-
A Time of Gifts
- On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
- Narrated by: Crispin Redman
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.15
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the listener with him as far as Hungary.
It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events that were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Between the Woods and the Water
- On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland: The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Narrated by: Crispin Redman
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Silver PEN Award, 1987.The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania.
-
-
Amazing!
- By Mark Schlegel on 03-18-15
-
Words of Mercury
- Tales from a Lifetime of Travel
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Artemis Cooper - editor, Rolf Potts - foreword
- Narrated by: Christopher Oxford
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adventures of Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor, Britain's most beloved traveler, began in 1933, when he embarked on a walk from Holland to Constantinople - the entire length of Europe - at the tender age of 18. Sleeping in barns, monasteries, and, on occasion, aristocratic country houses, the young adventurer made way his through the Old World just as everything was about to change.
By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, and others
-
The Great Railway Bazaar
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's account of his epic journey by rail through Asia. Filled with evocative names of legendary train routes - the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Hikari Super Express to Kyoto, and the Trans-Siberian Express - it describes the many places, cultures, sights and sounds he experienced and the fascinating people he met.
-
-
Just about as good as it gets...
- By david d. on 03-27-11
By: Paul Theroux
-
The Thirty Years War
- By: C. V. Wedgwood
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Initially, the Thirty Years War was precipitated in 1618 by religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. But the conflict soon spread beyond religion to encompass the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire, and then later to the other European powers. By the end, it became simply a dynastic struggle between Bourbon France and Habsburg Spain. And almost all of it was fought out in Germany. Entire regions were depopulated and destroyed.
-
-
One of the World's Great History Books.
- By Judith A. Weller on 08-25-12
By: C. V. Wedgwood
-
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
- By: Eric Newby
- Narrated by: James Bryce
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, northeast of Kabul. Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than some tips from a Welsh waitress), the amateurish rogues embarked on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth.
-
-
Travel classic
- By M M on 02-21-21
By: Eric Newby
-
Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
-
-
Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
-
Between the Woods and the Water
- On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland: The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Narrated by: Crispin Redman
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Silver PEN Award, 1987.The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania.
-
-
Amazing!
- By Mark Schlegel on 03-18-15
-
Words of Mercury
- Tales from a Lifetime of Travel
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Artemis Cooper - editor, Rolf Potts - foreword
- Narrated by: Christopher Oxford
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adventures of Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor, Britain's most beloved traveler, began in 1933, when he embarked on a walk from Holland to Constantinople - the entire length of Europe - at the tender age of 18. Sleeping in barns, monasteries, and, on occasion, aristocratic country houses, the young adventurer made way his through the Old World just as everything was about to change.
By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, and others
-
The Great Railway Bazaar
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's account of his epic journey by rail through Asia. Filled with evocative names of legendary train routes - the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Hikari Super Express to Kyoto, and the Trans-Siberian Express - it describes the many places, cultures, sights and sounds he experienced and the fascinating people he met.
-
-
Just about as good as it gets...
- By david d. on 03-27-11
By: Paul Theroux
-
The Thirty Years War
- By: C. V. Wedgwood
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Initially, the Thirty Years War was precipitated in 1618 by religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. But the conflict soon spread beyond religion to encompass the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire, and then later to the other European powers. By the end, it became simply a dynastic struggle between Bourbon France and Habsburg Spain. And almost all of it was fought out in Germany. Entire regions were depopulated and destroyed.
-
-
One of the World's Great History Books.
- By Judith A. Weller on 08-25-12
By: C. V. Wedgwood
-
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
- By: Eric Newby
- Narrated by: James Bryce
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, northeast of Kabul. Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than some tips from a Welsh waitress), the amateurish rogues embarked on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth.
-
-
Travel classic
- By M M on 02-21-21
By: Eric Newby
-
Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
-
-
Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
-
The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- By: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - translator
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.
-
-
Lucidity whilst Civilization reverts to barbarism
- By none on 06-25-17
By: Stefan Zweig, and others
-
Danubia
- A Personal History of Habsburg Europe
- By: Simon Winder
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the end of the Middle Ages to the First World War, Europe was dominated by one family: the Habsburgs. Their unprecedented rule is the focus of Simon Winder's vivid third book, Danubia. This is a narrative that, while erudite and well researched, prefers to be discursive and anecdotal. In his survey of the centuries of often incompetent Habsburg rule which have continued to shape the fate of Central Europe, Winder does not shy away from the horrors, railing against the effects of nationalism, recounting the violence that was often part of life.
-
-
Magnificent history of the Habsburg Empire
- By Skeptical on 10-25-18
By: Simon Winder
-
The Hare with Amber Eyes
- A Hidden Inheritance
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in 19th-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection.
-
-
A vagabond through history, clutching a tiny carvi
- By SB Price on 01-19-12
By: Edmund de Waal
-
Venice
- By: Jan Morris
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Venice stands, as she loves to tell you, on the frontiers of the east and west, half-way between the setting and the rising sun. Goethe calls her "the market-place of the Morning and the Evening lands". Certainly no city on earth gives a more immediate impression of symmetry and unity, or seems more patently born to greatness.
-
-
Incredible breadth and depth!
- By Sharon Hibbert on 09-08-24
By: Jan Morris
-
Timon of Athens
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Alan Howard, Norman Rodway, Damian Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fabulously rich Timon believes all his friends to be as open-hearted and generous as himself. When his wealth suddenly evaporates, however, he discovers the truth and his altruism turns to a bitter hatred of mankind. Stirred up by the cynical Apemantus, Timon retreats to the woods where he plots the destruction of Athens, the city that had formerly seemed to embody everything pleasurable and civilized. The cosmic scope of his hatred is communicated in a series of powerful and disturbing dramatic tableaux.
-
-
Here lies a wretched corse of wretched soul bereft
- By Darwin8u on 11-01-17
-
The Tempest
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ehle, Adrian Lester, Bob Peck, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 11 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This haunting drama of vengeance and forgiveness crowns the group of tragicomic romances that Shakespeare composed at the end of his career. Sometimes read as his farewell to the stage, the play contains some of Shakespeare's most lyrical verse. Prospero, wise Duke of Milan, has been deposed by Antonio, his wicked brother, and exiled with his daughter Miranda to a mysterious island. But Prospero possesses supernatural powers. Aided by the spirit Ariel, Prospero uses his magical art to bring his enemies under his control.
-
-
Love ArkAngel's interpretation of Shakespeare
- By lavalleem on 12-10-16
-
Shadow of the Silk Road
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.
-
-
prose meets poetry
- By Paul on 11-05-07
By: Colin Thubron
-
Diamonds, Gold, and War
- The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced upon the world’s richest deposits of diamonds and gold, setting off a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land. The result was the costliest, bloodiest, and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century, and the devastation of the Boer republics.
-
-
Engrossing story on the evolution of the modern SA
- By Cary on 05-23-14
By: Martin Meredith
-
Seven Years in Tibet
- By: Heinrich Harrer, Richard Graves
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landmark in travel writing, this is the incredible true story of Heinrich Harrer’s escape across the Himalayas to Tibet, set against the backdrop of the Second World War. Heinrich Harrer, already one of the greatest mountaineers of his time, was climbing in the Himalayas when war broke out in Europe. He was imprisoned by the British in India but succeeded in escaping and fled to Tibet.
-
-
An Adventure Classic
- By Jean on 01-29-16
By: Heinrich Harrer, and others
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Detailed, Interesting and Entertaining
- By Marc-Andr? on 05-13-10
By: Ian Mortimer
-
Why the Dutch Are Different
- A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
- By: Ben Coates
- Narrated by: Ciaran Saward
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history, and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch Are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.
-
-
Good Start, Then He Goes Dark
- By amazonnance on 12-17-21
By: Ben Coates
-
Undaunted Courage
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 21 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River, across the forbidding Rockies, and - by way of the Snake and the Columbia rivers - down to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, endured incredible hardships and witnessed astounding sights. With great perseverance, they worked their way into an unexplored West. When they returned two years later, they had long since been given up for dead.
-
-
Narration kills a great book
- By Kindle Customer on 02-10-08
Critic reviews
"Not only is the journey one of physical adventure but of cultural awakening. Architecture, art, genealogy, quirks of history and language are all devoured - and here passed on - with a gusto uniquely his" (Colin Thubron, Sunday Telegraph)
"Rightly considered to be among the most beautiful travel books in the language" ( Independent)
Related to this topic
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
- By: Kij Johnson
- Narrated by: Kij Johnson
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women's College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.
-
-
it took me a few trys to ger through this audio
- By Melanie on 05-13-17
By: Kij Johnson
-
The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
-
-
A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
-
Shadow of the Silk Road
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.
-
-
prose meets poetry
- By Paul on 11-05-07
By: Colin Thubron
-
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 31 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Vladimir Nabokov, the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and the 1950s, these 68 tales — 14 of which have been translated into English for the first time - display all the shades of Nabokov’s imagination.
-
-
A Kaleidoscope of Nabokov Bábochkas
- By Darwin8u on 01-11-15
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Pale Fire
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed - according to Nabokov's fiction - by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
-
-
An amazing feat for such a unique novel
- By AmazonCustomer on 03-27-12
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
- By: Kij Johnson
- Narrated by: Kij Johnson
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women's College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.
-
-
it took me a few trys to ger through this audio
- By Melanie on 05-13-17
By: Kij Johnson
-
The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
-
-
A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
-
Shadow of the Silk Road
- By: Colin Thubron
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.
-
-
prose meets poetry
- By Paul on 11-05-07
By: Colin Thubron
-
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 31 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Vladimir Nabokov, the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and the 1950s, these 68 tales — 14 of which have been translated into English for the first time - display all the shades of Nabokov’s imagination.
-
-
A Kaleidoscope of Nabokov Bábochkas
- By Darwin8u on 01-11-15
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Pale Fire
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed - according to Nabokov's fiction - by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
-
-
An amazing feat for such a unique novel
- By AmazonCustomer on 03-27-12
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Bruce Donnelly
- Length: 2 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maximillian Bacchus is the ringmaster, ruler, guide, and owner of what he considers the greatest show in the world. Traveling with a crocodile named Malachi, a trapeze girl named Ophelia, a strongman they call Hero (which is short for Hieronymus), and a clown named Domingo de Ybarrondo, who paints in a wagon pulled by a giant ibis bird, the troupe wanders from adventure to adventure with mythic aplomb.
-
-
Weird Circus and Great Story
- By Scott Fabel on 06-04-12
By: Clive Barker
-
Clive Barker's First Tales
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These two tales, the first ever written by Clive, are offered here for the very first time. Their production has been lovingly supervised by Clive himself to ensure that these are not mere books, but works of art to be cherished. First Tales is sure to delight everyone from longtime fans to new listeners.
By: Clive Barker
-
The Waves
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Frances Jeater
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.
-
-
Not an easy read but worth it
- By Lena on 03-26-16
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Bards of Bone Plain
- By: Patricia A. McKillip
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Charlotte Parry
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scholar Phelan Cle is researching Bone Plain - which has been studied for the last 500 years, though no one has been able to locate it as a real place. Archaeologist Jonah Cle, Phelan's father, is also hunting through time, piecing history together from forgotten trinkets. When they unearth a disk marked with ancient runes, Beatrice pursues the secrets of a lost language that she suddenly notices all around her, hidden in plain sight.
-
-
The Bards of Bone Plain
- By John on 12-30-10
-
Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English
- By: Natasha Solomons
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the start of World War II, Jack and Sadie Rosenblum flee Berlin for London with their baby daughter, Elizabeth. Upon arrival, Jack receives a pamphlet from the German Jewish Aid Committee on how to act like a proper Englishman. He follows it to the letter -Saville Row suits, the BBC, trips to Covent Garden, a Jaguar - and it works like a charm. The Rosenblums settle into a prosperous new life.
-
-
Endearing
- By Emily on 09-09-11
By: Natasha Solomons
-
Gravity's Rainbow
- By: Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller - cover design
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.
-
-
"Time to touch the person next to you"
- By Jefferson on 07-04-16
By: Thomas Pynchon, and others
-
Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
-
-
Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
-
When the Tripods Came
- Tripods Series Prequel (Book 4)
- By: John Christopher
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of The Tripods was the basis of a popular BBC television series in the 1980s, where humanity has been conquered and enslaved by "the tripods", unseen alien entities that travel about in gigantic three-legged walking machines.
-
-
Okay, but doesn’t live up to the main trilogy
- By Dr F on 02-19-23
By: John Christopher
-
Full Circle
- A Pacific Journey with Michael Palin
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the hugely popular and successful Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole, Michael Palin set off to meet another challenge: an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the world's largest ocean, the Pacific.
-
-
Excellent, per usual
- By Enroute8 on 06-03-07
By: Michael Palin
-
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.
-
-
some stinkers mostly good
- By M.T. on 12-11-18
By: Gardner Dozois - editor, and others
-
Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Emma Bovary is not content to be the mere dutiful wife of a French country doctor. She yearns for excitement and a sense of romance that pulls at her so strongly she is powerless to resist, even though pursuing her dreams will exact a terrible price. Learn why Gustave Flaubert's compelling heroine has enchanted and puzzled readers for centuries.
-
-
Now Here's a Story
- By P. Giorgio on 09-06-03
By: Gustave Flaubert
-
Hannay: His 5 Adventures
- By: John Buchan
- Narrated by: Graham Scott
- Length: 49 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Hannay struggles to thwart an assassination plot designed to hasten war between Britain and Germany. Later he is plucked from the trenches first, in Greenmantle, to frustrate a plot to ferment an uprising in the Islamic world; and then, in Mr. Standfast, to undertake a vital secret mission against a German spy ring operating among pacifist elements in England. After the war, his adventures continue in The Three Hostages; and then in The Island of Sheep, when an old oath to protect the son of a friend from his days in Africa draws him into new danger.
-
-
Values of a bygone era
- By Barbara on 03-16-24
By: John Buchan
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Between the Woods and the Water
- On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland: The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Narrated by: Crispin Redman
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Silver PEN Award, 1987.The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania.
-
-
Amazing!
- By Mark Schlegel on 03-18-15
-
My Family and Other Animals
- By: Gerald Durrell
- Narrated by: Nigel Davenport
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family - as well as puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies.
-
-
A thoroughly delightful book!
- By T.K. on 06-21-08
By: Gerald Durrell
-
Words of Mercury
- Tales from a Lifetime of Travel
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Artemis Cooper - editor, Rolf Potts - foreword
- Narrated by: Christopher Oxford
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adventures of Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor, Britain's most beloved traveler, began in 1933, when he embarked on a walk from Holland to Constantinople - the entire length of Europe - at the tender age of 18. Sleeping in barns, monasteries, and, on occasion, aristocratic country houses, the young adventurer made way his through the Old World just as everything was about to change.
By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, and others
-
Danubia
- A Personal History of Habsburg Europe
- By: Simon Winder
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the end of the Middle Ages to the First World War, Europe was dominated by one family: the Habsburgs. Their unprecedented rule is the focus of Simon Winder's vivid third book, Danubia. This is a narrative that, while erudite and well researched, prefers to be discursive and anecdotal. In his survey of the centuries of often incompetent Habsburg rule which have continued to shape the fate of Central Europe, Winder does not shy away from the horrors, railing against the effects of nationalism, recounting the violence that was often part of life.
-
-
Magnificent history of the Habsburg Empire
- By Skeptical on 10-25-18
By: Simon Winder
-
Balkan Ghosts
- A Journey Through History
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.
-
-
Anti religious/anti catholic hit piece
- By Daniel Calvert on 05-04-21
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
- By: Eric Newby
- Narrated by: James Bryce
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, northeast of Kabul. Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than some tips from a Welsh waitress), the amateurish rogues embarked on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth.
-
-
Travel classic
- By M M on 02-21-21
By: Eric Newby
-
Between the Woods and the Water
- On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland: The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Narrated by: Crispin Redman
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Silver PEN Award, 1987.The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania.
-
-
Amazing!
- By Mark Schlegel on 03-18-15
-
My Family and Other Animals
- By: Gerald Durrell
- Narrated by: Nigel Davenport
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family - as well as puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies.
-
-
A thoroughly delightful book!
- By T.K. on 06-21-08
By: Gerald Durrell
-
Words of Mercury
- Tales from a Lifetime of Travel
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Artemis Cooper - editor, Rolf Potts - foreword
- Narrated by: Christopher Oxford
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The adventures of Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor, Britain's most beloved traveler, began in 1933, when he embarked on a walk from Holland to Constantinople - the entire length of Europe - at the tender age of 18. Sleeping in barns, monasteries, and, on occasion, aristocratic country houses, the young adventurer made way his through the Old World just as everything was about to change.
By: Patrick Leigh Fermor, and others
-
Danubia
- A Personal History of Habsburg Europe
- By: Simon Winder
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the end of the Middle Ages to the First World War, Europe was dominated by one family: the Habsburgs. Their unprecedented rule is the focus of Simon Winder's vivid third book, Danubia. This is a narrative that, while erudite and well researched, prefers to be discursive and anecdotal. In his survey of the centuries of often incompetent Habsburg rule which have continued to shape the fate of Central Europe, Winder does not shy away from the horrors, railing against the effects of nationalism, recounting the violence that was often part of life.
-
-
Magnificent history of the Habsburg Empire
- By Skeptical on 10-25-18
By: Simon Winder
-
Balkan Ghosts
- A Journey Through History
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.
-
-
Anti religious/anti catholic hit piece
- By Daniel Calvert on 05-04-21
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
- By: Eric Newby
- Narrated by: James Bryce
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, northeast of Kabul. Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than some tips from a Welsh waitress), the amateurish rogues embarked on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on earth.
-
-
Travel classic
- By M M on 02-21-21
By: Eric Newby
-
The Thirty Years War
- By: C. V. Wedgwood
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Initially, the Thirty Years War was precipitated in 1618 by religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. But the conflict soon spread beyond religion to encompass the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire, and then later to the other European powers. By the end, it became simply a dynastic struggle between Bourbon France and Habsburg Spain. And almost all of it was fought out in Germany. Entire regions were depopulated and destroyed.
-
-
One of the World's Great History Books.
- By Judith A. Weller on 08-25-12
By: C. V. Wedgwood
-
Skunk Works
- A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed
- By: Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies. Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.
-
-
Ben Rich's life story...but not in that order
- By Allstar on 11-05-16
By: Ben R. Rich, and others
-
West with the Night
- By: Beryl Markham
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beryl Markham, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, describes her childhood on a farm in Kenya, her apprenticeship as a horse trainer, and her later career as a pioneer aviator who piloted passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa.
-
-
I Read this wonderful book
- By Sunspot on 06-09-05
By: Beryl Markham
-
The Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
-
-
Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
-
The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- By: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - translator
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.
-
-
Lucidity whilst Civilization reverts to barbarism
- By none on 06-25-17
By: Stefan Zweig, and others
-
Bruce Chatwin: A BBC Radio Collection
- In Patagonia & more
- By: Bruce Chatwin
- Narrated by: Russell Tovey, Ian Hogg, Ioan Meredith, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author and adventurer Bruce Chatwin was one of the 20th Century’s most charismatic writers. His first book, In Patagonia, changed the face of travel writing and made him a literary sensation. Collected here are dramatisations and readings of some of his best-known work, as well as a bonus programme shedding light on his relationships and writing.
By: Bruce Chatwin
-
Six Impossible Things
- The Mystery of the Quantum World
- By: John Gribbin
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 2 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rules of the quantum world seem to say that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time and a particle can be in two places at once. And that particle is also a wave; everything in the quantum world can described in terms of waves - or entirely in terms of particles. These interpretations were all established by the end of the 1920s, by Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and others. But no one has yet come up with a common sense explanation of what is going on.
-
-
Captures difficult concepts with tongue in cheek
- By Ros on 10-24-23
By: John Gribbin
-
A Sand County Almanac
- And Sketches Here and There
- By: Aldo Leopold, Barbara Kingsolver - introduction
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1949 and praised in the New York Times Book Review as "full of beauty and vigor and bite", A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.
-
-
Great in some ways; in others, wtf!
- By RG on 06-22-20
By: Aldo Leopold, and others
-
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- By: Richard P. Feynman
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With his characteristic eyebrow-raising behavior, Richard P. Feynman once provoked the wife of a Princeton dean to remark, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" But the many scientific and personal achievements of this Nobel Prize-winning physicist are no laughing matter. Here, woven with his scintillating views on modern science, Feynman relates the defining moments of his accomplished life.
-
-
Inspiring book, HORRIBLE reader.
- By Charles Floading on 10-16-07
-
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- By: Benjamin Franklin
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Left unfinished at the time of his death, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin has endured as one of the most well-known and influential autobiographies ever written. From his early years in Boston and Philadelphia to the publication of his Poor Richard's Almanac to the American Revolution and beyond, Franklin's autobiography is a fascinating, personal exploration into the life of America's most interesting founding father.
-
-
Egregious omission of important passage.
- By Walking Man on 02-14-19
-
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- By: Benjamin Franklin
- Narrated by: Stacey Patterson
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An American professor, lecturer and writer Dale Carnegie wrote: "If you want to have an excellent advice how to treat people, control yourself and improve your own qualities, you should read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, one of the most fascinating stories of the life." According to what Franklin wrote in The Autobiography, he developed and tried to implement into life a plan of moral perfection achievement and extermination of bad habits, based on developing skills in 13, described by him, goodnesses.
-
The Winter King
- By: Bernard Cornwell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 19 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tale begins in Dark Age Britain, a land where Arthur has been banished and Merlin has disappeared, where a child-king sits unprotected on the throne, where religion vies with magic for the souls of the people. It is to this desperate land that Arthur returns, a man at once utterly human and truly heroic: a man of honor, loyalty, and amazing valor; a man who loves Guinevere more passionately than he should; a man whose life is at once tragic and triumphant.
-
-
Might be my favorite take on Arthur
- By Allen Young on 06-12-16
By: Bernard Cornwell
What listeners say about A Time of Gifts
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Blaise
- 09-30-23
Very Dated
This was on the recommended reading list prior to a river cruise along the same route of this book. It was definitely dated. Many references to freeloading and getting repetitively drunk made me realize that the experience in the book could not be repeated today. The author was often eloquent but also wavered with wordiness. At times, it seemed that he was just trying to appear educated. Overall this was good but not great.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steve
- 11-18-17
Lots of flowery talk
Not sure I got much out of the book. I guess I was looking for more information about the area at hand. The way the narrator spoke was enjoyable to listen to. No one I know speaks like that. Probably for good reason.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eva
- 01-03-24
A Time of Gifts is like stepping back in time.
Though no one talks like this anymore and the author’s memories are different than actual events; I found this book both mesmerizing and enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Phip Herrick
- 06-02-21
A bit too much “brio” on the readers part.
I maybe the only listener who feels distracted by the readers’s enthusiasm from the beauty of Fermor’s language. I can’t quite capture the flow of the sentences due to an astonishing amount of excessive expression. I can’t see well enough to read, otherwise I’d have listened to my nerves and read the book instead.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Wingfoot CwR
- 03-17-24
Elegance of description
Know Time of Gifts well. Distracted by the reader’s overly dramatic & affected reading. Had to slow down pace to x.9 to comprehend. Not sure if I could stand a reading by him of Between the Woods & the Water.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous
- 02-22-23
Superb Narration
Unlike most audible books, this narrator deftly pronounces foreign words and naturally weaves them into the English passages. If only more books were narrated this this skill!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Peter
- 03-13-20
A travelers tale
Man. This is a fun story. It’s not so much about the places. Rather what he thinks of the people and situations. Just fantastic.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer Calderone
- 07-09-18
Nobody Writes Like This Anymore
I'm doing a cruise on the Danube later this summer so I decided to do some research. The first book I read was a natural history of the river, long on descriptions of hydroelectric dams, but in between the descriptions of the river's current and the Roman ruins there were references to Patrick Leigh Fermor's trip through Eastern Europe. Same with the second book I consulted -- the one that was supposed to be the armchair travel book on the Danube, but turned out to be flat and purposeless. Now acquainted with more than one writer chasing this one, I decided to investigate this Leigh Fermor. It turns out he's one of the last of his kind -- classically educated, straight out of the English middle class, ready to be trained for the peace-time cavalry, and so poor he has to borrow his evening clothes. This is a guy who has inherited the the wealth of Western learning, but has nothing to lose. That's what makes this book both beautiful and exciting. The young Leigh Fermor in this book is just out of school, but he hasn't lost his English public schoolboy's yen for the prank and the reckless adventure. He has his whole life and the entire continent of Europe ahead of him. He also has access to the dying aristocratic class of Eastern Europe. He spends months of his life in their townhouses, on their manors, in their libraries, and at their dining tables and in his recollections -- this book was written from his memory and from the aid of his travel journals well into his middle age -- show us a world at the end of time, ready to be wiped out by the second world war and by communist expansion. So, "A Time of Gifts" is a illustration of two things we've lost from this world.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John S.
- 07-11-15
Narrator didn't seem the greatest fit perhaps?
I wish it weren't so, but I have to say I was mildly disappointed by the book. Part of the problem has to do with the audio narrator's somewhat dramatically effete-sounding style, although he seems to pronounce German phrases (which pop up regularly) like a native. Regarding the text itself, there seemed to be a fair amount of digression at the beginning, detracting from the travel narrative aspect. Moreover, he just seems too comfortable as long as there are English/German speakers at hand, moving from one host to another by word-of-mouth in Germany and Austria. Czechoslovakia seemed a transition zone (remember, Kafka wrote in German not Czech). So, I'm optimistic that the remainder of the trip covered by the sequel will be more adventurous, shall we say.
I was struck that he's hitting eastern Europe during their brief period of inter-war democracy, no empires, no communists. Still, every time he mentions Jews or Gypsies, I cringe knowing what's soon to follow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 05-05-18
Read this book. Avoid the audio version.
By all means read Patrick Leigh Fermor’s compelling book but stay away from this slipshod performance. The text is mindlessly -and distractingly over-inflected and there are many mispronunciations in English and other languages, but particularly in the many German passages.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful