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The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd. Gogol’s tales of inconsequential civil servants, mixing the everyday with the surreal, foreshadow the work of his later acolytes, Bulgakov and Kafka. None is more cutting than the main story, "The Diary of a Madman", where a government clerk descends to insanity, claiming that he can communicate with dogs and that he is next in line to the throne of Spain. Translator: Constance Garnett.
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1860-1904), was born in Russia at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His name has become synonymous with a certain literary style much admired and widely copied since his death. Typically, a Chekhov story is a "mood", a state of mind, usually with regard to relations between one person and another. Under the influence of the constant, infinitesimal, and unforeseen pinpricks of life, there occurs a gradual transformation of that state of mind.
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A Box of Chocolates
- By Darlene on 02-08-05
By: Anton Chekhov
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Fathers and Sons
- By: Ivan Turgenev
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father by criticising the landowning way of life and by his outspoken determination to sweep away the traditional values of contemporary Russian society.
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The greatest novel I'll ever read
- By Dan Harlow on 07-07-13
By: Ivan Turgenev
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 57 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert.
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one happy insomniac
- By Kathryn on 01-27-05
By: Victor Hugo
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.
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TOO Abridged, Read Only if You Won't Read More
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
By: Victor Hugo
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Anna of the Five Towns
- By: Arnold Bennett
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in stifled, industrial Staffordshire in the late 19th century, against a strong evangelical background, Anna of the Five Towns tells of the courting of hard businessman Ephraim Tellright's daughter by prosperous and accomplished Henry Mynors. As her father's fortune grows, so does Anna understanding. She realises her legacy and responsibility for the possible ruination of her father's tenants, Titus Price and his son, Willie, who also loves her.
By: Arnold Bennett
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Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
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Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert, Lydia Davis - translator
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she is married to the provincial doctor Charles Bovary yet harbors dreams of an elegant and passionate life. Escaping into sentimental novels, she finds her fantasies dashed by the tedium of her days. Motherhood proves to be a burden; religion is only a brief distraction. In an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs.
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Ironic, humorous, and restrained
- By Esther on 05-13-13
By: Gustave Flaubert, and others
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The Leopard
- A Novel
- By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Archibald Colquhuon - translator
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue The Leopard with its particular melancholy beauty and power, and place it among the greatest historical novels of our time.
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Timeless
- By Robert Massarella on 12-05-23
By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, and others
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Les Misérables
- Penguin Classics
- By: Christine Donougher, Victor Hugo, Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: Adeel Akhtar, Natalie Simpson, Adrian Scarborough, and others
- Length: 65 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
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Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 30 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is closely modelled on the 18h-century novels that Charles Dickens loved as a child, such as Robinson Crusoe, in which the fortunes of a hero shape the plot. The likeable young Nicholas, left penniless on the death of his father, sets off in search of better prospects.
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loved it much more than expected!
- By Blue Ridge Book Lover on 05-29-12
By: Charles Dickens
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Ethan Frome
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer, is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife, Zeena.When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help care for her, Ethan is immediately taken by Mattie's warm, vivacious personality. They fall desperately in love as he realizes how much is missing from his life and marriage.
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Slow is smooth and smooth is Fast until it isn't
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: Edith Wharton
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Gogol's Brilliant, but the recording is messy
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Hilarious and well done, but massive sections of the manuscript are missing?
- By C. E. Johnson on 11-19-18
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The Overcoat and Other Russian Tales
- By: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
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A lowly government clerk, Akay Akakiyevich, must scrimp and save to purchase a new coat for the cold Russian winter in “The Overcoat”. But after one night of basking in the warmth of his new coat and the respect of his colleagues, Akaky’s one-of-a-kind overcoat is stolen. In his pursuit of justice, Akaky receives no help and is consumed by the loss of his prized possession. In “The Viy”, Gogol recounts a popular folk story in which a monstrous creature, known to Little Russia as the king of gnomes, helps a witch get revenge on a young student who escaped from her trap.
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not able to access options
- By LookoutSF on 07-13-22
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Dead Souls
- Penguin Classics
- By: Nikolay Gogol, Robert Maguire
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'dead souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov.
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Excellent Narration
- By A. T. Howarth on 03-19-22
By: Nikolay Gogol, and others
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The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
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The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol includes the works of the famous writer Nikolai Gogol: The Viy, A May Night, Memoirs of a Madman, The Nose, The Cloak, Christmas Eve.
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Bulgakov: A Dog's Heart
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A fine piece of art!
- By Mike McGuire on 11-29-11
By: Mikhail Bulgakov
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The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (Vintage Classics)
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Overall
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Performance
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Using, or rather mimicking, traditional forms of storytelling, Gogol created stories that are complete within themselves and only tangentially connected to a meaning or moral. His work belongs to the school of invention, where each twist and turn of the narrative is a surprise unfettered by obligation to an overarching theme.
-
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Gogol's Brilliant, but the recording is messy
- By Nom de Guerre on 10-08-24
By: Nikolai Gogol
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Dead Souls
- By: Nikolai Gogol, Constance Garnett - translator
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Overall
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Performance
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Hilarious and well done, but massive sections of the manuscript are missing?
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not able to access options
- By LookoutSF on 07-13-22
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Dead Souls
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- By: Nikolay Gogol, Robert Maguire
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'dead souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov.
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Excellent Narration
- By A. T. Howarth on 03-19-22
By: Nikolay Gogol, and others
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A fine piece of art!
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Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
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Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life.
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The stories, of course, are great.
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The White Guard
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Bulgakov’s first full-length novel is set in the harsh and chaotic winter of 1918-19, as power struggles start to play out with brutal consequences. Echoing Tolstoy’s approach in War and Peace, Bulgakov contrasts the concerns of domestic life with the wide-ranging and destructive historical events; but where Tolstoy’s structure is clear, Bulgakov interweaves narrative, details of military action, snatches of songs, dreams, dialogue and fragments of thought to capture this swirl of confusion on every level.
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Good translation
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Completed six years after Dostoyevsky's own term as a convict, The House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical account of life in a Siberian prison camp, and the physical and mental effects it has on those who are sentenced to inhabit it. Alexandr Petrovitch Goryanchikov, a gentleman of the noble class, has been condemned to 10 years of hard labor for murdering his wife.
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most accessible dostoevsky book.
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Short Stories About a Deal with the Devil
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For an atheist it’s a great deal, though it does suggest atheism may have a weak point. For those of faith it’s a matter of jam now and purgatory tomorrow. A bargain many artists feel is something they can live with. For agnostics it’s usually a question of can the afterlife really be that bad, would workplace regulations reach all parts of heaven and hell. However, in this volume the terms are agreed and the Devil pays his fees and the character his dues, each happy to wait a few decades for the eternal payback.
By: Leo Tolstoy, and others
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A Madman's Diary, and Other Stories
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This is A Madman's Diary, and Other Stories by Lu Xun, a renowned writer of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun was a novelist, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, and poet who wrote both in Vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese. He became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai in the 1930s.
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highly recommend
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The Nose
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Cathy Dobson
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- Unabridged
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Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) was a pre-eminent Ukrainian-born story writer. He is particularly famous for those stories which veer in the direction of surrealism and the grotesque. "The Nose" is a classic example of this genre. The story opens with the barber, Ivan Yakovlevitch at breakfast. Things take an odd turn when Yakovlevitch finds a disembodied nose hidden in his bread roll. Yakovlevitch is at pains to rid himself as quickly as he can of the nose, which he recognizes as belonging to one of his clients, Major Kovalev.
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Short stories are what made Nikolai Gogol great.
- By Savva on 05-12-20
By: Nikolai Gogol
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Father Goriot
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Story
Impoverished young aristocrat Eugene de Rastignac is determined to climb the social ladder and impress himself on Parisian high society. While staying at the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in Paris's rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he encounters Jean-Joachim Goriot, a retired vermicelli maker who has spent his entire fortune supporting his two daughters. The boarders strike up a friendship and Goriot learns of Rastignac's feelings for his daughter Delphine. He begins to see Rastignac as the ideal son-in-law, and the perfect substitute for Delphine's domineering husband. But Rastignac has other opportunities too....
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Astounding performance
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The Master and Margarita
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The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn't all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don't burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy, The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world's great novels.
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Satisfying Satanic Satire
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A Sportsman's Notebook
- Stories
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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A Sportsman’s Notebook, Ivan Turgenev’s first literary masterpiece, is a sweeping portrayal of the magnificent 19th-century Russian countryside and the harsh lives of those who inhabited it. In a powerful and gripping series of sketches, a hunter wanders through the vast landscape of steppe and forest in search of game, encountering a varied cast of peasants, landlords, bailiffs, overseers, horse traders, and merchants. He witnesses both feudal tyranny and the submission of the tyrannized, against a backdrop of the sublime and pitiless terrain of rural Russia.
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HeeHaw version
- By RJ on 01-08-20
By: Ivan Turgenev
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The Lay of the Nibelungs
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One of the finest German medieval epic poems, The Lay of the Nibelungs is perhaps best known now as one of the principal sources for Wagner’s four-part music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. It is easy to see how Wagner was enthralled by the story and the poetry for the power of the tale drives the narrative: intense love, loyalty, jealousy, murder, duty, honour and massacre are all interwoven into a classic.
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Another Fabulous Grab Bag
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Eugene Onegin
- A Novel in Verse
- By: Alexander Pushkin, James E. Falen - translator
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s imperial Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, and Pushkin's mercurial Muse.
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Pushkin and Falen are brilliant, Corkhill not bad
- By Jabba on 05-17-15
By: Alexander Pushkin, and others
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The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
- Signet Classics
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Michael A. Smith
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Some call him a Russian Mark Twain. And with his special blend of comedy, social commentary, and fantasy, Nikolai Gogol paved the way for his countrymen Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. This sampling of Gogol's works includes the increasingly fantastic entries of The Diary of a Madman followed by the wonderfully surrealistic The Nose in which the title character embarks on some unlikely activities when separated from its owner's face. Rounding out the collection are the woefully comic tale of a clerk's acquisition of The Overcoat and Ivan Fyodorovich and his Aunt, in which the title character retires to his country estate, managed by a wily Aunt.
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Disappointing
- By Benjamin Bertin on 02-28-15
By: Nikolai Gogol
What listeners say about The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bee
- 08-10-23
Great stories, just can’t tell when they end
I loved the stories themselves. I wish I could give five stars, I’m about half way through and this is the first audible book that’s truly left me frustrated. The lack of story differentiation with anything to signify the beginning and end makes it so they all kind of run together. It may be my fault for not paying extremely close attention, but as it’s somewhat of a task for me to stay completely focused to begin with, this makes it even harder and more confusing. Wishing there was another option with more clearly defined ends and beginnings.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Reader
- 04-01-22
Brilliant writer, fantastic narration, plus TOC
Gogol's stories are strange, funny, horrifying, enlightening. I particularly enjoyed "The Diary of a Madman," "The Nose," "The Portrait," "The Overcoat," "Christmas Eve," "A Terrible Vengeance" and "Viy." Nicholas Boulton really brought each story to life uniquely. Since the book doesn't have a proper table of contents, here's how it breaks down:
1. Petersburg Tales. Nevsky Prospect
10. The Diary of a Madman
16. The Nose
23. The Carriage
26. The Portrait
41. The Overcoat
49. Ukranian Tales. St John’s Eve
53. Christmas Eve
64. A Terrible Vengeance
75. Ivan Fyodorovitch Shponka and his Aunt
81. Old-World Landowners
86. Viy
96. The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovitch quarelled…
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26 people found this helpful
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Story
- Tad Davis
- 08-21-18
Delightful start to finish
I can’t imagine a better narrator than Nicholas Boulton for this delightful collection of stories. Every character gets his due, every lyrical description of nature its music.
I’d read The Nose and The Overcoat but had never dipped far into Gogol’s stories. They are grouped into Petersburg Tales (6 stories) and Ukrainian Tales (7 stories), and the two sets of stories are quite different. The Nose and The Overcoat belong to the first group, and while the stories are urban and mostly realistic, there are (obviously) flights of fancy and absurdity. The second group, mostly populated by Cossack soldiers and villagers, occasionally takes a darker turn: there are witches, devils, and wizards weaving in and out of these stories: there are dead men who rise from their graves and moan about being stifled.
One of them, Viy, is the scariest ghost story I’ve ever read. Another one, Christmas Eve, pictures a world where witches and devils show up in a small village to wreak havoc. A blacksmith loves a young woman, but she sets him an almost impossible task: to give her a pair of shoes worthy of the Tsaritsa. But the story hardly follows a straight line. It reads like an improvisation, a story told by a master storyteller who had no idea how his story would end when he started telling it. I mean that in a good way: the story is always surprising and ultimately very satisfying.
A great collection and a treat to listen to. It left me hungering for more Gogol.
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21 people found this helpful
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- mdc205
- 08-29-18
The Diary of a Madman and other stories
The Diary of a Madman and other stories
By Nikolai Gogol
Gogol's stories are so entertaining, so fresh & original. As a writer, he has been given great imaginative gifts. Other stories include the Nevski Prospect, The Portrait, Dead Souls, The Overcoat, Christmas Eve, The Nose and the Inspector General.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Ashraf Abaza
- 11-07-19
Amazing imagination
He is very funny. He lives to laugh and make us laugh. I loved this collection. Long live Gogol.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Vitor
- 09-03-23
Great narration, absent metadata
The narration is wonderful. Having no metadata is ridiculous—it is not hard for Amazon to do a better job. I am very disappointed.
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- Andrew
- 11-16-20
Contents are horrible; disappointed.
There are 107 chapters. They are labeled Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. They do not correspond to the beginnings or ends of stories, and there is no way to tell what stories they are part of nor is there even any way to know exactly which stories are in the book. This makes for a frustrating experience that is totally unnecessary and leaves me disappointed.
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15 people found this helpful