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Hamnet

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Hamnet

By: Maggie O'Farrell
Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
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About this listen

A BRAND NEW RECORDING, NARRATED BY JESSIE BUCKLEY.

'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times
'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021
WINNER: WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER: FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR, BRITISH BOOK AWARDS
WINNER: BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER'S CHOICE AWARD
AS FEATURED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERS
SHORTLISTED: AN POST IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR, WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION

©2020 Maggie O'Farrell (P)2025 Headline Publishing Group Limited Biographical Fiction Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Renaissance Small Town & Rural Fiction

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What a great story, so brutal and moving and tender. I am crying and not only because I have just finished it…

So well read by Jessie Buckley.

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only that it ended..was fantastic....an incredible illumination into possibilities and wakefulness and the subdued messages developed learned or instinctive. was deeply unusual ..I want to absorb it again....

hamnet

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Jessie Buckley is excellent reading this book that I love. O’Farrell’s book is a masterpiece, simple but so poetic, it speaks so eloquently for those who grieve. But here Jessie Buckley’s performance is full of understanding, of the meaning of these words. Impeccable.

A magnificent book, and magnificently read here.

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I loved Jessie Buckley’s narration. It’s just like being there and part of the story.

Maggie’s amazing words. It was just tremendous.

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If I read this as a book, when I would have got through it more quickly, I may have enjoyed it more. 13 audio hours of a fey woman's small domestic life and her imagined thoughts were just too long and tedious for me.

I didn't like or believe in Agnes’s character and her ‘mystic’ qualities. Walking herself off in labour into the forest alone to give birth seemed especially unlikely. By the time Hamnet dies I’d already had enough but had to face another four hours of her excessive grief and consequent neglect of her daughters which compounded my lack of sympathy for her.

I did enjoy the William parts though, especially the theatrical glimpses and would have loved more of those. So I suppose I have to say it is a well written book, as is the principal character; I just was so bored and irritated by her!

Very long in audio format

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