DescriptionA challenge to the moral climate of the day, The Reef follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success. The affair becomes the reef on which four lives are in danger of foundering: two of them innocent and two of them burdened with experience and tinged with desperation. This is a story of the drastic effects of a casual sexual betrayal and a clear-eyed assessment of the possibilities and limitations of human love.
DescriptionMartin Eden, Jack London's semiautobiographical novel about a struggling young writer, is considered by many to be the author's most mature work. Personifying London's own dreams of education and literary fame as a young man in San Francisco, Martin Eden's impassioned but ultimately ineffective battle to overcome his bleak circumstances makes him one of the most memorable and poignant characters Jack London ever created.
DescriptionF. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the greatest American writers, is best known for The Great Gatsby, considered by many to be the most important novel of the 20th century. But Fitzgerald also made his living as a short-story writer, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Tales collects four of his best. The title story is soon to be a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Fincher, the same team that made Seven and Fight Club . It is a fantasy story about a man who is in his 70s at birth and progressively ages backwards. The other stories included in this collection are "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", "Tarquin of Cheapside", and "O Russet Witch!"…
DescriptionExperience first-hand the dramatic ebb and flow of emotion as classic literature is transformed into the world of your imagination like never before. In Lost Face, the listener sits right beside a tribal prisoner as he plots to avoid the painful beheading that awaits him next. Grand musical themes with flowing melodies and dynamic rhythms support the story. Intense, stunning atmospheres of dark, sonic textures abound. Drums and percussion fill the background as rich, symphonic movements rise and fall, teleporting the audience to a foreign yet strangely familiar land. A compelling and captivating listening experience, both dramatic and introspective...and ultimately inescapable!
DescriptionExperience first-hand the dramatic ebb and flow of emotion as classic literature is transformed into the world of your imagination like never before. After being separated from his partner in the lonely tundra of Canada, one man struggles to survive an unforgettable journey through time, hunger, and insanity. Only one emotion could sustain him through such a bleak, treacherous, never-ending twist of mountains against the fearful loom of oncoming winter. Only one feeling could overcome countless days without food, dwindling supplies, wild animals, bleeding ankles, and persistent hallucinations. Soggy moss, icy water, human bones, and the dramatic vision of a ship that may or may not be real...were all only temporary obstacles to the grand motivation within, the indestructible love of life. This is a classic tale of adventure by one of America's most treasured authors.
DescriptionThis second collection of dramatized stories from the early days of detective fiction includes the following: "The Stolen Cigar Case" by Bret Harte; "The Nicobar Bullion Case" and "The Affair of the Tortoise" by Arthur Morrison; "The Blood Red Cross" by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace; "The Fatal Cipher" by Jacques Futrelle; "The Duchess of Wilshire's Diamonds" by Guy Boothby; "The Mystery of Mrs. Dickinson" by Nick Carter; "The Stolen White Elephant" by Mark Twain; "The Red-Headed League" and "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe; and "Mr. Policeman and the Cook" by Wilkie Collins.
DescriptionThis collection consists of the following nine stories: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment", "The Great Stone Face", "My Kinsman, Major Molinaux", "The Minister's Black Veil", "Mr. Higgonbotham's Catastrophe", "The Ambitious Guest", "The Birthmark", "The Minotaur", and "Young Goodman Brown".
DescriptionThe Great Stone Face and Other Tales presents 4 haunting, unforgettable pieces, all set in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. One of the giants of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne struggled for many years to achieve fame as an author. He lived in Salem, Massachusetts and spent his spare time roaming the crooked streets, immersing himself in the legends, old wives' tales, and superstitions that he learned from other people. Weaving these tales into his own literary style, Hawthorne wrote many remarkable short stories and essays that focused on his favorite themes of spiritual insight, guilt, and the consequences of sin. This collection includes the title story, "The Ambitious Guest, " "The Great Carbuncle, " and "Sketches from Memory."…
DescriptionO. Henry wove several stories together into this highly episodic narrative, his only novel, taking his title and inspiration from Lewis Carroll's ballad of the walrus and the carpenter in Through the Looking-Glass . The stories are set in the fictional country of Anchuria in Central America, a banana republic where larceny is rampant and revolution lurks in every impoverished back alley. O. Henry offers a cutting satire of contemporary politics and prejudices. Nevertheless, an essential middle-class morality prevails, in which lovers are reunited, poverty obliterated, character rewarded, and sentiment satisfied.
DescriptionThe name "Tom Sawyer" is synonymous with the adventures of boyhood. Bold and clever, Tom gets into and out of trouble with an ease many listeners will envy. A story beloved by children, it also has relevance for adults. As Twain himself said, "Although my book is intended for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in." Twain's beloved classic of growing up in Midwest America is as popular today as when it was first published in 1876.
