Gardens of Stone

My Boyhood in the French Resistance

De: Stephen Grady, Michael Wright

Narrado por: Gordon Griffin, Luke Thompson

An extraordinary wartime memoir, combining the best kind of adventure story with a coming-of-age testimony of unforgettable resonance and poignancy.

September 2011, Halkidiki, Northern Greece: A solitary 86-year-old man gazes across an Aegean headland, knowing that he must finally confront his past. He begins to write...September 1939, Nieppe, Northern France:14 year-old Stephen is living with his family, 25 kilometres from Ypres. His French mother battles with her encroaching blindness. Failing to escape the advancing German army, his English father can no longer look after the war graves that cast so heartbreaking a shadow across the region. Stephen and his friend Marcel embark upon their great adventure: collecting souvenirs from strafed convoys and crashed Messerschmitts.

But their world turns dark when arrested and imprisoned for sabotage and threatened with deportation or the firing squad. Upon his release, and still only 16, Stephen is recruited by the French Resistance. Growing up under the threat of imminent betrayal, he learns the arts of clandestine warfare, and - in a moment that haunts him still - how to kill....

Such was the impact of Stephen Grady's work for the French Resistance, (especially during the countdown to D-Day and its bloody aftermath) that he was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the American Medal of Freedom.

©2013 Stephen Grady and Michael Wright (P)2013 Hodder & Stoughton

great book, though with a technical problem

Where does Gardens of Stone rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The book is very good and interesting. There's a problem, which is probably caused by the editing of the recording.
In the chapter 25, minute 5,20 ( according to the recording order, not the book order ), suddenly you get the same part of the book that appeared some hours before.
This repetition lasts until the minute 14, which is the end of the chapter 25, and then the story continues correctly with chapter 26. The main problem is that you don't know if this mistake implies that you got the wrong recording during these 9 minutes and you are missing the good one, therefore missing a part of the book.
Alvaro