Showing results by narrator "Bob Neufeld" in All Categories

During the early 20th century, groundbreaking technology revolutionized transportation both on the ground and in the sky, with new motors making automobiles and airplanes a reality in the 1910s. Around that same time, the feminist movement was underway in the United States, spearheaded by women seeking the right to vote, lobbying for the temperance movement, and trying to make their voices heard.

Thundering across the screen, Judah Ben-Hur’s iconic chariot race against his former friend turned bitter foe remains an indelible part of cinematic history, and established Charlton Heston as an international superstar. In many ways, the race was a metaphor for the actor’s dynamic life, symbolizing his struggle to establish himself in his profession.

The predominant theme in this Shakespearean tragedy, believed to have been written in about 1603, is jealousy and the destruction it causes when allowed to run rampant. It features one of Shakespeare's most compelling villains, Iago, who skillfully manipulates his commander, Othello, into believing that he has been betrayed by his wife, Desdemona, and his closest friend, Cassio.

The Civil War. A man condemned to die. Does he escape and return to his wife and children? Ambrose Bierce's best-known story, the inspiration for a popular episode of The Twilight Zone, films and songs.

Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is one of the most popular tales of personal redemption in world literature, and has been adapted many times for presentation on film and on stage.

Too dark for science and too evil for theology, but some secrets refuse to stay hidden. Postgraduate student Harry Chesterton uncovers a trail of dark science that leads to the old monastery above the Welsh town of Aberystwyth. With bodies beneath the cafe, residents oozing puss from puncture marks on their necks, and the disappearance of the University Chaplain, Chesterton's research into post-mortem consciousness is about to leap off the page.

Although his work has somewhat fallen into obscurity, Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) is considered to be one of the greatest of Russian dramatists. He was one of the pioneers of a realistic style, which later found exponents in celebrated European dramatists like Ibsen and Strindberg. Of Ostrovsky's 47 plays, one of the best known is The Storm, the portrait of an idealistic young woman trapped in a world of crushing and venal orthodoxy. The Storm formed the basis of Janacek's opera, Katya Kabanova.

Deacon Shader is a child out of time, removed as a baby from his ancient-world parents and raised on the Isle of Maranore. On his seventh birthday, the philosopher Aristodeus arrives to commence the boy’s training with sword and mind. Nothing short of excellence will suffice, if Deacon is to fulfill his destiny and avert the Unweaving of all things. But as Aristodeus pushes him to the limits, reavers are spotted approaching the coast, and a cloud of horror descends upon the village. For these are no ordinary pirates. They sail under the Impaled Man, the grisly flag of Verusia, land of the undead and realm of the Lich Lord. Ward of the Philosopher is a novella of 15,500 words introducing the character of Deacon Shader as a child. The novella serves as an introduction to the bestselling Shader series.

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is the shortest of Dickens's novels. It is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester.

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment.

Step into the enchanting world of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Mosses From An Old Manse". This collection of short stories showcases Hawthorne's mastery of the written word, transporting listeners to a realm where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. With exquisite prose and a keen understanding of human nature, Hawthorne explores themes of love, guilt, morality, and the intricacies of the human psyche. Each story is a literary gem, filled with vivid characters, atmospheric settings, and thought-provoking narratives.

Nils Fargin wishes he’d never taken the job to escort a dwarf with no name on a madcap quest for redemption. Ilesa reckons she should have asked for a bigger bounty, and Silas is beginning to think the grimoire he stole from the Academy has a sinister will of its own. Nameless, on the other hand, is having the time of his life. After all, what more could a dwarf want than a horde of undead to splatter with his axe, a shape-shifting woman who does dwarf especially well, and a wizard who can produce ale out of thin air?

Ethan Frome is a novel published in 1911 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, New England, where an unnamed narrator tells the story of his encounter with Ethan Frome, a man with dreams and desires that end in an ironic turn of events.

A Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Written in 1886, the story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become two of the most famous characters in popular fiction. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, an amateur detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet."

At the center of each of the four great Shakespearean tragedies - Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello - is a powerful figure who is led to destruction by a fatal character flaw. In the case of Macbeth it is ambition. Initially a valiant warrior, and staunch servant of his regal overlord Duncan, Macbeth succumbs to the lure of absolute political domination, which leads to murder, revolt, and comprehensive defeat.

The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat who is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature. Wells described the novel as "an exercise in youthful blasphemy".

Before its 1902 publication, "Heart of Darkness" appeared as a three part series (1899) in "Blackwood's Magazine". It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon. The story centers on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river boat captain in Africa.

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886. London lawyer Utterson is driven to investigate Edward Hyde, the unlikely protégé of his friend Dr. Henry Jekyll, suspecting the relationship to be founded on blackmail. The truth is worse than he could have imagined. Jekyll's "full statement of the case", the final chapter of the book, explores the idea of dual personality that led him to his experiments, and his inexorable and finally fatal descent into evil.

On Christmas Eve 1909, Mark Twain's youngest daughter, Jean, died. She was just 29 years old. Over the next two days, in his grief, he wrote of his deep love for her; her last days with him; the previous loss of his wife, another daughter, and long-ime friends; and his profound loneliness as he reached what would be his own final days. He wanted this to be the final chapter of his autobiography. Four months later he, too, was dead.

Today the Space Race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 "winning" the Race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the Solar System.