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A Tomb With a View – The Stories & Glories of Graveyards
- Scottish Non-fiction Book of the Year 2021
- Narrated by: Peter Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
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A Tomb With a View – The Stories & Glories of Graveyards
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Summary
For listeners of The Salt Path, Mudlarking, Ghostland, Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane.
Enter a grave new world of fascination and delight as award-winning journalist Peter Ross uncovers the stories and glories of Britain's best graveyards. Who are London's outcast dead, and why is David Bowie their guardian angel? What is the remarkable truth about Phoebe Hessel, who disguised herself as a man to fight alongside her sweetheart and went on to live in the reigns of five monarchs? Why is a Bristol cemetery the perfect wedding venue for goths?
All of these sorrowful mysteries - and many more - are answered in A Tomb with a View, a book for anyone who has ever wandered through a field of crooked headstones and wondered about the lives and deaths of those who lie beneath.
So push open the rusting gate, push back the ivy and take a look inside....
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Critic reviews
"His stories are always a joy." (Ian Rankin)
"I'm a card-carrying admirer of Peter Ross." (Robert Macfarlane)
"In his absorbing book about the lost and the gone, Peter Ross takes us from Flanders Fields to Milltown to Kensal Green, to melancholy islands and surprisingly lively ossuaries...a considered and moving book on the timely subject of how the dead are remembered and how they go on working below the surface of our lives." (Hilary Mantel)
What listeners say about A Tomb With a View – The Stories & Glories of Graveyards
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- catbee
- 12-09-23
Fascinating and wide ranging well read book
Well researched book written by someone who has a passion not just for the facts but for people and emotions. It was well read too. I was sorry that it had to end.
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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
- Anonymous User
- 10-07-21
Just beautiful
Such a gorgeous book. Brought to life by the author, so glad I chose to listen as an audio book. So fascinating
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jill Desborough
- 31-01-21
A book for lovers and wanderers in graveyards
Beautifully and sensitively written. We meander from the long lost past, meditating on lives of those still residing in the few remaining charnel houses to the life affirming weddings now taking place in graveyards like Arnos in Bristol. Peter Ross converses on the way with those who have chosen different ways to bury their loved ones and celebrate them , which gives me at least some inspiration about my departure! It feels in no way a particularly sad book, though at times moving, meditative, celebratory , odd and very human. A book i think I'll delve into again...
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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
- Catriona Ferris
- 30-10-23
A fascinating tour of graveyards in UK
This is a rambling walk in a whole host of graveyards around the UK from the Victorian London graveyards to the IRA war cemey in Belfast. It "digs" under the surface to tell lost of stories and the stories of those living and dead in them. Fascinating and light at the same time.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Drama Queen
- 13-06-21
A well written social history
Ross reads his own words well in this tale of the history of mortality in the UK and Ireland, focusing on the stories of the deceased or their resting places. He really doesn't seem to like Kent, though!
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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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- AmazonCustomer
- 15-09-20
Poignant and moving
Mr Ross tells stories that are not just moving, inspiring and respectful, but show that while graveyards may hold the dead, they hold a record of the living, and preserve the story of a community in a very special and unique way. Lovely performance by the author, highly recommended.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Helen Dyer
- 24-12-20
Poor sound quality
The book and performance were good, but the overall quality of the recording was so bad that it impacted my enjoyment.
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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
- Fraser
- 13-12-22
A book about death that brims with life
A fascinating story about the place of graveyards in the social and cultural history of the world. As Ross shows, graveyards are much more than a place to bury the dead.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- v field
- 05-09-23
Spoilt for me
I had no interest in listening to anything connected to the IRA , perhaps the author needs to remember how many women and children these disgusting creatures murdered .a good book spoilt .
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1 person found this helpful