-
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris, Paula Wilcox
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 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
Buy for $25.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Bone Clocks
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
-
-
Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
-
Number9Dream
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister's death and his mother's breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses - through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck - a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father's identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer.
-
-
Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé
- By Darwin8u on 06-03-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Utopia Avenue
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Utopia Avenue is the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Emerging from London’s psychedelic scene in 1967, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief, blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and drafty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the cusp of chart success, and on to glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome, and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968. David Mitchell’s captivating new novel tells the unexpurgated story of Utopia Avenue. Can we change the world in turbulent times, or does the world change us?
-
-
1960s Nostalgia Served David Mitchell-Style.
- By Nick O. on 07-20-20
By: David Mitchell
-
Ghostwritten
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters - a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York - hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact.
-
-
An Embryonic Version of Cloud Atlas
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By Elizabeth on 01-05-08
By: David Mitchell
-
Black Swan Green
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in dying Cold War England, 1982. But the 13 chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest and most effective achievement to date.
-
-
Captivating
- By Angie on 06-28-06
By: David Mitchell
-
The Bone Clocks
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
-
-
Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
-
Number9Dream
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister's death and his mother's breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses - through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck - a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father's identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer.
-
-
Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé
- By Darwin8u on 06-03-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Utopia Avenue
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Utopia Avenue is the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Emerging from London’s psychedelic scene in 1967, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief, blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and drafty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the cusp of chart success, and on to glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome, and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968. David Mitchell’s captivating new novel tells the unexpurgated story of Utopia Avenue. Can we change the world in turbulent times, or does the world change us?
-
-
1960s Nostalgia Served David Mitchell-Style.
- By Nick O. on 07-20-20
By: David Mitchell
-
Ghostwritten
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters - a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York - hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact.
-
-
An Embryonic Version of Cloud Atlas
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By Elizabeth on 01-05-08
By: David Mitchell
-
Black Swan Green
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in dying Cold War England, 1982. But the 13 chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest and most effective achievement to date.
-
-
Captivating
- By Angie on 06-28-06
By: David Mitchell
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Slade House
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Thomas Judd, Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you'll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won't want to leave. Later, you'll find that you can't. Every nine years, the house's residents - an odd brother and sister - extend a unique invitation to someone who's different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it's already too late....
-
-
Grief is an amputation
- By Darwin8u on 10-29-15
By: David Mitchell
-
Cloud Cuckoo Land
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Simon Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
-
-
Academic Snobbery
- By TVR on 10-03-21
By: Anthony Doerr
-
Wolf Hall
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Ben Miles
- Length: 25 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
-
-
Superb narration, but keep a character index at hand
- By Oculus on 12-27-20
By: Hilary Mantel
-
The Evening and the Morning
- Kingsbridge, Book 4
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
-
-
I was really waiting for this book!
- By Firebolt on 09-20-20
By: Ken Follett
-
The Anarchy
- The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting audiobook to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
-
-
excellent book but awkward narration
- By TexasVC on 02-25-20
-
Hannibal Rising
- By: Thomas Harris
- Narrated by: Thomas Harris
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal’s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle’s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. But Hannibal’s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.
-
-
Good book, good narration
- By User33 on 12-25-06
By: Thomas Harris
-
The Garden of Evening Mists
- By: Tan Twan Eng
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp.
-
-
The best
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 03-11-13
By: Tan Twan Eng
-
Austerlitz
- By: W. G. Sebald
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Austerlitz, the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by "one of the most gripping writers imaginable" ( The New York Review of Books), is the story of a man's search for the answer to his life's central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him.
-
-
To each their own
- By Sebastian Romero on 04-23-20
By: W. G. Sebald
-
A Tale of Two Cities [Tantor]
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Doctor Manette was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years without trial by the aristocratic authorities.
-
-
it's the singer not the song*
- By Maynard on 11-09-13
By: Charles Dickens
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
-
The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
- By Michael on 10-13-12
By: Dan Simmons
-
Speaks the Nightbird
- By: Robert R. McCammon
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 30 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Carolinas, 1699: The citizens of Fount Royal believe a witch has cursed their town with inexplicable tragedies -- and they demand that beautiful widow Rachel Howarth be tried and executed for witchcraft. Presiding over the trial is traveling magistrate Issac Woodward, aided by his astute young clerk, Matthew Corbett. Believing in Rachel's innocence, Matthew will soon confront the true evil at work in Fount Royal....
-
-
Dark, Twisted Period Piece with GREAT Characters!
- By aaron on 06-05-12
Publisher's summary
A Booker finalist and Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winner, David Mitchell was called “prodigiously daring and imaginative” by Time and “a genius” by the New York Times Book Review.
The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.
But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur, until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”
Critic reviews
More from the same
Narrator
Related to this topic
-
The Lioness of Morocco
- By: Julia Drosten, Christiane Galvani - translator
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Independent-minded Sibylla Spencer feels trapped in 19th-century London, where her strong will and progressive views have rendered her unmarriageable. Still single at 23, she is treated like a child and feels stifled in her controlling father's house. When Benjamin Hopkins, an ambitious employee of her father's trading company, shows an interest in her, she realizes marriage is her only chance to escape.
-
-
The Lioness o Morocco
- By MM on 06-23-17
By: Julia Drosten, and others
-
The Red Wolf Conspiracy
- By: Robert V. S. Redick
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Imperial Merchant Ship Chathrand is the last of her kind. Six hundred years old, the secrets of her construction long forgotten, the massive vessel dwarfs every other sailing craft in the world. It is a palace with sails, a floating outpost of the Empire of Arqual. And it is on its most vital mission yet: to deliver a young woman whose marriage will seal the peace between Arqual and its mortal enemy, the secretive Mzithrin Empire.
-
-
Not Bad, not great.
- By Aerindel on 10-15-09
-
The Architect's Apprentice
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Piter Marek
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1540, 12-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan's menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan's beautiful daughter Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire's chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota's help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history.
-
-
I feel like I should like it more than I do
- By nyog on 04-19-17
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Speckled Monster
- A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
- By: Jennifer Lee Carrell
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Speckled Monster is both a hair-raising tale of courage in the face of the deadliest disease that has ever struck mankind, and a gripping account of the birth of modern immunology. Jennifer Lee Carrell's dramatic story follows two parents who, after barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, flouted 18th century European medical tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. Their heroic struggles gave rise to immunology.
-
-
Wish it was another 19 hours long!
- By Book reader on 06-10-14
-
The Ashes of London
- By: Andrew Taylor
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has been mutilated, and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.
-
-
Entertaining Historical Fiction
- By Simone on 05-01-17
By: Andrew Taylor
-
The School of Mirrors
- A Novel
- By: Eva Stachniak
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the reign of Louis XV, impoverished but lovely teenage girls from all over France are sent to a discreet villa in the town of Versailles. Overseen by the King’s favorite mistress, Madame de Pompadour, they will be trained as potential courtesans for the King. When the time is right, each girl is smuggled into the palace of Versailles, with its legendary Hall of Mirrors.
-
-
Fascinating and Heartbreaking
- By HistoryNerd on 08-21-22
By: Eva Stachniak
-
The Lioness of Morocco
- By: Julia Drosten, Christiane Galvani - translator
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Independent-minded Sibylla Spencer feels trapped in 19th-century London, where her strong will and progressive views have rendered her unmarriageable. Still single at 23, she is treated like a child and feels stifled in her controlling father's house. When Benjamin Hopkins, an ambitious employee of her father's trading company, shows an interest in her, she realizes marriage is her only chance to escape.
-
-
The Lioness o Morocco
- By MM on 06-23-17
By: Julia Drosten, and others
-
The Red Wolf Conspiracy
- By: Robert V. S. Redick
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Imperial Merchant Ship Chathrand is the last of her kind. Six hundred years old, the secrets of her construction long forgotten, the massive vessel dwarfs every other sailing craft in the world. It is a palace with sails, a floating outpost of the Empire of Arqual. And it is on its most vital mission yet: to deliver a young woman whose marriage will seal the peace between Arqual and its mortal enemy, the secretive Mzithrin Empire.
-
-
Not Bad, not great.
- By Aerindel on 10-15-09
-
The Architect's Apprentice
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Piter Marek
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1540, 12-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan's menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan's beautiful daughter Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire's chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota's help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history.
-
-
I feel like I should like it more than I do
- By nyog on 04-19-17
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Speckled Monster
- A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox
- By: Jennifer Lee Carrell
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Speckled Monster is both a hair-raising tale of courage in the face of the deadliest disease that has ever struck mankind, and a gripping account of the birth of modern immunology. Jennifer Lee Carrell's dramatic story follows two parents who, after barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, flouted 18th century European medical tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. Their heroic struggles gave rise to immunology.
-
-
Wish it was another 19 hours long!
- By Book reader on 06-10-14
-
The Ashes of London
- By: Andrew Taylor
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has been mutilated, and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.
-
-
Entertaining Historical Fiction
- By Simone on 05-01-17
By: Andrew Taylor
-
The School of Mirrors
- A Novel
- By: Eva Stachniak
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the reign of Louis XV, impoverished but lovely teenage girls from all over France are sent to a discreet villa in the town of Versailles. Overseen by the King’s favorite mistress, Madame de Pompadour, they will be trained as potential courtesans for the King. When the time is right, each girl is smuggled into the palace of Versailles, with its legendary Hall of Mirrors.
-
-
Fascinating and Heartbreaking
- By HistoryNerd on 08-21-22
By: Eva Stachniak
-
Instruments of Darkness
- A Novel
- By: Imogen Robertson
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the year 1780, Harriet Westerman, the willful mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. Not one to be bound by convention or to shy away from adventure, she recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer, and historical suspense's newest investigative duo is born.
-
-
Not The Best, But Not Too Bad...
- By MJ on 01-13-13
By: Imogen Robertson
-
Black Wolves
- By: Kate Elliott
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 28 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He lost his honor long ago. Captain Kellas was lauded as the king's most faithful servant until the day he failed in his duty. Dismissed from service, his elite regiment disbanded, he left the royal palace and took up another life. Now a battle brews within the palace that threatens to reveal deadly secrets and spill over into open war. The king needs a loyal soldier to protect him. Can a disgraced man ever be trusted?"
-
-
Very engaging. Can't wait for book 2
- By Claudia Alderman on 01-15-16
By: Kate Elliott
-
The Bell Messenger
- By: Robert Cornuke
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adventurer and author Robert Cornuke delivers an archaeological thriller that crosses the globe and spans two centuries. With these hopeful words, a dying Confederate lad bequeaths his Bible to the Union soldier who just shot him: "Be God's messenger as I have been." And so begins the journey of Elijah Bell's cherished Bible as it travels the world, transforming hearts wherever it goes.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Pamela on 12-26-10
By: Robert Cornuke
-
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
- By: Kelly Link - editor, Gavin J. Grant - editor
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes, Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, and intrepid orphans - decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots - solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
-
-
MMMM, Orca Bacon
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 09-14-13
By: Kelly Link - editor, and others
-
The Bastard
- The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the colorful tumult of events that gave rise to our fledgling nation, this novel of romance and adventure introduces Phillipe Charboneau. The illegitimate son of an English nobleman, Phillipe flees Europe and, as Philip Kent, joins the men who set our course for freedom. The Bastard is the first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, a series of novels that details one family's journey in the early years of the American nation.
-
-
An Amazing Tale
- By will on 11-06-13
By: John Jakes
-
Impyrium
- By: Henry H. Neff
- Narrated by: Kim Mai Guest
- Length: 19 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For over 3,000 years, the Faeregine dynasty has ruled Impyrium. But the family's magic has been fading, and with it their power over the empire. Whether it's treachery from a rival house, the demon Lirlanders, or rebel forces, many believe the Faeregines are ripe to fall. Hazel, the youngest member of the royal family, is happy to leave ruling to her sisters so that she can study her magic. But the empress has other plans for her granddaughter, dark and dangerous plans to exploit Hazel's talents and rekindle the Faeregine mystique.
-
-
Amazing! Can't wait for the next book in the series.
- By Reddings on 03-11-17
By: Henry H. Neff
-
The Winthrop Woman
- By: Anya Seton
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 27 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1631 Elizabeth Winthrop, newly widowed with an infant daughter, set sail for the New World. Against a background of rigidity and conformity she dared to befriend Anne Hutchinson at the moment of her banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony; dared to challenge a determined army captain bent on the massacre of her friends, the Siwanoy Indians; and, above all, dared to love a man as her heart and her whole being commanded.
-
-
Historical Fiction that Aged Very Well
- By Lulu on 11-26-14
By: Anya Seton
-
March
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Richard Easton
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story "filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man" (Sue Monk Kidd). With "pitch-perfect writing" (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs.
-
-
Great book, greatly narrated
- By Paula on 07-30-06
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
-
-
Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
-
The Janissary Tree
- A Novel
- By: Jason Goodwin
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Togalu, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
-
-
Interesting premise, annoying narrator
- By Phillipa Somerville on 09-18-07
By: Jason Goodwin
-
Shaman's Crossing, Book One of the Soldier Son Trilogy
- By: Robin Hobb
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 24 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Robin Hobb crafts intricate fantasy tales featuring larger-than-life characters and exotic landscapes. Nevare Burvelle survives the King’s Cavalla Academy—where nepotism and corruption reign—to become a soldier in the Gernian king’s army. As he and his fellow soldiers are thrust onto the front lines of the king’s brutal territorial expansion campaign, they struggle against the Plainspeople—forest-dwellers who possess a powerful magic long dismissed by the Gernians.
-
-
Sometimes Magic Isn't A Good Thing
- By Therese M. Woolley on 10-18-13
By: Robin Hobb
-
The Book of Magic
- By: Gardner Dozois - editor, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, and others
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Sile Bermingham, Maxwell Caulfield, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois's acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf... and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda... and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore... and Severus Snape? Figures of wisdom and power, possessing arcane, often forbidden knowledge, wizards and sorcerers are shaped - or misshaped - by the potent magic they seek to wield.
-
-
Very Good, With One Objection
- By Kindle Customer on 05-05-20
By: Gardner Dozois - editor, and others
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Number9Dream
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister's death and his mother's breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses - through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck - a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father's identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer.
-
-
Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé
- By Darwin8u on 06-03-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Ghostwritten
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters - a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York - hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact.
-
-
An Embryonic Version of Cloud Atlas
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: David Mitchell
-
The Bone Clocks
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
-
-
Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
-
Utopia Avenue
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Utopia Avenue is the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Emerging from London’s psychedelic scene in 1967, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief, blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and drafty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the cusp of chart success, and on to glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome, and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968. David Mitchell’s captivating new novel tells the unexpurgated story of Utopia Avenue. Can we change the world in turbulent times, or does the world change us?
-
-
1960s Nostalgia Served David Mitchell-Style.
- By Nick O. on 07-20-20
By: David Mitchell
-
Slade House
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Thomas Judd, Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you'll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won't want to leave. Later, you'll find that you can't. Every nine years, the house's residents - an odd brother and sister - extend a unique invitation to someone who's different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it's already too late....
-
-
Grief is an amputation
- By Darwin8u on 10-29-15
By: David Mitchell
-
Black Swan Green
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in dying Cold War England, 1982. But the 13 chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest and most effective achievement to date.
-
-
Captivating
- By Angie on 06-28-06
By: David Mitchell
-
Number9Dream
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister's death and his mother's breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses - through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck - a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father's identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer.
-
-
Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé
- By Darwin8u on 06-03-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Ghostwritten
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: William Rycroft
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters - a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York - hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact.
-
-
An Embryonic Version of Cloud Atlas
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: David Mitchell
-
The Bone Clocks
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
-
-
Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
-
Utopia Avenue
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Utopia Avenue is the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Emerging from London’s psychedelic scene in 1967, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief, blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and drafty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the cusp of chart success, and on to glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome, and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968. David Mitchell’s captivating new novel tells the unexpurgated story of Utopia Avenue. Can we change the world in turbulent times, or does the world change us?
-
-
1960s Nostalgia Served David Mitchell-Style.
- By Nick O. on 07-20-20
By: David Mitchell
-
Slade House
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Thomas Judd, Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you'll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won't want to leave. Later, you'll find that you can't. Every nine years, the house's residents - an odd brother and sister - extend a unique invitation to someone who's different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it's already too late....
-
-
Grief is an amputation
- By Darwin8u on 10-29-15
By: David Mitchell
-
Black Swan Green
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in dying Cold War England, 1982. But the 13 chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell's subtlest and most effective achievement to date.
-
-
Captivating
- By Angie on 06-28-06
By: David Mitchell
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By Elizabeth on 01-05-08
By: David Mitchell
-
Unruly
- The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.
-
-
Hugely Entertaining (If You Like English History)
- By Jean Ogg on 10-09-23
By: David Mitchell
-
Behaving Ourselves
- David Mitchell on Manners
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 1 hr and 50 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the series, David eats his lunchtime sandwiches with children in a primary school and later goes to a street market to see manners - good and bad - in action. He explores where our manners come from with Professor Steven Pinker from Harvard University and the author Henry Hitchings. What do we mean by 'civility' and 'good manners' in public places? Why are people still pinching vicars' bottoms, and what can the state do to improve standards of public behaviour? And, David asks, how is the digital age changing our sense of public space?
-
-
Fascinating Subject Matter! Pithy! Insightful!
- By MJCLAXDEN on 05-24-21
By: David Mitchell
-
Cloud of Sparrows
- By: Takashi Matsuoka
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1861, foreign ships have forced open Japan's doors to the West. Missionaries have come to Japan; they are there to save men's souls, but to the Japanese they are there to spread false religion. The young Lord Genji, who possesses the power of prophecy, flees to the Cloud of Sparrows castle, where he shelters two American missionaries. Together with a legendary swordsman and an enigmatic geisha, they embark on a harrowing journey through a dangerous landscape to prepare for a final battle.
-
-
Interesting but...
- By Blackmac on 06-10-06
By: Takashi Matsuoka
-
Super Sad True Love Story
- A Novel
- By: Gary Shteyngart
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Adam Grupper
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, creates a compelling reality in this tale about an illiterate America in the not-too-distant future. Lenny Abramov may just be penning the world’s last diary. Which is good, because while falling in love with a rather unpleasant woman and witnessing the fall of a great empire, Lenny has a lot to write about.
-
-
Dystopia Now
- By Ryan on 09-19-10
By: Gary Shteyngart
-
That Mitchell and Webb Sound: The Complete Series 1-5
- The BBC Radio 4 Comedy Show
- By: David Mitchell, Robert Webb
- Narrated by: David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Olivia Colman, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the inside-out world of Mitchell and Webb, a strange and surreal place populated by misfits, eccentrics, talking animals and a few stray Radio 4 arts programme presenters. Included here are all five series of their fantastically skewed comedy show, packed with offbeat sketches and peculiar characters. Meet seedy snooker commentators Ted and Peter; poorly matched crime-fighting duo Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit; a cop who doesn't get results but, by God, he does things by the book; and some nervous Nazis who've just noticed their caps have skulls on them.
-
-
Classic comedy from an underrated duo
- By R. T. Watkins on 10-17-23
By: David Mitchell, and others
-
David Mitchell: Back Story
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life.
-
-
One of the Funniest, Clever Brits around
- By Delia on 08-30-13
By: David Mitchell
-
Alias Hook
- By: Lisa Jensen
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of Pan's rules. From the glamour of the Fairy Revels to the secret ceremonies of the First Tribes to the mysterious underwater temple beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the magical forces of the Neverland open up for Stella as they never have for Hook.
-
-
Brilliant, captivating and clever
- By kimbacaffeinate on 08-19-14
By: Lisa Jensen
-
A Piece of String
- By: Guy de Maupassant
- Narrated by: Cornelius Garrett
- Length: 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does picking up a piece of string lead to a poor old man's death? Find out in this Guy de Maupassant tale, narrated by actor Cornelius Garrett.
-
-
Fable of the Protesting Snowball
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 01-20-21
-
Dishonesty Is the Second-Best Policy
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Mitchell’s 2014 best seller Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse must really have made people think - because everything’s got worse. We’ve gone from UKIP surge to Brexit shambles, from horsemeat in lasagne to Donald Trump in the White House, from Woolworths going under to all the other shops going under. It’s probably socially irresponsible even to try to cheer up.
-
-
Meant for UK listeners
- By Maggie May on 11-19-19
By: David Mitchell
-
Train Dreams
- A Novella
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West—its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders—this extraordinary novella poignantly captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life. It tells the story of Robert Grainer, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world.
-
-
2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist
- By Louis on 06-20-12
By: Denis Johnson
-
Freedom
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: David LeDoux
- Length: 24 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.
-
-
Believe the Hype
- By L. Kerr on 09-07-10
By: Jonathan Franzen
What listeners say about The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Trustme
- 07-28-10
Good But Uneven
I enjoyed this book, but I found it to be uneven. The author tells the story episodically, focusing in turn on several characters. The first part off the book focuses on the Dutchmen Jacob and the trading factory at Nagasaki. I found the characters and plot very engaging. Then he shifts gears to focus for the most part on the Japanese characters in another subplot. There is a necessary change of pace when going from a bustling seaport to a monastery, but I found that the book became significantly less engaging through about the middle third of the recording. Like everything was at one remove. The artistic intent was there, but at times it felt contrived & too slow. The plot elements and characters are in place, but the author didn't draw me in the way he had earlier in the novel. Then in the last third of the novel, the vigor came back.
There were a couple of places in the recording where there were silent gaps of up to a minute that made me wonder if parts of the book were unintentionally omitted in the recording and editing process. There is a much anticipated taiphoon that is not described. Audible should review these recordings from start to finish before they are posted for download.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
58 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 08-13-12
A NEAR Perfect Novel.
Mitchell's got the precision of Roth, the bigness of Tolstoy, the ventriloquism of Pynchon and the heart of ... Hugo perhaps. IT is rare for me to find a book that hits me as hard as this one did. A near perfect novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
57 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Camrog
- 07-27-10
Superb historical fiction
Booker Prize nominees rarely disappoint and this is no exception ... deeply engaging characters and plot immersed in a fascinating historical setting -- very reminiscent of the Aubrey-Maturin novels. Excellent narration.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
40 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Alice
- 07-18-10
The Thousand Autoumns of Jacob de Zoet
This book is set in old Japan when the Dutch were trading. I enjoyed it and will warn the reader that it moves a bit slower than some audiobooks that I have read.
I would probably have given it 5 stars but something is wrong in the third part and it repeats.
I also don't know if it is the fault of the author or if the audio book has skipped some chapters because it seems to have all the loose ends pull together in one chapter which I found to be quite sudden. Otherwise, I did enjoy the book, except for these problems.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
39 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Porter
- 07-31-10
The Thousand Voices of narration overkill
Once again, a cast-of-thousands narration has irreparably damaged a major writing effort. As happens in Roxana Ortega's trivializing narration of Jennifer Egan's A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, the narration here of David Mitchell's THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET turns a 19-hour audiobook into an exhausting Babel. Unlike the Egan book, this novel, itself, is a disappointment. C.S. Godshalk's remarkable 1998 KALIMANTAAN (woefully not represented in the Audible library) is a far more compelling tale of Old World travel in the East and devastating cultural clashes in an exotic past. Mitchell's new effort is no CLOUD ATLAS, and nowhere near as good as the superb Dave Eggers' review in the Times might lead you to think. Publisher's Weekly called this Mitchell's "busman's holiday." Exactly. Traditionalism on wheels. Dutch traders in the far-offs. And like Clancy, Mitchell may have sailed into the realms of the monster-maestro whom no one dares approach with a red pencil. Excruciatingly long birth scenes, beheading scenes, other bodily-fluids scenes are flanked by deep descriptions of squalor in early 19th-century Japan. Vivid, sure. So is a stunning sunset. Imagine hearing readers deploy accents and funny voices describing every nook, cranny and hue in the clouds of that sunset. What's the alternative? Check Campbell Scott's reading of Henry Miller's TROPIC OF CANCER. No circus of French accents in Paris, it's a riveting, meditative reading of the book in one voice. Scott serves Miller's art as Jonathan Aris and Paula Wilcox do not serve Mitchell's. We need them to read the book, not perform it. And this trend to cast-of-thousands narrations is a mistake, as when Disney turned Broadway into a show on ice. It's a small, small world between your ears, with room for two minds – yours and your author's. As a reader co-creates a book, so should a listener co-create that literature on headphones. Even if it does take a THOUSAND AUTUMNS to get to the end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
36 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 10-26-12
Less about the arrival more about the ride
Exquisitely crafted and beautifully performed!
I confess to getting lost among the plethora of characters and situations; often struggling to remember who was who and what they were up to. I sometimes felt as though I were sitting too close to a large painting, only able to see details but unable to see the big picture.
In the beginning I occasionally felt like giving up, but decided to simply step back and enjoy the ride; hoping that, eventually, things would come together and the fog would clear.
The ride was fascinating; even when I wasn't always following the intrigues. Just being in this place; witnessing this culture, and its characters, was enough to keep me listening. I left like an observer who, while I didn't always know what it was all about, was fascinated by the personalities, the voices, the conditions and the strangeness of the Japanese culture of the period.
As it turned out I found myself enjoying many Aha moments, as pieces suddenly fell into place and situations became clear.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
32 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ramon
- 06-17-11
Compelling intricate story
It is a story that immediately demand your attention. Its setting is very well described and the characters develop nice and evenly and give more depth to the environment the book is placed in. At times it can be hard to keep some of the characters apart, but that doesn't seem to harm the flow of it. Even though the story mainly takes place on a tiny island, it opens up a whole world of intrigues. This book has it all, romance, adventure, science, murder etc etc. Its a shame that the narrators are unable to pronounce the Dutch names better.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
28 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mel
- 03-25-13
A Mediocre Reader Tackles Superior Writing
A book that has been around for a while and extensively reviewed - what can I add that has not already been conveyed? Mitchell is nothing less than brilliant; considered one of the best writers of our time, and hailed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. From experience, I know that reading Mitchell is always rewarding, but I am no intellect, and that reward (for me) comes from straining my average brain. Though I've been wanting to read this book, it has sat in my library with other formidable reads, until I felt ready for some keen commitment.
Fantastic historical fiction that saturates the senses in the time and culture. The themes of honor and treachery, clash of cultures, and mutual ignorance, during a time of enlightenment and expanding global interests were clearly related through the multitude of events. As I listened, the book played out before me like a grand epic tale on a panoramic scope. The linear structure was easier to follow than Cloud Atlas; the links to his other novels were cleverly woven in, as were recurring themes of continuation. The dialogues were amazing, keeping continuity and clarity of character so realistically, you feel sometimes like an eavesdropper. Mitchell says he worked four years on this book, which was obvious in the details that added dimension and authenticity.
The demands of this book are dealing with the throngs of characters, and long periods of time with the arcing stories. The crowds of people are thrown at you like opening the doors to an audience, and the stories cover not only the trajectory of their plots, but also numerous insertions of observations--that at times present themselves like potholes on the path of the story flow. I found these issues compounded by the narration--not by the narrator, but by experiencing this book audibly. This is one case where I would have preferred reading the text. Mitchell's style of writing, his poetic prose and artistic use of language, make each sentence worth examination; he says so much with every single word.
The narrative shifts from Jacob, to Orito, then back to Jacob; some reviewers mentioned they felt Orito's narrative dragged and wasn't as engaging--I felt the opposite. The monastery seemed foreboding, foreign, and mysterious. Her mad-like musings to the mouse, the pot, the broom, added a mythical and exotic element. Finally, I admit that my average brain sometimes drifted off during parts of this very long book, and I felt the details were arduous. But, that may not be the fault of the author, but rather the result of a mediocre reader tackling superior writing. Highly recommend to those that want to spend some time listening to a beautifully written, unforgettable story, that educates and entertains.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
26 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Susan
- 08-03-10
Didn't want it to end
Wonderful story and beautifully narrated. I was transported into a different land - and resented having to lever myself back into the "real" world when I had to turn it off. The character's different voices, accents, and names were quite clear. Not sure how they did that!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
23 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan
- 10-27-11
Not quite a masterpiece, but strong accomplishment
I loved Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, for its invention, its haunting imagery, and its wonderfully varied collection of characters and voices. However, it was more a series of thematically-linked vignettes than a true novel. In The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeSoet, Mitchell puts his undeniable imagination and talent to work in a more traditional work of long fiction. All in all, much of what I enjoyed most about Cloud Atlas -- the colorful characters and their unique vocabularies and mannerisms, the historically-based but somewhat fanciful quality of the writing, the posing of deeper questions about human morality and relationships -- is here in this book. Anyone who's a fan of David Mitchell won't be disappointed.
That said, I think what worked well so well in Cloud Atlas's loose pastiche doesn't expand perfectly into a longer story. For all Mitchell's skill as a writer, the larger plot arc is somewhat pedestrian, and the three parts of the tale join a bit awkwardly. Interesting characters and examinations of issues fill the reader's attention for a while, then disappear for whole chapters, if not the rest of the book. I wondered if the work had started out as a collection of short vignettes and episodes, a la Cloud Atlas, but had been turned into a novel. Also, Mitchell wears his political leanings a bit on his sleeve at times -- there's a strong cynicism to his portrayal of capitalism and its authority figures.
But, these issues are minor next to the sheer mastery of the writing. There are brilliant, beautiful passages and scenes. The dialogues and interactions between characters are filled with depth, humor, and subtlety. Even if Mitchell uses some obvious 21st century artistic license, his turn-of-the-19th-century sea captains, petty officers, salt-of-the-earth sailors, samurai, doctors, magistrates, and translators are wonderfully rendered. Obviously, much research went into the novel. If the whole felt segmented to me, each segment is engrossing. One is never sure what will happen next, or to whom, and by the time the story nears its climax, only the most jaded reader, I think, will be able to put the book down. The melancholic ending almost had me tearing up.
Is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeSoet as imaginative and daring a work as Cloud Atlas? No. Is it as exquisitely written? Yes.
Audio note: the reader does a generally fine job with the personalities and accents of the various European characters. However, I found his choice to give British accents to different Japanese characters (whenever the narrative is from a Japanese viewpoint) a little disconcerting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
22 people found this helpful