Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

A Comic Chronicle of Innocents Abroad in the 1920s

By: Cornelia Otis Skinner, Emily Kimbrough

Narrated by: Celeste Lawson

Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Actress Cornelia Otis Skinner and journalist Emily Kimbrough offer a lighthearted, hilarious memoir of their European tour in the 1920s, when they were fresh out of college from Bryn Mawr. Some of the more amusing anecdotes involve a pair of rabbit-skin capes that begin shedding at the most inopportune moments and an episode in which the girls are stranded atop Notre Dame cathedral at midnight. And, of course, there's romance, in the form of handsome young doctor Tom Newhall and college "Lothario" Avery Moore.

Published in 1942, the book spent five weeks at the top of the New York Times best-seller list in the winter of 1943 and was made into a motion picture in 1944.

©1942 Dood, Mead and Company, Inc.; Foreword 2004 by James Mustich, Jr. (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Snorting with laughter...!

Although I own this book in hardcover, it has been a long time since I read it. I used one of my credits to acquire it from Audible recently, and one day instead of listening to classic rock, I started this up on my iPOD on a marathon walk. I walk daily, very long and very fast.

Let me tell you, breaking out into laughter, so hard one even snorts, is quite disruptive to one's aerobic breathing! And genuinely fun :D! This is a delightful book that will make you laugh uncontrollably in many places. It is beautifully rendered by Celeste Lawson.

By the way, I have a few fans out there who wave at me and smile but because I have been grinning like a monkey while listening to this charming book, I have doubled my race walking fan club, a nice side bonus of being an Audible devotee.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED comedy! Also so nostalgic of a time gone by and what it is like to be young...

Narration falls far short

I've been recommended this book as being a witty story full of lighthearted humour. I think that isn't too far from the truth but I couldn't abide by the narration which seemed to me monotonous and devoid of any of the liveliness the story warants. A shame.

Classic, great book

I adore this book, and have since I first read it in 9th grade. It's at times side-splittingly funny, describing two bright Bryn Mawr College students traveling in England and France just after World War I. The one great disappointment is the reader, who misses dry humor and uses a nearly sentimental voice in sarcastic/sardonic passages. But, the book is great enough to look past that...

Delighted to find this fave on Audible!

I discovered this book as a teen in my high school library and it has been the one book I've read and reread the most over the years. When I discovered a local bookseller of rare and used books Our Hearts Were Young and Gay was first on my list to look for. (They had it and it was a first edition!) It doesn't matter that I've read it countless times (a wild guess would be 30+), I still dissolve into giggles at the authors' misadventures every single time. I was delighted to find it on Audible and can now dive back into Cornelia's and Emily's teenage misadventures in Europe while on the go. Celeste Lawson's performance is delightful!
AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

Charming and hilarious

Old book with enormous wit. Times you must reach for a tissue as the laughter erupts in tears. So clever and innocent

loved it!

such a fun memoir of a lost era. The bedbug scenes had me roaring with laughter.

Can’t stop listening

I have listened to this sweet and funny classic at least three times and have read it as a hard copy at least two more. If you love travel, or Europe, or delightful romps through the 1920s then you will enjoy this book. It’s a memoir that reads as well as any novel and is still as laugh out loud funny as it was long, long ago.

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

This was funnier than I expected! I've also read How Dear to my Heart and the Innocents from Indiana in print version. Fun to have an audio version. Thank you.

Fun through the years!

My mom and I read the story together so many times over the years. It reminds me of her, because it’s both funny and endearing. What a thrill to go abroad with these young girls! The first time I read it I was probably 14, and when I flew across the Pacific whenI was 19, I remembered these girls sailing across the Atlantic together at the same age. I was glad to hear that the narrator seemed to enjoy it like I do!

So inspiring

Such a sweet story of 2 girls just trying to enjoy their youth to the fullest in such a strange time as the 1920s.