Phyllida Nash has narrated 35 audiobooks on Listento.it by 18 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.1★ across 852 ratings. The most-rated is Between the World and Me.
Between the World and Me
Summary
Number-one New York Times best seller National Book Award winner Named one of Time’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade Pulitzer Prize finalist National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading”, a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone). Named one of the Most Influential Books of the Decade by CNN Named one of Paste’s Best Memoirs of the Decade Named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race”, a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men - bodies exploited through slavery and segregation and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son - and listeners - the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
©2015 Ta-Nehisi Coates (P)2015 Random House Audio
SPQR
Summary
Ancient Rome matters. Its history of empire, conquest, cruelty and excess is something against which we still judge ourselves. Its myths and stories - from Romulus and Remus to the rape of Lucretia - still strike a chord with us. And its debates about citizenship, security and the rights of the individual still influence our own debates on civil liberty today. SPQR is a new look at Roman history from one of the world's foremost classicists. It explores not only how Rome grew from an insignificant village in central Italy to a power that controlled territory from Spain to Syria but also how the Romans thought about themselves and their achievements and why they are still important to us. Covering 1,000 years of history and casting fresh light on the basics of Roman culture, from slavery to running water, as well as exploring democracy, migration, religious controversy, social mobility and exploitation in the larger context of the empire, this is a definitive history of ancient Rome. SPQR is the Romans' own abbreviation for their state: Senatus Populusque Romanus, 'the Senate and People of Rome'.
©2015 Mary Beard (P)2015 Audible, Ltd
SPQR
Summary
A sweeping, revisionist history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists. Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty. From the foundational myth of Romulus and Remus to 212 CE, nearly a thousand years later, when the emperor Caracalla gave Roman citizenship to every free inhabitant of the empire, SPQR (the abbreviation of "The Senate and People of Rome") not just examines how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries by exploring how the Romans thought of themselves: how they challenged the idea of imperial rule, how they responded to terrorism and revolution, and how they invented a new idea of citizenship and nation. Opening the audiobook in 63 BCE with the famous clash between the populist aristocrat Catiline and Cicero, the renowned politician and orator, Beard animates this "terrorist conspiracy", which was aimed at the very heart of the republic, demonstrating how this singular event would presage the struggle between democracy and autocracy that would come to define much of Rome's subsequent history. Illustrating how a classical democracy yielded to a self-confident and self-critical empire, SPQR reintroduces us, though in a wholly different way, to famous and familiar characters.
©2015 Mary Beard (P)2015 Recorded Books
Pompeii - The Life of a Roman Town
Summary
Pompeii explodes a number of myths - among them, the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought; the hygiene of the baths which must have been hotbeds of germs; the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one; and the death count, which was probably less than ten per cent of the population. These are just a few of the strands that make up an extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain’s leading classicist.
©2008 Mary Beard (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Fires of Vesuvius
Summary
Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site in the world, visited by more than two million people each year. Yet it is also one of the most puzzling, with an intriguing and sometimes violent history. Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. But the eruptions are only part of the story. In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was - more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol? - and what it can tell us about "ordinary" life there. From sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy, Beard offers us the big picture even as she takes us close enough to the past to smell the bad breath and see the intestinal tapeworms of the inhabitants of the lost city. She resurrects the Temple of Isis as a testament to ancient multiculturalism. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica. Recently, Pompeii has been a focus of pleasure and loss: from Pink Floyd's memorable rock concert to Primo Levi's elegy on the victims. But Pompeii still does not give up its secrets quite as easily as it may seem. This book shows us how much more and less there is to Pompeii than a city frozen in time as it went about its business on 24 August 79 CE.
©2008 Mary Beard (P)2019 Tantor
Secrets
Summary
Victor Bayne's job as a PsyCop involves tracking down dead people and getting them to spill their guts about their final moments. It's never been fun, per se. But it's not usually this annoying. Vic has just moved in with his boyfriend Jacob, he can't figure out where anything's packed, and his co-worker is pressuring him to have a housewarming party. Can't a guy catch a break? On a more sinister note, Vic discovers there's absolutely no trace of him online. No trace of anyone else who trained at "Camp Hell," either. Everyone Vic knows has signed a mysterious set of papers to ensure his "privacy." The contracts are so confidential that even Vic has never heard of them. But Jacob might have. What other secrets has Jacob been keeping?
©2008 Jordan Castilo Price (P)2015 Jordan Castillo Price
Henry VIII: King and Court
Summary
This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history. As well as challenging some recent theories, it offers controversial new conclusions based on contemporary evidence that has until now been overlooked. This is a triumph of historical writing which will appeal equally to the general listener and the serious historian.
©2001 Alison Weir (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
Hedda Gabler
Summary
Hedda Gabler, the daughter of a deceased general, marries dull George Tesman and foresees a life of middle-class tedium stretching ahead when they return from their honeymoon. Increasingly she is drawn into the clutches of her admirer, Judge Brack, who seeks to establish a ménage à trois. Then the brilliant but dissolute Eilert Lovborg, a former flame, arrives to rival her husband for an academic post. This new audio production, with Juliet Stevenson giving an unforgettable performance as the passionate Hedda, brings this classic drama to life. Translated by William Archer and Edmund Gosse.
Public Domain (P)2002 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd.
Georgette Heyer
Summary
Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public.
Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print. A phenomenon even in her own lifetime, to this day she is the undisputed queen of regency romance.
During 10 years of research into Georgette Heyer's life and writing, Jennifer Kloester has had unlimited access to Heyer's notebooks and private papers and the Heyer family records and exclusive access to several untapped archives of Heyer's early letters. Engaging, authoritative and meticulously researched, Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller offers a comprehensive insight into the life and writing of a remarkable and ferociously private woman.
©2011 Jennifer Kloester 2011 (P)2015 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Village School
Summary
Fairacre is a village of cottages, a church and the school - and, at the heart of the school, its head mistress Miss Read. Through her discerning eye, we meet the villagers of Fairacre and see their trials and tribulations, from the irascible school cleaner Mrs Pringle, to the young school children, with their scraped knees, hopeful faces and inevitable mischief. Full of Miss Read's unique, acerbic wit, and wry observations, Village School is an intriguing glimpse into a forgotten world, and has become a true classic.
©1955 Miss Read (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Darcy Connection
Summary
In The Darcy Connection, Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice is now the Bishop of Ripon, living with his wife Charlotte and their two daughters, who have reached marriageable age. The elder, another Charlotte, is extraordinarily beautiful, and her parents hope her looks and connections will ensure a brilliant marriage. Her sister Eliza, while not as handsome, possesses a lively intelligence that, in Mr. Collins's opinion, is too like her godmother Mrs. Darcy. In London, Charlotte's beauty wins her many admirers, despite her small fortune. But Eliza's wit and attempts to interfere in what she considers an unsuitable marriage for her sister infuriate her family and Charlotte's suitor - until Eliza herself meets her match. New and old fans alike will relish this witty, romantic, thoroughly entertaining novel from a highly talented author.
©2008 AEB Ltd. (P)2015 Audible Inc.
Picture Miss Seeton
Summary
When Miss Seeton walks out after a performance of Carmen and witnesses a real-life stabbing, all she can recall is a shadowy figure. But how could she have guessed that her latest artistic endeavor is a picture-perfect portrait of the killer? Her sketch puts her in a perilous position, for back at her recently inherited cottage in Plummergen village, she's fated to be a sitting duck...for murder most foul! Meet Miss Emily D. Seeton: retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles. Armed with only her sketch pad and umbrella, she is every inch an eccentric English spinster and the most lovable and unlikely master of detection.
©2016 The Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of Heron Carvic (P)2017 Prelude Books Ltd
Ravenna
Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
In 402 AD, after invading tribes broke through the Alpine frontiers of Italy and threatened the imperial government in Milan, the young Emperor Honorius made the momentous decision to move his capital to a small, easily defendable city in the Po estuary - Ravenna. From then until 751 AD, Ravenna was first the capital of the Western Roman Empire, then that of the immense kingdom of Theoderic the Goth and finally the centre of Byzantine power in Italy.
In this engrossing account, Judith Herrin explains how scholars, lawyers, doctors, craftsmen, cosmologists and religious luminaries were drawn to Ravenna where they created a cultural and political capital that dominated northern Italy and the Adriatic. As she traces the lives of Ravenna's rulers, chroniclers and inhabitants, Herrin shows how the city became the meeting place of Greek, Latin, Christian and barbarian cultures and the pivot between East and West. The book offers a fresh account of the waning of Rome, the Gothic and Lombard invasions, the rise of Islam and the devastating divisions within Christianity. It argues that the fifth to eighth centuries should not be perceived as a time of decline from antiquity but rather, thanks to Byzantium, as one of great creativity - the period of 'Early Christendom'. These were the formative centuries of Europe.
While Ravenna's palaces have crumbled, its churches have survived. In them, Catholic Romans and Arian Goths competed to produce an unrivalled concentration of spectacular mosaics, many of which still astonish visitors today. Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned photographs and drawing on the latest archaeological and documentary discoveries, Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe brings the early Middle Ages to life through the history of this dazzling city.
©2020 Judith Herrin (P)2020 Penguin Audio
The Second Mrs. Darcy
Summary
The next adventure of the Darcy family from the author of Mr. Darcy's Daughters - the story of a reluctant heiress who has been left a widow by Darcy's cousin Christopher. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband. So say the friends and family of impoverished widow Octavia Darcy when she unexpectedly inherits a fortune, but she has a different view and looks forward to a new life of independence. Escaping from the efforts of her half brothers and sisters to marry her off, Octavia goes to Yorkshire to find out more about the family she never knew, and while she is there she meets and crosses swords with landowner and politician Sholto Rutherford. When she returns to London to share a house with the dashing Lady Susan, Octavia, now secure in her new life, becomes caught up in the romantic problems of her niece. Then, the shadow of George Warren, the old nemesis of the Darcy family, falls over her, and she is threatened with the loss of both inheritance and reputation.
©2007 A.E. Books, Ltd. (P)2015 Audible Inc.
Miss Seeton Sings
Summary
When a flood of perfectly faked banknotes hits the market, retired art teacher Miss Emily Seeton, the Yard's famed ‘MissEss', is chosen to investigate a respected Geneva bank. Somehow, the forger is also mixed up in the theft of valuable paintings, so it's ‘set an artist to catch an artist.' But Miss S. is new to air travel – surely the names Geneva and ‘Genova' must be the same place? Bamboozling both the crooks and the police who vainly try to keep tabs on her, innocently humming the fraudsters' musical password, she trips gaily along the dangerous trail. Serene amidst every kind of skullduggery, this eccentric English spinster steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles, armed with nothing more than her sketchpad and umbrella!
©2016 The Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of Heron Carvic (P)2017 Prelude Books Ltd
Ravenna
Summary
This riveting audiobook narrated by Phyllida Nash traces the history of the city that led the West out of the ruins of the Roman Empire At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the city attracted scholars, lawyers, craftsmen, and religious luminaries, becoming a true cultural and political capital. Bringing this extraordinary history marvelously to life, Judith Herrin rewrites the history of East and West in the Mediterranean world before the rise of Islam and shows how, thanks to Byzantine influence, Ravenna played a crucial role in the development of medieval Christendom. Drawing on deep, original research, Herrin tells the personal stories of Ravenna while setting them in a sweeping synthesis of Mediterranean and Christian history. She narrates the lives of the Empress Galla Placidia and the Gothic king Theoderic and describes the achievements of an amazing cosmographer and a doctor who revived Greek medical knowledge in Italy, demolishing the idea that the West just descended into the medieval "Dark Ages." Based on the latest archaeological findings, this monumental book provides a bold new interpretation of Ravenna's lasting influence on the culture of Europe and the West.
©2020 Judith Herrin (P)2020 Princeton University Press
Lost in the Snow
Summary
Fluff is the smallest and weakest of the farm kittens, but she surprises everyone with her strength and spirit. Ella falls in love with Fluff straight away, but Ella's mother won't let her have a cat. What happens to kittens that nobody wants?
©2006 Holly Webb (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Ginger the Stray Kitten
Summary
Rosie loves visiting the stray cats that live on the farm near her gran’s house. Her favourite is a tiny kitten who she calls Ginger, because of the gorgeous colour of his fur. At first Ginger is very shy, then slowly he learns to trust Rosie. But when the farm is sold to developers and the builders start work, the little kitten is terrified - all the other cats have disappeared and he’s all alone. Suddenly the world is a very scary place... A moving animal story from bestselling author Holly Webb.
©2010 Holly Webb (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Lost in the Storm
Summary
Ella loves her kitten, Fluff, and worries about her going missing again. But Fluff is enchanted by being outside, especially when it starts snowing and she has the pretty snowflakes to play with. But suddenly a blizzard sets in and Fluff loses her way.
©2007 Holly Webb (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Lives of Houses
Summary
A group of notable writers - including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow - celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past What can a house tell us about the person who lives there? Do we shape the buildings we live in, or are we formed by the places we call home? And why are we especially fascinated by the houses of the famous and often long-dead? In Lives of Houses, a group of notable biographers, historians, critics, and poets explores these questions and more through fascinating essays on the houses of great writers, artists, composers, and politicians of the past. Editors Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee are joined by wide-ranging contributors, including Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, David Cannadine, Roy Foster, Alexandra Harris, Daisy Hay, Margaret MacMillan, Alexander Masters, and Jenny Uglow. We encounter W. H. Auden, living in joyful squalor in New York's St. Mark's Place, and W. B. Yeats in his flood-prone tower in the windswept West of Ireland. We meet Benjamin Disraeli, struggling to keep up appearances, and track the lost houses of Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. We visit Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, England, and Jean Sibelius at Ainola, Finland. But Lives of Houses also considers those who are unhoused, unwilling or unable to establish a home - from the bewildered poet John Clare wandering the byways of England to the exiled Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera living on the streets of London. Lives of Houses illuminates what houses mean to us and how we use them to connect to and think about the past. The result is a fresh and engaging look at house and home. Featuring: Alexandra Harris on moving house Susan Walker on Morocco's ancient Roman House of Venus Hermione Lee on biographical quests for writers’ houses Margaret MacMillan on her mother's Toronto house a poem by Maura Dooley, "Visiting Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts" - the house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her novel Little Women Felicity James on William and Dorothy Wordsworth's Dove Cottage Robert Douglas-Fairhurst at home with Tennyson David Cannadine on Winston Churchill's dream house, Chartwell Jenny Uglow on Edward Lear at San Remo's Villa Emily Lucy Walker on Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh, England Seamus Perry on W. H. Auden at 77 St. Mark's Place, New York City Rebecca Bullard on Samuel Johnson's houses a poem by Simon Armitage, "The Manor" Daisy Hay at home with the Disraelis Laura Marcus on H. G. Wells at Uppark Alexander Masters on the fear of houses Elleke Boehmer on sites associated with Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera Kate Kennedy on the mental asylums where World War I poet Ivor Gurney spent the last years of his life a poem by Bernard O'Donoghue, "Safe Houses" Roy Foster on W. B. Yeats and Thoor Ballylee Sandra Mayer on W. H. Auden's Austrian home Gillian Darley on John Soane and the autobiography of houses Julian Barnes on Sibelius and Ainola
©2020 Princeton University Press (P)2020 Princeton University Press