Hamnet

De: Maggie O'Farrell

Narrado por: Jessie Buckley

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, directed by ACADEMY AWARD® winner Chloé Zhao.

The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare’s eleven-year-old son, Hamnet, and the years leading up to the production of his great play.

"Miraculous... brilliant... A novel told with the urgency of a whispered prayer — or curse... A richly drawn and intimate portrait of 16th-century English life set against the arrival of one devastating death." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.

Amazing, amazing, amazing book

Jesse Buckley took this story to a place that left me absolutely breathless. Her exquisite and glorious rendition brought the characters to life in a way I’ve rarely seen matched. Just sublime.

An emotional masterpiece!

This is the first book that I have read/listened too by Maggie O’ Farrell, and it is fantastic. The prose is beautiful and Maggie is a master of the English language. The story is also emotional and heartbreaking, with a powerful ending. And Jessie Buckley’s narration is extraordinary. I give this book 5 stars all around!

Narrator was beyond wonderful!!! Brought the words to life.

This author is a favorite. Her descriptive prose is delicious, her characters multi-dimensional yet straightforward, and choosing to never use the name Shakespeare reveals her total commitment to the story, not the subject.

Gorgeous

A stunning tale of grief and how a family deals with it in their own ways.

Tudor England as the backdrop for universal timeless truths. The best I’ve listened to in years.

“This is a work of historical fiction,” says the author. And so it is, but also so much more. It transcends that genre or any; it is a tale of grief, loss, complex relationship, self-determination, and redemption. A tale of human inadequacy, but striving. That Shakespeare is never named is such a stunning choice. Absolute brilliance. I love Agnes so dearly and relate to her so strongly. All of the characters though are so truly richly drawn. It absolutely transports you to tutoring England. But the themes are more than relevant for the current-day reader. The narration is subtle perfection, not only channeling the absolute beauty of the language of the prose, but breathing life into the spaces between the words.