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Dirt
- A Social History as Seen through the Uses and Abuses of Dirt
- Narrated by: Todd Belcher
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
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Dirt
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Publisher's summary
Delve into the fascinating world of dirt in this history of culture, cleanliness, and our evolving perceptions of what is and isn’t gross.
In this engaging and often humorous study of life’s imperfections, public health and hygiene authority Terence McLaughlin dissects our attitudes toward the filth that has accompanied society throughout human history. According to him, “dirt” is a matter of opinion.
Cultural attitudes about everything from factory smoke to personal hygiene are constantly shifting with the economic and political exigencies of the era. McLaughlin cites Old Testament examples of cleanliness which, unbeknownst at the time, helped protect the observant from the plague. The famous baths of ancient Rome were seen as progress for personal hygiene, and later scorned by Christians who rejected all things Roman.
With a litany of fascinating examples, McLaughlin sheds light on how we accept or reject substances. Dirt is essential listening for anyone wishing to understand how we shape our environment.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,893
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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A Million Years in a Day
- A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age
- By: Greg Jenner
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 80
Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super interesting!
- By Brandon on 07-07-16
By: Greg Jenner
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Victorian London
- The Life of a City, 1840-1870
- By: Liza Picard
- Narrated by: Anton Lesser
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Like her previous books, this book will be the result of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life, and the conditions in which most people lived, so often left out of history books. This period of mid-Victorian London encompasses a huge range of subjects.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unforgettable journey into the past
- By Adeliese Baumann on 05-27-18
By: Liza Picard
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How to Be a Tudor
- A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life
- By: Ruth Goodman
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 554
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 477
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 468
On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Tudor conditions, Goodman serves as our intrepid guide to 16th-century living. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of those who labored through the era.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book!
- By Kathi on 02-18-16
By: Ruth Goodman
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Chaucer's People
- Everyday Lives in Medieval England
- By: Liza Picard
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court-men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, or maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. In Chaucer's People, Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a masterful guide for a gloriously detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London. In Chaucer's People, we meet, again, the motley crew of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A delight
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Liza Picard
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The Road to Wigan Pier
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,652
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,402
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,395
When Orwell went to England in the 30's to find out how industrial workers lived, he not only observed but shared in their experiences. He stayed in cramped, dreary lodgings and subsisted on the scant, cheerless diet of the poor. He went down into the coal mines and walked crouching, as the miners did, through a one- to three-mile passage too low to stand up in. He watched the back-breaking, dangerous labor of men whose net pay then averaged $575 a year.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Frederick Davidson's a Great Reader
- By Debali on 01-11-09
By: George Orwell
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The Domestic Revolution
- How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything
- By: Ruth Goodman
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
No single invention epitomizes the Victorian era more than the black cast-iron range. Aware that the 21st-century has reduced it to a quaint relic, Ruth Goodman was determined to prove that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea: It might even have kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Wielding the wit and passion seen in How to Be a Victorian, Goodman traces the tectonic shift from wood to coal in the mid-16th century - from sooty trials and errors during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the totally smog-clouded reign of Queen Victoria.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Zombie Apocalypse
- By PeachPecan on 12-25-20
By: Ruth Goodman
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24 Hours in Ancient Rome: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There
- 24 Hours in Ancient History Series, Book 1
- By: Philip Matyszak
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
In this entertaining and enlightening guide, best-selling historian Philip Matyszak introduces us to the people who lived and worked there. In each hour of the day we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Took me back to Latin class and the origin of word
- By tony harris on 05-19-20
By: Philip Matyszak
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Notes on Nursing
- What It Is and What It Isn't
- By: Florence Nightingale
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
These outspoken writings by the founder of modern nursing record fundamentals in the needs of the sick that must be provided in all nursing. Nightingale covers such timeless topics as ventilation, noise, food, bed and bedding, light, cleanliness, and observation of the sick.
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5 out of 5 stars
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"old nurse" from California
- By Mary on 11-22-11
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London
- The Biography
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 32 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
London: The Biography is the pinnacle of Peter Ackroyd's brilliant obsession with the eponymous city. In this unusual and engaging work, Ackroyd brings the listener through time into the city whose institutions and idiosyncrasies have permeated much of his works of fiction and nonfiction. Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book
- By Joann on 01-04-21
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Perfume
- The Story of a Murderer
- By: Patrick Süskind, John E. Woods - translator
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,278
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,279
In the slums of 18th-century France, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift - an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects. Then one day, he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume" - the scent of a beautiful young virgin.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is an unusual, highly entertaining story.
- By Kay Tracy on 02-13-19
By: Patrick Süskind, and others
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A Wayside Tavern
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4 out of 5 stars 30
A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day. The Roman veteran, crippled and left behind, worshipped Mithras, so the place became known as the One Bull and down through the centuries it became a clearing house for contraband, a miniature Hell Fire Club, a fashionable hotel, a mere pub. Across the yard, was the church of St Cerdic, king and martyr, who fought the Danes and was famous for the miracles performed at his shrine.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An enjoyable tale
- By Gordon on 10-07-11
By: Norah Lofts
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Journal of the Plague Year
- By: Daniel Defoe
- Narrated by: Andrew Cullum
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 97
First published in March 1722, 57 years after the event that struck more than 100,000 people, Journal of the Plague Year is a compelling portrait of life during London's horrific bubonic plague. Through the eyes of H.F. (speculated to be Defoe's uncle, Henry Foe, from whose journals the book was supposedly adapted) we witness great grief, depravity and despair: crazed sufferers roam the streets, unearthly screams resound across the city, death carts dump their grisly loads into mass graves, and quackery and skulduggery feed on fear. But there is kindness and courage too, as mutual support and caring are upheld through the worst of days.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The novel as journalism
- By Tad Davis on 12-22-18
By: Daniel Defoe
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The Second Book of General Ignorance
- Everything You Think You Know Is (Still) Wrong
- By: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong.
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5 out of 5 stars
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It's all stuff from QI
- By Bonnie Kennedy on 04-07-21
By: John Lloyd, and others
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Mudlark
- In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames
- By: Lara Maiklem
- Narrated by: Xanthe Elbrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
A quixotic journey through London's past, Mudlark plumbs the banks of the Thames to reveal the stories hidden behind the archaeological remnants of an ancient city. Long heralded as a city treasure herself, expert "mudlarker" Lara Maiklem is uniquely trained in the art of seeking. Tirelessly trekking across miles of the Thames' muddy shores, where others only see the detritus of city life, Maiklem unearths evidence of England's captivating, if sometimes murky, history - with some objects dating back to 43 AD, when London was but an outpost of the Roman Empire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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thoroughly enjoyed
- By j on 11-21-20
By: Lara Maiklem