Underground London
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Underground London
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Narrated by:
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Karen Cass
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By:
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Stephen Smith
About this listen
What is visible to the naked eye has been exhaustively raked over; in Underground London, acclaimed travel writer Stephen Smith provides an alternative guide and history of the capital. It's a journey through the passages and tunnels of the city, the bunkers and tunnels, crypts and shadows. As well as being a contemporary tour of underground London, it's also an exploration through time: Queen Boudicca lies beneath Platform 10 at King's Cross (legend has it); Dick Turpin fled the Bow Street Runners along secret passages leading from the cellar of the Spaniards pub in North London; the remains of a pre-Christian Mithraic temple have been found near the Bank of England; on the platforms of the now defunct King William Street Underground, posters still warn that 'Careless talk costs lives'.
Stephen Smith uncovers the secrets of the city by walking through sewers, tunnels under such places as Hampton Court, ghost tube stations, and long lost rivers such as the Fleet and the Tyburn. This is 'alternative' history at its best.
©2004 Steven Smith (P)2009 Oakhill PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,590
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,426
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,417
Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed—and what hasn’t.
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3 out of 5 stars
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No Bryson?? Alas, another disappointed fan
- By Rick on 01-25-16
By: Bill Bryson
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The Victorian City
- Everyday Life in Dickens' London
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail. From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved English novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities, and cruelties.
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2 out of 5 stars
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UNFORTUNATLY DISAPPOINTED, IS NOT INTERESTING
- By Count B on 02-04-18
By: Judith Flanders
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The Race Underground
- Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
- By: Doug Most
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 154
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 137
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Story4 out of 5 stars 136
In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers - Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City - pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to have a subway and the great race was on.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative Cobbled Telling of an Important Story
- By Lynn on 05-21-14
By: Doug Most
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London
- The Biography
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 32 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 57
London: The Biography is the pinnacle of Peter Ackroyd's brilliant obsession with the eponymous city. In this unusual and engaging work, Ackroyd brings the listener through time into the city whose institutions and idiosyncrasies have permeated much of his works of fiction and nonfiction. Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book
- By Joann on 01-04-21
By: Peter Ackroyd
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The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
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The Bedlam Detective
- By: Stephen Gallagher
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 145
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Story4 out of 5 stars 144
Sebastian Becker, a former Pinkerton man, lives in England and investigates wealthy eccentrics who may be too insane to care for their own affairs. He is asked to investigate rich landowner Sir Owain, but arrives to discover two young girls have been murdered, and it is not the first time children have come to harm in this small town.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Satisfying!
- By Margaret on 03-26-12
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The Fracture Zone
- A Return to the Balkans
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 110
Award-winning journalist and author Simon Winchester takes readers on a personal tour of the Balkans. Combining history and interviews with the people who live there, Winchester offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex issues at work in this chaotic region. Unrest in the Balkans has gone on for centuries. A seasoned reporter, Winchester visited the region twenty years ago. When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this-Great combo:Story and History Explained
- By Jeremy on 07-10-14
By: Simon Winchester
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Broadway
- A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles
- By: Fran Leadon
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the 17th century's Brede Wegh, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the 20th century's Great White Way. We learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness construction of the Ansonia Apartments, Trinity Church, and the Flatiron Building and the burning of P. T. Barnum's American Museum; and discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Give My Regards To Broadway!
- By Steven on 08-20-18
By: Fran Leadon
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Conquering Gotham
- The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels
- By: Jill Jonnes
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
The demolition of Penn Station in 1963 destroyed not just a soaring neoclassical edifice, but also a building that commemorated one of the last century's great engineering feats: the construction of railroad tunnels into New York City. Now, in this gripping narrative, Jill Jonnes tells this fascinating story - a high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the nation's mightiest railroad against the corruption of Tammany Hall, the unruly forces of nature, and the machinations of labor agitators.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A good tale of the times
- By Edouard on 02-08-08
By: Jill Jonnes
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Naples '44
- By: Norman Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Naples '44 is an unflinching autobiographical account of a year in Naples after the armistice and Allied landings in Sorrento in 1943. Working as a British counterintelligence officer under the Allied occupation, Lewis documents the rich pageant of life in the city and its surrounding areas. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The tragic, violent, shocking yet also life affirming story of Naples in WW2
- By Sally on 12-02-24
By: Norman Lewis
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Dreaming of Jupiter
- By: Ted Simon
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
When Ted Simon rode 64,000 miles round the world on his 500c Triumph Tiger, he inspired thousands of motorcyclists to begin their own adventures, including Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, who chronicled their travels in Long Way Round. Nearly 30 years later, Ted Simon took to the road again to retrace the epic journey he made in his 40s. He meets up with old friends and acquaintances, revisits old landmarks and locations, and rediscovers himself, as well as the world, along the way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing book, Amazing Man
- By Roxanna on 08-16-18
By: Ted Simon
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A Crack in the Edge of the World
- America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 588
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 331
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 327
San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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2 out of 5 stars
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
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Full Circle
- A Pacific Journey with Michael Palin
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Following the hugely popular and successful Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole, Michael Palin set off to meet another challenge: an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the world's largest ocean, the Pacific.
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out of 5 stars
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Excellent, per usual
- By Enroute8 on 06-03-07
By: Michael Palin
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Travels in Siberia
- By: Ian Frazier
- Narrated by: Ian Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 421
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 307
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Story4 out of 5 stars 306
Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the 40-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind....
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5 out of 5 stars
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I Loved This Book
- By Sara on 01-05-14
By: Ian Frazier
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The City of Falling Angels
- By: John Berendt
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 563
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 267
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Story4 out of 5 stars 265
The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil returns to give us an intimate look at the "magic, mystery, and decadence" of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Do Yourself a Favor and Skip This Book!
- By AUDIBLE on 10-08-05
By: John Berendt