The Earl and the Pharaoh
From the Real Downton Abbey to the Discovery of Tutankhamun
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The Earl and the Pharaoh
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Narrated by:
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Countess of Carnarvon
About this listen
Enter a world of ancient secrets, old money, new ambitions and the discovery of priceless treasure in this revelatory new biography.
Between November 1922 and spring 1923, a door to the ancient Egyptian world was opened. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun would be the most astonishing archaeological find of the century, revealing not only the boy pharaoh’s preserved remains, but thousands of finely crafted objects, from the iconic gold mask and coffins to a dagger made from meteorite, chalices, beautiful furniture and even 3000-year-old food and wine. The world’s understanding of Ancient Egyptian civilisation was immeasurably enhanced, and the quantity and richness of the objects in the tomb is still being studied today. Two men were ultimately responsible for the discovery: Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. It was Lord Carnarvon who held the concession to excavate and whose passion and ability to finance the project allowed the eventual discovery to take place.
The Earl and the Pharaoh tells the story of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Carnarvon’s life, money and sudden death became front-page news throughout the world following the discovery of the tomb, fuelling rumours that persist today of ‘the curse of the pharaohs’. His beloved home, Highclere Castle, is today best-known as the set of Downton Abbey.
Drawing on Highclere Castle’s never-before-plumbed archives, bestselling author Fiona, the Countess of Carnarvon, charts the twists of luck and tragedies that shaped Carnarvon’s life; his restless and enquiring mind that drove him to travel to escape conventional society life in Edwardian Britain.
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‘The story of their quest for the tomb of an obscure pharaoh is familiar but still exciting, and the countess tells it well, conjuring up the fights, the frustrations, the times when Carnarvon came close to cutting his losses and giving up, and the moment in November 1922 when Carter held his candle up to a hole in the wall of Tutankhamun’s tomb and in answer to Carnarvon’s question, “Can you see anything?” answered, “Yes, wonderful things”… Carnarvon’s life makes a good story, with plenty of Downton-esque period details’ Daily Telegraph
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Story5 out of 5 stars 89
When Queen Mary died in 1953, James Pope-Hennessy was commissioned to write an official biography of her - unusual for a queen consort. Queen Mary's life, contrary to popular belief, was essentially dramatic, and she played a far more important and influential role in the affairs of the British monarchy than her public image might have otherwise suggested. Using material from the Royal Archives, private papers, and Queen Mary's personal diaries and letters, Pope-Hennessy's biography was a remarkable portrait of a remarkable woman and received rave reviews across the press.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent! UPDATED review after 2nd listen.
- By Geri A on 07-31-21
By: James Pope-Hennessy, and others
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George VI and Elizabeth
- The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy
- By: Sally Bedell Smith
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 22 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
A revelatory account of how the loving marriage of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth saved the monarchy during World War II, and how they raised their daughter to become Queen Elizabeth II, based on exclusive access to the Royal Archives—from the bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen and Prince Charles.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great telling of their lives
- By Nancy on 04-15-23
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George and Marina
- Duke and Duchess of Kent
- By: Christopher Warwick
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 71
For eight brief years, before he was tragically killed in a mysterious air crash during the Second World War, Prince George, Duke of Kent, son of King George V and Queen Mary, and his beautiful wife, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, were the British monarchy's - indeed, high society's - most glamorous royal couple; and as golden royal icons, they are still remembered.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Engaging
- By Jean on 06-02-17
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The Last Castle
- The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Denise Kiernan
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 988
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 880
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 876
Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York's best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very factual
- By Jennifer on 11-28-17
By: Denise Kiernan
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Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey
- By: The Countess of Carnarvon
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 160
Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle, the setting for Julian Fellowes’s Emmy Award-winning PBS show Downton Abbey, and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Catherine Wendell.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not what was advertised
- By Jessica C Anderson on 09-10-19
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The Cartiers
- The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire
- By: Francesca Cartier Brickell
- Narrated by: Hattie Morahan
- Length: 23 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 542
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 465
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 464
The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1970s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful Experience to Listen to This Story
- By BB on 01-12-20
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Lady in Waiting
- My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown
- By: Anne Glenconner
- Narrated by: Anne Glenconner
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,013
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,737
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,713
Anne Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Though the firstborn child of the fifth Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed "the greatest disappointment" and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive court life with her sense of humor intact.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Horrible Reading
- By Teddy hall on 03-27-20
By: Anne Glenconner
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Martha Washington
- An American Life
- By: Patricia Brady
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
With this revelatory and painstakingly researched book, Martha Washington, the invisible woman of American history, at last gets the biography she deserves. In place of the domestic frump of popular imagination, Patricia Brady resurrects the wealthy, attractive, and vivacious young widow who captivated the youthful George Washington. And even as it brings Martha Washington into sharper and more accurate focus, this sterling life sheds light on her marriage, her society, and the precedents she established for future First Ladies.
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5 out of 5 stars
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DAR Book Club
- By Kimberly Dillard on 12-26-23
By: Patricia Brady
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The Riviera Set
- Glitz, Glamour, and the Hidden World of High Society
- By: Mary S. Lovell
- Narrated by: Jill Rolls
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4 out of 5 stars 96
The Riviera Set reveals the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped, and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of 40 years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of dynamic group was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Riviera Set
- By Lois Kelly on 05-04-18
By: Mary S. Lovell
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Black Diamonds
- The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed England
- By: Catherine Bailey
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
When the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam died in 1902, he left behind the second largest estate in 20th-century England, valued at more than three billion dollars in today's money - a lifeline to the tens of thousands of people who worked either in the family's coal mines or on their expansive estate. The earl also left behind four sons, and the family line seemed assured. But was it?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Could use a good editor...
- By Phyllis on 04-30-18
By: Catherine Bailey
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The Husband Hunters
- American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 681
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 581
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 578
Towards the end of the 19th century and for the first few years of the 20th, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, 50 years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess", married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bondfide Valuable History Lesson
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 09-21-18
By: Anne de Courcy
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Matriarch
- Queen Mary and the House of Windsor
- By: Anne Edwards
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,366
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,119
The life of Princess May of Teck is one of the great Cinderella stories in history. From a family of impoverished nobility, she was chosen by Queen Victoria as the bride for her eldest grandson, the scandalous Duke of Clarence, heir to the throne, who died mysteriously before their marriage. Despite this setback, she became queen, mother of two kings, grandmother of the current queen, and a lasting symbol of the majesty of the British throne.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow! Did not want this to end!
- By Susan Nall Sheehan on 07-16-17
By: Anne Edwards
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Those Wild Wyndhams
- Three Sisters at the Heart of Power
- By: Claudia Renton
- Narrated by: Claudia Renton
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.
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5 out of 5 stars
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SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
- By The Louligan on 01-22-19
By: Claudia Renton
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Vanderbilt
- The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,784
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,019
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,992
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting Approach to a Well Known History
- By HistoryNerd on 09-24-21
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
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The Churchills: In Love and War
- By: Mary S. Lovell
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 21 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
The first Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) was a soldier of such genius that a lavish palace, Blenheim, was built to honor his triumphs. Succeeding generations of Churchills sometimes achieved distinction but also included profligates and womanizers, and were saddled with the ruinous upkeep of Blenheim. The Churchills were an extraordinary family: ambitious, impecunious, impulsive, brave, and arrogant. Winston - recently voted "The Greatest Briton" - dominates them all. His failures and triumphs are revealed in the context of a poignant and sometimes tragic private life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grand! In it's own wonderful way.
- By Cookie on 12-05-11
By: Mary S. Lovell
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Royal Sisters
- Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret
- By: Anne Edwards
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
In Royal Sisters, Anne Edwards, author of the best-selling Vivien Leigh: A Biography and Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor, has written the first dual biography of Elizabeth, the princess who was to become Queen, and her younger sister, Margaret, who was to be her subject. From birth to maturity, they were the stuff of which dreams are made.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Where's The Rest?
- By Simone on 12-19-17
By: Anne Edwards
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The Glitter and the Gold
- The American Duchess - In Her Own Words
- By: Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 162
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Story4 out of 5 stars 145
Consuelo Vanderbilt was young, beautiful and the heir to a vast family fortune. She was also deeply in love with an American suitor when her mother chose instead for her to fulfill her social ambitions and marry an English Duke. Leaving her life in America, she came to England as the Duchess of Marlborough in 1895 and took up residence in her new home: Blenheim Palace. The ninth Duchess gives unique first-hand insight into life at the very pinnacle of English society in the Edwardian era.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Facinating Story- Terrible reading
- By Ashley D on 03-27-14