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The Golden Notebook

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The Golden Notebook

By: Doris Lessing
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
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About this listen

One of the most important books of the growing feminist movement of the 1950s, The Golden Notebook was brought to the attention of a wider public by the Nobel Prize award to Doris Lessing in 2007.

Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook: sources of her creative inspiration in a black book, communism in a red book, the breakdown of her marriage in a yellow book, and day-to-day emotions and dreams in a blue book. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.

In this authentic, taboo-breaking novel, Lessing brings the plight of women’s lives from obscurity behind closed doors into broad daylight. The Golden Notebook resonates with the concerns and experiences of a great many women and is a true modern classic, thoroughly deserving of its reputation as a feminist bible. A notoriously long and complex work, it is given a new life by this – its first unabridged recording.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©1962 Doris Lessing (P)2010 Naxos Audiobook
Classics Emotions Thought-Provoking Fiction

Critic reviews

" The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing’s most important work and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women." (Elizabeth Hardwick, New York Times Book Review)
All stars
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Well this is a book about navel gazing. Not my thing. But beautifully written and performed.
The level of introspection was profound to a point of mental health concerns and beyond.

Very very long

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A refreshingly candid examination of the mismatch of the sexes. Brutal at times, longing, searching and often bleak. Brilliantly observed and deafeningly hopeless. I'm left wondering if things have changed or whether they are just better masked.

An examination of the sexual politics of her time.

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A long nasty story, full of nasty characters and nasty
intimate details with plenty of nasty cruelty thrown in.
Well read and performed by Juliet Stevenson. I hope she
was well paid for her endurance.

The ugly side of humanity

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I enjoy Lessing’s writing and was thoroughly enjoying this book - until the shocking homophobia of the main character towards her lodger(s). There are slight elements of this early in the book in the African flashbacks - but it really picks up steam in the middle of the novel - It’s hard to separate the essence of the main character from Lessing and therefore the negativity to homosexuality has coloured my opinion of her. I stayed with the book till the end.. but found I’d lost part of my enthusiasm in the second half .

Surprisingly and disturbingly Homophobic.

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delightful at times, painful most of the time. well worth a listen, but I was glad when I finally heard audible's hope..
Juliet Stevenson helps with soldiering through it all.

it's all very odd, isn't?

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