Listen free for 30 days
-
Dear Reader
- The Comfort and Joy of Books
- Narrated by: Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Art & Literature
People who bought this also bought...
-
Moon Tiger
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Nicolette McKenzie, Thomas Judd
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world...and in the process, my own'. And it is her story, from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others, and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Barbie on 08-11-18
-
The Bookseller's Tale
- By: Martin Latham
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of our love affair with books, whether we arrange them on our shelves, inhale their smell, scrawl in their margins or just curl up with them in bed. Taking us on a journey through comfort reads, street book stalls, mythical libraries, itinerant pedlars, radical pamphleteers, extraordinary bookshop customers and fanatical collectors, Canterbury Bookseller Martin Latham uncovers the curious history of our book obsession - and his own.
-
-
Great listen
- By Ke Donn on 11-09-20
-
A Manual for Heartache
- By: Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Narrated by: Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Manual for Heartache she describes how she learnt to live with grief and loss and find joy in the world again. She explores how to cope with life at its most difficult and overwhelming and how we can emerge from suffering forever changed but filled with hope. This is a moving, warm and uplifting book that offers solidarity and comfort to anyone going through a painful time, whatever it might be. It's a book that will help to soothe an aching heart and assure its listeners that they're not alone.
-
-
Beautiful book
- By TBTwick on 26-08-17
-
The Kitchen Diaries
- By: Nigel Slater
- Narrated by: Nigel Slater
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The food in The Kitchen Diaries is simply what I eat at home. The stuff I make for myself, for friends and family, for Sunday lunch and for snacks. These are meals I make when I am having mates over or when I want to surprise, seduce or show off. This is what I cook when I’m feeling energetic, lazy, hungry or late. This is the food that makes up my life, both the Monday to Friday stuff and that for weekends and special occasions.
-
Pandora's Jar
- Women in the Greek Myths
- By: Natalie Haynes
- Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks, and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories. Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost 3,000 years ago.
-
-
Superb
- By Paul on 21-10-20
-
This Lovely City
- By: Louise Hare
- Narrated by: Theo Solomon, Karise Yansen
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a tiny room in south London lodgings, and has fallen in love with the girl next door. Touring Soho’s music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home - and it’s alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a terrible discovery.
-
-
A MUST listen!
- By JaneyB on 28-02-20
-
Moon Tiger
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Nicolette McKenzie, Thomas Judd
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world...and in the process, my own'. And it is her story, from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others, and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Barbie on 08-11-18
-
The Bookseller's Tale
- By: Martin Latham
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of our love affair with books, whether we arrange them on our shelves, inhale their smell, scrawl in their margins or just curl up with them in bed. Taking us on a journey through comfort reads, street book stalls, mythical libraries, itinerant pedlars, radical pamphleteers, extraordinary bookshop customers and fanatical collectors, Canterbury Bookseller Martin Latham uncovers the curious history of our book obsession - and his own.
-
-
Great listen
- By Ke Donn on 11-09-20
-
A Manual for Heartache
- By: Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Narrated by: Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Manual for Heartache she describes how she learnt to live with grief and loss and find joy in the world again. She explores how to cope with life at its most difficult and overwhelming and how we can emerge from suffering forever changed but filled with hope. This is a moving, warm and uplifting book that offers solidarity and comfort to anyone going through a painful time, whatever it might be. It's a book that will help to soothe an aching heart and assure its listeners that they're not alone.
-
-
Beautiful book
- By TBTwick on 26-08-17
-
The Kitchen Diaries
- By: Nigel Slater
- Narrated by: Nigel Slater
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The food in The Kitchen Diaries is simply what I eat at home. The stuff I make for myself, for friends and family, for Sunday lunch and for snacks. These are meals I make when I am having mates over or when I want to surprise, seduce or show off. This is what I cook when I’m feeling energetic, lazy, hungry or late. This is the food that makes up my life, both the Monday to Friday stuff and that for weekends and special occasions.
-
Pandora's Jar
- Women in the Greek Myths
- By: Natalie Haynes
- Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks, and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories. Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost 3,000 years ago.
-
-
Superb
- By Paul on 21-10-20
-
This Lovely City
- By: Louise Hare
- Narrated by: Theo Solomon, Karise Yansen
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a tiny room in south London lodgings, and has fallen in love with the girl next door. Touring Soho’s music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home - and it’s alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a terrible discovery.
-
-
A MUST listen!
- By JaneyB on 28-02-20
-
Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year
- A Little Book of Festive Joy
- By: Beth Kempton
- Narrated by: Beth Kempton
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year offers inspiration for a new kind of holiday season - one where you radiate calm and cultivate delight. Spanning late November to early January, Calm Christmas embraces the festive build-up, the celebrations and the turn of the year in a holistic, nurturing way. Beth Kempton will whisk you away from the frenetic energy of the high street and invite you to come sit awhile by the fire, pausing to explore what a more mindful festive season could mean for you.
-
Writers & Lovers
- By: Lily King
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Casey has ended up back in Massachusetts after a devastating love affair. Her one constant is the novel she has been writing for six years, but at 31 she is in debt and directionless, and feels too old to be that way - it’s strange, not be the youngest kind of adult anymore. Suddenly Casey finds herself at the point of a love triangle, torn between two very different relationships that promise two very different futures.
-
-
Lyrical, illogical, illuminating
- By the typist on 17-06-20
-
Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops
- By: Shaun Bythell
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 2 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone knows who you find in bookshops: people who want to buy books. But, as Shaun Bythell reveals, that's really only half the story. Join Shaun as he introduces us to seven bookshop characters, from the Person Who Doesn't Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover) to the harried Parents Secretly After Free Childcare and all the way over to the erotica section, where we'll meet The Person Who Is Up to No Good.
-
-
Amusing (if not full length) exposé
- By K. J. Noyes on 17-11-20
-
Summerwater
- By: Sarah Moss
- Narrated by: Morven Christie
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the longest day of the summer, 12 people sit cooped up with their families in a faded Scottish cabin park. The endless rain leaves them with little to do but watch the other residents. A woman goes running up the Ben as if fleeing; a retired couple reminisces about neighbours long since moved on; a teenage boy braves the dark waters of the loch in his red kayak. Each person is wrapped in their own cares but increasingly alert to the makeshift community around them.
-
-
Thoughts for our fractured times - brilliant
- By Rachel Redford on 29-08-20
-
The Shift
- How I (Lost and) Found Myself After 40 - and You Can Too
- By: Sam Baker
- Narrated by: Sam Baker
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women over 40 are the most ignored demographic in society. And yet this is the time when you are likely to have the most freedom, power, confidence and self knowledge than ever before. Some serious life has been lived: there have been great loves, heartbreaks, births, marriages, careers, betrayals, bereavements and survival. So what now? What happens when the narrative given to you by society - husband, babies, house - runs out and you become storyless? Writer and journalist Sam Baker seeks to empower and give voice to women to create a new narrative....
-
-
Depressing
- By Lorraine Hawkins on 19-09-20
-
How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Elif Shafak
- Length: 1 hr and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It feels like the world is falling apart. So how do we keep hold of our optimism? How do we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this world of division? In this beautifully written and illuminating polemic, Booker Prize nominee Elif Shafak reflects on our age of pessimism, when emotions guide and misguide our politics and misinformation and fear are the norm.
-
-
more please. I am so pleased to hear your views.
- By unhappy customer on 29-10-20
-
Wintering
- How I Learned to Flourish When Life Became Frozen
- By: Katherine May
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wintering, the dormant periods in our lives, the dark moments we endure can be lonely and damaging and catch us off guard. Katherine May recounts her own year-long journey through winter and how she found strength and inspiration when life felt frozen. Part memoir, part exploration of a human condition, Wintering explores the healing nature of the great outdoors to help us overcome and embrace our own wintering experiences and how, much like nature, we can learn to appreciate these low periods, and what they have to teach us, before the ushering in of a new season.
-
-
Bridgit Jones is depressed
- By debdreamer on 25-08-20
-
Small Pleasures
- By: Clare Chambers
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of 40 - living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys.
-
-
Poignant, thoughtful & beautifully crafted
- By Rachel Redford on 26-07-20
-
The Midnight Library
- By: Matt Haig
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-four-year-old Nora's life could be better. She's lonely, single and has just lost her job. Her cat dying feels like the last straw. What else is there to live for? Then she finds a library between life and death where she gets to try all the other lives she could have lived. The Midnight Library is a gloriously relatable novel about life, death and the in-between. It is about finding hope, playing chess, dumping regrets and picking the right people around you.
-
-
Fantasy may be hard to take if you’re depressed
- By Joan on 04-09-20
-
The Christmas Hirelings
- By: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Narrated by: Jennifer Saunders
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A heartwarming festive tale of redemption and cheer, The Christmas Hirelings is the story of a lonely widower who reluctantly invites a group of children to his manor for Christmas. It showcases the benefits of opening your doors and hearts during the holiday season.
-
-
Loved it! What a wonderful Christmas tale.
- By Helen SJ on 17-12-18
-
Quite
- By: Claudia Winkleman
- Narrated by: Claudia Winkleman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this, her first ever book, Claudia invites us all into her world. This is a memoir with a difference (owing to its lack of a plot - genuinely, how do people do that?) and Claudia shares her observations on topics such as the importance of melted cheese, why black coats are vital, how it's never okay to have sex with someone who has an opinion on your date outfit, how nurses are our most precious national treasure and why colourful clothing is only for the under 10s (if you're reading this sporting a bright red jumper and you're nine, great! If you're older, sorry).
-
-
Glorious!
- By SUPER MUM on 20-10-20
-
Things I Learned on the 6.28
- A Commuter's Guide to Reading
- By: Stig Abell
- Narrated by: Stig Abell
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a whole year on his train to work, TLS Editor Stig Abell read books from across genres and time periods. Then he wrote about them and their impact on our culture and his own life. The result is a work of many things: a brisk guide to the canon of Western literature; an intimate engagement with writers from Shakespeare to JK Rowling, Marcel Proust to Zora Neale Hurston; a wise and funny celebration of the power of words; and a meditation on mental unrest and how to tackle it.
Summary
Dear Reader is a moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another.
For as long as she can remember, Cathy Rentzenbrink has lost and found herself in stories. Growing up she was rarely seen without her nose in a book and read in secret long after lights out. When tragedy struck, books kept her afloat. Eventually they lit the way to a new path, first as a bookseller and then as a writer. No matter what the future holds, reading will always help.
From the Sunday Times best-selling author of The Last Act of Love.
Critic reviews
"I loved this book.... I’m so desperate for you all to share in its wonder." (Elizabeth Day)
"Dear Reader is a love letter to stories and reading...a book to cherish." (Nina Stibbe)
More from the same
What listeners say about Dear Reader
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 24-10-20
Interesting read.
This was an interesting book with a recommendation of other books to read I likedit.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vicky Plaine
- 19-10-20
Loved it!
I devoured this in one sitting. I feared it might be a bit high brow but it’s relatable and tender, featuring much loved books, with so many of my favourites mentioned.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- English Teacher Mum
- 13-10-20
Glorious! A celebration of books! An utter joy!
I listened to this very special book in a day. It was such a pleasure to share this reading journey with the very talented author. Written with humility and in perfect prose, I am enchanted. Cathy Rentzenbrink shares her life with the reader by focusing on the books that have impacted her life. So many books were mentioned. It was a delight to be able to recognise many of them in my own reading journey and others I have added on to my To Be Read list. I can't imagine anyone who loves books and reading not to adore this incredible book. As soon as I finished the Audible version I ordered the signed first edition. It will have a prominent position in my book case. I only hope to meet Cathy one day so that we could have a good chat about what we are reading.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- N S Camenzuli
- 30-09-20
Charming, honest & heartfelt
Finished this almost in one sitting. Love Cathy’s take on life and how alongside her life story her passion for books evolves. Would highly recommend & I will definitely reread.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Manda N
- 26-09-20
Perfect Comfort Read for Readers Everywhere
Simply wonderful! This is like spending several hours with a friend telling you about what brought them to a love of reading, about their bookish career and the reads they have loved most. Reiterates how reading is good for the soul. I loved it and will be dipping back into those book recommendations.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ke Donn
- 24-09-20
Delightful
what a wonderful listen. such a comforting read. its worth having a pen and paper handy if you are looking for book inspiration. Beautifully narrated by the author Cathy....thank you