The Historical Fiction category has 5,886 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 31,971 ratings. The most-rated is The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Le Chardon et le Tartan
Summary
1945. Claire passe ses vacances en Écosse, où elle s'efforce d'oublier la Seconde Guerre mondiale auprès de son mari, tout juste rentré du front. Au cours d'une balade, la jeune femme est attirée par un mégalithe, auquel la population locale voue un culte étrange. Claire aura tôt fait d'en découvrir la raison : en s'approchant de la pierre, elle se volatilise pour atterrir au beau milieu d'un champ de bataille. Le menhir l'a menée tout droit en l'an de grâce 1743, au cœur de la lutte opposant Highlanders et Anglais. Happée par ce monde inconnu et une nouvelle vie palpitante, saura-t-elle revenir à son existence d'autrefois ? Le début d'une série incontournable ! >> Ce livre audio en version intégrale vous est proposé en exclusivité par Audible et est uniquement disponible en téléchargement.
©1995 Baror International. Traduit de l'américain par Philippe Safavi (P)2017 Audible Studios
Sophie's World
Summary
One day, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find two notes in her mailbox, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning - but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined. A pause-resisting novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie's World has fired the imagination of listeners all over the world, having been translated into 45 languages and with over 20 million copies in print.
©1991 H. Aschelhoug and Co. (W. Nygaard), Oslo. Translation 1994 Paulette Moller (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Killing Commendatore
Summary
A Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Library Journal, LitHub, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year The epic new novel from the internationally acclaimed and best-selling author of 1Q84 In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art - as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby - Killing Commendatore is a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers. “A spellbinding parable of art, history, and human loneliness.” (O, The Oprah Magazine) “Expansive and intricate...touches on many of the themes familiar in Mr. Murakami’s novels: the mystery of romantic love, the weight of history, the transcendence of art, the search for elusive things just outside our grasp.” (The New York Times) “Eccentric and intriguing, Killing Commendatore is the product of a singular imagination.... Murakami is a wiz at melding the mundane with the surreal.... He has a way of imbuing the supernatural with uncommon urgency. His placid narrative voice belies the utter strangeness of his plot.... The worldview of Murakami’s novels is consistent, and it’s invigorating. In this book and many that came before it, he urges us to embrace the unusual, accept the unpredictable." (San Francisco Chronicle) “Exhilarating.... Only in the calm madness of his magical realism can Murakami truly capture one of his obsessions, the usually ineffable yearning that drives a person to make art.” (The Washington Post)
©2018 Haruki Murakami (P)2018 Random House Audio
The Girl They Left Behind
Summary
A sweeping family saga and love story that offers a vivid and unique portrayal of life in war-torn 1941 Bucharest and life behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet Union occupation - perfect for fans of Lilac Girls and Sarah’s Key. On a freezing night in January 1941, a little Jewish girl is found on the steps of an apartment building in Bucharest. With Romania recently allied with the Nazis, the Jewish population is in grave danger, undergoing increasingly violent persecution. The girl is placed in an orphanage and eventually adopted by a wealthy, childless couple who name her Natalia. As she assimilates into her new life, she all but forgets the parents who were forced to leave her behind. They are even further from her mind when Romania falls under Soviet occupation. Yet, as Natalia comes of age in a bleak and hopeless world, traces of her identity pierce the surface of her everyday life, leading gradually to a discovery that will change her destiny. She has a secret crush on Victor, an intense young man who as an impoverished student befriended her family long ago. Years later, when Natalia is in her early 20s and working at a warehouse packing fruit, she and Victor, now an important official in the Communist regime, cross paths again. This time, they are fatefully drawn into a passionate affair despite the obstacles swirling around them and Victor’s dark secrets. When Natalia is suddenly offered a one-time chance at freedom, Victor is determined to help her escape, even if it means losing her. Natalia must make an agonizing decision: remain in Bucharest with her beloved adoptive parents and the man she has come to love or seize the chance to finally live life on her own terms and to confront the painful enigma of her past.
©2018 Roxanne Veletzos (P)2018 Simon & Schuster
Redeeming Love
Summary
Francine Rivers is one of America's favorite romance writers and a best-selling inspirational author. Her many heartfelt novels have won awards and the adoration of fans accross the country. In Redeeming Love, she retells the Biblical story of Hosea, setting it in the 1850s, amidst California's gold country.
©1997 Francine Rivers (P)2001 Recorded Books, LLC
The Shadow of the Wind
Summary
Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it, his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness, and doomed love. An uncannily absorbing historical mystery, a heart-piercing romance, and a moving homage to the mystical power of books, The Shadow of the Wind is a triumph of the storyteller's art. Translated by Lucia Graves.
©2001 Carlos Ruiz Zafon; 2004 Lucia Graves (P)2004 Penguin Audio
This Tender Land
Summary
The acclaimed author of Ordinary Grace crafts a powerful novel about an orphan's life-changing adventure traveling down America's great rivers during the Great Depression, seeking both a place to call home and a sense of purpose in a world sinking into despair. "Ask me, God's right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It's all connected, and it's all God. Sure this is hard work, but it's good work because it's a part of what connects us to this land. This beautiful, tender land." 1932: Located on the banks of the Gilead River in Minnesota, Lincoln School is home to hundreds of Native American boys and girls who have been separated from their families. The only two white boys in the school are orphan brothers Odie and Albert, who, under the watchful eyes of the cruel superintendent Mrs. Brickman, are often in trouble for misdeeds both real and imagined. The two boys' best friend is Mose, a mute Native American who is also the strongest kid in school. And they find another ally in Cora Frost, a widowed teacher who is raising her little girl, Emmy, by herself. When tragedy strikes down Mrs. Frost, it's the catalyst for a series of events that will send Odie, Albert, and Mose to rescue Emmy and flee down the river in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi, leaving a dead body in their wake. Soon, they are wanted by the law, and they know that Mrs. Brickman will stop at nothing to track them down for dark reasons of her own. Over the course of this unforgettable summer, Odie, Albert, Mose, and Emmy carefully make their way through the small river towns and big cities filled with people who are by turns desperate and generous, cruel and kind. As they search for a place to belong, these four remarkable children will lose their innocence but gain the strength to survive in the face of terrible loss. With his signature "pitch-perfect, wonderfully evocative" (Dennis Lehane, New York Times best-selling author) prose, William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.
©2019 William Kent Krueger (P)2019 Recorded Books
L'hiver du monde
Summary
De l'émergence du IIIe Reich à l'aube de l'ère atomique, la grande aventure du XXe siècle telle que personne ne l'a jamais racontée. 1933, Hitler s'apprête à prendre le pouvoir : l'Allemagne entame les heures les plus sombres de son histoire et va entraîner le monde entier dans la barbarie et la destruction. Cinq familles de nationalités différentes, intimement liées, vont être emportées par le tourbillon de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Amours contrariées, douloureux secrets, tragédies, coups du sort... Des salons du Yacht-Club de Buffalo à Pearl Harbor bombardé, des sentiers des Pyrénées espagnoles à Londres sous le Blitz, de Moscou en pleine évacuation à Berlin en ruines, l'auditeur est projeté au cœur des drames mais aussi des joies vécus par ces femmes et ces hommes exceptionnels. Boy Fitzherbert, Carla von Ulrich, Lloyd Williams, Daisy Pechkov, Gus Dewar et les autres vont chacun à leur manière tenter de faire face au milieu du chaos. Entre épopée historique et roman d'espionnage, histoire d'amour et thriller politique, ce deuxième volet de la magistrale trilogie du Siècle brosse une fresque inoubliable. >> Ce livre audio en version intégrale vous est proposé en exclusivité par Audible et est uniquement disponible en téléchargement.
©2012 Robert Laffont. Traduit de l'anglais par Jean-Daniel Brèque, Odile Demange, Nathalie Gouyé-Guilbert, Dominique Haas et Viviane Mikhalkov (P)2016 Audible Studios
The Lightkeeper's Daughters
Summary
With the haunting atmosphere and emotional power of The Language of Flowers, Orphan Train, and The Light Between Oceans, critically acclaimed children's author Jean E. Pendziwol's adult debut is an affecting story of family, identity, and art that involves a decades-old mystery. Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills the void with music and memories of her family, especially her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father's journals are discovered after an accident, the past suddenly becomes all too present. With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at her senior home, Elizabeth goes through the diaries, a journey through time that brings the two women closer together. Entry by entry, these unlikely friends are drawn deep into a world far removed from their own, to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth's father manned the lighthouse and raised his young family 70 years before. As the words on these musty pages come alive, Elizabeth and Morgan begin to realize that their fates are connected to the isolated island in ways they never dreamed. While the discovery of Morgan's connection sheds light onto her own family mysteries, the faded pages of the journals will shake the foundation of everything Elizabeth thinks she knows and bring the secrets of the past into the light.
©2017 Jean E. Pendziwol (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Homegoing
Summary
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize A New York Times 2016 Notable Book One of Oprah’s 10 Favorite Books of 2016 NPR's Debut Novel of the Year One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016 One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016 “Homegoing is an inspiration.” (Ta-Nehisi Coates) The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and 300 years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day. Effia and Esi are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of 20th-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation. Includes a PDF of the Family Tree PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2016 Yaa Gyasi (P)2016 Random House Audio
The Nix
Summary
A Nix can take many forms. In Norwegian folklore it is a spirit who sometimes appears as a white horse that steals children away. In Nathan Hill's remarkable first novel, a Nix is anything you love that one day disappears, taking with it a piece of your heart. It's 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson - college professor, stalled writer - has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn't seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she's reappeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the Internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: She's facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel's help. To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye's losses but also his own lost love and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother and himself. From the suburban Midwest to New York City to the 1968 riots that rocked Chicago and beyond, The Nix explores - with sharp humor and a fierce tenderness - the resilience of love and home, even in times of radical change.
©2016 Nathan Hill (P)2016 Random House Audio
The Crimson Petal and the White
Summary
NOW A MAJOR BBC DRAMA starring Romola Garai, Chris O'Dowd, Gillian Anderson, Richard E. Grant, Shirley Henderson, and Mark Gatiss. 'Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them....' So begins this irresistible voyage into the dark side of Victorian London. Amongst an unforgettable cast of low-lifes, physicians, businessmen, and prostitutes, meet our heroine Sugar, a young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she can. Be prepared for a mesmerising tale of passion, intrigue, ambition, and revenge.
©2011 Michel Faber (P)2011 W.F. Howes Ltd
Manhattan Beach
Summary
The long-awaited novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly 12 years old, accompanies her father to the house of a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. Anna observes the uniformed servants, the lavishing of toys on the children, and some secret pact between her father and Dexter Styles. Years later her father has disappeared, and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career as a Ziegfield folly, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub she chances to meet Styles, the man she visited with her father before he vanished, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father's life, the reasons he might have been murdered. Mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, with the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller and a wealth of detail about organized crime, the merchant marine, and the clash of classes in New York, Egan's first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America, and the world. Manhattan Beach is a magnificent novel by one of the greatest writers of our time.
©2017 Jennifer Egan (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Complete Novels : Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
Summary
“…narrating the novels of Jane Austen reminded me that no matter how much the world changes, human nature never does.” (Alison Larkin) Ever since Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy emerged from the lake in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the novels of Jane Austen have become more popular than ever, delighting millions of fans all over the world. Now, Alison Larkin's critically acclaimed narrations of Austen's six completed novels are brought together in this very special 200th anniversary audio edition. "Alison Larkin's narration will captivate listeners from the first sentence", raves AudioFile magazine about the Earphones Award-winning recording of Sense and Sensibility, which starts the collection. Hailed by The Times as "marvelously light footed...hugely entertaining," Alison Larkin is the perfect vessel to bring the deft, satirical novels of Jane Austen to sparkling new life. Alison Larkin is the best-selling author of The English American, a comedienne and the award-winning narrator of over 150 audiobooks. In addition to Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice with Songs from Regency England, Mansfield Park, Persuasion & Poems, Emma and Northanger Abbey and the History of England by Jane Austen, other classic narrations include Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass; Fairytales of the Fiercer Sex by the Brothers Grimm, et al; Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (with James Warwick); Peter Pan & the Inconsiderate Waiter; and Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary. Title and end music: "The Lonely Ash Grove", sung by Alison Larkin.
Public Domain (P)2017 Alison Larkin Presents
A Voice in the Wind
Summary
Francine Rivers, a winner of the ECPA Gold Medallion, is a best-selling author of Christian fiction. A Voice in the Wind takes listeners into a richly imagined ancient Rome in the midst of its great decline. This heart-stirring tale of a young slave girl, torn between her love for a handsome aristocrat and her faith in God, transcends genres with its awe-inspiring power and emotional intensity.
©2002 Francine Rivers (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC
News of the World
Summary
Now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks National Book Award finalist - Fiction In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the US Army, the 10-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember — strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: Abandon the girl to her fate or become — in the eyes of the law — a kidnapper himself. Cover Image © 2020 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
©2016, 2017, 2019 Paulette Jiles (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Sharpe's Fortress: The Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803 (The Sharpe Series, Book 3)
Summary
Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly made an officer, wishes he had stayed a sergeant after he is put in terrible danger by Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill at the impregnable Gawilghur's ravine. To regain his confidence and his authority, Sharpe will fight as he has never fought before. Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears. Please Note: The historical note is NOT included in this audiobook.
©1999 Bernard Cornwell (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishing Limited
To Sir Phillip, with Love
Summary
Sir Phillip knew that Eloise Bridgerton was a spinster, and so he'd proposed, figuring that she'd be homely and unassuming, and more than a little desperate for an offer of marriage. Except...she wasn't. The beautiful woman on his doorstep was anything but quiet, and when she stopped talking long enough to close her mouth, all he wanted to do was kiss her... and more. Did he think she was mad? Eloise Bridgerton couldn't marry a man she had never met! But then she started thinking...and wondering...and before she knew it, she was in a hired carriage in the middle of the night, on her way to meet the man she hoped might be her perfect match. Except...he wasn't. Her perfect husband wouldn't be so moody and ill-mannered, and while Phillip was certainly handsome, he was a large brute of a man, rough and rugged, and totally unlike the London gentlemen vying for her hand. But when he smiled...and when he kissed her...the rest of the world simply fell away, and she couldn't help but wonder...could this imperfect man be perfect for her?
©2003 Julie Cotler Pottinger (P)2017 Recorded Books
The Kitchen House
Summary
Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, and serve food while guided by the quiet strength and love of her new family. In time Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master's opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves. Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Grissom's debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.
©2010 Kathleen Grissom (P)2017 Simon & Schuster
Bring Up the Bodies
Summary
By 1535, Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court and its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a “truth” that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theater of Anne’s final days. In Bring Up the Bodies, sequel to the Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn.
©2012 Hilary Mantel (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers