Black Venus
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Black Venus
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Narrated by:
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John Banks
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By:
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James MacManus
About this listen
A fictional biographical slice of Baudelaire's life and love with his famous Haitian muse, Jeanne Duval, Black Venus captures the artistic scene in the great French capital city, at a time when the likes of Dumas and Balzac argued literature in the cafés of the Left Bank. Among the bohemians, the young Charles Baudelaire stood out, dressed impeccably thanks to an inheritance that was quickly vanishing.
Still at work on the poems that he hoped would make his name, he spent his nights enjoying the alcohol, opium and women who filled the seedy streets of the city. One woman would catch his eye, a beautiful Haitian cabaret singer named Jeanne Duval. Their lives would remain forever intertwined thereafter, and their romance would inspire his most infamous poems leading to the banning of his masterwork, Les Fleurs du Mal, and a scandalous public trial for obscenity.
©2014 James MacManus (P)2014 Audible StudiosListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
Paris, 1917. The notorious dancer Mata Hari sits in a cold cell awaiting freedom...or death. Alone and despondent, she is as confused as the rest of the world about the charges she's been arrested on: treason leading to the deaths of thousands of French soldiers. As she waits for her fate to be decided, she relays the story of her life to a reporter who is allowed to visit her in prison.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Throughly enjoyable
- By scalante on 09-07-16
By: Michelle Moran
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Wild Lavender
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Kate Hood
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 397
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 334
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 332
Simone Fleurier is wrenched from her home on a Provencal lavender farm at the age of 14 after the accidental death of her father. Forced to become a maid at the boarding house of her Aunt Augustine in Marseilles, Simone's life is hard and impoverished. But one of her aunt's boarders, the beautiful Camille Casal, a star at the local music hall, gives Simone a dream: that one day she too will be a famous singer and dancer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Extrodinary Story
- By Wade on 08-16-08
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Claude & Camille
- A Novel of Monet
- By: Stephanie Cowell
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 216
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Story4 out of 5 stars 179
In the mid-19th century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his fathers nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his fathers will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiated the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris.
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5 out of 5 stars
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As a painter
- By janice hedwall on 03-08-16
By: Stephanie Cowell
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 677
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 610
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 608
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Freud's Mistress
- By: Karen Mack, Jennifer Kaufman
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 69
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 68
In this sweeping tale of love, loyalty, and betrayal - between a husband and a wife, between sisters - fact and fiction seamlessly blend together, creating a compelling portrait of an unforgettable woman and her struggle to reconcile her love for her sister with her obsessive desire for her sister's husband, the mythic father of psychoanalysis.
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3 out of 5 stars
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What a Super Ego
- By Mel on 07-12-13
By: Karen Mack, and others
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The President's Hat
- By: Antoine Laurain
- Narrated by: Luke Thompson, Peter Noble, David Timson, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when President François Mitterrand sits down to eat at the table next to him. After the presidential party has gone, Daniel discovers that Mitterrand’s black felt hat has been left behind. After a few moments’ soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It’s a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow...different.
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4 out of 5 stars
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You need this book. I need that hat.
- By Amber on 10-25-13
By: Antoine Laurain
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Moonlight over Paris
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Jane Copland
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
It's the spring of 1924, and Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr has just arrived in France. On the mend after a near-fatal illness, she is ready to embrace the restless, heady allure of the City of Lights. Her parents have given her one year to live with her eccentric aunt in Paris, and Helena means to make the most of her time. She's quickly drawn into the world of the Lost Generation and its circle of American expatriates, and, with their encouragement, she finds the courage to pursue her dream of becoming an artist.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A pleasant trip to 1924 Paris
- By RueRue on 05-09-16
By: Jennifer Robson
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The Bastard
- The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,169
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,035
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,032
Set against the colorful tumult of events that gave rise to our fledgling nation, this novel of romance and adventure introduces Phillipe Charboneau. The illegitimate son of an English nobleman, Phillipe flees Europe and, as Philip Kent, joins the men who set our course for freedom. The Bastard is the first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, a series of novels that details one family's journey in the early years of the American nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Amazing Tale
- By will on 11-06-13
By: John Jakes
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The Queen of the Night
- By: Alexander Chee
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 500
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 455
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 453
Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singer's chance at immortality. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her, one wants to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not my typical choice
- By fadedcharacter on 02-15-16
By: Alexander Chee
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The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre
- By: Dominic Smith
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
In this luminous novel, Dominic Smith reinvents the life of one of photography's founding fathers. In 1839, Louis Daguerre's invention took the world by storm. A decade later, he is sinking deep into delusions brought on by exposure to mercury, the very agent that allowed his daguerreotype process. Believing the world will end within one year, he creates his "Doomsday List", 10 items he must photograph before the final day. It includes a woman he has always loved but has not seen in half a century.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Dud
- By Deborah on 01-31-08
By: Dominic Smith
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The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
- By: Sandra Gulland
- Narrated by: Kim Handysides
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Performance...ugh
- By Lisa on 02-17-18
By: Sandra Gulland
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Mademoiselle Chanel
- By: C. W. Gortner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gibel
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 604
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 539
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 537
Born into rural poverty, Gabrielle Chanel and her siblings are sent to an orphanage after their mother's death. The sisters nurture Gabrielle's exceptional sewing skills, a talent that will propel the willful young woman into a life far removed from the drudgery of her childhood.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Fiction Not Biography
- By Sara on 02-07-16
By: C. W. Gortner
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Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 893
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 787
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 786
The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
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Light Years
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Story4 out of 5 stars 132
This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Unfathomable Font of Blue: Life's Serial Goodbyes
- By W Perry Hall on 04-18-19
By: James Salter
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A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 33 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 279
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 243
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 242
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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Murphy's Law
- By: Rhys Bowen
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,909
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,581
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,587
Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, under cover of a false identity, for the anonymous shores of late 19th-century America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Cream Puff Read
- By Jan on 12-19-13
By: Rhys Bowen