-
If Walls Could Talk
- An Intimate History of the Home
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
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If Walls Could Talk
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3 out of 5 stars
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Publisher's summary
Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two "dirty centuries?" Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit?In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. She covers the history of each room and explores what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove-from sauce stirring to breastfeeding, teeth cleaning to masturbation, getting dressed to getting married-providing a compelling account of how the four rooms of the home have evolved from medieval times to today.
Critic reviews
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The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Using secret diaries, unpublished letters, and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.
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Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
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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 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Story4 out of 5 stars 83
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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The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story5 out of 5 stars 120
In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveler's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history—the Regency, or Georgian England. A time of exuberance, thrills, frills, and unchecked bad behavior, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition. Conveying the sights, sounds, and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting—the past not as something to be studied, but as lived experience.
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2 out of 5 stars
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SKIP THIS BOOK
- By Lady Aristotle on 09-05-22
By: Ian Mortimer
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The Housekeeper's Tale
- The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
- By: Tessa Boase
- Narrated by: Tessa Boase
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 239
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Story4 out of 5 stars 214
The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Using secret diaries, unpublished letters, and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Utterly intriguing
- By Pamela Jane on 09-14-17
By: Tessa Boase
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The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England
- A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,255
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,936
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,926
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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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 570
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 488
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 479
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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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 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4 out of 5 stars 41
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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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 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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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Castles, Customs, and Kings
- True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors
- By: Debra Brown, M.M. Bennetts
- Narrated by: Ruth Golding
- Length: 25 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
A compilation of essays from the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, this book provides a wealth of historical information from Roman Britain to early 20th-century England. Over 50 different authors share hundreds of real life stories and tantalizing tidbits discovered while doing research for their own historical novels.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Historical Tidbits
- By Troy on 08-03-15
By: Debra Brown, and others
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A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
- By: Michael Paterson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 87
The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Brief, But Insightful
- By Troy on 07-17-13
By: Michael Paterson
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Ritz and Escoffier
- The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class
- By: Luke Barr
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 378
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 325
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 322
In early August 1889, César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier highly regarded for his exquisite taste, found himself at the Savoy Hotel in London. He had come at the request of Richard D'Oyly Carte, the financier of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operas, who had modernized theater and was now looking to create the world's best hotel. D'Oyly Carte soon seduced Ritz to move to London with his team, which included Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Like Cesar Ritz, a real dandy
- By BenYL on 04-24-18
By: Luke Barr
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Life in a Medieval City
- By: Frances Gies, Joseph Gies
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 85
Life in a Medieval City is the classic account of the year 1250 in the city of Troyes, in modern-day France. Acclaimed historians Frances and Joseph Gies focus on a high point of medieval civilization - before war and the Black Death ravaged Europe - providing a fascinating window into the sophistication of a period we too often dismiss as backward. Urban life in the Middle Ages revolved around the home, often a mixed-use dwelling for burghers with a store or workshop on the ground floor and living quarters upstairs.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Troyes, an old town but a new city
- By Darwin8u on 04-02-18
By: Frances Gies, and others
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What She Ate
- Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories
- By: Laura Shapiro
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Laura Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 157
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 158
A beloved culinary historian's short takes on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking - what they ate and how their attitudes toward food offer surprising new insights into their lives. It's a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but don't think the book's premise...
- By Jay Quintana on 09-15-17
By: Laura Shapiro
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The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
- By: Fay Weldon
- Narrated by: Gemma Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
In New York Magazine, Rhoda Koenig calls The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, "...a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sweet, brutal, and over the top revenge!!
- By Wayne on 04-10-17
By: Fay Weldon
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Wait for Me!
- Memoirs
- By: Deborah Mitford Duchess of Devonshire
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The last of the Mitford Sisters
- By Irene on 01-11-11
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Servants' Hall
- A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance
- By: Margaret Powell
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 307
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 270
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Story4 out of 5 stars 273
Margaret Powell's Below Stairs became a sensation among listeners reveling in the luxury and subtle class warfare of Masterpiece Theatre's hit television series Downton Abbey. Now in the sequel Servants' Hall, Powell tells the true story of Rose, the under-parlourmaid to the Wardham Family at Redlands, who took a shocking step: She eloped with the family's only son, Mr. Gerald.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Memoir of a Bygone Era
- By Michelle N. Lynch on 04-08-15
By: Margaret Powell
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Rose
- My Life in Service to Lady Astor
- By: Rosina Harrison
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 337
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 289
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 285
In 1928, Rosina Harrison arrived at the illustrious household of the Astor family to take up her new position as personal maid to the infamously temperamental Lady Nancy Astor, who sat in Parliament, entertained royalty, and traveled the world. "She's not a lady as you would understand a lady" was the butler's ominous warning. But what no one expected was that the iron-willed Lady Astor was about to meet her match in the no-nonsense, whip-smart girl from the country.
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1 out of 5 stars
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AWFUL!! I was very disappointed.
- By The Louligan on 08-12-13
By: Rosina Harrison
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- From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 212
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