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Cider with Rosie
- Narrated by: Laurie Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Sociology
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Shame not read by Anne Reid
- By S Marchant on 11-10-20
Summary
Cider with Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change. Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, Laurie Lee depicts a world that is both immediate and real and belongs to a now-distant past.
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What listeners say about Cider with Rosie
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Mr. Robertson
- 23-12-12
Wonderful Narration
I read this book as a teenager and couldn't decide whether to buy it anew on my Kindle or go for the audio version. In the end I felt to have Laurie Lee read it to me would be a bit special...and it was! I have listened to the opening section of the book may times as it is one of my favourite passages from literature. A wonderful, evocative book brought to life by its author.
10 people found this helpful
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- Lucy
- 21-07-15
A very special experience
I read this many years ago and remember loving it, conjuring up a whole vivid lost world in wonderfully gentle prose. I wanted to re-read it, but to listen to it instead read by the author was pure magic. A classic, and my best audio book to date.
9 people found this helpful
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- Lord Peridot
- 19-02-17
Treat yourself
Theres a reason Laurie Lee gets studied in English class. His writing is as close to poetry as you will find from any author, perfectly capturing and evoking every mood and scene with the fewest of words and often using those words in surprising combinations. Having this book read by the author himself adds extra interest. He is no polished speaker. But his sympathetic, gruff, rural accent is a delight.
6 people found this helpful
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- Doc Huggins
- 13-08-16
From the Horse's Mouth
Any additional comments?
I was almost put off buying this book by one review which said that the narration, by Laurie Lee himself, let it down and by another review that said his voice was "bored". Well each to their own. Lee would have been quite an old man when he recorded his reading. He also has a slight Gloucestershire lilt to his voice. This gives the narration a gentle pace and a warmth that lulls you into a state of peacefulness. I, for one, loved the narration. Further, getting it from the horse's mouth, you could not get a more accurate representation of this book.
Whilst Lee uses some flowery language at times, this is a lovely, well told, memoir of a time 100 years ago when the old world and the new were moving from one to the other. His candid and observant telling of events around about him in a small village in the countryside kept me hooked from start to finish. I highly recommend it.
5 people found this helpful
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- Lily S
- 05-02-15
Recreated a world that has long since disappeared.
Where does Cider with Rosie rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Highly rated and really enjoyed the book
What did you like best about this story?
Loved the description of this world that has gone, especially from the point of view of a little boy. There was an added benefit of having Laurie Lee read it himself - I felt that this added to the book.
Any additional comments?
Lovely gently listen, full of lovely description and lovely people who just got on with the life they were born to without question.
3 people found this helpful
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- mezzles
- 20-07-18
Fantastic childhood memories
I am in awe of the author's total recall of his early life, when his family had very little in the way of possessions, but were content with their lot. Neighbours helped one another, sharing what little they had, his mother making good use of any wild foods growing nearby. Laurie and his siblings would sit and yarn by candlelight in the evenings, passing down a wealth of folk-lore and local gossip. An account full of "laugh out loud" humour, sentiment and, at times, a little sadness
2 people found this helpful
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- N. Cawsey
- 01-07-17
Wonderful
What a treat! I remember seeing and hearing a very old Laurie Lee on the TV when I was young and it was magic then as it is still magical to this now 70+ year old. I live in South Glos but have never been to Slad, even though I go to Stroud frequently; this has inspired me to remedy the situation and I will go there very soon. The wonderful Gloucestershire accent is all around me in my day to day life, thanks to Audible for the opportunity to appreciate it!!!
2 people found this helpful
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- P. Wise
- 05-07-15
Pure magic!
Wonderful to hear the story narrated by the man Laurie himself in his later years. Adds a magical touch.
4 people found this helpful
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- Mrs. Alison M. Hobbs
- 20-11-19
So completely right
This is a performance I return to regularly. Although the whole story is enchanting and conjures up time gone by, hearing it read in Laurie Lee’s own soft cotswold accent is incredibly soothing. If I’m awake in the night, this is my go to. I don’t need to listen to the story, so I can drift off and know that when I wake, I shall have slept well, and Laurie will still be gently burbling a bucolic love song to his lost world. ❤️❤️❤️
1 person found this helpful
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- Topsy
- 17-10-19
Warm humorous story of country family life
A beautiful memoir of a country childhood in the early 20th Century, full of warmth and intimacy. Read by the author, one is taken into the family to share its life which although lived in poverty is full of love. Highly entertaining and perceptive and full of poetic imagery. I loved it.
1 person found this helpful
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- Marianne
- 23-08-14
A voice of the past
What made the experience of listening to Cider with Rosie the most enjoyable?
Listening to Laurie Lee read his memoir, Cider With Rosie, is like slipping into the early part of the last century. His voice, and his wide ranging use of metaphor, simile, and extensive vocabulary take one deep into the heart of an isolated Cotswold village, and it's tight knit (incestuous) community. A different time, and looked at from today, one that was far from perfect. Still, it is evocative and a world that is lost; and therefore worth recalling.
What about Laurie Lee’s performance did you like?
Hearing LL read his own work is like listening to Eliot read his. A treat.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
too long
Any additional comments?
Marvelous
5 people found this helpful
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- Allyson
- 15-09-18
It Grows on You
This memoir of a turn-of-the-century Welshman written and performed by the same person at an advanced age is rhythmically and melodiously performed but leaves one somewhat disatisfied. It's a first person glimpse into life in a poor family in the beginning of the 1900s through probably the beginning of World War II. For that reason it's edifying, but somewhat disturbing in it's frankness about sexuality of a young and growing male. This reader happens to be disappointed at the interjection of what sometimes seems unnecessarily gratuitous sexuality into everything nowadays. The character development was insightful, anyway.
2 people found this helpful
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- TiffanyD
- 11-08-19
Trigger Warning
Oh what a lovely description of growing up in a small Cotswold village after WWI, where times were simpler and--SCREECH--Hey lads, who wants to plan a gang rape! When I started this I thought the worst thing I would have to say about it was that "authors shouldn't automatically be allowed to read their own works." And how. But eventually I got used to the gravelly old man voice and even if I didn't grow to like it, at least it didn't bother me as much. I could then medium enjoy the vignettes contained within until...late in the book a group of boys plan to gang rape a local girl. Some people think this is kind of humorous because the girl simply slaps the boys and they all run away like big scaredy-cats. But the whole time they are plotting was just so unsettling for me to read because I read it from the perspective of the girl who goes walking along the same route, feeling perfectly safe, having no idea that the boys in her village are watching and plotting and think nothing about her. And while "nothing happens" from the author's perspective, what about the girl's? Did she still walk that path? Did she still feel safe going out alone? It breaks my heart to think about. Just because the assault doesn't happen "to completion," the planning of it makes me feel like I just got a pair of special sunglasses à la "They Live," in which the protagonist can finally see things the way the actually are and suddenly I don't feel so nostalgic for the small Cotswold village.
1 person found this helpful
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- Cindy Church
- 14-09-19
Nostalgic
This book was a favorite of a dear loved one who has passed away. The poetic imagery of life in post World War 11 England is magical. It’s a young boy’s perfect description of how he views his younger years and his surroundings. It’s a book I’ll read over and over again.