The Road to Understanding: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Road to Understanding, credited to Eleanor H. Porter, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Road to Understanding, by Eleanor H. Porter. Read by Bellona Times and Mike Pelton. "If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen Barnet." "Of course the inevitable happened. However near two roads may be at the start, if they diverge ever so slightly and keep straight ahead, there is bound to be in time all the world between them. In the case of Burke and Helen, their roads never started together at all: they merely crossed; and at the crossing came the wedding. They were miles apart at the start—miles apart in tastes, traditions, and environment. In one respect only were they alike: undisciplined self-indulgence—a likeness that meant only added differences when it came to the crossing; and that made it all the more nearly impossible to merge those two diverging roads into one wide way leading straight on to wedded happiness." (From the book) This all sounds complicated. This complicated situation is conveyed to us by the couple and some of their friends. However, more complications rise when a daughter is caught in the middle - a clever and wonderful girl who had to endure a sad and bitter life: live with her abnormal mother and be employed by her father, without knowing it's him. Her parents know what's best for her, but does Betty know what's best for herself? Will Betty be able to forgive her parents? (Summary by Stav Nisser)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Road to Understanding
• Author credits: Eleanor H. Porter
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 26
• Listed recording duration: 9:41:58

Catalogue topics

• fiction
• marriage
• family
• relationships

Opening tracks: first 24 of 26

1. 01 - Dedication & Chapter 1: Frosted Cakes and Shotguns — 36:14
2. 02 - An Only Son — 15:52
3. 03 - Honeymoon Days — 17:29
4. 04 - Nest-Building — 28:28
5. 05 - The Wife — 22:25
6. 06 - The Husband — 11:42
7. 07 - Stumbling-Blocks — 32:41
8. 08 - Diverging Ways — 32:37
9. 09 - A Bottle of Ink — 50:16
10. 10 - By Advice of Counsel — 26:36
11. 11 - In Quest of the Stars — 13:59
12. 12 - The Trail of the Ink — 26:21
13. 13 - A Woman's Won't — 16:51
14. 14 - An Understudy — 24:06
15. 15 - A Woman's Will — 23:02
16. 16 - Emergencies — 25:59
17. 17 - Pink Teas to Flighty Blondes — 11:04
18. 18 - A Little Bunch of Diaries — 30:21
19. 19 - The Stage is Set — 13:35
20. 20 - The Curtain Rises — 14:11
21. 21 - The Play Begins — 18:00
22. 22 - Actor and Audience — 24:29
23. 23 - 'The Plot Thickens' — 12:46
24. 24 - Counter-Plots — 13:49

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.