Ken Follett
The History of the Thriller at the 92nd Street Y
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Narrated by:
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Ken Follett
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By:
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Ken Follett
About this listen
This event took place on October 21, 2005.
Don't miss any of Ken Follett's thrillers.©2005 92 nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association (P)2005 92 nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew AssociationListeners also enjoyed...
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Ken Follett goes Danielle Steeel
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Jackdaws
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D-Day is approaching. They don’t know where or when, but the Germans know it’ll be soon, and for Felicity "Flick" Clariet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain’s most effective operatives in Northern France. She knows that the Germans’ ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communications, and in the days before the invasion, no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe.
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Disappointing
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Triple
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As Egypt comes closer and closer to developing a nuclear bomb, the Mossad’s number one Israeli agent is given an impossible mission: to beat the Arabs in the nuclear arms race by finding and stealing two hundred tons of uranium. The world’s balance of power will shift. And the Mossad, the KGB, the Egyptians, and Fedayeen terrorists will play out the final, violent moves in this devastating game where the price of failure is a nuclear holocaust....
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Triple poorly performed
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This lush novel, set in 1766 England and America, evokes an era ripe with riot and revolution, from the teeming streets of London to the sprawling grounds of a Virginia plantation. Mack McAsh burns with the desire to escape his life of slavery in Scottish coal mines while Lizzie Hallim is desperate to shed a life of sheltered subjugation to her spineless husband. United in America, their only chance for freedom lies beyond the Western frontier - if they're brave enough to take it.
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Expected better than a historical romance
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One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.
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Under the Streets of Nice
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It's June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of RAF bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Luftwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies, indeed, the war itself seem to belong to Hitler.
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Performance
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A missing canister of a deadly virus. A lab technician bleeding from the eyes. Toni Gallo, the security director of a Scottish medical research firm, knows she has problems, but she has no idea of the nightmare to come. As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people, Toni among them, converge on a remote family house. All have something to gain or lose from the drug developed to fight the virus. As the storm worsens, the emotional sparks—jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, rivalries—crackle; desperate secrets are revealed; hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge.
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Ken Follett goes Danielle Steeel
- By B. W. Larsen on 01-27-05
By: Ken Follett
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Jackdaws
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
D-Day is approaching. They don’t know where or when, but the Germans know it’ll be soon, and for Felicity "Flick" Clariet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain’s most effective operatives in Northern France. She knows that the Germans’ ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communications, and in the days before the invasion, no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe.
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Disappointing
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Triple
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Overall
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As Egypt comes closer and closer to developing a nuclear bomb, the Mossad’s number one Israeli agent is given an impossible mission: to beat the Arabs in the nuclear arms race by finding and stealing two hundred tons of uranium. The world’s balance of power will shift. And the Mossad, the KGB, the Egyptians, and Fedayeen terrorists will play out the final, violent moves in this devastating game where the price of failure is a nuclear holocaust....
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Triple poorly performed
- By Jpop on 03-13-21
By: Ken Follett
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- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This lush novel, set in 1766 England and America, evokes an era ripe with riot and revolution, from the teeming streets of London to the sprawling grounds of a Virginia plantation. Mack McAsh burns with the desire to escape his life of slavery in Scottish coal mines while Lizzie Hallim is desperate to shed a life of sheltered subjugation to her spineless husband. United in America, their only chance for freedom lies beyond the Western frontier - if they're brave enough to take it.
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Expected better than a historical romance
- By Lynette Garet on 01-09-17
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Performance
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One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.
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Editorial reviews
Among the most eponymous authors of the thriller genre, Ken Follett started off humbly enough: He began writing, he says, so he could raise money to fix his car. A steward of suspense since his 1978 breakthrough, Eye of the Needle, Follett here offers a clinical dissection of the thriller genre. A successful thriller, notes Follett, produces fear and anxiety - emotions that demand resolution, and thereby maintain audiences’ interest. The best-selling author explores the history of the genre, pointing to Erskine Childers’ little-known 1903 work, The Riddle of the Sands, as the progenitor of the modern suspense story. Follett traces women’s shifting role in suspense fiction, examining how a genre originally geared toward men has evolved to include female heroes and villains, authors and audiences.
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What listeners say about Ken Follett
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Terry
- 05-11-08
Use as a preamble to Pillars of the Earth
It was great to prepare one for listening to Pillars of the Earth which is one of the best listeNS I've had on Audible. It gives great insight on how and why this author writes. Comparable to Stephen Kings book On Writing.
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8 people found this helpful
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- hili r.
- 09-18-14
An excellent lecture
Any additional comments?
This short lecture portray some of the key moments of the history of the thriller/suspense. It is an informative and pleasurable listening.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Guthridge
- 09-17-11
Great Background for any thriller lover
What made the experience of listening to Ken Follett the most enjoyable?
I didn't know what to expect with this audio, but it was Ken Follett and I thought it might be interesting. It was great! Most of the books he mentioned I had already read, but the ones I hadn't I noted down, and got them on Audible.com! His speaking style is very entertaining and the discussion was very interesting.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, this is something you want to listen to in one sitting; however, I listened on my commute to work, so it took me a couple of days.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Ian C Robertson
- 03-30-16
Pleasing Discussion
Another in the highly entertaining 92Y series, this features popular novelist Follett discussing the essential ingredients of a "thriller". Plainly, Follett is very well read and researched and his part-time lecturing comes in handy, here. He is easy to listen to, has an interesting thesis and responds well to questions from the audience.
This is another worthwhile listen in this usually very consistent series and won't eat into much more than a lunch hour (if such things still exist).
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3 people found this helpful