age in order to sign up to play his part in the Great War. Not, like many other boys, because of any rah-rah bandwagonism or sense of duty . . . but what else can a young man do when his family has disowned him? Things are so bad that his father, upon hearing of Tristan's enlistment, declares that he hopes the Germans kill his son, because "that would be the best thing for all of us."
The novel actually begins in 1919, with Tristan, now 21, aboard a train to Norwich with a packet of letters in his pocket. He plans to return them to the writer, the sister of his wartime friend, Will Bancroft, one of the young men who didn't come home. We soon find that Tristan hopes to unburden himself of a secret, one that goes far beyond the sexual identity he has been trying to keep under wraps. Yes, he and Will did have a few romantic interludes, but where Tristan felt deep love for his friend, Will claimed only that the trauma of war and the immediacy of death pushed him to seek "comfort." But what preys on Tristan's mind is their last conversation and the truth--the whole truth--about Will's last moments.
Tristan's narration takes us through horrific scenes in the trenches that are as vivid as any in Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy or Gallipoli. It's difficult to read these passages without despairing over the tragic loss of a generation and the extreme and often pointless sacrifices these young men--many little more than boys--were expected to make.
Some readers have mentioned that Boyne seems to be playing too many themes at once: the repression of homosexuality, an anti-war statement, the struggle between group mentality and personal values, and whether it is better to die for one's principles or to live without any. I wasn't troubled by this; after all, life is complex, not always linear or singularly focused.
Overall, Boyne has given us an original story, finely written.
(I do have one caveat for anyone who, like me, is hearing impaired. Michael Maloney is an excellent reader who is able to distinguish each character with his wide vocal range and repertoire of accents. However, he has a tendency to drop his voice for dramatic effect. I found myself constantly fiddling with the volume controls, and I still feel that I probably missed a lot. If I had it to do over, I would choose to read this book in print.)
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38 people found this helpful
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- Cris
- 08-27-12
Whew!
An intense book. Difficult to review because the plot cannot be described without spoiling the content. Written in an understated British sort of way and in a way that is unforgettable. I'm glad that I listened to it, but uplifting it is not.
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- B.J.
- 01-20-14
Beautiful, intense and tragic
There really isn't a way to review this book without spilling secrets. So I won't. I listened to it without much foreknowledge and was glad for it. I'm not sure I would have started it had I known more - and that would have been my loss.
I wish this had been a book club book. I really needed to talk about it when I was done. Interesting how the big hot issues of today are not so new. Maybe openly talking about issues is new ... but the issues themselves are as old as mankind. It's not only the issues that stick around from generation to generation. Courage and cowardice, too, are timeless. Same with rejection, love, passion and forgiveness.
This book reminds me of others - like Pat Barker's "Regeneration" - but it really stands alone in what it has accomplished. It is beautifully narrated. If you want to listen to a book that will move your soul, this is it. It is not a feel-good story. It is a thinking story. It's perhaps my best recommendation for a book club book in 2014.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Dennis
- 08-28-12
A Thin Red Line Between Love and Hate
WW1 has just begun and two English boys meet during basic training and become fast friends. Tristan lies about his age to enlist because he has been thrown out of his parental house with his father's condemnation that it would be best if he were killed by a German bullet. Will, the son of a vicar, enlists for patriotic reasons. The boys develop an emotional relationship that becomes strained when Will asks Tristan to support him in a point of principle. Tristan, the more pragmatic of the two, refuses because both he and WIll could be put into jeopardy if Will reveals what really happened to a prisoner of war.
John Boyne deftly straddles the line between cowardice and honor and love and hate. He leaves us stunned as we careen toward an ending so unexpected that I cannot get it our of my mind. This novel is a true tour de force.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Doug
- 05-14-13
Great Candidate for a Discussion Group
I thought the characters were well developed and put into a setting seldom used. In fact, it was the setting which made me select the book, not the topic.
And the topic - well, it's something we're all forced to have an opinion of in this age - not having an opinion on this matter is considered a crime of omission.
And that's why I would nominate this book for group discussion - because while reading this book I had several interesting thoughts - and that's a compliment to the author. What intrigues me is that I suspect my thoughts are not the normal reaction to the characters and the situation.
Well done. A book that gives me new thoughts, that is my compliment to the author.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Chris Reich
- 01-06-13
Painful and Worth Your Time
Would you listen to The Absolutist again? Why?
I don't like this question. I probably will not listen to this book again---but not because it's not brilliant. It's ugly and I don't want to go through it again. But it is a great work.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Absolutist?
Tristan's meeting with his father before shipping out to war.
What does Michael Maloney bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Does a great job of bringing the characters to life.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It sickened me. Man's inhumanity can be overwhelming.
Any additional comments?
I like the book and recommend it but it's not for everyone. You'll gain insight into human suffering but there is nothing uplifting in the book. If you need "happy endings" this wouldn't be for you.
So, I recommend it with a caution.
Chris Reich, TeachU
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10 people found this helpful
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- Chuck
- 09-15-12
A Most Satisfying Book
Excellent book. Beautifully written. The reading by Michael Maloney is absolutely perfect. Can't imagine a finer interpretation of this lovely book. You won't be disappointed.
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- Delah
- 12-15-13
Stayed with me after the last word was read
This story goes back and forth from 1916 while the 1st person narrator in the story is serving in the war and 1919 after he is out and visiting a sister of a friend from the war. The actual audio narrator is very good. The story is engrossing. I usually don't like stories that go back and forth between time periods but this one is good and the time periods are not that far apart. I recommend this book. Also, I don't usually care for war novels. This one I was able to handle as it was more about relationships and less about day to day war although it did describe what it was like for the soldiers to be at war and the things they were going through.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Alicia Herrington
- 01-04-15
Gut punch
This is a very thought provoking book. The ending in particular hit like a punch to the gut. That being said, this book is far from perfect, especially where characterization is concerned.
My biggest problem with this book was that I found it hard to sympathize with Will. This could in part be because Boyne did such a good job at getting me on Tristan's side, but I don't think that that's the case. He is supposed to come across as this courageous moral character, but instead he only comes across as needlessly cruel. I know that that is supposed to show him as being a product of his time, but that just isn't how it reads.
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- Rick
- 07-21-19
Secrets That Consume a Life
It’s worth being reminded now and then of the unspeakable barbarism that slaughtered so many of an entire generation in what came to be known as The Great War.
“I didn’t think it was all that Great,” muses Tristan Sadler, late in life. But he was a young soldier then, so young that he had to lie about his age. Soon he would have more secrets, painful ones, and as this story slips seamlessly back and forth over more than 60 years, they are steadily revealed. With a skill that is to be expected from the author of “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” we are hand-fed Tristan’s agonies one at a time, right up to the very end.
A spare, compact, wistful novel, skillfully read by Michael Maloney.
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3 people found this helpful