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When There Were Birds
- The forgotten history of our connections
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
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When There Were Birds
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Honesty is the best policy. Beware a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Look before you leap. A bird in the hand. These and countless other everyday expressions originated centuries ago with Aesop, the slave and storyteller of ancient Greece. With humor, irony, and commonsense philosophy, Aesop’s Fables illuminates the follies, frailties, and resilience of humankind to this day.
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Publisher's summary
A landmark book that charts humanity's changing relationship with birds—from the ancient Egyptians to the twenty-first century
No other group of animals has had such a complex and lengthy relationship with humankind as birds. They have been kept in cages as pets, taught to speak and displayed as trophies. More practically, they have been used to tell the time, predict the weather, foretell marriages, provide unlikely cures for ailments, convey messages and warn of poisonous gases.
When There Were Birds is a social history of Britain that charts the complex connections between people and birds, set against a background of changes in the landscape and evolving tastes, beliefs and behaviours. It draws together many disparate, forgotten strands to present a story that is an intriguing and unexpectedly significant part of our heritage.
Critic reviews
"A marvellously original slice of social history." (Daily Mail, Book of the Week)
"The facts and folklore of birdlife, and man's equivocal relationship with birds, are dissected in admirable detail in this handsome new book." (Sunday Times)
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-
The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England
- A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,220
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,904
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,894
Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat? Ian Mortimer shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. He sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you to the Middle Ages. The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: evolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Detailed, Interesting and Entertaining
- By Marc-Andr? on 05-13-10
By: Ian Mortimer
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Old Man River
- The Mississippi River in North American History
- By: Paul Schneider
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4 out of 5 stars 35
In Old Man River, Paul Schneider tells the story of the river at the center of America's rich history - the Mississippi. Some fifteen thousand years ago, the majestic river provided Paleolithic humans with the routes by which early man began to explore the continent's interior. Since then, the river has been the site of historical significance, from the arrival of Spanish and French explorers in the 16th century to the Civil War. George Washington fought his first battle near the river, and Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman both came to President Lincoln's attention after their spectacular victories on the lower Mississippi.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing, inspiring and informative
- By Rodney Curlee on 04-27-23
By: Paul Schneider
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The Discovery of France
- A Historical Geography
- By: Graham Robb
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
A narrative of exploration - full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants - that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great history of the cultural formation of France
- By Scotty on 07-31-21
By: Graham Robb
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Through the Brazilian Wilderness
- By: Theodore Roosevelt
- Narrated by: Andre Stojka
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 75
A former American president nearly dies during an ill-planned exploration through the Brazilian Wilderness and down the River of Doubt. Theodore Roosevelt was a naturalist, explorer, author, hunter, governor, soldier and 26th President of the United States.
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1 out of 5 stars
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narration hindrance to story
- By EBH on 09-29-20
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Exploration Fawcett
- Journey to the Lost City of Z
- By: Lt. Col. P. H. Fawcett
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
This is the true story of the real Colonel Fawcett, whose life was the inspiration for the best-selling book The Lost City of Z and an upcoming movie starring Brad Pitt. A thrilling account, it tells of Colonel Fawcett and his mysterious disappearance in the Amazon jungle, which is now considered one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Rather academic, but fascinating.
- By Belinda C. on 04-03-17
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The Ravenmaster
- My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London
- By: Christopher Skaife
- Narrated by: Christopher Skaife
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 529
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 472
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 471
The title of Ravenmaster is a serious title indeed, and after decades of serving the Queen, Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife took on the added responsibility of caring for the infamous ravens. In The Ravenmaster, he lets listeners in on his life as he feeds his birds raw meat and biscuits soaked in blood, buys their food at Smithfield Market, and ensures that these unusual, misunderstood, and utterly brilliant corvids are healthy, happy, and ready to captivate the four million tourists who flock to the Tower every year.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Classic, I Was Spellbound! Master Story Telling!
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 10-08-18
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The Journals of Lewis and Clark
- By: Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Nicholas Biddle - ed.
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
When President Thomas Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Purchase - the vast, unknown lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico - he promptly established an expedition to map America's new frontier. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark outfitted the "Corps of Discovery," and on May 14, 1804, 45 men in 3 boats set off up the Mississippi.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Inspiring!
- By John on 09-17-11
By: Meriwether Lewis, and others
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The Adventures of Henry Thoreau
- A Young Man's Unlikely Path to Walden Pond
- By: Michael Sims
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
Henry David Thoreau has long been an intellectual icon and folk hero. In this strikingly original profile, Michael Sims reveals how the bookish, quirky young man evolved into the patron saint of environmentalism and nonviolent activism. Working from 19th-century letters and diaries, Sims charts Henry’s course from his time at Harvard through the years he spent living in a cabin beside Walden Pond. Sims uncovers a previously hidden Thoreau - the rowdy boy reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, the sarcastic college iconoclast, the devoted son who kept imitating his beloved older brother’s choices in life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Pleasant surprise
- By Norman Wendth on 10-21-14
By: Michael Sims
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Encounters at the Heart of the World
- A History of the Mandan People
- By: Elizabeth A. Fenn
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 83
Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were, for centuries, at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Just okay
- By Chris on 11-03-15
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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
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,439
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,692
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,676
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
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Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
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The Wilderness Warrior
- Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
- By: Douglas Brinkley
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 40 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 277
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 213
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 211
In this groundbreaking epic biography, Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to examine the life and achievements of our "naturalist president." By setting aside more than 230 million acres of wild America for posterity between 1901 and 1909, Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a universal endeavor. This crusade for the American wilderness was perhaps the greatest U.S. presidential initiative between the Civil War and World War I.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I DID keep listening
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 01-13-10
By: Douglas Brinkley
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The Colour of Magic
- Discworld, Book 1
- By: Terry Pratchett
- Narrated by: Colin Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,804
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,584
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,575
Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
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3 out of 5 stars
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TERRIBLE Narration!
- By Kayla I on 07-08-22
By: Terry Pratchett
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Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?
- The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization
- By: Andrew Lawler
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4 out of 5 stars 142
From ancient empires to modern economics, veteran journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globe: the chicken. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates' last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Never imagined the volume of bird trivia
- By Neuron on 11-04-18
By: Andrew Lawler
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Swiss Family Robinson
- By: Johann Wyss
- Narrated by: Jack Sondericker
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 287
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 252
The Swiss Family Robinson recounts the adventures of a father, mother, and four sons marooned on a tropical island. The story unfolds beginning with the tragic storm that claims their ship and the lives of the captain and crew, continuing with their own harrowing battle with the elements and dangerous landing on the remote island shore, and onward through their ingenious use of the materials at hand to survive.
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3 out of 5 stars
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1812 Classic - served authors purposes
- By Jan on 03-04-13
By: Johann Wyss