The Way We Live Now
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Narrated by:
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Timothy West
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By:
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Anthony Trollope
About this listen
Exclusively from Audible
In this world of bribes, vendettas, and swindling, in which heiresses are gambled and won, Trollope's characters embody all the vices: Lady Carbury is 'false from head to foot'; her son Felix has 'the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog'; and Melmotte - the colossal figure who dominates the book - is a 'horrid, big, rich scoundrel...a bloated swindler...a vile city ruffian'. But as vile as he is, he is considered one of Trollope's greatest creations.
Trollope's highly regarded satire is about the dishonest and villainous financier, Augustus Melmotte, who captivates and buys his way into the corrupt aristocratic society of London, throwing it into turmoil.
Described by The Guardian as 'the darkest of Trollope's 47 novels' it is also the longest with gloriously rich subplots. Inspired by the financial scandals of the 1870s, the novel is a dramatization of how greed and dishonesty permeated life during that era.
The Way We Live Now has become recognised as Trollope's masterpiece and was featured at Number 22 in The Guardian's 100 best novels.
Narrator Biography
Timothy West is prolific in film, television, theatre, and audiobooks. He has narrated a number of Anthony Trollope's classic audiobooks, including the six Chronicles of Barsetshire and The Pallisers series. He has also narrated volumes of Simon Schama's A History of Britain and John Mortimer's Rumpole on Trial.
Timothy West's theatrical credits include King Lear, The Vote, Uncle Vanya, A Number, Quarter, and Coriolanus and his films include Ever After, Joan Of Arc, Endgame, Iris, and The Day of the Jackal. On television, Timothy has appeared in Broken Biscuits (BBC), Great Canal Journeys (across 3 Series), and the regular role of Stan Carter on EastEnders (BBC).
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- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
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David Copperfield
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 36 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Between his work on the 2014 Audible Audiobook of the Year, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel, and his performance of Classic Love Poems, narrator Richard Armitage ( The Hobbit, Hannibal) has quickly become a listener favorite. Now, in this defining performance of Charles Dickens' classic David Copperfield, Armitage lends his unique voice and interpretation, truly inhabiting each character and bringing real energy to the life of one of Dickens' most famous characters.
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A PERFECT narration of an English classic!
- By Wayne on 09-03-17
By: Charles Dickens
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Man and Wife
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Nicolas Boulton
- Length: 23 hrs
- Unabridged
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Published 10 years after Collins’s most popular novel The Woman in White, Man and Wife centres on the confused and inequitable marriage laws of 19th-century Britain, reflecting the author’s own antipathy toward the institution. The plot follows the fortunes of a woman who, committed to marriage with one man, comes to believe that she may have inadvertently married his friend, according to the archaic laws of Scotland and Ireland.
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Intricate plot, good dialogue, desperately needed an editor
- By Seth on 07-25-21
By: Wilkie Collins
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No Name
- By: Wilkie Collins
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton, Rachel Atkins, Russell Bentley, and others
- Length: 27 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Magdalen and Norah Vanstone have known only comfort and affluence for their entire lives. Orphaned suddenly following the unexpected deaths of their parents, the illegitimate sisters find themselves flung into the other extreme of living: their father had neglected to amend his will following their parents' recent marriage, leaving them with nothing, and their bitter, estranged uncle, the legal inheritor of the family fortune, mercilessly refuses them support.
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Good and Evil and Funny
- By John on 07-06-20
By: Wilkie Collins
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The Mill on the Floss
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Laura Paton
- Length: 20 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Maggie Tulliver has two lovers: Philip Wakem, son of her father’s enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie’s struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy
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Great compassion
- By nina lalumia on 12-26-16
By: George Eliot
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On the Origin of Species
- By: Charles Darwin
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
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Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and a life-long committed Darwinist, abridges and reads this special audio version of Charles Darwin's famous book. A literally world-changing book, Darwin put forward the anti-religious and scientific idea that humans in fact evolved over millions of generations from animals, starting with fish, all the way up through the ranks to apes, then to our current form.
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A Perfect Abridgement
- By M on 05-28-09
By: Charles Darwin
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The Way of All Flesh
- By: Samuel Butler
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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This brilliant satirical novel, tracing the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex, has continued in popularity since its original publication in 1903. Every generation finds in The Way of All Flesh a reaffirmation of youth's rightful struggle against the tyranny of harsh parents and its admirable will for freedom of personal expression.
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classic satire- would make Jon Stewart laugh
- By Connie on 06-04-08
By: Samuel Butler
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What listeners say about The Way We Live Now
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Jonathan
- 04-09-10
Good book
I really enjoyed this story. It was a good story and nice and long.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 01-24-11
Timothy West and Trollope
Absolutely superb narration, yes this book is long but I never lost interest for even a second.
Timothy Wests interpretation of all the characters voices was utterly masterful.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Nathaniel
- 01-21-11
The Way We Live Now
This is the first book I've read/listened to by Anthony Trollope. I was compelled by the reviews for this book to give it a try and I'm glad that I did. Although the book was published in 1875 the story rings true to "the way we live now" in a universal way that I suppose always will. I have never known a story with so many flawed characters and the trial and errors of these characters, though exasperating at times, are fasanating. I found myself annoyed and compelled all at the same time with these characters- the way I feel about a lot of the people I know and care about in my own life. This book, although slow at times (I dazed through some of the chapters) all in all is well worth the time I invested listening to it. Now on to the next Anthony Trollope novel!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 04-04-18
Why do I recognize all these people?
This is one of the greats. I don't know how Trollope does it, but once again I find myself laughing, gritting my teeth, wanting to shake one character and poison another, and generally having my entire week disrupted. He manages to frame his book around a driving plot while letting character development (or revelation in some cases) take center stage.
Trollope's also a man of his time, so expect Victorian approaches to gender and race, and a sometimes silly dependence on the myth of physiognomy (ironic if you've looked at any pictures of Trollope himself). But honestly, if you can't handle that, you're stuck only reading books from whatever decade you're in at the moment. And where would we be without these beautiful old books?
Timothy West could read me lines of idiotic celebrity tweets and I'd listen. I adore his voice, his characterizations, and the humor and sympathy he, like Trollope, shows for almost all the characters.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Linda J. Westerschulte
- 06-22-12
Trollope the way I like him
This is Trollope at his best. The personalities are multidimensional and clearly drawn, the story is acerbic and engaging, and no self-destructive heroines annoy us by interminable pining or by punishing themselves past the endurance of their families and their readers. (For an example of unbearable self-flagellation ad nauseum see The Prime Minister). I like Timothy West's reading very much. He has a handsome, deep voice that seems to relish Trollope's wit. He uses subtle changes of accent for some of his characters and he reads the women's voices in a natural tone.
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- Karen
- 08-14-12
It is indeed the way we live now
A classic tale of male dominance, corruption and love. An enjoyable and timeless story relevant today. Well crafted and narrated.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-31-21
love Trollope and Timothy West!
Timothy West is brilliant and he brings alive all the characters, and the wit and irony of Trollope. I fear that I have now heard all the books of Trollope that he narrated and wish it weren't so. He and Anthony Trollope have been the best and most delightful companions throughout Covid-19. The Way We Live Now storyline is timeless.
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- Mantisdolphin
- 12-18-21
Great narration performance. Utterly Victorian.
I much enjoyed the story and was continually impressed with Mr. West’s bringing to life so many personalities, male and female.
The novel wraps up in a quite Victorian way, and based on the rule that takes with marriages in their endings are comedies, and have to judge that this very long novel (two four-hundred plus page volumes) is a comedy. It has tragic elements. The author wraps things up with certain characters in a way one might not have favored, but all is wrapped up in the end and there are weddings so that there is happiness for the characters after all the troubles and challenges that they’ve gone through in the course of the story.
Lastly, there is a clear moral judgment at work in the novel: characters prove their real worth, or lack of it, in moral terms, in terms of character, virtue, integrity, adherence to principle, honest dealing, and discipline.
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- Allyson
- 09-10-19
Engrossing
For a story that encompasses 100 chapters this was very engrossing. So many different characters flaying open the weaknesses of the English society of the time, showing the follies and yet being able to make interesting and creative ends for most of the flawed characters was done masterfully. Only a few times did it feel like the episode which must have been submitted by chapter to some periodical, I believe, had some padding to advance the suspense. The skill of the narrator was impressive. For someone with such a deep voice it, it was amazing how many softer feminine tones he could take. The only place he failed in that was representing the American Woman. His ability to speak in the American version of English was somewhat limited. As an American who has lived in an English country, and is used to a bit of local prejudice, I found the generally negative attitude of the author toward my countrymen off-putting. Trollope does eventually acknowledge a few strengths of the American society, but I found this narrator's interpretation of their accents a bit extreme. Perhaps he took his cue from the author's tone. I must say that there is one character in this story who is ending was totally unsatisfactory and I may have a bone to pick with the author in the next life about that!
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- rlanyon42
- 05-25-20
Great old novel, beautifully narrated
I've read this book many times, so I loved it already. But hearing it read by Timothy West was a joy, and I recommend this combo of novel + narrator very highly.
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