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Death by Shakespeare
- Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts
- Narrated by: Nicky Diss
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
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Death by Shakespeare
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Publisher's summary
Bloomsbury presents Death By Shakespeare by Kathryn Harkup, read by Nicky Diss.
William Shakespeare found dozens of different ways to kill off his characters, and audiences today still enjoy the same reactions - shock, sadness, fear - that they did more than 400 years ago when these plays were first performed. But how realistic are these deaths, and did Shakespeare have the knowledge to back them up?
In the Bard’s day, death was a part of everyday life. Plague, pestilence and public executions were a common occurrence, and the chances of seeing a dead or dying body on the way home from the theatre were high. It was also a time of important scientific progress. Shakespeare kept pace with anatomical and medical advances, and he included the latest scientific discoveries in his work, from blood circulation to treatments for syphilis. He certainly didn’t shy away from portraying the reality of death onstage, from the brutal to the mundane and the spectacular to the silly.
Elizabethan London provides the backdrop for Death by Shakespeare, as Kathryn Harkup turns her discerning scientific eye to the Bard and the varied and creative ways his characters die. Was death by snakebite as serene as Shakespeare makes out? Could lack of sleep have killed Lady Macbeth? Can you really murder someone by pouring poison in their ear? Kathryn investigates what actual events may have inspired Shakespeare, what the accepted scientific knowledge of the time was and how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to these death scenes. Death by Shakespeare will tell you all this and more in a roller coaster of Elizabethan carnage, poison, swordplay and bloodshed, with an occasional death by bear-mauling for good measure.
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-
Relieved and surprised
- By Amber on 09-28-18
By: Eleanor Herman
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Get Well Soon
- History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,723
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,016
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,983
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Didn't know syphilis could be so fascinating.
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-17
By: Jennifer Wright
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Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Somewhat elemental
- By Bertha Watkins on 10-23-21
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Poisons
- From Hemlock to Botox and the Killer Bean Calabar
- By: Peter Macinnis
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 70
A wide-ranging and provocative look - teeming with little-known facts and engaging stories - at a subject of the direst interest. Poisons permeate our world. They are in the environment, the workplace, the home. They are in food, our favorite whiskey, medicine, well water. They have been used to cure disease as well as incapacitate and kill. They smooth wrinkles, block pain, stimulate, and enhance athletic ability. In this entertaining and fact-filled audiobook, science writer Peter Macinnis considers poisons in all their aspects. He recounts stories of the celebrated poisoners in history and literature....
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5 out of 5 stars
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#MyNonFictionAddiction
- By EinsteinzVice on 11-07-19
By: Peter Macinnis
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Under the Knife
- A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
- By: Arnold van de Laar, Andy Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Rich Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 221
From the story of the desperate man from 17th-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room. What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell, or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Why did a surgeon need a fast horse?
- By India Clamp on 10-18-18
By: Arnold van de Laar, and others
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The Prince of Medicine
- Galen in the Roman Empire
- By: Susan P. Mattern
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 54
Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129-ca. 216) began his remarkable career tending to wounded gladiators in provincial Asia Minor. Later in life he achieved great distinction as one of a small circle of court physicians to the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, at the very heart of Roman society. Susan Mattern's The Prince of Medicine offers the first authoritative biography in English of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure.
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4 out of 5 stars
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history of medicine
- By Jean on 07-27-14
By: Susan P. Mattern
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The Black Death: A History from Beginning to End
- By: Hourly History
- Narrated by: Jimmy Kieffer
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Sweeping across the known world with unchecked devastation, the Black Death claimed between 75 million and 200 million lives in four short years. In this engaging and well-researched audiobook, the trajectory of the plague’s march west across Eurasia and the cause of the great pandemic is thoroughly explored. Fascinating insights into the medieval mind’s perception of the disease and examinations of contemporary accounts give a complete picture of what the world’s most effective killer meant to medieval society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fine history of a pandemic
- By Fr. S. on 03-25-23
By: Hourly History
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The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth
- And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Morris
- Narrated by: Thomas Morris, Ruper Farley
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 618
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 534
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 531
A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the 19th century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Boring Toilet Humor
- By Nemo on 01-30-20
By: Thomas Morris
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A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- Murder in Ancient Rome
- By: Emma Southon
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 666
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 585
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 580
In ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common - murder. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside ancient Rome’s darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life and death and what it means to be human.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narration is stilted, author tries too hard
- By Allison Jackson on 07-13-21
By: Emma Southon
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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,332
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,999
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,991
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
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Pale Rider
- The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
- By: Laura Spinney
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 768
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 657
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 654
In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted - and often permanently altered - global politics, race relations, and family structures while spurring innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Predilection for Those in the Prime of Life
- By Cynthia on 02-12-18
By: Laura Spinney
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The Black Death: A Captivating Guide to the Deadliest Pandemic in Medieval Europe and Human History
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Randy Whitlow
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 36
The Black Death was the first recorded pandemic in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. All across the continent, people learned just how gruesome and horrific disease could be as the plague crossed the boundaries of countries and the lines established by society, killing everyone equally. It showed that no one - not even archbishops and kings - was immune from its grasp.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Captivating and Comprehensive
- By Rick House on 05-11-20
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Dying Every Day
- Seneca at the Court of Nero
- By: James S. Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story5 out of 5 stars 33
James Romm seamlessly weaves together the life and written words, the moral struggles, political intrigue, and bloody vengeance that enmeshed Seneca the Younger in the twisted imperial family and the perverse, paranoid regime of Emperor Nero, despot and madman.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding
- By michael bobadilla on 05-04-23
By: James S. Romm
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Rabid
- A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus
- By: Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,364
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 2,052
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,057
The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Unexpected and Intriguing
- By Cynthia on 06-09-13
By: Bill Wasik, and others
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Quackery
- A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
- By: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 929
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 804
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 804
What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
- By Nemo on 12-28-18
By: Lydia Kang, and others
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Severed
- A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
- By: Frances Larson
- Narrated by: Reay Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, anthopologist Frances Larson here explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good narrator
- By Caitlin kestell on 04-27-24
By: Frances Larson
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The History and Folklore of Vampires
- The Stories and Legends Behind the Mythical Beings
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 1 hr and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
People have always been afraid of the dead. Since the dawn of humanity, people have both cared for those who are deceased yet also tried to keep them away. There are a myriad of legends and beliefs about the dead coming back, and one of the more persistent ones is of the vampire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Vampires from Medieval times to the present
- By MolllyT on 05-14-15
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Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Emma Grant Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
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5 out of 5 stars
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very interesting and enlightening
- By Barbara J Allison on 08-29-19
What listeners say about Death by Shakespeare
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Toran MacArthur
- 01-11-23
Fascinating… and a bit gross
This book was fascinating! It looks at the different ways characters die in Shakespeare, how the body reacts to these things, and what was known about it at the time, versus what we know now with modern scientific advancement. I liked it and the narrator was great! But if you’re squeamish about medical content, maybe avoid this one.
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