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The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
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Publisher's summary
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era. Zweig's books (novels, biographies, essays) were translated into numerous languages, and he moved in the highest literary circles; he also encountered many leading political and social figures of his day.
The World of Yesterday is a remarkable, totally engrossing history. This translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell captures the spirit of Zweig's writing in arguably his most important work, completed shortly before his tragic death in 1942. It is read with sympathy and understanding by David Horovitch.
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- By: Jacques Lusseyran
- Narrated by: Andre Gregory
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Abridged
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When Jacques Lusseyran was an eight-year-old Parisian schoolboy, he was blinded in an accident. He finished his schooling determined to participate in the world around him. In 1941, when he was seventeen, that world was Nazi-occupied France. Lusseyran formed a resistance group with fifty-two boys and used his heightened senses to recruit the best. Eventually, Lusseyran was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in a transport of two thousand resistance fighters.
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One of the three most important books in my life
- By William R. Stevenson on 12-12-15
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The Noise of Time
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Daniel Philpott
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In May 1937, a man in his early 30s waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now, and few who are taken to the Big House ever return.
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Art belongs to everybody and nobody.
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By: Julian Barnes
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Aftermath
- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
- By: Harald Jähner, Shaun Whiteside - translator
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
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How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more? This internationally acclaimed revelatory history of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust - and features over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period.
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Where are the photos?
- By Cassandra on 01-17-22
By: Harald Jähner, and others
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The Prince and the Pauper
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
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They look alike, but they live in very different worlds. Tom Canty, impoverished and abused by his father, is fascinated with royalty. Edward Tudor, heir to the throne of England, is kind and generous but wants to run free and play in the river - just once. How insubstantial their differences truly are becomes clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of clothing - and roles. The pauper finds himself caught up in the pomp and folly of the royal court, and the prince wanders horror-stricken through the lower strata of English society.
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Wonderful author, terrific narrator, splendid book
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Lara
- The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago
- By: Anna Pasternak
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
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When Stalin came into power in 1924, the Communist government began persecuting dissident writers. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris Pasternak - whose novel in progress, Doctor Zhivago, was suspected of being anti-Soviet - he persecuted Boris' mistress, typist, and literary muse, Olga Ivinskaya. Boris' affair with Olga devastated the straitlaced Pasternaks, and they were keen to disavow Olga's role in Boris' writing process.
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A wonderfully enjoyable read
- By gran 80 on 03-15-17
By: Anna Pasternak
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
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Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
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Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
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Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
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The American Spirit
- Who We Are and What We Stand For
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
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Over the course of his distinguished career, David McCullough has spoken before Congress, colleges and universities, historical societies, and other esteemed institutions. Now, at a time of self-reflection in America following a bitter election campaign that has left the country divided, McCullough has collected some of his most important speeches in a brief volume designed to identify important principles and characteristics that are particularly American.
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Our New "OLD MAN ELOQUENT" Rides Again
- By Ray on 04-21-17
By: David McCullough
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Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
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When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
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Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
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This great book is now an unabridged release!
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What listeners say about The World of Yesterday
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tricia C.
- 03-27-23
Amazing Performance!
Such a sad story and knowing it really happened is heart breaking. occasionally the story would become dry.... but what kept me glued was the narrator The finest narrator I've ever listened to....
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2 people found this helpful
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- The Mindfulness Guru
- 03-23-24
Beautifully written
Stefan Zweig wrote so clearly that I suspect that if had written a commentary on the telephone book, it would make for fascinating reading.
The World of Yesterday evokes the decades leading up to World War II in Europe, most notably in Austria, as ones of high culture and good relations among its people. That all changed with the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
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- Marco
- 07-20-24
best use of 2x speed
doubling the speed kind of fixes the audio.
the story is very interesting especially juxtaposed to current events.
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- James R. Modrall
- 09-02-24
Lost world
Paradoxical - beautiful descriptions of Zweig's charmed life before WWI and during the Weimar republic, imbued with sadness and foreboding of WWIi. The joy of life that shines through is hard to reconcile with his suicide - taking his young wife with him - so soon after finishing the book. Beautifully read.
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- Michael Greenstein
- 02-18-19
A beautifully rendered account of pre/post Europe
I read a short story of Stefan Zweig in German in college. I was floored by the beauty of the language, the superb phrasing. It gave me a new respect of translators who have a thankless job trying to match the beauty of their native language into English. So before listening to this book, I felt I already found an intimacy with Stefan. This book did not disappoint. He brings the world of Europe into close contact. His friends and acquaintances become breathing individuals. You enter a world of yesteryear. He helps you understand a time you only vaguely knew.
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8 people found this helpful
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- NP
- 08-30-23
A most read - especially in our times
A most read !!!!!
Superb writer.
We must never stop trying to learn from history.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
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2 people found this helpful
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An astonishing, illuminating book!
How did the optimistic faith in culture, progress, & reason in 1900 blind & betray an entire generation of European artists? How did a myopic, partisan & nationalist press promote the Great War? What did it feel like to be a pacifist during an era of casual cruelty & manufactured consensus for mass murder? How did violent bigots take over Vienna, once a cosmopolitan center of music & books? Zweig tells the odd, fascinating story in dozens of small, poignant stories from his life & conversations. It's an astonishing, illuminating book that explains the dangers of political fanaticism & nationalist ideologies in vivid details.
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- John
- 07-02-22
Who knew?
This, my introduction to Stefan Zweig, prompted me to order more than a dozen of his works. He is a brilliant writer who cheated the world of more of his understanding by his suicide. I ordered his other works in hardcover for the purpose of note taking and with the thought of permanence in my library. Even though this audio version was very well read, I desire also a hardcover copy of this to highlight and retrieve the many collectable and quotable things he wrote.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-30-18
True classic
Good reminder of humanity, culture and evolving history. Great story describing Europe of the past.
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- Julie
- 08-15-19
A History lesson
I loved this book. It is beautifully written. It is filled with great insights and moments. But most importantly it was a history lesson for me. One always hears that the asssasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the cause of WWI. That was always a meaningless fact to me. Zweig's telling, in his voice, having lived through it, gave it meaning. The book is filled with these enlightening descriptions.,
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