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The White Road: Journey into an Obsession Audiobook
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An intimate narrative history of porcelain, structured around five journeys through landscapes where porcelain was dreamed about, fired, refined, collected, and coveted. Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and bestselling international sensation, The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, bestselling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold." A potter who has been working with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about, refined, collected and coveted-and that would help him understand the clay's mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three "white hills"-sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain's creation. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history. Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft, and purity. In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with the Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of "the spectrum of porcelain" and the mapping of desire.
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“De Waal is a master of telling stories through material objects. He can see a vase and not only imagine the kind of room it once inhabited but the type of woman who might have brushed her fingertips across its lip…It’s de Waal’s own obsession?the man counts pots when he can’t sleep at night?that infuses the narrative with a true sense of the hunt…He is wonderfully manic in his research…He allows himself to get lost for weeks, to travel someplace only to return empty-handed?which makes for a true adventure and a pleasure to read.”
— New Yorker
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“The White Road is a unique book by a unique person. Polyglot, steeped in art and literature and history, able to throw a pot and turn a sentence with equal skill, endlessly curious and stupendously diligent, aesthetic to his fingertips but also deeply moral…Mr. de Waal brings a lot to the table, and with The White Road he goes all in.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“De Waal is a master of telling stories through material objects. He can see a vase and not only imagine the kind of room it once inhabited but the type of woman who might have brushed her fingertips across its lip…It’s de Waal’s own obsession―the man counts pots when he can’t sleep at night―that infuses the narrative with a true sense of the hunt…He is wonderfully manic in his research…He allows himself to get lost for weeks, to travel someplace only to return empty-handed―which makes for a true adventure and a pleasure to read.”
— New Yorker -
“The history of porcelain, as told in The White Road, is a constantly surprising, sometimes absolutely staggering, coming together of art, craft and commerce, politics and religion, national identity, larger-than-life characters and wild, sometimes ruinous obsession…A terrific book. If you read it, you’ll never look at porcelain the same way again.”
— Los Angeles Times -
“A lyrical melding of art history, memoir, and philosophical meditation…In short passages of allusive, radiant prose, the author chronicles his journeys in search of both the materials and the history of porcelain, discovering along the way men as obsessed as he…De Waal’s poetically recounted journey is a revelation, as well: of the power of obsession and the lust for purity.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“De Waal reveals the depths and permutations of his life-shaping fascination with porcelain . . . [He] brings a historian’s ardor for detail and a poet’s gifts for close observation and radiant distillation to this exquisite chronicle of his extensive porcelain investigations . . . De Waal’s passionately and elegantly elucidated story of porcelain, laced with memoir and travelogue, serves as a portal into the madness and transcendence of our covetous obsession with beauty.
— Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review) -
[Michael] Maloney's honed acting skills offer a smooth, easy-to-follow narration. His cultured English accent suits de Waal's worldly perspective, and he adeptly handles names and phrases in French, Chines, German, and Italian, as well as technical jargon, without a hitch, A great, informative performance.
— AudioFile.com
Awards
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A Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2015 for Nonfiction
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Among longlisted titles for Financial Times Books of the Year, 2015
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Among longlisted titles for The Independent (UK) Best Books of the Year, 2015
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Among longlisted titles for Christian Science Monitor Best Books of the Year, 2015
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Among longlisted titles for Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2015
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About Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal is one of the world’s leading ceramic artists, and his porcelain is held in many major museum collections. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes has been published in thirty languages and won the Costa Biography Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. It was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, the PEN/Ackerley Prize and the Southbank Sky Arts Award for Literature, and longlisted for the Orwell Prize and BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. He lives in London with his family.
About Michael Maloney
Michael Maloney is an actor who has appeared in numerous television productions, including as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Prince Hal in Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, for which he won Best Actor/Best Supporting Actor awards. His theater credits include Sleuth, Peer Gynt, and All My Sons, and his film credits include The Young Victoria and Notes on a Scandal. He has narrated numerous audiobooks, earning seven AudioFile Earphones Awards.