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The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

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The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

By: Marianne Cronin
Narrated by: Sheila Reid, Rebecca Benson
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.

Their last one begins here.

Life is short - no one knows that better than 17-year-old Lenni Petterssen. On the Terminal Ward, the nurses are offering their condolences already, but Lenni still has plenty of living to do.

When she meets 83-year-old Margot Macrae, a fellow patient offering new friendship and enviable artistic skills, Lenni's life begins to soar in ways she'd never imagined.

As their bond deepens, a world of stories opens up: of wartime love and loss, of misunderstanding and reconciliation, of courage, kindness and joy.

Stories that have led Lenni and Margot to the end of their days.

Fiercely alive, disarmingly funny and brimming with tenderness, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot unwraps the extraordinary gift of life even when it is about to be taken away and revels in our infinite capacity for friendship and love when we need it most.

©2021 Marianne Cronin (P)2021 Penguin Audio Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Medical Funny Feel-Good Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Witty Emotionally Gripping

Critic reviews

"Emotional, involving, witty and sad. All my favourite things. Everyone is going to love Lenni and Margot." (Jill Mansell)

"Full of wisdom and kindness. It is just the kind of book I adore." (Joanna Cannon)

"Touching and honest and funny. I completely and wholeheartedly fell for Lenni and Margot." (Nina Pottell)
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Beautiful, compelling and poignant story of Lennie and Margot. The narration of both parts was perfect, I could not stop listening. The last few chapters made me cry out loud while out walking and listening with my ear pods in. I feel bereft now that I have finished it, of the book and the characters. So beautifully written and told and so desperately sad and uplifting all at once.

Devastating

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A beautiful story, read by two truly wonderful narrators. I haven't been this moved by a story for quite some time. I have only just finished and am ready to begin listening again.

Like wrapping up in a quilt of love and memory.

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Two lives, explored through the prism of terminal illness, become interwoven, one long and full, the other about to be cut short. An unlikely friendship develops between hospital patients Lenni, 17 years old, lonely and irreverent, seeking answers, and 83 year old Margot, who has known love, in various forms, but who is left alone at the end of her unconventional life. Lenni and Margot devise an artistic project in the newly created art therapy room, to make a picture for every year of their combined ages. And so their stories are told, a century of living, celebrated.
Beautifully narrated in lilting Scots voices, one mature, the other youthful, utterly credible, for once, never distracting.
Friends and supporters acquired in hospital gather at Lenni’s end and mourn her passing. Lenni was cared for as a patient, but cared for and supported others by her thoughtful acts and also by simply listening to those around her.
We become part of that listening. We hear Lenni’s innermost thoughts and the stories of those she connects with: the hospital chaplain, her anguished father, a fellow patient whose dying wish she is able to fulfil, a young graduate who, unable to find more suitable employment, is taken on as a temp and who through her own initiative secures funding for the art therapy room. And thus the 100 years art project is able to be born.
In The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot we experience human hearts reaching out and joining together in adversity to find friendship and purpose and, ultimately, love. I am so glad I read this perceptive and heart warming book.

Gentle storytelling at its best

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This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time

Beautifully written and narrated

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I wasn't sure what to expect with this book as I got it when it was quite new out & there weren't many reviews. Everyone should read/listen to this story. I cried, I laughed, I gasped, I cried, I laughed....get your tissues at the ready. AMAZING.

The most amazingly beautiful story

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