Showing results by author "Audiobooks by Librivox" in All Categories

The Death of Ivan Ilyitch is the story of a socially ambitious middle-aged judge who contracts an unexplained and untreatable illness. As Ivan Ilyitch is forced to face the death he fears, he asks himself whether the life he thought was so correct was, in fact, a moral life after all. Written after Tolstoy's religious conversion, the novella is widely considered to be one of his masterpieces. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)

Ampliamente reconocido como el mejor dramaturgo y poeta español del siglo XX, Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), fue escritor popular y al mismo tiempo un pionero a la hora de introducir imágenes surrealistas en la literatura. Asesinado por el bando Nacional durante la Guerra Civil Española, su trabajo estuvo censurado durante la dictadura de Francisco Franco. La obra de García Lorca no pudo ser tratada abiertamente en España hasta la llegada de la democracia. La poesia de esta colección tiene matices mágicos y anticipa su trabajo posterior en "Romancero Gitano". No encontraremos ...

The Benson Murder Case – A Philo Vance Story is the first of a series of twelve popular mysteries set in New York during the Jazz Age. S. S. Van Dine is the nom de plume of prominent art critic, and member of New York’s avant-garde, W. H. Wright. He rapidly became one of the country’s best-selling authors and the series remained immensely popular for decades, as Philo Vance was featured in dozens of movies, plays and radio shows. Van Dine’s novels marked a sharp departure from earlier detective fiction. To begin with, the hero represents the antithesis of the familiar hard-boiled ...

Jo’s little men and women are grown up and entering new stages of life. Along with discovering their individual niches, there are lots of lessons to study, plays to perform, and parties to attend… and love is undeniably in the air. When three of Jo’s most beloved boys embark on journeys of their own, they encounter some of the most difficult challenges ever faced in their young lives. Meanwhile, back at home, Jo and her family must be strong when they receive the news that not all three of the boys may return. Will Emil, Nat, and Dan find their way home to Plumfield?Find out in Jo’s ...

This is one of the author's "travel books", recounting his walking journeys in and around the Lago di Garda in Northern Italy. Every turn prompts musings on the nature and character of the people he encounters and their relationship to the land which they inhabit. His insights, while sometimes condescending, show elements of Lawrence's analysis of the human condition, and his despair over the relentless erosion of a bucolic environment with the advance of modernism. - Summary by Peter Tucker

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil. Crime and Punishment is considered by many as the first of Dostoevsky's cycle of great novels, which would culminate with his last completed work, The Brothers Karamazov, shortly before his death. (Summary from Wikipedia)

When Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1929), the citation made special mention of his first novel, “Buddenbrooks,” published in 1901, describing it as “the first great novel of the 20th century.”Events in the novel center on the Buddenbrook family, bourgeois owners of a wholesale grain enterprise in the northern German city of Lübeck. (The city is never named as such, but detailed references to landmarks leave no doubt that the setting is closely based on Mann’s hometown, just as the story is inspired by the Mann family history.) We follow four generations of ...

A book of ten short stories, written with Lawrence's typical sensibility to and awareness of social mores, set around the period of the First World War - Summary by Anthony Ogus

The book, also known as Darwin's Journal of Researches, is a vivid and exciting travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology, and anthropology that demonstrates Darwin's keen powers of observation, written at a time when Western Europeans were still discovering and exploring much of the rest of the world. Although Darwin revisited some areas during the expedition, for clarity the chapters of the book are ordered by reference to places and locations rather than chronologically. With hindsight, ideas which Darwin would later develop into his theory of ...

The book of Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book. It tells how all man's doing is futile, if it is done in his own strength. The last two verses sum it up quite nicely: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. (Summary by GabrielleC)

La tragedia de Hamlet, príncipe de Dinamarca (título original en inglés: The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark), o simplemente Hamlet, es una tragedia del dramaturgo inglés William Shakespeare.​ Su autor probablemente basó Hamlet en dos fuentes: la leyenda de Amleth y una perdida obra isabelina conocida hoy como Ur-Hamlet o Hamlet original (hecho que se deduce de otros textos). El año concreto en que fue escrita sigue aún en disputa, cuestión que se complica porque se han conservado a la época actual tres versiones tempranas de la obra, conocidas como First Quarto (Q1), ...

This story follows the lives of four sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Set in the tumultuous days of the American Civil war, readers grow to love the four sisters as they grow and mature into young women. This book has characters any girl can relate to because each of the four March sisters has a unique and different personality. A story that the young and old have enjoyed for years, this book truly is a classic. (Summary by Abigail Rasmussen)

After an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance. Summary by Wikipedia Cast list:Narrator: Mary J Lucy Snowe: Elizabeth Barr Graham/Dr. John: Robert Dixon Monsieur Paul: Herman RoskamsMadame Beck: Elizabeth Klett Polly/Paulina: Amanda Friday Mrs. Bretton: Michele Eaton Ginevra Fanshawe: Libby Gohn Mr. Home/Bassompierre: tovarischRosine [the portress]: LeanneMademoiselle St. Pierre [a teacher]: Kristin Gjerløw Isabelle [a student]: Arie Pere ...

After the turmoil and uncertainty of Henry IV a new era appears to dawn for England with the accession of the eponymous Henry V. In this sunny pageant Chorus guides us along Henry's glittering carpet ride of success as the new king completes his transformation from rebellious wastrel to a truly regal potentate. Of course, there is an underlying feeling that the good times won't last, and this is all the more reason to enjoy the Indian summer before the protracted and bitter fall of the house of Lancaster. (Introduction by Algy Pug)Cast:Alice: Caroline SophieArchbishop of Canterbury: Sean ...

6 ghost stories - Summary by Adr6090

Fresque sociale qui décrit les conditions de vie des mineurs au XIXème siècle, Germinal est le treizième roman de la série des Rougon-Macquart. Le roman retrace la vie d'Etienne Lantier, jeune mineur amoureux de Catherine Maheu, et de son combat pour une société plus juste. (résumé par Nadine) Germinal is the main book in the series "Rougon-Macquart" and describes the inhumane conditions in French mines in the 19th century.NOTE: Due to a recording issue in the original file, file 6 was replaced August 19, 2024 and has a different voice for part of the recording.

If you’ve ever studied German (and maybe even if you haven’t), you’re likely to find this short essay to be hilarious. Published as Appendix D from Twain’s 1880 book A Tramp Abroad, this comedic gem outlines the pitfalls one will encounter when trying to wrap one’s mind around the torturous German cases, adjective endings, noun genders, and verb placement.(Summary by Kara)

These twenty-eight lectures to laymen are elementary and almost conversational. Freud sets forth with a frankness almost startling the difficulties and limitations of psychoanalysis, and also describes its main methods and results as only a master and originator of a new school of thought can do. A text like this is the most opportune and will naturally more or less supersede all other introductions to the general subject of psychoanalysis. It presents the author in a new light, as an effective and successful popularizer, and is certain to be welcomed not only by the large and growing number ...

The story tells of the inner turmoil of Rodion Raskolnikov, a student in St. Petersburg who commits murder. His psychological and moral agitation is furthered and complicated by his family's arrival in St. Petersburg, his sister's engagement to a manipulative and unworthy man, and his encounters with the impoverished and troubled Marmeladov family. Summary by Mary J.CastNarrator: Mary J and Piotr NaterRodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov: Chris PyleSemyon Zaharovitch Marmeladov: John BurlinsonKaterina Ivanovna Marmeladova: TJ BurnsNastasya Petrovna: Patricia SilveiraPulcheria Alexandrovna ...

The Book of Changes (Traditional: 易經; Simplified: 易经; Legge: Yî King, Wade-Giles: I Ching; Pīnyīn: Yìjīng; Bopomofo: ㄧˋㄐㄧㄥ; Korean: 역경; Japanese: 易経; Vietnamese: Kinh Dịch)Fúxī (伏羲), King Tāng of Shāng (商湯), King Wén of Zhōu (周文王), his son the Duke of Zhōu (周公旦), and Confucius (孔子) have traditionally been credited as the originators of the trigrams (八卦 bāguà), hexagrams (卦 guà), hexagram statements (彖 tuàn), line statements (爻辭 yáocí), and Ten Wings (十翼) commentaries."The I Ching does not offer itself with ...