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Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
- Narrated by: Bianca Amato
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
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Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
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Summary
Alexandra Fuller won worldwide attention, popular acclaim, and critical accolades for her memoir of her childhood in Africa, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. This engaging follow-up explores Fuller’s parents’ childhoods and charts the trajectories of their lives through all the British couple’s experiences in war-torn Africa.
Fuller braids a multilayered narrative around the perfectly lit, Happy Valley-era Africa of her mother's childhood; the boiled cabbage grimness of her father's English childhood; and the darker, civil war- torn Africa of her own childhood. At its heart, this is the story of Fuller's mother, Nicola. Born on the Scottish Isle of Skye and raised in Kenya, Nicola holds dear the kinds of values most likely to get you hurt or killed in Africa: loyalty to blood, passion for land, and a holy belief in the restorative power of all animals. Fuller interviewed her mother at length and has captured her inimitable voice with remarkable precision. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is as funny, terrifying, exotic, and unselfconscious as Nicola herself.
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What listeners say about Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
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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
- Chris Cutler
- 12-02-24
this land we called home..
your memories are so vivid and your awfull books have brought back so many of my own . Thank you
Rob
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Eliza Conquest
- 06-10-20
A Story of how Africa gets into your soul
I have read Alexandra Fuller's memoir "Don't Let's go to the Dogs Tonight" so when this book was recommended to me, I decided to give it a try. As I grew up in Africa, I could identify with a lot of the emotional attachment the mother, Nichola, felt about the various countries the family lived in and her determination to stay somewhere on the continent. However, I didn't like the voice of the narrator. I found it hard and business-like and for most of the book not really in keeping with Nichola, who she was representing. Towards the end, I felt her voice fitted Nichola more because of how Nichola had had to toughen up to cope with all the tragedy and hardship she had faced. What I couldn't understand about her, however, was how she always seemed to take the toughest road, the most difficult places in Africa to live, and keep going back for more when one phase came to an end. The book is very well written and I enjoyed the second half more than the first.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Augusto
- 12-09-19
Brilliant
Loved it. Great story, well written, very well narrated, captivating! Highly recommend it to those interested in Africa
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- vicki Patterson
- 10-06-23
Wonderful!
I was born and brought up in Zimbabwe- unfortunately, as described, as a “chicken runner”, leaving the war in 1974 as a 15 year old teenager with my parents. However, now in the cold, damp, grey skies of the UK, I have fond memories of an idilic childhood and Africa will always be in my heart.
Alexandra’s account of her childhood, so honestly and descriptively . Well done to her and to Bianca, who beautifully narrated this captivating story.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Laulan
- 21-03-15
Excellent tale of Africa
Great listen and would recommend to others interested hearing about family life in the bush for expats in a time of
Good narrative
Good storyline
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- min
- 20-06-23
Loved it, I will recommend!
Amazing story. In the first half it just rolled along.... so I wasn't prepared for change.....the awful tragedies that befell the family. Oh my goodness how would you cope with all that? But they did somehow survive, albeit with plenty of emotional and psychological bruises.
The life they led was fascinating but also very tough. Continually trying to make enough money to survive often doing so just by the goodness of others.
I would read more by this author.
It took me a while to get used to the narrators voice and I could've done without the singing lol! But having said that, the singing probably helps us understand Nichola's great, very-eccentric but lovable character. Great book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- susanK
- 14-04-18
That’s Africa, Baby!!
Great fun and filled with wonderful memories. Just a few mispronunciations but still, marvellous. Thank you.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ms Gray
- 21-10-24
A sense of Africa
A tender and exciting memoir which holds within it a time, a place and those who had Africa running in their veins even when it no longer held them.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Dr. J. Lane
- 03-01-21
great read
if you've read Don't Let's Go To The Dog's Tonight, then you'll enjoy this. As a child who grew up in colonial Africa, I loved it
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Susse Thrane
- 10-05-22
Excellent storytelling.
Loved another book written by Alexandra Fuller. Makes for a less boring day behind the steering wheel.
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