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Manderley Forever

A Biography of Daphne du Maurier

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Manderley Forever

By: Tatiana de Rosnay
Narrated by: Charlotte Wright
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About this listen

The nonfiction debut from beloved international sensation and New York Times best-selling author Tatiana de Rosnay: her best-selling biography of novelist Daphne du Maurier.

"It's impressive how Tatiana was able to recreate the personality of my mother, including her sense of humor. It is very well written and very moving. I'm sure my mother would have loved this book." (Tessa Montgomery d'Alamein, daughter of Daphné du Maurier, as told to Pauline Sommelet in Point de Vue)

As a bilingual best-selling novelist with a mixed Franco-British bloodline and a host of eminent forbears, Tatiana de Rosnay is the perfect candidate to write a biography of Daphne du Maurier. As an 11-year-old de Rosnay read and reread Rebecca, becoming a lifelong devotee of Du Maurier's fiction. Now de Rosnay pays homage to the writer who influenced her so deeply, following Du Maurier from a shy seven-year-old to a rebellious 16-year-old, a 20-something newlywed, and finally a cantankerous old lady. With a rhythm and intimacy to its prose characteristic of all de Rosnay's works, Manderley Forever is a vividly compelling portrait and celebration of an intriguing, hugely popular and (at the time) critically underrated writer.

©2015 Édition Albin Michel/Édition Héloïse d’Ormesson. Translation copyright © 2016 by Sam Taylor (P)2017 Macmillan Audio Art & Literature Authors Women Biography Witty

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All stars
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Well narrated but it’s a shame the reader wasn’t told how to pronounce Fowey! It’s pronounced ‘Foy’ not ‘Fowie’! Also I had to listen to four pronunciations of interminable as interMIDable instead of inTERmidable. Despite that annoyance she is s lovely reader, very passionate about the story.

Interesting take on the Du Maurier story

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Loved the book but the narrator has the most awful pronunciation not just if Cornish name places but it took me a while to realise what she meant about many things “subaltern” for example !!! Rather annoying ..

Fascinating story

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Where does Manderley Forever rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Not as good as hoped. Some of the details were dubious.. For example....not a mention was made of Daphne Du Maurier visiting Cyprus whilst she was staying in Egypt. Some say that is where she wrote "Rebecca"....her most famous novel!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Oh dear! The pronunciation of some of the words was awful. Words like "interminable"....you cannot emphasise the "min" surely...? [Interminable].And the pronunciation of the Cornish place names - not great! Quite detracted from the narration overall.HOWEVER - the pronunciation of the French words was great! Credit where it is due....

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I love anything to do with Daphne Du Maurier - so I liked the content but nothing new.

Any additional comments?

A bit disappointed overall.

Disappointing!

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The book itself is fine and reads more like a novel about Daphne du Maurier's life than a regular style biography.
However, the amount of strange and miss-pronounced words in this production is startling for a product relating to such an important author as Daphne du Maurier.
If you are interested in Daphne du Maurier it is certainly worth listening to, just note that a lot of people and place name are pronounced entirely wrong.

A biography that reads more like a novel. However.

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Cornwall is central to the du Maurier legend. How could any narrator of her life story fail to research the proper pronunciation of all the places in Cornwall with which Daphne du Maurier is associated? This jarred at my nerves and ruined an otherwise good listen.

Terrible pronunciation of Cornish place names!

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I came to complain about the quality of narration and discovered that's what everyone else has complained about too! How can the narrator be allowed to get away with mis-pronouncing 'Fowey' !!! So many errors of pronunciation in both English and French. Although the narrator has a pleasant voice, she comes over as having a narrow experience of reading and speaking both languages. What bothered me most is that whilst print can be tidied up by proof-readers, audio, it seems, can get away very little production oversight. Considering the probably high sales of this book, I think the publishers should fork out for a new narration and make sure it is properly produced this time. The author herself must be very disappointed that this was allowed to go through uncorrected.

As far as the content of the book goes, I enjoyed it and found it very informative, despite the rather fannish approach to DdM.

interesting read but the narration very poor

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The book itself is wonderful - it's the story of Daphne du Maurier so how could it not be? But the reading is very irritating; the many mispronunciations start to grate after a while and suggest a lack of research/preparation on the reader's part.

Amazing story of a remarkable woman; poorly read

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Very interesting novel styled biography but the mispronunciation of so many words and names was hard work. Especially the Cornish ones…. Pronouncing the ‘w’ in Fowey is definitely the most alarming but there are many others. It’s a shame because it is read with passion.

Hmmm🤔

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I enjoyed all the intricate details of Daphne's life but bristled at the many mispronounciations of place names in particular. As I am very familiar with Cornwall, this slightly spoiled the listening experience for me. However, I loved hearing all about the joys and trials of this author whose books I have read, and re-read since I was a teenager.

a fascinating life!

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Although this appears to be narrated by someone English there are several words which have been badly mispronounced. Writhing, said wr eee thing for example. Mispronunciation of Fowey... anyone who has lived there would know it’s called Foy by locals, and since so much of the early part of the book,is set here it is a constant grating. The river Tamar, should be said Taymar.. not Ta Mar. These are thing you sort of need to get right if you are hearing a biography.
That said the book is only so so, so giving up on listening to it anyhow.

Narration by non English speaker? Poor pronunciation spoilt the book.

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