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    Little Women
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    Little Women
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    Little Women
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Little Women

    Written by Louisa May Alcott

    Narrated by Kate Harper

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    A timeless classic story, Louisa Alcott's Little Women is brought to life on this abridged, downloadable audiobook by Kate Harper.

    Meg is the eldest and on the brink of love. Then there's tomboy Jo who longs to be a writer. Sweet-natured Beth always puts others first, and finally there's Amy, the youngest and most precocious. Together they are the March sisters. Even though money is short, times are tough and their father is away at war, their infectious sense of fun sweeps everyone up in their adventures - including Laurie, the boy next door. And through sisterly squabbles, their happy times and sad ones too, the sisters discover that growing up is sometimes very hard to do.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin UK Audio
    Release dateMar 6, 2008
    ISBN9780141808833
    Author

    Louisa May Alcott

    Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) won international renown with the publishing of Little Women and its sequel, Good Wives. Her works include An Old Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins and Jack and Jill. Alcott grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, where her family befriended such literary greats as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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    Reviews for Little Women

    4/5

    2,122 ratings176 reviews

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    • 3/5
      It's interesting to listen to a book written in the 1800's. The dialog isn't that great and some of the phrases mean something totally different in 2016. For example snowballing. I didn't know what it meant in 2016 until I typed it in during my bing rewards searches. Of course Louisa May Alcott was talking about an innocent snow ball fight. I think with classics like this, I might stick with the movie.
    • 4/5
      Although this was a novel primarily intended for a female audience, I still found this incredibly likable and appealing. There is much here: sorrow, friendship, family, yearnings, disillusionment, and closure. The characters are vivid and the setting serves as a ready placard to explore their innermost feelings, desires, and emotions. The plot does not waver, it stays concentrated and focused on the intrigues of its principal characters and I feel that it managed to accomplish all that was intended. Overall, a great book. 4 stars.
    • 5/5
      The classic tale of the March sisters--Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. It's a coming-of-age tale in many ways as the girls grow up and most find love. Marmee imparts wisdom when her daughters seek it. The neighboring Laurance family, particularly Laurie, plays an important role in the book. Jo begins her career as a writer. This classic never fails to make me cry. Even though I know it is coming, I never want Beth to die.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat entertaining read. I did get a little weary of the repeated moral preaching by adults.
    • 3/5
      While it is a charming coming of age tale, I found it a tad slow and a bit dry, I really like the movie though.
    • 1/5
      I was given this book when I was a child by my aunt. I absolutely hated it. If I had been a boy, I would have received something like Jules Verne, Gulliver's Travels or The treasure Island. Instead I had to settle for this crap and similar books about nice proper idle stupid girls. No wonder I hated being a girl. I still do. To be precise, now I hate being a woman.
    • 5/5
      Oh, my childhood. I remember reading this when I was much younger (and fresh out of the Little House on the Prairie books). I absolutely love this book and have memories of watching the movie (with Winona Ryder) and just falling in love with it all over again. Highly recommend this classic. Such a lovely tale of family, friendship, and strong women.
    • 5/5
      Yes, it is that good. I read it as a child, and have read it twice again as an adult. Alcott draws you in, and you inhabit her world.
    • 4/5
      How odd to be reading this for the first time as an adult! Somehow, growing up, I missed out on reading Little Women, but the PBS Great American Reads program piqued my curiousity. What it is about this book that, 150 years later, still earns it a place among America's top 100 novels? And now that I've read it, I get it. This coming-of-age tale about four sisters growing up relative poverty in the years following the civil war is charming, sentimental, entertaining, romantic, and profoundly moral. There's a temptation to judge the tale by 21st moral values, which scrutiny might raise some hackles. For instance, Alcott's chapters - each a little morality tale in itself - resolutely preach that the ultimate life's goal of all women should be marriage, that women should be dutiful to men, that poverty and humility are more honorable than wealth and striving. Through the lens of today's standards, it's hard not to cringe a little when Meg saves her marriage by pretending to be interested in things that interest her husband, when the sisters consistently suffer humiliation every time they make the mistake of craving something material, or when Jo gives up her writing career rather than risk offending the sensibilities of a man. But there are also many moral lessons in here that have stood the test of time - such as honoring your mother/father, marrying for love rather than money, allowing men to take a part in the rearing of their children, and treating people the way you'd wish to be treated - and, besides, there's something inherently unfair in judging a book written over 150 years ago by modern standards, right?What Alcott does best is create a lovely, nostalgic portrait of childhood the way we all want to believe it used to be, full of tree-climbing and apple-picking, wise mothers, moral fathers, picnics and family parties, flirting and fooling and make-believe, with just enough work to thrown in to teach responsibility, just enough mischief added to inculcate morality, just enough sorrow endured to sweeten satisfaction, just enough heartbreak suffered to invest wisdom, and just enough hardship endured to guarantee appropriate appreciation of the blessings of friendship and love. In other words, Little Women is like comfort food for the soul: it's not so much about maximizing nutrition as about evoking memories of a happier and simpler time when morality was a little less complicated and we were all a lot more innocent.
    • 3/5
      This is another one of those "childhood classics" that I managed to miss reading when I was actually a child. I'm still trying to decide whether or not this is a good thing. I think that, had I tried reading it as a child, I would have been just a bit bored by the story overall. But as an adult reader, I find I am probably less forgiving of things I perceive as flaws in the writing.

      Coming to it as an adult reader, I can see why it is viewed as a classic, and I enjoyed reading it, but I also don't think it would really be publishable today. The pacing is somewhat uneven--it seemed that just when things would start to pick up a good pace we would be treated to another "now gentle reader" moment, highlighting the moral lessons we should be learning from the story, and also bringing the forward momentum of the story to a halt.

      I had problems with Beth as a character, mostly because I don't feel she really was a character. Of the main characters, she is the only one whose viewpoint we don't really see. We are told she is sweet and perfect and wonderful and beloved, but the only real evidence we have of these things is circumstantial at best: Beth is wonderful because we are told she is wonderful. Consequently, the major plot points that hinge on Beth all struck me as a little bit fake, which was rather unfortunate.

      I liked John and Laurie and Professor Bhaer, and I enjoyed the romances that came with them (though again, it seemed like we got an awful lot of preaching and moralising whenever something interesting was about to happen).

      I'm glad I read it, and I may very well read it again at some point, but probably not for several years.

      ----
      Some edition-specific notes:

      The Barnes & Noble Classics ebook edition is, for the most part, quite good. It comes with quite a bit of supplementary material in the form of a biography of the author; historical background of both when the book was written and the time period in which it was set; and approximately twenty pages of endnotes and footnotes, all hyper-linked within the book itself.

      I would have preferred to see the information about the author and her history placed at the end of the text rather than the beginning. Ditto with the introduction, which, like most such introductions, assumes the reader is already familiar with the text.

      The proofreading of the ebook text is...spotty. As far as I can tell it was typeset by scanning an existing print copy of the book, using OCR technology to render the text. On the whole, this works perfectly well, but there are a number of places where words are split oddly (e.g. "beg inning" instead of "beginning"), or specific letters were not translated correctly, leading to spelling errors (e.g. "tor" instead of "for").
    • 4/5
      I've seen a couple of movie versions but never actually read the book, so here we go...
    • 2/5
      I almost did not finish this book. I found it the storytelling a little too whimsical and old fashioned. However, I made myself finish the book by reading a chapter a day. Once I got into the rhythm of reading only a chapter a day I found myself liking the Little Marches. This is definitely not my genre of books, but I am glad I finished it. This book is about four young sisters, Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth. They are not rich in money but they are rich in love and happiness. Their mother and father have provided everything they could, but mainly taught them to be kind, generous and caring women. They each take their own path and find happiness. I want to watch the movie now!
    • 3/5
      Third time lucky! This was the third attempt at reading this book and I finally read it and enjoyed it. It took time for me to persevere through it and really engage with the sisters and their family. I can understand how this is a must read book and it was a nice read. I think I'm probably not its real target audience and its one of those books, I read due to it being a classic.All in all, it was nice enough and I'm glad I read it!
    • 5/5
      Read when I was young and I laughed and cried with the "little women".
    • 1/5
      Just completely uninteresting for me as an adult male reader.
    • 4/5
      I liked the writing style of the book. It was fun to read, and terribly sad at times. Yes I cried a little. The story follows the lives of the for March women, their ups and downs and general merriment making. I was unsure of the ending; I do not know if I approved. But it was worth the read.
    • 4/5
      I thought the first book, or part, merited 5 stars. The second segment was not as good. It could have been just as, but even so would have to make do with being as good in a wholly new and different way. Being groundbreaking, imaginative, incredibly adventuresome, of precise timing in terms of not outstaying the welcome, of never putting a foot wrong, all of this, together could have happened only once. This oeuvre is the product of an inspired writer punching above her weight. That's only an assumption, and I will put it to test one day when I'll begin reading Little Men. But yeah, book 2's MO was simply to move one step ahead and move one, sometimes two steps backward. The major death in Little Women was done in such a way as to satisfy most readers, but disappoint people like me, because what followed thence cheapened the major event. I would have cherished the character that died. Maybe, who knows, on my own deathbed I would have remembered Little Women, and known that death happens in many ways and not only to me. The urge to wrench any atom of happiness from sad occurrences was the letdown of this part. It's more distracting than the preaching. The resolution between Jo and Laurie and it's aftermath beggared belief. I thought my jaw would drop with Amy's love life. The penny certainly did. It looks like, from my current, alive eyes, that the writer didn't fully know her characters. I think that she doesn't know how true love is kindled and how it's kept alive. Her characters fall in love in the most burlesque ways. But enough of the negatives. Little Women is everything that I wanted to find in other classics. The words which Louisa May Alcott wrought made her name famous forever. She reached out from her historical times and touched our hearts, we who live in a world and read and listen to music in ways not guessable by her. I think she is an author who put pieces of herself in her books. And whenever the Little Women sang and dance and listened to the piano, I think how the author herself liked to do this.
    • 3/5
      Went to this for a "comfort read" in place of my usual P&P... had not remembered/realized how sanctimonious this book is
    • 4/5
      1.) The story focuses on four loving but very different sisters and what they all go through in their lives while their father is off to war. Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy are all experiencing different things in life but are still trying to keep the untity in their family. Jo is the tomboy of the family, Meg is the classic beauty, Amy is the hopeless romantic and Beth is the most fragile out of all the sisters. It follows them through their trials and tribulations and of their love interest as well.2.). I read this book at a very young age because I was huge reader, I am still big on reading and love to reread books because to me it's like watching a movie again. As a kid i liked this book because it gave me a glimpse of a story from a different time and place and adult like situations I had never experienced. Due to getting older I appreciated the book so much more now that I understand things more and had my own life experiences and fell in love with the book more. 3.) Classroom. Ideas would be for older students because of the style of the book and they eiykd have more appreciation for the book more. I would have them get into groups to act out a short selection from the book and follow up with a short essay of which sister is their favorite and why. Do you think you have some of the same personality traits? Is she the opposite of you which is what has drawn you to her? And so on...
    • 2/5
      Impossibly saccharine-sweet do-gooding nonsense. 150 years old - but SO much an ancestor of the worst of current American pap.Read in Samoa May 2003
    • 5/5
      Summary: No words could describe what this sweet story means to me. I read it as a young girl and enjoyed it, but each time I read it as an adult it instills in me a desire to be a better woman, to cherish those things that are uniquely feminine and a tenderness for the simple things of life that are meant to be appreciated. How I relate to dear Jo as I tumble along in my own "Plumfield" filled with boys and I appreciate her wisdom and this story that teaches us how she got it.Quote: "Yes, Jo was a very happy woman there, in spite of hard work, much anxiety and perpetual racket. She enjoyed it heartily and found the applause of the boys more satisfying than any praise of the world..."
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It was seriously one of the best books I've ever read. My AP English teacher called it "elementary", but it really wasn't. This book changed my life. For an "elementary" book it's deep. This book is also very relatable. I think everyone, both boys and girls,should read this book.
    • 5/5
      Still one of my favorite books.
    • 2/5
      I can't understand why this book has stayed so popular for so long. It just drags on. I've tried to read it three separate occasions but I can't ever seem to finish it without being incredibly bored.
    • 4/5
      Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. 16 CDs. 19.25 hrs. Dreamscape Media LLC. 2014. ISBN 9781633793828. One of the most beloved American classics of all time is beautifully and eloquently brought to life in this lively recording filled with passion and spirit. Four sisters in nineteenth century New England grow from little girls to respectable young women. Each sister carries unique hopes for their futures, but Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy learn that life often has other plans in store for them. Their coming of age stories are filled with hilarity, humility, friendship, heartbreak, and duty. Characters come alive with their own unique voices and mannerisms, flawlessly narrated the by talented voice actress, Susie Berneis. A classic that has easily stood the test of time and is once again brought to life. A must for young women and fans of American literature. - Erin Cataldi, Johnson Co. Public Library, Franklin, IN
    • 5/5
      This would be a good book to use when talking about the home front of the civil war. I think students will like this book because of the relationship between the sisters.
    • 5/5
      I love books that shows independent women, with character... Books that shows that we do not need a men next to us to be successful, but that also have a heart and can show that you do not need to be alone.

      I like to read these very old books that show us how they were women thinking independently and fighting for their rights in times that it was unthinkable, maybe that is why this is one of my favorite books. Is not only well written and a nice read but also it show characters with great personality and courage.
    • 5/5
      Now this is a book which I first read back in middle school and I do believe I reread at least twice since then. I picked up a used hardcover copy a few years back at one of my local libraries for $0.25 (it's gorgeous and I love it) but until this past week I haven't stopped to reread this delightful little tome. The story centers on the March family which consists of Marmee (Mother), Father (away at the war at the beginning), Meg (eldest), Jo, Beth, and Amy (youngest). Each of the characters has a distinct (and at times rather exaggerated) personality. From the outset, it is clear that the reader is meant to favor Jo. Her character is the most fleshed out and tangible. She is outspoken and her biggest regret is that they weren't all born as boys. They are a close knit family group that is rounded out by their housekeeper and their neighbors next door who consist of a boy Jo's age and his grandfather. The story runs from their childhood into their adulthood and covers everything from petty sibling arguments to childbirth to death. Louisa May Alcott continued the series with Little Men and Jo's Boys which are excellent reads but not as great as Little Women in my opinion. The book was adapted to film in 1995 and included such actors as Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, and Christian Bale. The script stayed pretty close to the storyline of the book but I found the casting of some of the characters to be a bit off. For example, I think that the girl who played Meg would have done better as Beth and Christian Bale was not AT ALL what I pictured as Laurie. Otherwise, it was alright but if I had seen it first I don't think I would have been inspired to read the novel that it was adapted from.
    • 5/5
      Such a great story. I love that I could identify with characteristics in each girl. Never read it until college, but I think it was nice to read it now because I could reflect on how I acted at those ages.
    • 4/5
      I love this story. It allows us poor artists to dream and realize that what we need is what we have.