Thomas Keneally has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.1★ across 22 ratings. The most-rated is Schindler's List.
Schindler's List
Summary
The acclaimed best-selling classic of Holocaust literature, winner of the Booker Prize and the inspiration for the classic film Schindler's List. In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. A stunning novel based on the extraordinary true story of German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler, who came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally, author of Daughter of Mars, uses the actual testimony of the Schindlerjuden - Schindler’s Jews - to brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good man in the midst of unspeakable evil.
©2017 Thomas Keneally (P)2018 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Great Shame
Summary
Thomas Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s List, is universally praised for crafting smooth narratives from authentic historical events. With The Great Shame, he turns his insightful eye toward the Irish struggle through the 19h century. In sharp contrast to much of Europe, Ireland was a terrible place to be during the 1800s. Many of the nation’s finest people set sail for America and Canada. Others were forcibly exiled to Australia for committing crimes as minor as shoplifting. And approximately one million perished when a widespread potato fungus fueled a devastating famine. But the Irish survived—on their homeland and spanning the globe—making profound contributions to the world. Epic in scope, this account captures the humanity of these events and ultimately emerges as a message of hope and glory. Keneally, an Australian with Irish bloodties, powerfully examines many shattered lives—including those of his own relatives. Narrator John McDonough brings a spirit to this extraordinary book that will not soon be forgotten.
©1998 The Serpentine Publishing Co., Ltd. (P)2000 Recorded Books, LLC
Schindler's List
Summary
During the Holocaust at the German concentration camp near Plaszow, thousands of Jews lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis. More than a thousand others were spared thanks to a womanizing, heavy-drinking, German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member named Oskar Schindler. One of the most remarkable narratives of the Holocaust, Schindler's List masterfully recreates the daring exploits of Schindler, who used his enormous fortune to build a factory near the concentration camp and his influence to save the lives of more than 1,300 Jews. It is an absorbing, suspenseful, and moving account of Schindler's legacy of life.
©1993 Serpentine Publishing Co. PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved (P)1993 Simon & Schuster Inc., All Rights Reserved
A Commonwealth of Thieves
Summary
It was 1786 when Arthur Phillip, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy, was assigned the formidable task of organizing an expedition to Australia in order to establish a penal colony. The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of shipping off its convicts to a largely unexplored landmass at the other end of the world. Using the personal journals and documents that were kept during this expedition, historian/novelist Thomas Keneally re-creates the grueling overseas voyage, a hellish, suffocating journey that claimed the lives of many convicts. Miraculously, the fleet reached the shores of what was then called New South Wales in 1788, and after much trial and error, the crew managed to set up a rudimentary yet vibrant settlement. As governor of the colony, Phillip took on the challenges of dealing with unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, a bewildered and sometimes hostile native population, as well as such serious matters as food shortages and disease. Moving beyond Phillip, Keneally offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines, who both aided and opposed Phillip, and of the settlers, including convicts who were determined to overcome their pasts and begin anew. With the authority of a renowned historian and the narrative grace of a brilliant novelist, Thomas Keneally offers an insider's perspective into the dramatic saga of the birth of a vibrant society in an unfamiliar land. A Commonwealth of Thieves immerses us in the fledgling penal colony and conjures up colorful scenes of the joy and heartbreak, the thrills and hardships that characterized those first four improbable years.
©2006 Thomas Keneally (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.
The Widow and her Hero
Summary
In 1943, when Grace and Leo Waterhouse married in Australia, they were part of a young generation ready to sacrifice themselves to win the war, while being confident they would survive. Sixty years on, as Grace recounts what happened to her doomed hero, she can say what she suspected then: that for many men, bravery is its own end. The tale she tells is one of great love, lost innocence, a charismatic but unstable Irish commander, dashing undercover missions against the Japanese in Singapore, and - in her eyes - reckless, foolhardy exploits. As fresh details continue to emerge, Grace is forced to keep revising her picture of what happened to Leo and his fellow commandoes - until she learns about the final piece in the jigsaw, and an ultimate betrayal. As absorbing as it is thought-provoking, this timely novel poses unsettling questions about what drives men to battle and heroic deeds, and movingly conveys the life-long effect on those who survive them.
©2007 Serpentine Publishing Co. (Pty) Ltd (P)2007 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd