-
Excellent Women
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 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 $15.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Cold Comfort Farm
- Penguin Classics
- By: Stella Gibbons
- Narrated by: Pearl Mackie
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at 19, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last 20 years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.
-
-
Very, very amusing, a go to if one needs cheering
- By Laura G. Marcantoni on 11-05-20
By: Stella Gibbons
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Memoirs of a Geisha
- By: Arthur Golden
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a voice both haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri describes her life as a geisha. Taken from her home at the age of nine, she is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Witness her transformation as you enter a world where appearances are paramount, virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, women beguile powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.
-
-
Perfect ---- in every way
- By Amanda on 02-08-06
By: Arthur Golden
-
Rules of Civility
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society - where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
-
-
Bright Young Things in a Dark World
- By Michele Kellett on 08-13-12
By: Amor Towles
-
Breakfast at Tiffany's
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Michael C. Hall
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Golden Globe-winning actor Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) performs Truman Capote's masterstroke about a young writer's charmed fascination with his unorthodox neighbor, the "American geisha" Holly Golightly. Holly - a World War II-era society girl in her late teens - survives via socialization, attending parties and restaurants with men from the wealthy upper class who also provide her with money and expensive gifts. Over the course of the novella, the seemingly shallow Holly slowly opens up to the curious protagonist.
-
-
"Better to look at the sky than live there"
- By W Perry Hall on 02-12-14
By: Truman Capote
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Cold Comfort Farm
- Penguin Classics
- By: Stella Gibbons
- Narrated by: Pearl Mackie
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at 19, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last 20 years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.
-
-
Very, very amusing, a go to if one needs cheering
- By Laura G. Marcantoni on 11-05-20
By: Stella Gibbons
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Memoirs of a Geisha
- By: Arthur Golden
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a voice both haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri describes her life as a geisha. Taken from her home at the age of nine, she is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Witness her transformation as you enter a world where appearances are paramount, virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, women beguile powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.
-
-
Perfect ---- in every way
- By Amanda on 02-08-06
By: Arthur Golden
-
Rules of Civility
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last night of 1937, 25-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society - where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
-
-
Bright Young Things in a Dark World
- By Michele Kellett on 08-13-12
By: Amor Towles
-
Breakfast at Tiffany's
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Michael C. Hall
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Golden Globe-winning actor Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) performs Truman Capote's masterstroke about a young writer's charmed fascination with his unorthodox neighbor, the "American geisha" Holly Golightly. Holly - a World War II-era society girl in her late teens - survives via socialization, attending parties and restaurants with men from the wealthy upper class who also provide her with money and expensive gifts. Over the course of the novella, the seemingly shallow Holly slowly opens up to the curious protagonist.
-
-
"Better to look at the sky than live there"
- By W Perry Hall on 02-12-14
By: Truman Capote
-
Hudson Taylor
- The Man Who Believed God
- By: Marshall Broomhall
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hudson Taylor is one of the most remarkable of Christianity's heroes. A gawky, determined Yorkshire boy of commonplace origins, mediocre education, and uncertain health, Hudson Taylor lived in the assurance that under God's direction he would someday evangelize China's 400 million souls. Today he is remembered both as the founder of the world-famous China Inland Mission and one of history's great men of faith.
-
-
I feel like I know Hudson Taylor now!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-15
-
The Paris Wife
- A Novel
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
-
-
Narration Issues
- By Sara on 10-06-15
By: Paula McLain
-
The Chaperone
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Elizabeth McGovern
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
> The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922, and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a famous actress and an icon for her generation, a 15-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita to make it big in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle is a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip.
-
-
Perfection.
- By Amanda on 06-07-12
By: Laura Moriarty
-
The Making of a Marchioness
- By: Frances Hodgson-Burnett
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Hodgson Burnett published The Making of a Marchioness in 1901. She had written Little Lord Fauntleroy 15 years before and would write The Secret Garden in 10 years' time; it is these two books for which she is best known. Yet Marchioness was one of Nancy Mitford's favourite books, was considered 'the best novel Mrs Hodgson Burnett wrote' by Marghanita Laski, and is taught on a university course in America together with novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Daisy Miller.
-
-
A Sweet Romantic Tale
- By Curatina on 11-23-11
-
A Town Like Alice
- By: Nevil Shute
- Narrated by: Robin Bailey
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle. While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result.
-
-
An all time favorite I have read many times...
- By Peyton on 03-16-10
By: Nevil Shute
-
Middlemarch
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 35 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.
-
-
Best Audible book ever
- By Molly-o on 12-25-11
By: George Eliot
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
O Caledonia
- A Novel
- By: Elspeth Barker
- Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-19th century—featuring a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet.
-
-
Excellent prose
- By John Matthew Walker on 03-18-24
By: Elspeth Barker
-
The Complete Mapp and Lucia, Volume 1
- By: E. F. Benson
- Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
- Length: 26 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson's six Mapp and Lucia novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and '30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is a masterfully sustained spotlight on the minutiae of village life - a clever and ultimately heart-warming series that seems tailor-made for audio. Volume 1 contains the first three books.
-
-
At last!
- By Grace M-T on 06-15-21
By: E. F. Benson
-
Stormrise
- Storm Chronicles, Book 1
- By: Skye Knizley
- Narrated by: Suzanne T. Fortin
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life isn't easy for Detective Raven Storm. Her best friend was recently killed and dismembered, her latest case ended with her partner in intensive care, and her mother, the vampiric Mistress of the City, is playing matchmaker...again. The last thing she wants is another bizarre murder case with a partner she doesn't know. But that is exactly what she gets when she is handed the enigmatic case of Nathan King, who was found in his car with a gaping hole where his stomach should be.
-
-
Action Packed.
- By Troublemer(tammy hovey) on 01-08-18
By: Skye Knizley
-
Anna Karenina
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Length: 35 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.
-
-
Need to Disclose and Highlight Name of Translator
- By Charles B on 08-27-18
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
Emma [Naxos Edition]
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Jane Austen's most popular novels. Arrogant, self-willed, and egotistical, Emma is her most unusual heroine.
-
-
Wonderful listen
- By A. Bloom on 08-07-08
By: Jane Austen
Publisher's summary
Excellent Women is one of Barbara Pym's richest and most amusing high comedies. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest.
Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Celia's House
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In name and by birth, Celia was a Dunne. She had inherited the beautiful old family home by the Rydd Water – but was she bound to live her life by the principles of her predecessors? Was there some hidden restraint that compelled her to heed the past? Celia’s house is a moving and poignant story of the struggle between old and young: the older generation anxious to preserve the values they have helped create while their children are determined at all costs to make lives of their own.
-
-
Boarder area of Scotland
- By Jerri C on 03-14-11
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
-
-
A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Servants' Hall
- A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance
- By: Margaret Powell
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret Powell's Below Stairs became a sensation among listeners reveling in the luxury and subtle class warfare of Masterpiece Theatre's hit television series Downton Abbey. Now in the sequel Servants' Hall, Powell tells the true story of Rose, the under-parlourmaid to the Wardham Family at Redlands, who took a shocking step: She eloped with the family's only son, Mr. Gerald.
-
-
Memoir of a Bygone Era
- By Michelle A. Lynch on 04-08-15
By: Margaret Powell
-
The Quiet Professor
- By: Betty Neels
- Narrated by: Anne Cater
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Megan thought she had it all - a good job, a caring family and a fiancé whom everyone agreed would make her a wonderful husband. But then her perfectly constructed world fell apart, and she found that her one hope was Professor Jake van Belfeld. He seemed determined to rebuild her life - but why was he taking such a personal interest in her? He couldn't think that her heart needed his attention, too, could he?
-
-
Disappointed
- By Sharon D. Anderson, Ph.D. on 07-02-17
By: Betty Neels
-
Miss Buncle's Book
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.
-
-
A complete pleasure
- By Sara on 01-16-14
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Celia's House
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In name and by birth, Celia was a Dunne. She had inherited the beautiful old family home by the Rydd Water – but was she bound to live her life by the principles of her predecessors? Was there some hidden restraint that compelled her to heed the past? Celia’s house is a moving and poignant story of the struggle between old and young: the older generation anxious to preserve the values they have helped create while their children are determined at all costs to make lives of their own.
-
-
Boarder area of Scotland
- By Jerri C on 03-14-11
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
-
-
A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Servants' Hall
- A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance
- By: Margaret Powell
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret Powell's Below Stairs became a sensation among listeners reveling in the luxury and subtle class warfare of Masterpiece Theatre's hit television series Downton Abbey. Now in the sequel Servants' Hall, Powell tells the true story of Rose, the under-parlourmaid to the Wardham Family at Redlands, who took a shocking step: She eloped with the family's only son, Mr. Gerald.
-
-
Memoir of a Bygone Era
- By Michelle A. Lynch on 04-08-15
By: Margaret Powell
-
The Quiet Professor
- By: Betty Neels
- Narrated by: Anne Cater
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Megan thought she had it all - a good job, a caring family and a fiancé whom everyone agreed would make her a wonderful husband. But then her perfectly constructed world fell apart, and she found that her one hope was Professor Jake van Belfeld. He seemed determined to rebuild her life - but why was he taking such a personal interest in her? He couldn't think that her heart needed his attention, too, could he?
-
-
Disappointed
- By Sharon D. Anderson, Ph.D. on 07-02-17
By: Betty Neels
-
Grey Mask
- Miss Silver, Book 1
- By: Patricia Wentworth
- Narrated by: Diana Bishop
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first of the classic mysteries featuring governess-turned-detective Miss Silver, who investigates a deadly conspiratorial ring. Charles Moray has come home to England to collect his inheritance. After four years wandering the jungles of India and South America, the hardy young man returns to the manor of his birth, where generations of Morays have lived and died. Strangely, he finds the house unlocked, and sees a light on in one of its abandoned rooms. Eavesdropping, he learns of a conspiracy to commit a fearsome crime.
-
-
The shaky first of a long, strong series
- By Phebe on 07-21-15
-
Good Evening, Mrs Craven
- The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
- By: Mollie Panter-Downes
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For fifty years Mollie Panter-Downes' name was associated with The New Yorker, for which she wrote a regular 'Letter from London', book reviews and over thirty short stories; of the twenty-one in Good Evening, Mrs Craven, written between 1939 and 1944, only two had ever been reprinted - these very English stories have, until now, been unavailable to English readers.
-
-
Another Great Persephone read
- By Jerri C on 12-22-11
-
The Early Cases of Hercule Poirot
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of 25 Hercule Poirot adventures is compiled from short stories written by Agatha Christie for The Sketch magazine in 1923 from March to December. In these stories, including "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim", "The Veiled Lady", and "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb", the eccentric private detective slowly and surely solves mysteries involving jealousy, revenge, and greed. These stories were well-received at the time and cemented Christie's reputation as the worthy successor to Arthur Conan Doyle.
-
-
1923 Was a Very Good Year
- By John on 02-04-19
By: Agatha Christie
-
Cakes and Ale
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: James Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cakes and Ale was first published in 1930 it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they recognised portraits of literary figures now no more. It is the novel for which Maugham wished to be remembered.
-
-
Delightful
- By RueRue on 04-22-16
-
The Enchanted April
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a journey of both escape and discovery for four exquisitely different women, a month of bliss and privacy for four weary souls. Their refuge on the Italian Riviera provides the perfect backdrop for a story about the search for spiritual harmony within and without.
-
-
Excellent book, excellent narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-05
-
The Berlin Stories
- By: Christopher Isherwood
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christopher Isherwood's dramatized memoirs are prophetic images of a country preparing itself to embrace Hitler and the Third Reich. The Berlin Stories includes two works published together: The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. These modern classics reveal in poignant detail the tragedy of mid-20th-century Germany.
-
-
Nothing happens...
- By Tim Byers on 02-01-07
-
Past Imperfect
- By: Julian Fellowes
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern--his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death.
-
-
Read Snobs instead
- By cristina on 02-14-13
By: Julian Fellowes
-
The Lark
- By: E. Nesbit
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.
-
-
It has that wonderful charm of the tales of old...
- By Lidia Chymkowska on 10-03-18
By: E. Nesbit
-
How It All Began
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.
-
-
Wonderful and beautifully written
- By Molly-o on 02-15-12
By: Penelope Lively
-
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.
-
-
My favorite author
- By Karie on 07-09-15
By: Norah Lofts
-
Fraud
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Anna Massey
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Anna Durrant is reported missing her friends seem unconcerned at her disappearance. After all, her life has been one of concealment. For years Anna submitted to the protective dependence of her mother, and even after Amy Durrant’s death she simply conformed to the expectations of others. Increasingly, Anna feels herself trapped by these expectations.
-
-
Top Shelf Brookner
- By David P on 09-15-15
By: Anita Brookner
-
Cold Hand in Mine
- By: Robert Aickman
- Narrated by: Reece Shearsmith
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story ("Pages from a Young Girl's Journal") but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.
-
-
Aickman is unique
- By Stark on 08-19-23
By: Robert Aickman
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Jane and Prudence
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of 30, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent - until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver.
-
-
Ruined by narrator
- By TX lilbit on 07-27-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Less Than Angels
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Catherine Oliphant writes for women's magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow - although she's starting to wonder if they'll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He's leaving her for a 19-year-old student. Though stunned by Tom's betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options, she must figure out who she is and what she really wants.
-
-
Terrible narrator for a wonderful book
- By Penny G. on 04-23-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
A Glass of Blessings
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wilmet Forsyth is bored. Bored with the everyday routine of her life. Bored with teatimes filled with local gossip. Bored with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But on her 33rd birthday, Wilmet's conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend. Attractive and enigmatic, Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve. Rather than settling down, he lived in Portugal, then returned to England for a series of odd jobs. Driven by a fantasy of romance, the sheltered, naïve Englishwoman sets out to seduce Piers.
-
-
From elation to bitter disappointment
- By Bell on 07-22-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Some Tame Gazelle
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve - the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church - for 30 years. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking.
-
-
Great book, terrible reader
- By Elizabeth on 07-17-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
No Fond Return of Love
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's 18-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.
-
-
Narration fails Barbara Pym’s story and wit
- By Amazon Customer on 06-24-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Jane and Prudence
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of 30, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent - until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver.
-
-
Ruined by narrator
- By TX lilbit on 07-27-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
-
-
A Wonderful Find
- By Martha Alston on 05-24-22
By: Barbara Pym
-
Less Than Angels
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Catherine Oliphant writes for women's magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow - although she's starting to wonder if they'll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He's leaving her for a 19-year-old student. Though stunned by Tom's betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options, she must figure out who she is and what she really wants.
-
-
Terrible narrator for a wonderful book
- By Penny G. on 04-23-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
A Glass of Blessings
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wilmet Forsyth is bored. Bored with the everyday routine of her life. Bored with teatimes filled with local gossip. Bored with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But on her 33rd birthday, Wilmet's conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend. Attractive and enigmatic, Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve. Rather than settling down, he lived in Portugal, then returned to England for a series of odd jobs. Driven by a fantasy of romance, the sheltered, naïve Englishwoman sets out to seduce Piers.
-
-
From elation to bitter disappointment
- By Bell on 07-22-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
Some Tame Gazelle
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve - the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church - for 30 years. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking.
-
-
Great book, terrible reader
- By Elizabeth on 07-17-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
No Fond Return of Love
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Mary Sarah
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's 18-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.
-
-
Narration fails Barbara Pym’s story and wit
- By Amazon Customer on 06-24-20
By: Barbara Pym
-
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Biography
- By Mary Elizabeth Herr on 07-15-23
By: Paula Byrne
-
High Rising
- A Virago Modern Classic
- By: Angela Thirkell, Alexander McCall Smith - introduction
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.
-
-
Beginning of a journey
- By Jerri C on 11-04-16
By: Angela Thirkell, and others
-
Touch Not the Cat
- By: Mary Stewart
- Narrated by: Zoe Mills
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ashley Court: the tumbledown ancestral home of the Ashley family, all blessed with 'the gift' of being able to speak to each other without words. When Bryony Ashley's father dies under mysterious circumstances, his final words a cryptic warning to her, Bryony returns from abroad to uncover Ashley Court's secrets. What did her father's message mean? What lies at the centre of the overgrown maze in the gardens? And who is trying to prevent Bryony from discovering the truth?
-
-
A Bit of Atmosphere in Nostalgic Rom Suspense
- By Sophia Rose on 03-03-20
By: Mary Stewart
-
Savor
- A Chef's Hunger for More
- By: Fatima Ali, Tarajia Morrell - contributor
- Narrated by: Nikhaar Kishnani, Deepa Samuel
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fatima Ali won the hearts of viewers as the Fan Favorite of Bravo’s Top Chef in season fifteen. Twenty-nine years old, she was a dynamic, boundary-breaking chef and a bright new voice for change in the food world. After the taping wrapped and before the show aired, Fati was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. Not one to ever slow down or admit defeat, the star chef vowed to spend her final year traveling the world, eating delicious food, and making memories with her loved ones. But when her condition abruptly worsened, her plans were sidelined.
-
-
Very well written
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-23
By: Fatima Ali, and others
-
The Gabriel Hounds
- By: Mary Stewart
- Narrated by: Ellie Heydon
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legend has it that when the Gabriel Hounds run howling over the crumbling palace of Dar Ibrahim, high in the Adonis Valley of Lebanon, death will follow on their heels. When rich, spoilt Christie Mansel arrives at the decaying palace to look after her eccentric Aunt Harriet, she arrives to the sound of howling dogs. The palace is riddled with hidden passages and the servants are unwilling to let anyone see Harriet during the day. It seems the palace hides an extraordinary secret...one that somebody is willing to kill to keep.
-
-
Great suspense, strong heroine
- By N.Sum on 01-05-20
By: Mary Stewart
-
The Nutmeg Tree
- A Novel
- By: Margery Sharp
- Narrated by: Anna Parker-Naples
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julia Packett has barely laid eyes on her daughter, Susan, since leaving her with her well-heeled in-laws following the loss of her husband in World War I. Now 37, Julia's lack of prospects hasn't dimmed her spirit or her appetite for life. But when Susan asks her to come to France for the summer to persuade her grandmother to allow her to marry, she sets sail with the noblest intentions of acting the paragon of motherhood. Once there, however, Julia sees that her priggish but lovely daughter is completely mismatched with a man much more suited to herself: a charming, clever playboy.
-
-
LOVE the whimsical characters!
- By p3 on 01-29-24
By: Margery Sharp
-
Sushi for Beginners
- By: Marian Keyes
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lisa Edwards, top London magazine editor, has been fantasizing about promotion to New York. Instead, she's asked to launch a new women's magazine in Dublin. She thinks nothing could be worse - until she meets her new staff. They're friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic - in other words, they wouldn't last two minutes in London!
-
-
Not Up to Par for this Author
- By Theresa on 01-11-09
By: Marian Keyes
-
The Ivy Tree
- By: Mary Stewart
- Narrated by: Amy Molloy
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary Stewart, one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century, transports listeners to rural Northumberland for this tale of romance, ambition and deceit - a perfect fit for fans of Agatha Christie and Barbara Pym. Whitescar is a beautiful old house and farm situated in Roman Wall country. It will make a rich inheritance for its heirs, but in order to secure it, they enlist the help of a young woman named Mary who bears remarkable resemblance to missing Whitescar heiress Annabel Winslow. Their deception will spark a powder keg of ambition, obsession and long-dead love.
-
-
Narrator ruined one of my favorite books
- By Kat Harrison on 08-20-19
By: Mary Stewart
-
Cluny Brown
- A Novel
- By: Margery Sharp
- Narrated by: Anna Parker-Naples
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cluny Brown refuses to know her place in society. Last week, she took herself to tea at the Ritz. Then she spent almost an entire day in bed eating oranges. So, to teach her discipline, her uncle, a plumber who has raised the orphaned girl since she was a baby, sends her into service as a parlor maid at one of England's stately manor houses. While everyone around her struggles to keep pace with a rapidly changing world, Cluny continues to be Cluny, transforming those around her with her infectious zest for life.
-
-
SPOILED BY THE NARRATOR
- By GBC on 04-27-19
By: Margery Sharp
-
Cold Comfort Farm
- Penguin Classics
- By: Stella Gibbons
- Narrated by: Pearl Mackie
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at 19, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last 20 years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.
-
-
Very, very amusing, a go to if one needs cheering
- By Laura G. Marcantoni on 11-05-20
By: Stella Gibbons
-
Moon Tiger
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Ruth Urquhart
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elderly, uncompromising Claudia Hampton lies in a London hospital bed with memories of life fluttering through her fading consciousness. An author of popular history, Claudia proclaims she's carrying out her last project: a history of the world. This history turns out to be a mosaic of her life, her own story tangled with those of her brother, her lover and father of her daughter, and the center of her life, Tom, her one great love found and lost in war-torn Egypt.
-
-
stunning beauty
- By philip carr harris on 03-31-19
By: Penelope Lively
-
Nine Coaches Waiting
- By: Mary Stewart
- Narrated by: Ellie Heydon
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Linda Martin understands what is to be lonely: her parents died when she was young, and she was raised in an orphanage. When she is hired as a governess to the orphaned young Philippe, Comte de Valmy, Linda finds a kindred spirit in the lonely little boy. But Philippe is the heir to a vast estate in Savoy, and his dangerously handsome uncle may be willing to kill to ensure that Philippe never inherits it.
-
-
My favorite book for decades!
- By Mary E. Haley on 05-13-19
By: Mary Stewart
What listeners say about Excellent Women
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sara
- 04-13-16
Still Waters Run Deep
I love Barbara Pym's novels and have hoped for ages that they might show up here on Audible. Insightful, amusing and skillfully written. A complete treat. To me Entwistle's narration was perfectly timed. Pym's stories are so balanced and such well thought out slices of life that I find them comforting and stabilizing in an odd way. If your world has turned topsy-turvy there is nothing like curling up with one of her beautiful books to set everything right. I join other reviewers in their praise and hope that the rest of the Pym collection become available here soon. Wonderful. Hurry up Audible!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
104 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Carole T.
- 03-20-16
Treasure of Intelligence and Sly Wit
Barbara Pym has long been a favorite of mine - I have all her books, and am so happy to see Audible finally offering one of the best of them, "Excellent Women".
Pym is not to everyone's taste. This is a book where very little happens, but a lot is going on! Many people compare her to Jane Austen, and I think that's fair. "Excellent Women" and other Pym novels take the reader back to another era - post WWII England, where there are a lot of 'spinsters-of-a-certain-age' living seemingly petty and uninspired lives in their neighborhoods and villages.
Because they are unlikely ever to marry, consider themselves gentile, and find no chance for a career path in a "man's world", these women find not much to do but gossip, devote themselves to good causes, and be very involved in Church functions. Yet, make no mistake, Barbara Pym has great respect for "Excellent Women" and portrays them with keen intelligence and sly wit. Like Jane Austen's characters and Jane Marple, these seemingly pointless and often forgotten women are fine and often brutal observers who know a thing or two about fundamental human nature!
If you appreciate a good sense of the ridiculous and an author whose intelligence and wit sneak up on you, give "Excellent Women" a try. Jayne Entwistle does a very good job of narrating the lives of these excellent - and wryly hilarious - women.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
81 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Holly
- 05-07-16
At long last...Barbara Pym!
Every year I have begged Audible to acquire the works of Barbara Pym, one of the most delightful and intelligent writers to ever entertain a reader, after a fruitless but ever hopeful search. Suddenly, she is here! Though "Excellent Women" is not my very favorite, it most certainly is a complete gem. I cannot recommend it to you strongly enough. Despite having read the paperback yearly, and listened to my aging cassettes twice yearly, I have already listened to this twice since acquiring it this week. Please give Excellent Women a try! And I will add that it is beautifully narrated. Thank you so very much Audible, for finally offering Barbara Pym!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
59 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Edward Lafrance
- 04-03-16
Superb Pairing of Author and Narrator
My Audible library includes almost 130 books, and this is the first time I have felt compelled to write a review. I do so now because I have so enjoyed this lovely comedy of manners read by my favorite narrator. I am eager for more Barbara Pym read by Jane Entwhistle. I will buy them all.
And, while I am at it, how about the complete unabridged Lucia books by E F Benson? They are works of comic genius that fans of Barbara Pym will no doubt delight in.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
49 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lawrence Selden
- 03-19-16
Barbara Pym = Jane Austen + Samuel Beckett????????
Any additional comments?
Audible, please make more Barbara Pym books available to U.S. listeners!!!! I see Some Tame Gazelle, A Glass of Blessings, Jane and Prudence, and Less Than Angels are available on Audible UK only. When can we in the U.S. hear them too? I’ve listened to enough of this one to tell the reader does justice to the Pym and her characters’ voices—and to the dread that lurks at the margins of social conventions in Pym-world. It’s a world where a woman who questions whether it’s really necessary to drink tea at a church meeting is seriously deviant. I can’t wait to listen to the whole thing.
My highfalutin commentary: Barbara Pym’s characters occupy the same social, psychological, and cultural spaces as the subjects of “Eleanor Rigby.” They deal with existential loneliness and gender-bound extraneous-person isolation with more humor than Eleanor and Father McKenzie, however. You could almost think Pym wrote light, comic novels—if you also classify the Bill Evans Trio’s Waltz for Debby as lounge music. Pym herself was cast off by the British publishing industry in her prime, and couldn’t get a novel published for almost 20 years. So in her later books especially there’s a real undercurrent of discontent and forlon-ness.
If you love mid-century British women novelists, vote with your credits and download Excellent Women. Then maybe Audible will get the message! BTW her later novels would make gripping audio, too—The Sweet Dove Died and Quartet in Autumn.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
36 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RueRue
- 07-09-16
A lovely story about nothing much....
A lovely story about nothing much except life. Initially it may seem a bit dull, because there are no big moments, but isn't life mostly like that ? And Jayne Entwistle is a divine narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
35 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hernando
- 04-10-16
Barbara Pym is Finally Available from Audible
What did you love best about Excellent Women?
I am a big Pym fan so I pretty much like everything about her novels.
What did you like best about this story?
The humor, which is extremely dry—there is a lot going on between the lines.
Have you listened to any of Jayne Entwistle’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not but I would. She is very good.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I listened to it all in one day, but not in one sitting.
Any additional comments?
I am glad that one of Pym's books is finally available from Audible. The rest of them are out there and have been recorded. Please, please, please release Some Tame Gazelle, Jane and Prudence, Less than Angels, A Glass of Blessings, No Fond Return of Love, Quartet in Autumn, The Sweet Dove Died, A Few Green Leaves, An Unsuitable Attachment, Crampton Hodnet, An Academic Question and Civil to Strangers. I will immediately buy them all.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
28 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 07-22-17
Excellent Women, Excellent Book, Excellent Reader
As the first reports of success at Pearl Harbor filtered back to Japan, (stay with me here) Admiral Yamamoto was, according to historian Ian Toll, “stoic, expressionless”, disappointed that Admiral Nagumo, in charge of the attack, had withheld a third wave of planes. Less stoically, Yamamoto’s chief of staff fumed that Nagumo’s decision proved his, “contentment with a humble lot in life”.
I could have used an example of that kind of swaggering, world-beating contempt from any period of history in any country; it just happens that I’m reading about the Pacific War right now. And I recognized the chief of staff’s comment as the perfect antipodal contrast to the spirit of Excellent Women.
This isn’t a book about humility or service or bearing with others. It’s a book about humility and service and bearing with others with an attitude that finally transcends mere resignation and attains the essential wisdom that such a life can be—and indeed is—a full one.
It’s a beautiful, subtly funny, mildly sad story that flies in the face of most of our modern illusions about ourselves. Like most of our lives, there is no high drama. Jobs, so far from being a means of fulfilling ourselves, are just jobs. Even the anthropologists, people you’d think would be imbued with some sense of a greater mission, seem slightly bored with their papers and meetings. The people they spend their time observing are about as scintillating as the people we spend our time observing in the book.
True, the novel is set amidst the diminished expectations of post-WWII England, but even without a war these people would be no more than life-sized. Even the character who served did his time as an admiral’s social secretary in the Mediterranean.
I once heard someone say, “nothing happens in Jane Austen’s novels”. I couldn’t agree less, but I have to admit that even less happens in this novel. These life-sized characters and their approaches to doing something dramatic and definite—walking out on a husband or marrying a widow—never come to anything. Even when our narrator decides to do her hair differently she’s told, just a few steps from her front door, that it looked better the way she had it.
Yet for all the stasis, by the end our narrator suspects that her life is a full one. And, by the end, something has changed. Characters have entered and exited each other’s lives—and our life—and left an impression. The near-impossibility of defining that impression is what makes this story so true to life. It may be far-fetched, but I can’t help thinking of Raymond Chandler and his contempt for detective stories that wrap up all the loose ends in the final chapter. No one finds love in the final chapter of this story, but no one is heartbroken, either.
For years, my wife tried to get me to read Barbara Pym. I’ve wanted to myself, she being a novelist championed by one of my favorite poets, Philip Larkin. But due to some ancient family curse—or perhaps the bone structure of my head—I lack the patience for prose fiction. Audiobooks have gone a long way to remedying this deficiency in my makeup; one can only hope that Audible will offer more Barbara Pym soon.
And if they do, one can hope they give the assignment to Jane Entwistle.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- CT Amazonians
- 04-30-16
Excellent Women 🌹Wonderful Book!
I read this book in 1980. Listening to it 36 years later was a treat. As I did my needlework I listened to Mildred's story. When I read it in 1980 I was Mildred's age in the book. Now, much older, I looked at it in a different light. She hoped to be an "excellent woman". She was and I hope I have lived a life to be able to say the same. Is this book dated? Perhaps. But it was an interesting story of single women in the early 1950's, after the war. I highly recommend this book and all the other books by the treasured Barbara Pym.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Beth
- 07-24-16
Perfectly Pym
A mid-20th century novel narrated by Mildred, a 30-ish single woman in London, who busies herself with charitable work and helping her friends, taking an interest in all around her. Barbara Pym's gentle humor and social commentary will appeal to readers who enjoy Jane Austen and similar novelists, who reveal their characters through a focus on the small details of living. Delightful!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
15 people found this helpful