-
Book Madness
- A Story of Book Collectors in America
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Book Madness
Buy for $17.90
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Once upon a Tome
- The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller
- By: Oliver Darkshire
- Narrated by: Oliver Darkshire
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store's resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran's brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful, witty story narrated by the author
- By Hiking cat on 05-14-23
By: Oliver Darkshire
-
Con/Artist
- The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
- By: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 271
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 218
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 218
The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Incredibly interesting!
- By Carole Wooten on 12-07-22
By: Tony Tetro, and others
-
Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
-
His Majesty's Airship
- The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine
- By: S. C. Gwynne
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 129
The tragic fate of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. In His Majesty’s Airship, S.C. Gwynne resurrects it in vivid detail, telling the epic story of great ambition gone terribly wrong.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
O, The Humanity
- By Glenn G Poole II on 06-11-23
By: S. C. Gwynne
-
The Impending Crisis
- America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861
- By: David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 551
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 465
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 465
David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A Slog for Sure
- By Brux on 04-13-17
By: David M. Potter, and others
-
Remainders of the Day
- More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown
- By: Shaun Bythell
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7
The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland is a book lover’s paradise, with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the portly bookshop cat. You’d think that after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to his quirky customers by now. Don’t get him wrong, there are some good ones among the antiquarian porn-hunters, die-hard train book lovers, people who confuse bookshops for libraries, and the toddlers just looking for a nice cozy corner in which to wee. He’s sure there are some good ones. There must be.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Follow the seasons in the boots of a Scottish bookseller
- By LC on 04-28-24
By: Shaun Bythell
-
Once upon a Tome
- The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller
- By: Oliver Darkshire
- Narrated by: Oliver Darkshire
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store's resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran's brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful, witty story narrated by the author
- By Hiking cat on 05-14-23
By: Oliver Darkshire
-
Con/Artist
- The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
- By: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 271
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 218
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 218
The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Incredibly interesting!
- By Carole Wooten on 12-07-22
By: Tony Tetro, and others
-
Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
-
His Majesty's Airship
- The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine
- By: S. C. Gwynne
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 129
The tragic fate of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. In His Majesty’s Airship, S.C. Gwynne resurrects it in vivid detail, telling the epic story of great ambition gone terribly wrong.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
O, The Humanity
- By Glenn G Poole II on 06-11-23
By: S. C. Gwynne
-
The Impending Crisis
- America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861
- By: David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 551
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 465
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 465
David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A Slog for Sure
- By Brux on 04-13-17
By: David M. Potter, and others
-
Remainders of the Day
- More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown
- By: Shaun Bythell
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7
The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland is a book lover’s paradise, with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the portly bookshop cat. You’d think that after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to his quirky customers by now. Don’t get him wrong, there are some good ones among the antiquarian porn-hunters, die-hard train book lovers, people who confuse bookshops for libraries, and the toddlers just looking for a nice cozy corner in which to wee. He’s sure there are some good ones. There must be.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Follow the seasons in the boots of a Scottish bookseller
- By LC on 04-28-24
By: Shaun Bythell
-
Watergate
- By: Garrett M. Graff
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Garrett M. Graff
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 446
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 384
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 379
In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Elucidating
- By J.B. on 02-23-22
By: Garrett M. Graff
-
The Bookseller of Florence
- The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Great book, Horrible narrator
- By Sergio Remon on 07-01-21
By: Ross King
-
American Demon
- Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper
- By: Daniel Stashower
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 137
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 137
On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Not what I expected at all
- By Iceboxannie on 11-10-22
By: Daniel Stashower
-
Botticelli's Secret
- The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
- By: Joseph Luzzi
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 121
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 92
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 92
Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. A powerful encounter between poet and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never finished.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great story
- By Chris M on 12-09-22
By: Joseph Luzzi
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,190
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,052
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Shakespeare
- The World as Stage
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,834
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,266
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,254
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Too Little, Too Short
- By Charles L. Burkins on 11-30-07
By: Bill Bryson
-
Trollope
- An Autobiography
- By: Anthony Trollope
- Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 108
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
Anthony Trollope is most famous for his portrait of the professional and landed classes of Victorian England, especially in his Palliser and Barsetshire novels. But he was also the author of one of the most fascinating autobiographies of the nineteenth century. Trollope was born in 1815, the product of a formidable mother and a tragically unsuccessful father who was socially ambitious for his sons. He was the victim of vicious bullying at Harrow and Winchester. But he had inherited his mother's determination, and managed later to carve out a successful career in the General Post Office while devoting every spare moment to writing. How he paid his groom to wake him every morning at 5:30 a.m. and disciplined himself to write 250 words every fifteen minutes has become part of literary legend. His efforts resulted in over sixty books, a sizable fortune, and fame, and his autobiography. Trollope looks back on his life with satisfaction. Perhaps as interesting as the facts he reveals and the opinions he records about Dickens and George Eliot, politics and the civil service are the judgments he passes on his own character.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
the meaning of work
- By jasmine00 on 01-05-08
By: Anthony Trollope
-
C.S. Lewis
- A Biography of Friendship
- By: Colin Duriez
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
An Oxford student of C.S. Lewis' said he found his new tutor interesting and was told by J.R.R. Tolkien, "Interesting? Yes, he's certainly that. You'll never get to the bottom of him." You can learn a great deal about people by their friends and nowhere is this more true than in the case of C.S. Lewis, the remarkable academic, author, popularizer of faith - and creator of Narnia. He lost his mother early in life and became estranged from his father, much to his regret.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
It's a Great Concept
- By James on 08-13-20
By: Colin Duriez
-
Genius & Anxiety
- How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947
- By: Norman Lebrecht
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Post-anxiety
- By Amaze on 03-27-20
By: Norman Lebrecht
-
Defiant Joy
- The Remarkable Life & Impact of G. K. Chesterton
- By: Kevin Belmonte
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 136
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 136
You may be aware that G. K. Chesterton authored influential Christian biographies and apologetics. But you may not know the larger-than-life Gilbert Keith Chesterton himself - not yet. Equally versed in poetry, novels, literary criticism, and journalism, he addressed politics, culture, and religion with a towering intellect and a soaring wit. Chesterton carried on lively, public discussions with the social commentators of his day, continually challenging them with civility, humility, erudition, and his ever-sharp sense of humor.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
I Liked It
- By Gene Hamill on 11-20-20
By: Kevin Belmonte
-
Shakespeare's Library
- Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature
- By: Stuart Kells
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces, and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens, and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard's manuscripts, books, or letters has ever been found.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Dismissed Mary Sidney Herbert without explanation
- By Lisa on 07-30-19
By: Stuart Kells
-
Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
Publisher's summary
The fascinating history of American bookishness as told through the sale of Charles Lamb’s library in 1848
Charles Lamb’s library—a heap of sixty scruffy old books singed with smoke, soaked with gin, sprinkled with crumbs, stripped of illustrations, and bescribbled by the essayist and his literary friends—caused a sensation when it was sold in New York in 1848. The transatlantic book world watched as the relics of a man revered as the patron saint of book collectors were dispersed. Following those books through the stories of the bibliophiles who shaped intellectual life in America—booksellers, publishers, journalists, editors, bibliographers, librarians, actors, antiquarians, philanthropists, politicians, poets, clergymen—Denise Gigante brings to life a lost world of letters at a time when Americans were busy assembling the country’s major public, university, and society libraries. A human tale of loss, obsession, and spiritual survival, this book reveals the magical power books can have to bring people together and will be an absorbing listen for anyone interested in what makes a book special.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Shakespeare's Library
- Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature
- By: Stuart Kells
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces, and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens, and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard's manuscripts, books, or letters has ever been found.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Dismissed Mary Sidney Herbert without explanation
- By Lisa on 07-30-19
By: Stuart Kells
-
Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
- By: Elizabeth Winkler
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 38
The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
-
The Europeans
- Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
At the center of the book is a poignant love triangle: the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; the Spanish prima donna Pauline Viardot, with whom Turgenev had a long and intimate relationship; and her husband Louis Viardot, an art critic, theater manager, and republican activist. Together, Turgenev and the Viardots acted as a kind of European cultural exchange - they either knew or crossed paths with Delacroix, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, the Schumanns, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky, among many other towering figures.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
DO LISTEN TO THIS BOOK!!!
- By JK on 10-28-21
By: Orlando Figes
-
Author in Chief
- The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote
- By: Craig Fehrman
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
In Craig Fehrman’s groundbreaking work of history, Author in Chief, the story of America’s presidents and their books opens a rich new window into presidential biography. From volumes lost to history - Calvin Coolidge’s Autobiography, which was one of the most widely discussed titles of 1929 - to ones we know and love - Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, which was very nearly never published - Fehrman unearths countless insights about the presidents through their literary works.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By Jean on 03-12-20
By: Craig Fehrman
-
The Lost Gutenberg
- The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey
- By: Margaret Leslie Davis
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
For rare-book collectors, an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible - of which there are fewer than 50 in existence - represents the ultimate prize. Here, Margaret Leslie Davis recounts five centuries in the life of one copy, from its creation by Johannes Gutenberg, through the hands of monks, an earl, the Worcestershire sauce king, and a nuclear physicist to its ultimate resting place, in a steel vault in Tokyo.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Spare me
- By Dr. Small on 05-04-20
-
The Reason for the Darkness of the Night
- Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science
- By: John Tresch
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
John Tresch offers a bold new biography of a writer whose short, tortured life continues to fascinate. Shining a spotlight on an era when the lines separating entertainment, speculation, and scientific inquiry were blurred, Tresch reveals Poe's obsession with science and lifelong ambition to advance and question human knowledge. He remained an avid and often combative commentator on new discoveries, publishing and hustling in literary scenes that also hosted the era's most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Know the Real Poe
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 06-28-21
By: John Tresch
-
Shakespeare's Library
- Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature
- By: Stuart Kells
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 76
Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces, and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens, and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard's manuscripts, books, or letters has ever been found.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Dismissed Mary Sidney Herbert without explanation
- By Lisa on 07-30-19
By: Stuart Kells
-
Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
- By: Elizabeth Winkler
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 38
The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
-
The Europeans
- Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
At the center of the book is a poignant love triangle: the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; the Spanish prima donna Pauline Viardot, with whom Turgenev had a long and intimate relationship; and her husband Louis Viardot, an art critic, theater manager, and republican activist. Together, Turgenev and the Viardots acted as a kind of European cultural exchange - they either knew or crossed paths with Delacroix, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, the Schumanns, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky, among many other towering figures.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
DO LISTEN TO THIS BOOK!!!
- By JK on 10-28-21
By: Orlando Figes
-
Author in Chief
- The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote
- By: Craig Fehrman
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
In Craig Fehrman’s groundbreaking work of history, Author in Chief, the story of America’s presidents and their books opens a rich new window into presidential biography. From volumes lost to history - Calvin Coolidge’s Autobiography, which was one of the most widely discussed titles of 1929 - to ones we know and love - Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, which was very nearly never published - Fehrman unearths countless insights about the presidents through their literary works.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By Jean on 03-12-20
By: Craig Fehrman
-
The Lost Gutenberg
- The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey
- By: Margaret Leslie Davis
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
For rare-book collectors, an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible - of which there are fewer than 50 in existence - represents the ultimate prize. Here, Margaret Leslie Davis recounts five centuries in the life of one copy, from its creation by Johannes Gutenberg, through the hands of monks, an earl, the Worcestershire sauce king, and a nuclear physicist to its ultimate resting place, in a steel vault in Tokyo.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Spare me
- By Dr. Small on 05-04-20
-
The Reason for the Darkness of the Night
- Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science
- By: John Tresch
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
John Tresch offers a bold new biography of a writer whose short, tortured life continues to fascinate. Shining a spotlight on an era when the lines separating entertainment, speculation, and scientific inquiry were blurred, Tresch reveals Poe's obsession with science and lifelong ambition to advance and question human knowledge. He remained an avid and often combative commentator on new discoveries, publishing and hustling in literary scenes that also hosted the era's most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Know the Real Poe
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 06-28-21
By: John Tresch
-
The Birthmark
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Walter Covell
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 64
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 64
Hawthorne approached the Romantic notion of the ability of science to destroy art (or beauty) in the form of fictive "horror stories" of biological research out of control. This story is the best of that group. A devoted scientist marries a beautiful woman with a single physical flaw: a birthmark on her face. Aylmer becomes obsessed with the imperfection and his attempts to remove it via his scientific skills, thus rendering his bride perfect.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Bland uninspired
- By Holcomb on 10-02-12
-
Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely
- By: Andrew S. Curran
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
lifelong coverage of his life.
- By Michael Daly on 03-22-21
By: Andrew S. Curran
-
The Road to Monticello
- The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Kevin J. Hayes
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer - a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of our most literary president.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Very Boring Book
- By Greg on 05-13-14
By: Kevin J. Hayes
-
Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
-
The Man in the Red Coat
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 60
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Pathetic narration makes this title unbearable
- By Chris Quigg on 02-27-20
By: Julian Barnes
-
Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
-
Book of Ages
- The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 178
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 157
From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians, a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin' s youngest sister and a history of history itself. Like her brother, Jane Franklin was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Women during and after the Revolution
- By Robyn on 04-19-18
By: Jill Lepore
-
The Bookseller of Florence
- The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Great book, Horrible narrator
- By Sergio Remon on 07-01-21
By: Ross King
-
Young Benjamin Franklin
- The Birth of Ingenuity
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of 41, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Good Book but LOTS of Names
- By Tim on 10-31-19
By: Nick Bunker
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 52
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 358
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 299
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 294
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
The Sun and the Moon
- Hoaxers, Showmen, and Lunar Man-Bats in 19th-Century New York
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful and surprisingly true story of how a series of articles in the Sun newspaper in 1835 convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. Purporting to reveal discoveries of a famous British astronomer, the series described such moon life as unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and four-foot-tall flying man-bats. It quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
some very good some very bad
- By peter on 10-30-10
By: Matthew Goodman