Showing results by author "Audiobook" in All Categories

There is a witty and absurdist character to this contemporary setting of the plight of Prometheus, in which Zeus appears as a tremendously wealthy banker, meting out gratuitous fortune. Prometheus' troubled relationship with his liver-devouring eagle provides a means of insight for those he encounters. Rather than a myth the story has the nature of a fable. ( Peter Tucker)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The work is a very early example of time travel in literature, anticipating by six years H. G. Wells' The Time Machine of 1895 (however, unlike Wells, Twain does not give any real explanation of his protagonist's traveling in time). Some early editions are entitled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. (Summary by Wikipedia)

A poem by the Latin poet Virgil, the second of his three known works. "Georgic" means "to work the land," and on such matters of labour Virgil dwells and celebrates. In a dramatic survey of practices including agriculture, viticulture, animal husbandry, and bee-keeping, as well as the themes and mythos of labour, pastoral life, the glory of Roman citizenship, and the chaos that disrupts the fruitfulness of our daily lives, Virgil weaves a lyrical tapestry of both Greek and Roman thread portraying the complex relationship between humanity and the divine. (Summary by George Emerson)

A vivid description of wealth and poverty in Russia in Tolstoy's day, an inquiry into the root causes of economic inequality, and a vision of a more just way of living.Tolstoy recounts his own disturbing encounters with extreme poverty in Moscow, his initial idea of making the problem disappear by generous financial contributions, and his subsequent realization that the problem of poverty was much more intractable than he had imagined. He concludes that poverty is fundamentally linked with the luxurious lifestyle to which he and his class were accustomed, and that both are detrimental both to ...

The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. The first six of the poem’s twelve books tell the story of Aeneas’ wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem’s second half treats the Trojans’ ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The poem was commissioned from Virgil by the Emperor Augustus to glorify Rome. Several critics think that the hero Aeneas’ abandonment of ...

Virgil's Georgics are the second of the three major poetic works ascribed to the poet. It was published probably around 29 BC and, as the name suggests, the subject of the poem is agriculture. Divided into four books, it is also the shortest of Virgil's main poetry, with only 2188 hexametric verses. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. - Summary by Leni

Growing up on the banks of the Mississippi river, a mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer spends his days getting into one scrape after another. Tom's constant cleverness, superstition, trickery, and daring make him a handful to raise, and his Aunt Polly declares that she has "never seen the beat of that boy!" Tom is essentially good-hearted, however, but when he is witness to a horrible crime, his courage and integrity are tested beyond anything he ever expected. A note to parents: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is considered a children's classic, but contains racial slurs which, although "...

The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories is a 1906 collection of 30 comic short stories by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. Published just 4 years before his death, this was the last time he chose works from throughout his career, in an effort to show the diversity of his style and the breadth and depth of his interests. (Introduction by John Greenman & Wikipedia )

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates an entertaining adventure of Middle America in the 1800's - afloat on a raft on the Mississippi River. Huck escapes his civilized life when he arranges his own "murder" and turns back into the backwoods, downriver yokel he started as, and in the process springing a slave, Jim, from bondage.Huck and Jim experience life as a series of tableaux as the river sweeps them through small towns on their way South. At each stop, Huck engages his talent for mixing fact with bald-faced lies to endlessly get himself out of situations... and of ...

This audiobook is a collection of Mark Twain's anti-imperialist writings (newspaper articles, interviews, speeches, letters, essays and pamphlets). (Summary by Vineshen Pillay)

In order to escape his cruel father, and led by a thirst for adventure, Huck Finn sets off down the Mississippi River with Jim, an escaped slave. But trouble is never far behind them, and their adventures are only beginning when they meet up with two men who claim to be a duke and a king! And that’s before Jim gets captured by none other than Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle… who mistake Huck for Tom. The hilarious adventures and scrapes of Huck, Jim, Tom, and others are brought to life in this dramatic reading. - Summary by RachelCastHuckleberry Finn: Patrick SavilleTom Sawyer: TenorBoyJim: ...

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) began writing his autobiography long before the 1906 publications of these Chapters from my Autobiography. He originally planned to have his memoirs published only after his death but realized, once he’d passed his 70th year, that a lot of the material might be OK to publish before his departure. These chapters were published in serial form in the North American Review during 1906-1907. While much of the material consists of stories about the people, places and incidents of his long life, there are also several sections from his daughter, which he calls “Susy’...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 different recordings of A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 15th, 2007.

A collection of Twain short stories including:The Loves Of Alonzo FitzClarence And Rosannah EtheltonOn The Decay Of The Art Of LyingAbout Magnanimous-Incident LiteratureThe Grateful PoodleThe Benevolent AuthorThe Grateful HusbandPunch, Brothers, PunchThe Great Revolution In PitcairnThe Canvasser's TaleAn Encounter With An InterviewerParis NotesLegend Of Sagenfeld, In GermanySpeech On The BabiesSpeech On The WeatherConcerning The American LanguageRogers(Summary from Project Gutenberg)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain is one of the truly great American novels, beloved by children, adults, and literary critics alike. The book tells the story of “Huck” Finn (first introduced as Tom Sawyer’s sidekick in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), his friend Jim, and their journey down the Mississippi River on a raft. Both are on the run, Huck from his drunk and abusive father, and Jim as a runaway slave.As Huck and Jim drift down the river, they meet many colorful characters and have many great adventures. The true heart of the story, however, is the friendship ...

Please note: this recording contains strong language."1601," wrote Mark Twain, "is a supposititious conversation which takes place in Queen Elizabeth's closet in that year, between the Queen, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Duchess of Bilgewater, and one or two others ... If there is a decent word findable in it, it is because I overlooked it." 1601 depicts a highfalutin and earthy discussion between the Queen and her court about farting and a variety of sexual peccadillos, narrated disapprovingly and sanctimoniously by the Queen's Cup-Bearer, an eyewitness at "the Social ...

Book Two of Zola's 20-volume Rougon-Macquart Cycle. "The Rush for the Spoil" ("La Curee") concerns Aristide Siccard (once Aristide Rougon) and his family, who come to Paris during the Second Empire, and "make a killing", as they say, in land speculation. - Summary by Mark Leder

The Abbe Pierre Froment, after his experiences in Lourdes, has written a book expressing a vision of a new enlightened papacy. He visits Rome to defend this book against condemnation and seeks audience with the Pope. He is introduced to aristocratic and ecclesiastical society, and during his three months' stay has the opportunity to reflect on the historical position of the "Eternal City", as well as its future and that of the Roman Catholic Church, reflections imbued with Zola's deep skepticism and his modernistic views. The plot, embellished with great detail, includes a thread of dark ...

A jealous husband sets out to murder his wife's lover, setting in motion an unstoppable series of events. Witness to the murder is a train driver who struggles to resist his uncontrollable desire to kill women. - Summary by Aaron Hackett

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. Magic, fairies, young lovers chasing each other through a forest, a man with a donkey's head, and impish Puck wreaking havoc right and left. What's going on here? It's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare at his most fanciful. The play opens with Theseus, Duke of Athens, preparing for his wedding. Egeus complains to Theseus that his daughter Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius. When Hermia is given the choice between marriage to Demetrius or life as a nun, she and her true love Lysander flee into the forest. Demetrius follows them; and Helena...