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Christmas at Thrush Green
- Narrated by: Nicolette McKenzie
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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Winter in Thrush Green
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: June Barrie
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
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A new excitement comes to the village of Thrush Green when Harold Shoosmith, a distinguished bachelor who has chosen the village for his retirement, takes the corner house on the green. Harold is soon enmeshed in village politics and becomes involved in the private lives of his neighbours as well. His presence has a dramatic effect on Dimity Dean and Ella Bembridge and is the cause of a serious misunderstanding between the two friends.
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Very enjoyable
- By J. M. Wiggett on 29-11-18
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Village School
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Fairacre is a village of cottages, a church and the school - and, at the heart of the school, its head mistress Miss Read. Through her discerning eye, we meet the villagers of Fairacre and see their trials and tribulations, from the irascible school cleaner Mrs Pringle, to the young school children, with their scraped knees, hopeful faces and inevitable mischief.
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Good Book, Wrong Narrator
- By Flint on 27-06-17
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Thrush Green
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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It's the May Day holiday, and a fair has come to the village of Thrush Green. The residents of Thrush Green all have their own views about the fair. For young Paul, just recovered from an illness, it is a joy to be allowed out to play at the fair; for Ruth, who returned to the soothing tranquility of Thrush Green nursing a broken heart, the fair is a welcome distraction from her own problems. And for Dr Lovell, the fair brings an unexpected new patient.
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Order Please!!!
- By Mrs B on 25-07-17
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Christmas at Fairacre
- No Holly For Miss Quinn, The Christmas Mouse
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Abridged
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From an unexpected visitor on Christmas Eve in "The Christmas Mouse" to an unwanted change of plan in "No Holly For Miss Quinn", Miss Read recounts some of the most memorable Christmas events where often, despite best-laid plans, things do not always go as expected.For heart-warming reading there is no writer to rival Miss Read, and this charming collection of Christmas tales is packed with unforgettable characters, enchanting stories and festive cheer.
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Middle of the Road.
- By Ms. Indie Cole on 31-10-12
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Mrs Pringle
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Gwen Watford
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
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Mrs Pringle, the lugubrious school cleaner, has always been a favourite character in the Fairacre series. Here we trace Maud Pringle's life from childhood visits to the village from her Caxley home.
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Only Gwen Watford reads this so brilliantly
- By melisa on 11-11-19
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The Market Square
- By: Miss Read
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Performance
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The first charming Caxley tale introduces the deep-rooted camaraderie between Septimus Howard, a calm and controlled man, and Bender North, a confident, successful but gruff ironmonger. Their argumentative sides often clash, displaying moments of fury and forgiveness with wonderful tenderness. Theirs is a friendship that survives misunderstandings, the tragedy of war, and the bitterness of loss. The story of their families continues through the generations. Read by June Barrie.
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A Typical Miss Read
- By Pam on 22-07-15
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Winter in Thrush Green
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: June Barrie
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
A new excitement comes to the village of Thrush Green when Harold Shoosmith, a distinguished bachelor who has chosen the village for his retirement, takes the corner house on the green. Harold is soon enmeshed in village politics and becomes involved in the private lives of his neighbours as well. His presence has a dramatic effect on Dimity Dean and Ella Bembridge and is the cause of a serious misunderstanding between the two friends.
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Very enjoyable
- By J. M. Wiggett on 29-11-18
-
Village School
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fairacre is a village of cottages, a church and the school - and, at the heart of the school, its head mistress Miss Read. Through her discerning eye, we meet the villagers of Fairacre and see their trials and tribulations, from the irascible school cleaner Mrs Pringle, to the young school children, with their scraped knees, hopeful faces and inevitable mischief.
-
-
Good Book, Wrong Narrator
- By Flint on 27-06-17
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Thrush Green
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
It's the May Day holiday, and a fair has come to the village of Thrush Green. The residents of Thrush Green all have their own views about the fair. For young Paul, just recovered from an illness, it is a joy to be allowed out to play at the fair; for Ruth, who returned to the soothing tranquility of Thrush Green nursing a broken heart, the fair is a welcome distraction from her own problems. And for Dr Lovell, the fair brings an unexpected new patient.
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Order Please!!!
- By Mrs B on 25-07-17
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Christmas at Fairacre
- No Holly For Miss Quinn, The Christmas Mouse
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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From an unexpected visitor on Christmas Eve in "The Christmas Mouse" to an unwanted change of plan in "No Holly For Miss Quinn", Miss Read recounts some of the most memorable Christmas events where often, despite best-laid plans, things do not always go as expected.For heart-warming reading there is no writer to rival Miss Read, and this charming collection of Christmas tales is packed with unforgettable characters, enchanting stories and festive cheer.
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Middle of the Road.
- By Ms. Indie Cole on 31-10-12
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Mrs Pringle
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- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
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Mrs Pringle, the lugubrious school cleaner, has always been a favourite character in the Fairacre series. Here we trace Maud Pringle's life from childhood visits to the village from her Caxley home.
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Only Gwen Watford reads this so brilliantly
- By melisa on 11-11-19
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The Market Square
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: June Barrie
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first charming Caxley tale introduces the deep-rooted camaraderie between Septimus Howard, a calm and controlled man, and Bender North, a confident, successful but gruff ironmonger. Their argumentative sides often clash, displaying moments of fury and forgiveness with wonderful tenderness. Theirs is a friendship that survives misunderstandings, the tragedy of war, and the bitterness of loss. The story of their families continues through the generations. Read by June Barrie.
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A Typical Miss Read
- By Pam on 22-07-15
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Fresh from the Country
- By: Miss Read
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- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Anna Lacey had spent most of her 20 years on her Essex farm. Her doting parents, rural friends and country childhood had not prepared her for the shock of relocation to a raw new neighbourhood for her first year as a teacher. But Anna was gifted with the abilities to make friends and to learn as she taught.
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Tyler's Row
- Fairacre Series, Book 5
- By: Miss Read
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- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
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Miss Read heard about the sale of Tyler's Row from the always well-informed Mrs Pringle - and before long Fairacre was alive with rumours. Why were the present owners selling?
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Delightful! Miss Read at her best!
- By ann deaves on 06-01-21
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The Howards of Caxley begins on a fine May morning in the fateful year of 1939, and then follows the path of the two families and the little town through the Second World War, towards hope for happier times ahead.
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a nice bit of village life.
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Mrs Griffin Sends her Love
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From organising the school summer fete - 'Because of our inability to recognise our climatic shortcomings from the outset, arrangements for outdoor jollities get completely out of hand' - to the sometimes rather odd passions of childhood - 'I collect stones with holes in them' - Miss Read captures the essence of rural life, and in particular of village schools, as only she can.
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Miss Griffin Sends her Love
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Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....
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excellent as always
- By Michelle C on 05-04-17
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An English Christmas
- By: John Julius Norwich
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A Christmas anthology from legendary historian and Christmas Cracker compiler John Julius Norwich. This year go carol singing in the Cotswolds with Laurie Lee or attend church with a grumpy Samuel Pepys. Make plum puddings for bemused French villagers with Elizabeth David; go present shopping with Virginia Woolf, or eat far too much with Agatha Christie. Celebrate Christmas at Chatsworth, in the workhouse or marooned in the ice with Shackleton....
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All you ever remembered or dreamed about Christmas
- By Lorna Payne on 26-11-17
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Storm in the Village
- Fairacre Series, Book 3
- By: Miss Read
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- Abridged
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Here's a story that brings all the villagers of Fairacre together, as they face the prospect of developers who hope to build new houses on the fields adjoining old Mr Miller's farm. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone is in agreement about the development. Under the watchful gaze of Miss Read, the school teacher, we meet old characters and new, from retired teacher Miss Clare and the surly Mrs Pringle, to the new assistant teacher, Miss Jackson, who brings with her problems of her own.
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another great title
- By Elaine on 17-03-10
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Christmas at the Little Cottage on the Hill
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- Unabridged
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One twinkling winter's night, Ruby wakes her sleeping children and escapes for a new life in the countryside. It's a choice that will change her life beyond all recognition. Arriving at the cosy little rental cottage as the first snow begins to fall, Ruby doesn't regret leaving her bully of a husband for a moment, but she does feel guilty about uprooting her kids so close to Christmas. She can only wish that one day soon her son will forgive her.
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Vague and Irritating
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Christmas Wishes & Mistletoe Kisses
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An uplifting, beautiful story about never letting go of your dreams, the special magic of a family Christmas...and the rush of falling in love under the mistletoe. Single mother Abbey Fuller loves her family more than anything and doesn't regret for a moment having had to put her dreams of being an interior designer on hold. But with her son, Max, growing up, when a friend recommends her for a small design job, she jumps at the chance.
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Predicable but an easy listening Christmas read.
- By c brennan on 04-02-16
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Tales from a Village School
- By: Miss Read
- Narrated by: Sian Phillips
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Illegal battering of gingernuts and conkers in a murky corner of the playground; a procession of bearers of lost property interrupting the telling of the story of Joseph; justice being firmly done on three malefactors who stole Mr Henry's eggs... Here are 40 delightful stories about life as a village schoolteacher, set against the changing seasons of the countryside.
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Tales from a village school
- By Mrs. Sylvia Woolmer on 09-11-17
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A Literary Christmas
- By: Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, and others
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson, Simon Callow
- Length: 2 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".
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Wonderful for Christmas
- By E. Lewis on 30-12-19
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Christmas at Claridge's
- By: Karen Swan
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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'This was where her dreams drifted to if she didn't blot her nights out with drink; this was where her thoughts settled if she didn't fill her days with chat. She remembered this tiny, remote foreign village on a molecular level and the sight of it soaked into her like water into sand, because this was where her old life had ended and her new one had begun.'
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What a wonderful, wonderful story
- By AlfieF on 05-05-20
Summary
The villagers of Thrush Green celebrate Christmas traditionally, in a way that has hardly changed over the generations. Children eagerly hang up their stockings, families go to church together and everyone enjoys the treats of the festive season. And when it snows as the carol singers make their way round the cottages on the green, it looks as if Christmas will be perfect this year. But not everything is as peaceful as it seems.
Phyllida and Frank have their work cut out for them when they agree to take on the Nativity play - made all the more difficult by an outbreak of chickenpox. The indomitable Ella has lived in Thrush Green for as long as anyone can remember, but lately she has been behaving strangely. Then there are the dreadful Burwells, newcomers to Thrush Green, who cause something of a stir with their 'home improvements'.
For Nelly, owner of The Fuchsia Bush tea shop, Christmas is an especially busy time, with people dropping in for much-needed refreshment, weary from all their Christmas shopping. But then she receives an unexpected letter.
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What listeners say about Christmas at Thrush Green
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- M.
- 23-05-18
Not the same charm
I don't like to say anything against Miss Read as I love all her books usually but I didn't enjoy this book. I have read all Thrush Green annd Fairacre books and this was not the same standard. The characters seemed to have had a personality change and I even found myself disliking some and the stories didn' t flow well. I especially disliked the Edward / Burwell saga and disliked Paul and Edward more than the Burwells.
They whole book had lost its charm and timeless feel and I will not be re reading it as I do all my other Miss Read's .
9 people found this helpful
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- Motherted
- 16-11-20
Lovely
Such a lovely, easy listen about simple village life. not my usual choice but just the cheery comfort listen I needed.
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- K. Lawrence
- 15-12-19
Perfect for Christmas
A lovely tale of an idyllic village , set in a bubble of nostalgic times and good mannered from all around .
Made me festive x
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- K E Webb
- 30-11-19
Narrator Disappointing
Story great as usual . Characters growing up , growing older , so some differences !
However the Narrator just didn’t follow the usual tone or character voices which did
spoil it for me . Much of the time I found it hard to distinguish who was supposed to
be portrayed and the accents were very ‘ off ‘ . Pity really as it was irritating 😠
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- Chrissie Ann
- 30-01-19
Easy listening
I love Miss Reads books and this is no exception. A gentle easy listen and well read.
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- Sue Barrett
- 17-12-18
Cosy Christmas
Familiar figures with their everyday lives. An easy listen if you are trying to escape the busyness of Christmas.
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- Cathy Swanson
- 11-12-18
So very enjoyable
Well drawn characters, warm, enchanting, old fashioned values. A book that is chicken soup for the soul.
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- Anne Milnes
- 26-10-20
Wish there were more
I was delighted to discover another beautiful performed Miss Read story in Audible. I so wish more would be created . I can find only a few.
5 people found this helpful
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- Pam
- 10-02-20
Repeatedly enjoyable
Once again it is sad to come to the end of this gentle, entertaining series. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the books and listened to these audiobooks. I will certainly be listening to them again and again.
4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-09-20
need more Miss read.
Miss read is one of my most favorites. we need all of them please. thanks
3 people found this helpful
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- Mary Elizabeth Herr
- 14-12-20
Snobbery
When I was purchasing this I’d read someone’s review about the British characters being snobs. I hadn’t realized how hard it was to endure. It was painful to hear these characters being so sanctimonious. And at Christmas!!!i I kept expecting some Christian charity at the end. No way. They justified their snobbery. Terrible. Great reader though.