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The Mirror and the Light: An Adaptation in 30 Minute Episodes
- The Wolf Hall Trilogy - The Mirror and the Light: An Adaptation in 30 Minute Episodes
- Narrated by: Joseph Kloska
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
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The Mirror and the Light: An Adaptation in 30 Minute Episodes
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Summary
Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
4th Estate presents the essential adaptation of The Mirror and the Light.
A Guardian Book of the Year
A Times Book of the Year
A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
A Telegraph Book of the Year
A Sunday Times Book of the Year
A New Statesman Book of the Year
A Spectator Book of the Year
If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?
England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.
Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?
With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.
Critic reviews
"Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall novels make 99 per cent of contemporary literary fiction feel utterly pale and bloodless by comparison." (The Times)
"Hilary Mantel has written an epic of English history that does what the Aeneid did for the Romans and War and Peace for the Russians. We are lucky to have it." (Sunday Telegraph)
"Very few writers manage not just to excavate the sedimented remains of the past, but bring them up again into the light and air so that they shine brightly once more before us. Hilary Mantel has done just that." (Simon Schama, Financial Times)
What listeners say about The Mirror and the Light: An Adaptation in 30 Minute Episodes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Belinda Reid
- 03-07-20
Excellent read
Enjoyed this very much, as I did the whole trilogy.
fFascinating, impossible to put down.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tracey Hyde
- 20-04-20
Stunning!
A captivating book told using beautiful prose. Having listened to all three books, I am now bereft and can not imagine what might replace this exquisite trilogy in my daily listening time.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-03-20
loved the book loved the narration
Well worth the wait, loved the narration which I found atmospheric and engaging. Fingers crossed more people will reflect same once this huge feast of a book is consumed. I miss Cromwell already!
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Adanaya
- 02-11-22
wonderful
l listened to the original versions of Wolf Hall and Bringing up the Bodies wrapt. but when the much awaited unabridged third book finally arrived, l had to return it, as Ben Miles might have been Hilary Mantels favourite voice of Cromwell, but he wasn't mine. of course lm saddened only to have the abridged version now, but l listened to it as l worked in a day. the ending was terrible, with a beauty l have seldom met before. l wish there was an unabridged version l could listen to. but this was more than l could have hoped for.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- T M ISRAEL
- 28-04-20
Brilliant as usual from Hilary Mantel
Absolutely loved it! History brought to life in way where you feel you lived it.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- The Khans
- 01-04-22
Great Listening
Loved it, most enjoyable of the Hilary Mantel novels. One to listen to again and again .,…
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Corsaire
- 12-06-22
Somewhat over-rated
This is a magisterial work of research, but personally I don't find the famous work engaging, engrossing or or even very interesting. The style in which it's written, with the endless "he, Cromwell" and "he thinks" at the end of each conversation, isn't for me - though the narrative, which recounts all the politics of Henry VIII era, obviously has enchanted many thousands of readers. For me, it falls flat and the reading, whilst precise, is a little monotone. I also look forward to the day when I hear any book about Tudor England read in which the name of Cranmer is pronounced correctly.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- MrsFrank
- 05-04-20
Long winded
I struggle with Hilary Mantel's style and find the he said, she said dialogues confusing. I preferred the abridged version of Wolf Hall and think an abridged version of this book might be preferable.
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2 people found this helpful