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China and the Chinese
- Narrated by: Thomas Collins
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
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China and the Chinese
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If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given point, the interesting procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of those living to-day had gone by, another and a new generation would have grown up, and so on for ever and ever. The importance, as a factor in the sum of human affairs, of this vast nation, - of its language, of its literature, of its religions, of its history, of its manners and customs, - goes therefore without saying. Yet a serious attention to China and her affairs is of very recent growth. Twenty-five years ago there was but one professor of Chinese in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and even that one spent his time more in adorning his profession than in imparting his knowledge to classes of eager students.
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- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,415
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,952
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,943
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
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Letters from the Earth
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Carl Reiner
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 193
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Story4 out of 5 stars 147
Here we see Twain on a somewhat personal level. Penniless and having just lost his wife and one of his children, Twain turns to writing about God, Christianity, and the many curious natures of man. This collection was so controversial that his daughter prohibited its publication until 52 years after his death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read for thinking people
- By Charles on 11-28-11
By: Mark Twain
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Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,288
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,147
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,139
The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
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God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 294
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 259
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 258
It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
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The Professor and the Madman
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 5,256
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,050
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4,065
Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect example of a quality audible book.
- By Jerry on 07-07-03
By: Simon Winchester
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Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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5 out of 5 stars
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 09-30-14
By: Leo Damrosch
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The Consolations of Philosophy
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 667
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 495
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 493
Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat: He has transformed arcane philosophy into something accessible and entertaining, useful and kind. Drawing on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers, de Botton has arranged a panoply of wisdom to guide us through our most common problems.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cheering, empathic, helpful
- By Austin on 11-11-09
By: Alain de Botton
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 337
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4 out of 5 stars 154
Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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The Travels of Marco Polo
- By: Marco Polo, Rustichello da Pisa
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
The Travels of Marco Polo is the classic account of Marco Polo's journey to China from Venice, and his discoveries as an emissary to the great Kublai Khan. Polo explores everywhere from Baghdad, Armenia and Russia to the Caspian Sea, the Gobi Desert and the small fishing villages of China, describing the geography, architecture and customs of these exotic places.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Laura Harley on 05-22-20
By: Marco Polo, and others
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Marco Polo
- From Venice to Xanadu
- By: Laurence Bergreen
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 725
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 620
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 619
As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen, comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Educational and Entertaining but a bit repetitive
- By PETER on 01-02-13
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Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
- By: Charles MacKay
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4 out of 5 stars 99
Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic - first published in 1841 - shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds.
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5 out of 5 stars
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People don't change
- By J. on 07-05-16
By: Charles MacKay
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Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens