-
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
- Narrated by: Robert Bethune
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.73
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Imagine a boardinghouse in the days when the Civil War was still a decade in the future, in which an erudite, polished, witty, sophisticated, learned gentleman holds forth each day at breakfast, entertaining the boarders with fascinating talk: observations on people and nature, occasional flights of verse, remarks on current events, moralizations and philosophical thoughts, and anything else that comes to his mind. Imagine a boardinghouse full of people putting up with such a man and even liking and respecting him! There you have it: the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, as imagined by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., father of the famous Supreme Court justice, dean of Harvard Medical School, lecturer, writer, poet, cofounder of the The Atlantic, and as charming a conversationalist as one would care to meet - provided, of course, you don't interrupt him! And yet, for all his powers of mind, he is very human as well; there is one of the lady boarders, a certain schoolmistress - keep an eye on her!
As if the charm, grace, and variety of this man's mind were not enough, the book also gives us a fascinating picture of life in the United States, specifically in Boston, over 150 years ago. The manners, morals, opinions, thoughts, and dreams of Americans of that time are fascinating, both in their similarities and differences to our own and in the ways in which the unspoken assumptions that underlie so much of who we are have changed and yet remain recognizable.
There are two or three passages in which the unquestioned, indeed almost unexamined racism of the day does appear. We do well to remember that some of our greatest minds have thought and spoken in that way. For that reason those expressions remain as Holmes wrote them in 1857.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Great Divorce
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
C. S. Lewis's dazzling allegory about Heaven and Hell - and the chasm fixed between them - is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales, where we discover that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In a dream, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon in Hell and embarks on an incredible voyage to Heaven. Anyone in Hell is invited on board, and anyone may remain in Heaven if he or she so chooses. But do we really want to live in Heaven?
-
-
A Thought-Provoking Allegory
- By James on 11-30-17
By: C. S. Lewis
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
From Song of Myself (A Poem from The Poets' Corner)
- The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family
- By: John Lithgow
- Narrated by: Morgan Freeman, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Lithgow has compiled an outstanding collection of memorable poems and has gathered his famous friends to read them. The wide variety of carefully selected poetry in this audiobook provides the perfect introduction to reel in those who are new to poetry, and for poetry lovers to experience beloved verses in a fresh, vivid way. Lithgow offers insightful and sometimes poignant commentary to accompany each poem. His essential criterion is that "each poem's light shines more brightly when read aloud".
-
-
A Painless Crash Course in the Great Western Poets
- By Brazilgirl on 10-27-14
By: John Lithgow
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tess Durbeyfield has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature. Betrayed by the two men in her life - Alec D’Urberville, her seducer/rapist and father of her fated child; and Angel, her intellectual and pious husband - Tess takes justice, and her own destiny, into her delicate hands. In telling her desperate and passionate story, Hardy brings Tess to life with an extraordinary vividness that makes her live in the heart of the reader long after the novel is concluded.
-
-
Davina Porter Does It Again!
- By misaki on 06-15-15
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Great Divorce
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
C. S. Lewis's dazzling allegory about Heaven and Hell - and the chasm fixed between them - is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales, where we discover that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In a dream, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon in Hell and embarks on an incredible voyage to Heaven. Anyone in Hell is invited on board, and anyone may remain in Heaven if he or she so chooses. But do we really want to live in Heaven?
-
-
A Thought-Provoking Allegory
- By James on 11-30-17
By: C. S. Lewis
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
From Song of Myself (A Poem from The Poets' Corner)
- The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family
- By: John Lithgow
- Narrated by: Morgan Freeman, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Lithgow has compiled an outstanding collection of memorable poems and has gathered his famous friends to read them. The wide variety of carefully selected poetry in this audiobook provides the perfect introduction to reel in those who are new to poetry, and for poetry lovers to experience beloved verses in a fresh, vivid way. Lithgow offers insightful and sometimes poignant commentary to accompany each poem. His essential criterion is that "each poem's light shines more brightly when read aloud".
-
-
A Painless Crash Course in the Great Western Poets
- By Brazilgirl on 10-27-14
By: John Lithgow
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tess Durbeyfield has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature. Betrayed by the two men in her life - Alec D’Urberville, her seducer/rapist and father of her fated child; and Angel, her intellectual and pious husband - Tess takes justice, and her own destiny, into her delicate hands. In telling her desperate and passionate story, Hardy brings Tess to life with an extraordinary vividness that makes her live in the heart of the reader long after the novel is concluded.
-
-
Davina Porter Does It Again!
- By misaki on 06-15-15
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Picture of Dorian Gray
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: Russell Tovey
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A disturbing tale of a young man's uncanny ability to remain both young and beautiful while descending into a life of heartless debauchery, The Picture of Dorian Gray was considered proof of both Wilde's genius and his perversion. Oscar Wilde's scandalous best seller of 1891 was one of the most damning pieces of evidence used against him in the trial that brought about his downfall.
-
-
A twisted tale of vanity and poisonous people
- By Shantastic on 10-02-19
By: Oscar Wilde
-
Elizabeth and Her German Garden
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Indoors are servants, meals, and furniture. There, too, is The Man of Wrath, her upright Teutonic husband, inspiring in Elizabeth a mixture of irritation, affection, and irreverence. But outside she can escape domestic routine, read favorite books, play with her three babies and garden to her heart's content. Through Elizabeth's eyes we watch the seasons, from May's "oasis of bird-cherries and greenery" to the time when "snow carpets her Pomeranian wilderness".
-
-
Cavorting in the Gardens
- By Joseph R on 08-20-09
-
The Divine Magnet
- Herman Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy.
-
-
im happy I purchased it
- By Dibs on 07-23-20
By: Herman Melville
-
Far From the Madding Crowd
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of female independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community. Published in 1874, and an immediate best seller, Far From the Madding Crowd established Thomas Hardy as one of Britain's foremost novelists.
-
-
A Masterpiece of Culture and Eloquence
- By Andrew on 07-07-14
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Possession
- By: A. S. Byatt
- Narrated by: Virginia Leishman
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a pair of young scholars research the lives of two Victorian poets, they uncover their letters, journals, and poems and track their movements from London to Yorkshire - from spiritualist seances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany. What emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passion and ideas.
-
-
Absolutely Excellent
- By Loujujoe on 05-12-09
By: A. S. Byatt
-
The Pilgrim's Regress
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first book written by C.S. Lewis after his conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress is, in a sense, a record of Lewis's own search for meaning and spiritual satisfaction that eventually led him to Christianity.
-
-
Profound and Life Changing
- By Shawn on 09-06-06
By: C. S. Lewis
-
Mother Carey's Chickens
- By: Kate Douglas Wiggin
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sudden death of the father of the family results in the drastic reduction of the Careys' income and they must leave their comfortable home in Boston. Nancy Carey, the eldest, recalls a vacation in Maine when they all picnicked in the garden of a big, vacant house that her father loved. She discovers that the house is available, the rent is cheap, and persuades her mother that life in The Yellow House in Beulah, Maine is the perfect place to begin their new life.
-
-
A very cozy book =)
- By Camilla on 03-01-17
-
A Confession
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tolstoy’s autobiographical essay is a dissection of his soul, a study of his life’s movement away from the religious certainties of youth, and a vital piece of reading which contextualizes the great works he is best known for. Marking the point at which his life moved from the worldly to the spiritual, Tolstoy’s philosophical reassessment of the Orthodox faith is a work that holds vital spiritual and intellectual importance to this very day.
-
-
Wow
- By David Murphy on 05-25-16
By: Leo Tolstoy
-
The Raven
- By: Edgar Allen Poe
- Narrated by: Don Aday
- Length: 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edgar Allen Poe's masterful poem, The Raven, is a strange and haunting story of lost love. It tells of a distraught young man who, while lamenting the loss of his lover, Lenore, is visited by a talking raven, adding a supernatural element to an already mysterious experience. The story traces the man's slow, sorrowful descent into madness. This edition of The Raven includes historical information about the author and the story.
-
-
Enjoyed the Story
- By Danielle K. on 05-23-19
By: Edgar Allen Poe
-
The Innocents Abroad
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 18 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 1867, Mark Twain set sail for Europe and the Holy Land. Twain recorded this adventurous trip and later turned it into The Innocents Abroad. This book became so popular overseas that it would propel him into an international star. The Innocents Abroad is Twain’s account of his thoughts of the Old World, including Paris, Venice, Pompeii, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, as well as many other noteworthy cities. His disbelief and wonder are told with humor that endeared Twain to American audiences.
-
-
Big Mistake
- By Megg on 12-18-18
By: Mark Twain
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These stories display Twain's place in American letters as a master writer in the authentic native idiom. He was exuberant and irreverent, but underlying the humor was a vigorous desire for social justice and a pervasive equalitarian attitude.
-
-
Great but incomplete
- By Tad Davis on 03-23-10
By: Mark Twain
Related to this topic
-
The Innocents Abroad
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 18 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 1867, Mark Twain set sail for Europe and the Holy Land. Twain recorded this adventurous trip and later turned it into The Innocents Abroad. This book became so popular overseas that it would propel him into an international star. The Innocents Abroad is Twain’s account of his thoughts of the Old World, including Paris, Venice, Pompeii, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, as well as many other noteworthy cities. His disbelief and wonder are told with humor that endeared Twain to American audiences.
-
-
Big Mistake
- By Megg on 12-18-18
By: Mark Twain
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
-
-
Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
-
Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women.
-
-
Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Plain Tales from the Hills
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An intimate, evocative, often funny, and always vital portrait of India at the peak of the British Raj. Written at the age of 22, they immediately show Kipling's natural and prodigious talent. Timeless, they can be listened to forever.
-
-
Gentle irony
- By Simon Bowler on 01-25-06
By: Rudyard Kipling
-
Under the Greenwood Tree
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story delicately balances the concerns of the Mellstock parish choir with a romance between Dick Dewy, a member of the choir, and Fancy Day, the village schoolmistress. While the choir battles for its survival against the new vicar's mechanical church organ, personal conflicts arise over the anachronistic customs of tradition.
-
-
A Lighter Hardy
- By Cariola on 01-02-12
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Innocents Abroad
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 18 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 1867, Mark Twain set sail for Europe and the Holy Land. Twain recorded this adventurous trip and later turned it into The Innocents Abroad. This book became so popular overseas that it would propel him into an international star. The Innocents Abroad is Twain’s account of his thoughts of the Old World, including Paris, Venice, Pompeii, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, as well as many other noteworthy cities. His disbelief and wonder are told with humor that endeared Twain to American audiences.
-
-
Big Mistake
- By Megg on 12-18-18
By: Mark Twain
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
-
-
Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
-
Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women.
-
-
Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Plain Tales from the Hills
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An intimate, evocative, often funny, and always vital portrait of India at the peak of the British Raj. Written at the age of 22, they immediately show Kipling's natural and prodigious talent. Timeless, they can be listened to forever.
-
-
Gentle irony
- By Simon Bowler on 01-25-06
By: Rudyard Kipling
-
Under the Greenwood Tree
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story delicately balances the concerns of the Mellstock parish choir with a romance between Dick Dewy, a member of the choir, and Fancy Day, the village schoolmistress. While the choir battles for its survival against the new vicar's mechanical church organ, personal conflicts arise over the anachronistic customs of tradition.
-
-
A Lighter Hardy
- By Cariola on 01-02-12
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Oscar Wilde Collection
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: James Marsters, Jacqueline Bisset, Alfred Molina, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four classic comedies from one of the wittiest playwrights in Western literature: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all featuring star-studded casts with the likes of Jacqueline Bisset, Miriam Margolyes, James Marsters, Alfred Molina, Roger Rees, Yeardley Smith, Eric Stoltz, and many more. This audio also includes a chilling dramatization of Wilde's sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
-
-
Good Collection
- By Anniebligh on 03-31-12
By: Oscar Wilde
-
Manalive
- A Novel
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Kevin O'Brien
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This classic novel by the brilliant G. K. Chesterton tells the rollicking tale of Innocent Smith, a man who may be crazy - or possibly the most sane man of all. Arriving at a dreary London boarding house accompanied by a windstorm, Smith is an exuberant, eccentric, and sweet-natured man. Smith has a positive effect on the house - he creates his own court, brings a few couples together, and falls in love with a paid companion next door. All seems to be well with the world.
-
-
Mixed feelings on reading performance
- By TS on 09-23-18
By: G. K. Chesterton
-
The Great God Pan
- Esoteric Classics: Occult Fiction
- By: Arthur Machen
- Narrated by: Shea Taylor
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Machen's novella The Great God Pan is often cited as one of Lovecraft's most notable influences. In it, Dr. Raymond's ultimate goal is to devise a way to open the mind of man so that he may experience all the world has to offer. He calls this "seeing the great god Pan". After much study of the human mind, he devises an experiment that involves minor brain surgery. He performs this experiment on a young woman named Mary, but when she awakens she is terrified and mentally crippled.
-
-
classic horror
- By Shantee on 05-04-16
By: Arthur Machen
-
The Shuttle
- By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Narrated by: Tabi That
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosalie Vanderpoel, the daughter of an American multimillionaire marries an impoverished English baronet and goes to live in England. She all but loses contact with her family in America. Years later her younger sister Bettina, beautiful, intelligent and extremely rich, goes to England to find what has happened to her sister. She finds Rosalie shabby and dispirited, cowed by her husband's ill-treatment. Bettina sets about to rectify matters.
-
-
More than Lovely
- By jTacy67 on 01-17-18
-
The Gift
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write - a book very much like The Gift itself.
One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899.
-
-
A complex and rich Künstlerroman
- By Darwin8u on 11-30-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
- By: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
- Narrated by: Edoardo Camponeschi
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was the greatest writer ever to come from Brazil and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction. Susan Sontag calls him "the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America", surpassing even Borges. Harold Bloom says that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date". And Allen Ginsburg calls him "another Kafka". And The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is his masterpiece, a dazzling, tragic, and profound novel that belongs next to the greatest works of his contemporaries Melville and Dostoevsky.
-
-
A hidden masterpiece
- By C. Park on 08-09-18
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The Loved One
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday - and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art.
-
-
Satire? Or just mean spirited?
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 02-08-23
By: Evelyn Waugh
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
The Jewel of Seven Stars
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.
-
-
Mother of all Mummy-Stories
- By Dorothea on 03-15-08
By: Bram Stoker
-
The Picture of Dorian Gray
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: Russell Tovey
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A disturbing tale of a young man's uncanny ability to remain both young and beautiful while descending into a life of heartless debauchery, The Picture of Dorian Gray was considered proof of both Wilde's genius and his perversion. Oscar Wilde's scandalous best seller of 1891 was one of the most damning pieces of evidence used against him in the trial that brought about his downfall.
-
-
A twisted tale of vanity and poisonous people
- By Shantastic on 10-02-19
By: Oscar Wilde
-
Mother Carey's Chickens
- By: Kate Douglas Wiggin
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sudden death of the father of the family results in the drastic reduction of the Careys' income and they must leave their comfortable home in Boston. Nancy Carey, the eldest, recalls a vacation in Maine when they all picnicked in the garden of a big, vacant house that her father loved. She discovers that the house is available, the rent is cheap, and persuades her mother that life in The Yellow House in Beulah, Maine is the perfect place to begin their new life.
-
-
A very cozy book =)
- By Camilla on 03-01-17