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The Children’s Book

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The Children’s Book

By: A. S. Byatt
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
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Summary

Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets.

They grow up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, but as the sons rebel against their parents and the girls dream of independent futures, they are unaware that in the darkness ahead they will be betrayed unintentionally by the adults who love them. This is the children's book.

Cover illustration © Aitch

©2009 A. S. Byatt (P)2019 Audible, Ltd Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Heartfelt Thought-Provoking
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I lived in this book for days, among these very human architecture of characters. Juliet Stevenson’s performance is incredible, and heartfelt.

Exceptional

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When I first started listening to this, I did not really know what the story would really be about. It is not the type of book I would normally read and I had not encountered A S Byatt previously. The reason I chose it is because Juliet Stevenson was narrating and I had recently heard her read Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, and she was so good. In the early stages of the book, when all the characters were being introduced, I had a slight feeling of having to stick with it, but I quickly became so involved in the characters' lives that that stage soon passed. The setting of the story, both time and place (I was familiar from childhood with some of the locations) was so interesting and the occupations of the characters slightly unusual and very engaging. By the end of the book, I had become so invested in the characters that I felt the force of events very strongly and I think this shows how well written it is. It also gave me a fresh perspective on some of the events of the early twentieth century. Superbly narrated, of course, and I find this so important with audio books.

So well written—and narrated!

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This is a beautiful book about art and loss and power and class and sex. The span of the book is large, covering about 25 years and moving from rural England to the Paris exhibition, Munich and finally the trenches of WW1. The characters are deeply and intricately drawn, and the historical moments responded to by each uniquely.
Juliette Lewis is one of the finest readers, moving fluidly between accents and lending unique inflection to each member of the vast cast of characters, making them recognisable and memorable.
Well worth a listen

A masterful book, sensitively read

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I loved everything about it. Great book. Great narrator. It’s sublime. I highly recommend it to everyone who likes family sagas and period novels.

It’s one of the best books ever written

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Juliet Stevenson and this wonderful writer is a marriage made in heaven! An Audible masterpiece !

Superb

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