-
The Road to Wigan Pier
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 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
Buy for $13.22
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Brave New World
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.
-
-
Michael York should stick to the stage and leave narration to the pros.
- By SD on 08-21-19
By: Aldous Huxley
-
Devils
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 25 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devils, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is a classic political satire exploring the effects of imported European ideologies such as atheism and nihilism on Christian Russia. Based on the true-life political murder of Ivan Ivanov by the revolutionary Sergey Nechayev, Dostoevsky wrote this tale of society scandals, doomed marriages and fatally misguided idealism after returning from exile in Siberia.
-
-
Unlistenable
- By J. Mulrooney on 04-09-17
-
Ordinary Men
- Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
- By: Christopher R. Browning
- Narrated by: Kevin Gallagher
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
-
-
could've done without the afterword...
- By Andrew lester on 06-07-20
-
A Clergyman's Daughter
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Hare, the dutiful daughter of a rector in Suffolk, spends her days performing good works and cultivating good thoughts, pricking her arm with a pin when a bad thought arises. She does her best to reconcile her father’s fanciful view of his position in the world with such realities as the butcher’s bill. But even Dorothy’s strength has its limits, and one night, as she works feverishly on costumes for the church-school play, she blacks out. When she comes to, she finds herself on a London street, clad in a sleazy dress and unaware of her identity.
-
-
Bottom-Shelf Orwell, but still G-D Orwell
- By Darwin8u on 08-11-19
By: George Orwell
-
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
-
-
Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
-
1984
- New Classic Edition
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world dominated by Big Brother and its vast network of agents, including the Thought Police - a world in which news is manufactured according to the authorities' will and people live tepid lives by rote. Winston Smith, a hero with no heroic qualities, longs only for truth and decency. But living in a social system in which privacy does not exist and where those with unorthodox ideas are brainwashed or put to death, he knows there is no hope for him.
-
-
Come one, Come all into 1984!
- By Kit McIlvaine (GirlPluggedN) on 02-18-08
By: George Orwell
-
Brave New World
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.
-
-
Michael York should stick to the stage and leave narration to the pros.
- By SD on 08-21-19
By: Aldous Huxley
-
Devils
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 25 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devils, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is a classic political satire exploring the effects of imported European ideologies such as atheism and nihilism on Christian Russia. Based on the true-life political murder of Ivan Ivanov by the revolutionary Sergey Nechayev, Dostoevsky wrote this tale of society scandals, doomed marriages and fatally misguided idealism after returning from exile in Siberia.
-
-
Unlistenable
- By J. Mulrooney on 04-09-17
-
Ordinary Men
- Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
- By: Christopher R. Browning
- Narrated by: Kevin Gallagher
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
-
-
could've done without the afterword...
- By Andrew lester on 06-07-20
-
A Clergyman's Daughter
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Hare, the dutiful daughter of a rector in Suffolk, spends her days performing good works and cultivating good thoughts, pricking her arm with a pin when a bad thought arises. She does her best to reconcile her father’s fanciful view of his position in the world with such realities as the butcher’s bill. But even Dorothy’s strength has its limits, and one night, as she works feverishly on costumes for the church-school play, she blacks out. When she comes to, she finds herself on a London street, clad in a sleazy dress and unaware of her identity.
-
-
Bottom-Shelf Orwell, but still G-D Orwell
- By Darwin8u on 08-11-19
By: George Orwell
-
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
-
-
Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
-
1984
- New Classic Edition
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world dominated by Big Brother and its vast network of agents, including the Thought Police - a world in which news is manufactured according to the authorities' will and people live tepid lives by rote. Winston Smith, a hero with no heroic qualities, longs only for truth and decency. But living in a social system in which privacy does not exist and where those with unorthodox ideas are brainwashed or put to death, he knows there is no hope for him.
-
-
Come one, Come all into 1984!
- By Kit McIlvaine (GirlPluggedN) on 02-18-08
By: George Orwell
-
Homage to Catalonia
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed.
-
-
Excellent book, marred by narration
- By Kirby on 02-02-13
By: George Orwell
-
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.
-
-
Gordon's Grey World is Colored with Grant
- By Timothy on 09-25-11
By: George Orwell
-
Down and Out in Paris and London
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a man living in Paris in the early 1930s without a penny. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only.
-
-
The King of Boldness, Clearness, and Audacity
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: George Orwell
-
Animal Farm
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture, quoted so often that we tend to forget who wrote the original words! This must-read is also a must-listen!
-
-
If you hate spoilers, save the intro for last.
- By Dusty on 02-18-11
By: George Orwell
-
Beyond Good and Evil
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Roy McMillan
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Continuing where Thus Spoke Zarathustra left off, Nietzsche's controversial work Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most influential philosophical texts of the 19th century and one of the most controversial works of ideology ever written. Attacking the notion of morality as nothing more than institutionalised weakness, Nietzsche criticises past philosophers for their unquestioning acceptance of moral precepts. Nietzsche tried to formulate what he called "the philosophy of the future".
-
-
Great Book, great Audio Narration
- By Bob H on 01-07-11
-
Maps of Meaning
- The Architecture of Belief
- By: Jordan B. Peterson
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 30 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
-
-
This is NOT an easy book
- By AutismPhotoshop on 06-19-18
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
Coming up for Air
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Bowling, an insurance salesman, hits middle age and feels impelled to “come up for air” from his life of quiet desperation. With seventeen pounds he has won at a race, he steals a vacation from his wife and family and pays a visit to Lower Binfield, the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. But the pool is gone, Lower Binfield has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of Bowling’s holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.
-
-
Orwell Flirts and Fishes w/ Nostalgia & Modernity.
- By Darwin8u on 07-10-12
By: George Orwell
-
Crime and Punishment
- Pevear & Volokhonsky Translation (Vintage Classics)
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 25 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Pevear and Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's classic novel that presents a clear insight into this astounding psychological thriller. This audio edition of Crime and Punishment is expressively brought to life by Peter Batchelor.
-
-
waited for this translation
- By L. Kerr on 12-22-20
-
The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
-
-
Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
A Distant Mirror
- The Calamitous Fourteenth Century
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 28 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 14th century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.
-
-
And you thought the twentieth century was rough...
- By Rob on 03-23-06
Publisher's summary
In this searing yet beautiful account of life on the bottom rung, Orwell asks himself why Socialism - which alone, he felt, could rescue human values from the ravages of industrialism - had so little appeal. His answer is a harsh critique of the Socialism and Socialists of his time.
Featured Article: 40+ Thought-Provoking George Orwell Quotes
George Orwell transformed literature with his piercing social commentary and allegorical style. His works have become so entrenched in popular culture that the term "Orwellian" is used to describe totalitarian and authoritarian societies. Orwell also wrote nonfiction books and essays that similarly express his gift for satire and controversial views on government. Throughout his writing career, he never feared tackling challenging topics, no matter how subversive.
Related to this topic
-
The Yellow Wallpaper
- By: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Narrated by: Jo Myddleton
- Length: 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.
-
-
A Visceral Reaction
- By Em on 05-02-12
-
Letters
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This volume of short essays and other pieces by C. S. Lewis is part of a larger collection, C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. In addition to his many books, letters, and poems, C. S. Lewis wrote a great number of essays and shorter pieces on various subjects. He wrote extensively on Christian theology and the defense of faith but also on ethical issues and the nature of literature and storytelling. Within this audiobook is a treasure trove of Lewis' reflections on diverse topics.
-
-
Just Lewis
- By William on 02-07-21
By: C. S. Lewis
-
A Bend in the River
- By: V. S. Naipaul
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this incandescent novel, V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man, an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbing vision yet of what happens in a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions.
-
-
Beautiful, insightful, troubling
- By Lawrence on 01-15-05
By: V. S. Naipaul
-
Upstairs & Downstairs
- My Life In Service as a Lady's Maid
- By: Hilda Newman, Tim Tate
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to this period between the wars; a gilded era which would soon be dramatically changed by the Second World War.
-
-
Wonderful listen!!
- By J.T. on 09-25-19
By: Hilda Newman, and others
-
I Am a Cat
- By: Soseki Natsume, Aiko Ito - translator, Graeme Wilson - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 21 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.
-
-
Great performance!
- By mz on 04-03-20
By: Soseki Natsume, and others
-
Three Men in a Boat (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Jerome K. Jerome
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1889, satirist Jerome K. Jerome fully intended to write a serious travel guide when he and his two best friends embarked on a boating trip up the river Thames to Oxford. But his musings on landmarks and local history were soon hijacked by his own digressive, waggish voice. And so, what began as a peaceful and edifying two-week exploration soon floated upriver into farce - aided, quite naturally, by a portly ration of cheese, some very bad weather, and a dog named Montmorency.
-
-
Hilarious and lovable!!
- By Erika C. on 03-23-21
By: Jerome K. Jerome
-
The Yellow Wallpaper
- By: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Narrated by: Jo Myddleton
- Length: 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.
-
-
A Visceral Reaction
- By Em on 05-02-12
-
Letters
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This volume of short essays and other pieces by C. S. Lewis is part of a larger collection, C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. In addition to his many books, letters, and poems, C. S. Lewis wrote a great number of essays and shorter pieces on various subjects. He wrote extensively on Christian theology and the defense of faith but also on ethical issues and the nature of literature and storytelling. Within this audiobook is a treasure trove of Lewis' reflections on diverse topics.
-
-
Just Lewis
- By William on 02-07-21
By: C. S. Lewis
-
A Bend in the River
- By: V. S. Naipaul
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this incandescent novel, V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man, an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbing vision yet of what happens in a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions.
-
-
Beautiful, insightful, troubling
- By Lawrence on 01-15-05
By: V. S. Naipaul
-
Upstairs & Downstairs
- My Life In Service as a Lady's Maid
- By: Hilda Newman, Tim Tate
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to this period between the wars; a gilded era which would soon be dramatically changed by the Second World War.
-
-
Wonderful listen!!
- By J.T. on 09-25-19
By: Hilda Newman, and others
-
I Am a Cat
- By: Soseki Natsume, Aiko Ito - translator, Graeme Wilson - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 21 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.
-
-
Great performance!
- By mz on 04-03-20
By: Soseki Natsume, and others
-
Three Men in a Boat (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Jerome K. Jerome
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1889, satirist Jerome K. Jerome fully intended to write a serious travel guide when he and his two best friends embarked on a boating trip up the river Thames to Oxford. But his musings on landmarks and local history were soon hijacked by his own digressive, waggish voice. And so, what began as a peaceful and edifying two-week exploration soon floated upriver into farce - aided, quite naturally, by a portly ration of cheese, some very bad weather, and a dog named Montmorency.
-
-
Hilarious and lovable!!
- By Erika C. on 03-23-21
By: Jerome K. Jerome
-
The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
SKIP THIS BOOK
- By Lady Aristotle on 09-05-22
By: Ian Mortimer
-
Coming up for Air
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Bowling, an insurance salesman, hits middle age and feels impelled to “come up for air” from his life of quiet desperation. With seventeen pounds he has won at a race, he steals a vacation from his wife and family and pays a visit to Lower Binfield, the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. But the pool is gone, Lower Binfield has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of Bowling’s holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.
-
-
Orwell Flirts and Fishes w/ Nostalgia & Modernity.
- By Darwin8u on 07-10-12
By: George Orwell
-
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
-
-
a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
-
At Home
- A Short History of Private Life
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
-
-
Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
-
What’s Wrong with the World
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this important book, G.K. Chesterton offers a remarkably perceptive analysis of social and moral issues, even more relevant today than in his own time. With a light, humorous tone but a deadly serious philosophy, he comments on errors in education, on feminism vs. true womanhood, on the importance of the child, and other issues, using incisive arguments against the trendsetters’ assaults on the common man and the family.
-
-
The mind that finds...
- By Darwin8u on 05-24-17
By: G. K. Chesterton
-
Notes from the Underground (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isolated from society in a tenement basement in St. Petersburg, a malicious former civil servant vents his resentments. In the rambling notes that follow, we are exposed to the inner turmoil of the Underground Man, who represents the voice of his generation. An emotional, paranoid knot of contradictions, the spiteful narrator is also desperate to join a society he loathes, if only to prove his superiority to it.
-
-
Amazing
- By Bryan on 02-19-19
By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
The Town House
- By: Norah Lofts
- Narrated by: Juliet Prague, Martyn Read
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.
-
-
Another winner by Norah Lofts
- By Bird Lady 147 on 10-03-17
By: Norah Lofts
-
The Pursuit of Love
- Radlett and Montdore Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: Nancy Mitford
- Narrated by: Bessie Carter
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mitford's most enduringly popular novel, The Pursuit of Love, is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric. Mitford modeled her characters on her own famously unconventional family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin, Fanny, who stays with them at Alconleigh, their Gloucestershire estate. Uncle Matthew is the blustering patriarch; Aunt Sadie is the vague but doting mother; and the seven Radlett children, despite the delights of their unusual childhood, are recklessly eager to grow up.
-
-
Unlistenable
- By Michael on 10-17-21
By: Nancy Mitford
-
Oil!
- By: Upton Sinclair
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As he did so masterfully in The Jungle, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Upton Sinclair interweaves social criticism with human tragedy to create an unforgettable portrait of Southern California's early oil industry. Enraged by the oil scandals of the Harding administration in the 1920s, Sinclair tells a gripping tale of avarice, corruption, and class warfare, featuring a cavalcade of characters, including senators, oil magnates, Hollywood film starlets, and a crusading evangelist.
-
-
an outstanding book
- By Gregory on 05-18-08
By: Upton Sinclair
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
Eugenics and Other Evils
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the first three decades of the 20th century, eugenics, the scientific control of human breeding, was a popular cause within enlightened and progressive segments of the English-speaking world. This prophetic volume counters the intellectual nihilism of Nietzsche, while simultaneously rebuking Western notions of progress - biological or otherwise. Chesterton expands his criticism of eugenics into what he calls "a more general criticism of the modern craze for scientific officialism and strict social organization."
-
-
Truly Great!
- By No to Statism on 07-26-19
By: G. K. Chesterton
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Homage to Catalonia
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed.
-
-
Excellent book, marred by narration
- By Kirby on 02-02-13
By: George Orwell
-
Down and Out in Paris and London
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a man living in Paris in the early 1930s without a penny. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only.
-
-
The King of Boldness, Clearness, and Audacity
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: George Orwell
-
Such, Such Were the Joys and Other Essays
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Viewed as too libelous to print in England until 1968, the title essay in this collection reveals the abuse Orwell experienced as a child at an expensive and snobbish boarding school and offers insights into his lifelong concern for the oppressed. "Why I Write" describes Orwell's sense of political purpose, and the classic essay "Politics and the English Language" insists on clarity and precision in communication in order to avoid the Newspeak later described in 1984.
-
-
Superb collection of essays, very well read
- By Christopher on 07-07-11
By: George Orwell
-
Burmese Days
- A Novel
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colonial politics in Kyauktada, India, in the 1920s, come to a head when the European Club, previously for whites only, is ordered to elect one token native member. The deeply racist members do their best to manipulate the situation, resulting in the loss not only of reputations but of lives. Amid this cynical setting, timber merchant James Flory, a Brit with a genuine appreciation for the native people and culture, stands as a bridge between the warring factions. But he has trouble acting on his feelings, and the significance of his vote, both social and political, weighs on him.
-
-
A Sad, Fierce and Ambitious Colonial Novel
- By Darwin8u on 11-08-12
By: George Orwell
-
Coming up for Air
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Bowling, an insurance salesman, hits middle age and feels impelled to “come up for air” from his life of quiet desperation. With seventeen pounds he has won at a race, he steals a vacation from his wife and family and pays a visit to Lower Binfield, the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. But the pool is gone, Lower Binfield has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of Bowling’s holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.
-
-
Orwell Flirts and Fishes w/ Nostalgia & Modernity.
- By Darwin8u on 07-10-12
By: George Orwell
-
A Clergyman's Daughter
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Hare, the dutiful daughter of a rector in Suffolk, spends her days performing good works and cultivating good thoughts, pricking her arm with a pin when a bad thought arises. She does her best to reconcile her father’s fanciful view of his position in the world with such realities as the butcher’s bill. But even Dorothy’s strength has its limits, and one night, as she works feverishly on costumes for the church-school play, she blacks out. When she comes to, she finds herself on a London street, clad in a sleazy dress and unaware of her identity.
-
-
Bottom-Shelf Orwell, but still G-D Orwell
- By Darwin8u on 08-11-19
By: George Orwell
-
Homage to Catalonia
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising in May 1937, his nearly fatal wounding just two weeks later, and his escape from Barcelona into France after the P.O.U.M. was suppressed.
-
-
Excellent book, marred by narration
- By Kirby on 02-02-13
By: George Orwell
-
Down and Out in Paris and London
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a man living in Paris in the early 1930s without a penny. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only.
-
-
The King of Boldness, Clearness, and Audacity
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: George Orwell
-
Such, Such Were the Joys and Other Essays
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Viewed as too libelous to print in England until 1968, the title essay in this collection reveals the abuse Orwell experienced as a child at an expensive and snobbish boarding school and offers insights into his lifelong concern for the oppressed. "Why I Write" describes Orwell's sense of political purpose, and the classic essay "Politics and the English Language" insists on clarity and precision in communication in order to avoid the Newspeak later described in 1984.
-
-
Superb collection of essays, very well read
- By Christopher on 07-07-11
By: George Orwell
-
Burmese Days
- A Novel
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colonial politics in Kyauktada, India, in the 1920s, come to a head when the European Club, previously for whites only, is ordered to elect one token native member. The deeply racist members do their best to manipulate the situation, resulting in the loss not only of reputations but of lives. Amid this cynical setting, timber merchant James Flory, a Brit with a genuine appreciation for the native people and culture, stands as a bridge between the warring factions. But he has trouble acting on his feelings, and the significance of his vote, both social and political, weighs on him.
-
-
A Sad, Fierce and Ambitious Colonial Novel
- By Darwin8u on 11-08-12
By: George Orwell
-
Coming up for Air
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Bowling, an insurance salesman, hits middle age and feels impelled to “come up for air” from his life of quiet desperation. With seventeen pounds he has won at a race, he steals a vacation from his wife and family and pays a visit to Lower Binfield, the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. But the pool is gone, Lower Binfield has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of Bowling’s holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.
-
-
Orwell Flirts and Fishes w/ Nostalgia & Modernity.
- By Darwin8u on 07-10-12
By: George Orwell
-
A Clergyman's Daughter
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Hare, the dutiful daughter of a rector in Suffolk, spends her days performing good works and cultivating good thoughts, pricking her arm with a pin when a bad thought arises. She does her best to reconcile her father’s fanciful view of his position in the world with such realities as the butcher’s bill. But even Dorothy’s strength has its limits, and one night, as she works feverishly on costumes for the church-school play, she blacks out. When she comes to, she finds herself on a London street, clad in a sleazy dress and unaware of her identity.
-
-
Bottom-Shelf Orwell, but still G-D Orwell
- By Darwin8u on 08-11-19
By: George Orwell
-
Essays
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 25 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.
-
-
Great Content; Would benefit from chapter names
- By Laimis on 08-15-20
By: George Orwell
-
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.
-
-
Gordon's Grey World is Colored with Grant
- By Timothy on 09-25-11
By: George Orwell
-
Orwell: The Essays
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wide-ranging selection of George Orwell's essays, written in the clear-eyed, passionate and uncompromising style that has earned him a reputation as one of Britain's greatest writers.
-
-
He understood the times
- By Wes on 08-19-23
By: George Orwell
-
The Lion and the Unicorn
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Orwell's moving reflections on the English character and his passionate belief in the need for political change. 'The Lion and the Unicorn' was written in London during the worst period of the Blitz. It is vintage Orwell, a dynamic outline of his belief in socialism, patriotism and an English revolution. His fullest political statement, it has been described as 'one of the most moving and incisive portraits of the English character' and is as relevant now as it ever has been.
-
-
information
- By Amazon Customer on 06-12-24
By: George Orwell
-
Homage to Catalonia
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Joseph Millton
- Length: 1 hr and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Orwell's classic account of his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, dramatised for radio by Mike Walker. Produced by Kate McAll.
-
-
The best acted audiobook you'll hear.
- By KellySeoul on 03-05-18
By: George Orwell
-
The Painted Bird
- By: Jerzy Kosinski
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Michael Aronov
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A harrowing story that follows the wanderings of a boy abandoned by his parents during World War II, The Painted Bird is a dark masterpiece that examines the proximity of terror and savagery to innocence and love. It is the first, and the most famous, novel by one of the most important and original writers of this century.
-
-
A guided tour of Hell.
- By Shawn on 12-01-11
By: Jerzy Kosinski
-
Puck of Pook's Hill
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Midsummer Eve in a Sussex meadow, Dan and Una act out their version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Suddenly, Puck, as old as Time itself, miraculously appears. The youngsters are swept into the past as Puck conjures up villages of long ago, filled with craftsmen, a Roman centurion, and a Norman knight. Rudyard Kipling’s magical tale brings English history dramatically to life to captivate both the young and the young at heart.
-
-
The most charming bit of English history ever
- By Ellenaeddy on 09-06-15
By: Rudyard Kipling
-
The French Revolution
- From Enlightenment to Tyranny
- By: Ian Davidson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The French Revolution casts a long shadow, one that reaches into our own time and influences our debates on freedom, equality, and authority. Yet it remains an elusive, perplexing historical event. Its significance morphs according to the sympathies of the viewer, who may see it as a series of gory tableaux, a regrettable slide into uncontrolled anarchy - or a radical reshaping of the political landscape. In this riveting new book, Ian Davidson provides a fresh look at this vital moment in European history. He reveals how it was an immensely complicated and multifaceted revolution....
-
-
superficial; trite
- By David Hart on 04-25-19
By: Ian Davidson
-
Brave New World
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.
-
-
Michael York should stick to the stage and leave narration to the pros.
- By SD on 08-21-19
By: Aldous Huxley
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
The Charterhouse of Parma
- By: Henri Beyle Stendhal
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the coming-of-age story, we follow a young Italian nobleman, Fabrizio Valserra, Marchesino del Dongo, on many adventures, including his experiences at the Battle of Waterloo, and romantic intrigues.
-
-
Amazing novel finally available on audio!
- By Grant on 03-23-14
-
Life at the Bottom
- The Worldview that Makes the Underclass
- By: Theodore Dalrymple
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics, but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims.
-
-
Excellent!
- By Amazon Man on 02-15-21
What listeners say about The Road to Wigan Pier
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Braden
- 10-21-11
Very interesting book by a socialist in the 1930s!
This book is an interesting and detailed insight into the life of the working class in England in the 1930s, as well as into the thinking life of the intellectual socialists of that time. Mind you, most of the predictions Orwell made about the bleakness of the future of industrialization, and the inevitablility of socialism's adoption were way off-target, but then he didn't have the historical record of socialism's abject economic failures to draw upon as we do today, since it was almost all in the future at that time.
Nevertheless the way he analyzes from every angle, the thinking of socialists and non-socialists alike, is fascinating. What an intelligent man he was (I know, I know, if he was so intelligent, why did he get the future and the workability of socialism as an economic model so wrong? But I already addressed that in the last paragraph). Also, the details he describes in the everyday are a testimony to his incredible way with words.
The narrator's snobbish-sounding upper-class British dialect adds a lot to the reading, capturing the spirit of condescencion that Orwell clearly had for all sorts of groups he describes, whether socialists or non-socialists.
A first-class listen. I almost couldn't put it down.
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
- Mark Brady
- 12-24-20
Hard to believe that was so recent
Orwell starts by recounting the living conditions of, what Victor Davis Hanson has termed, the muscular class. Post-war England’s working poor (or not working) dealt with conditions that are hard to comprehend. Made me chuckle when I think of the American college student rebelling against the ‘slave wages’ of $12/hour. After listening to this you’ll look at your bathtub or shower and H&C faucets with a sort of lust and relief.
The end of the book is a recipe for winning the cultural/political battle against the rise of Fascism. Still apropos to this day.
Worth your time to be sure.
Oh, and pay attentions to the last few paragraphs of the first 6 chapters. He polished them to a mirror-like finish with a razor’s edge.
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
- William
- 09-02-20
Still relevant
Enjoyed very much. Many of Orwell’s observations remain relevant today. Perhaps not the one about the working class smelling bad!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- chad johnson
- 12-26-22
modestly interesting
repossessed by Jordan Peterson, the last few chapters about fascism, socialism, capitalism, etc, were the best. Neat insight into the common man's world at the time. typically I don't like this Blackstone narrator, but he didn't overly dramatized his accent in this treating, somehow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Cassie
- 06-17-09
An Interesting Social Commentary
I'm a fan of dystopian novels so I decided to give Orwell's nonfiction work a shot. I was pleasantly surprised with his commentary on the state of the English working class and socialism in the 1930s. The description of the work day and home life of the working class was quite interesting and eye opening, as was Orwell's commentary on the ills of society.
Some of the book was geared toward English society and more applicable to a nation with a long history and more definitive class structure. Other statements still applied to current U.S. society, including some of his foreboding predictions (like eating unhealthy foods becoming the new fatal disease). I was fascinated with his foresight yet appalled at the same time that someone noticed this 70 years ago yet nothing was to head off or solve the problems.
The narrator had a great accent and made the book come alive. Thoroughly enjoyed the book and the narrator. I will look for more books read by this narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 04-20-20
socialism leads to fascism
it took a minute to get used to the narrator and there's a slight background nose. But very insightful look as to why you cannot fight for justice and liberty based solely on income, race, and class.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jonathan
- 10-16-20
Enlightening
Worth listening to even if you aren’t a socialist (I’m not). Feels especially relevant in 2020.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jamie Lamb
- 11-03-21
Capitalism eventually makes everyone rich
Orwell read his Malthus, shook in his boots and let that experience color everything he wrote in this book. Now we know Malthus is so completely wrong.
Orwell also has limited knowledge while writing of the socialist purges in Russia in the 20’s and the Holodomor in the Ukraine. If he does know about these and still wrote this book promoting socialism, his soul has been condemned.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steff Doles
- 06-09-21
A rather unsettle reality check...
Orwell shows off his personal prejudices more than a few times in this book but I think that only adds to the reality check that it provides for those of us who like to believe that we aren't really part of a class system. It's certainly worth a read and some good self-reflection. Like all of Orwells work it's thought-provoking and poignant and he didn't have to delve into the world of make-believe to show us just how unfair and wrong we can be. Animal farm is still my Favorite Orwell but I would recommend this book to anyone. :)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ivan A. Camus
- 02-19-21
A highly recommended reading...
having read 1984 and Animal Farm some 30 years ago, I have been treated for the deeply revealing and honest introspect of the author, particularly on the second part of the book. The last two chapters have to carefully analyze.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!