Literary Criticism audiobooks

Thalia Book Club: David Levithan and John Green's Will Grayson, Will Grayson

By: David Levithan & John Green

Narrated by: David Levithan & John Green

Length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Green (An Abundance of Katherines) and Levithan (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Executive Editorial Director at Scholastic) discuss their collaborative novel with teens ages 14 and up. In the book, they alternate chapters, each lending his own unique voice to two teens named Will Grayson, one of them gay and one of them straight. The event... Read more

Giants of French Literature: Balzac, Flaubert, Proust, and Camus

By: Katherine Elkins

Narrated by: Katherine Elkins

Length: 8 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

In this series of lectures, Professor Katherine Elkins details the lives and works of the premier French writers of the last two centuries. With keen insight into her subject material, Professor Elkins discusses the attributes that made classics of such works as Balzac's Human Comedy, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Proust's In Search of Lost Time,... Read more

Talking about Detective Fiction

By: P. D. James

Narrated by: Diana Bishop

Length: 4 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

To judge by the worldwide success of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Poirot, it is not only the Anglo-Saxons who have an appetite for mystery and mayhem. Talking about the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations on one of the most popular and enduring forms of literature, P. D.... Read more

Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin and Colm Toibin's Brooklyn

By: Colum McCann & Colm Toibin

Narrated by: Isaiah Sheffer & Michael Cerveris

Length: 1 hour 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Isaiah Sheffer sits down with two great contemporary authors, Colum McCann and Colm Toibin, to discuss their books, Let the Great World Spin and Brooklyn. Michael Cerveris reads excerpts from the two novels. Read more

Michael Lewis: The Big Short

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Jeffrey Brown takes a look inside the doomsday machine of the subprime lending crisis with author Michael Lewis in a conversation about his new book, The Big Short. Read more

Thalia Book Club: A Conversation with Laurie Halse Anderson

By: Laurie Halse Anderson

Narrated by: Maureen Johnson

Length: 1 hour 12 minutes

Abridged: No

The two-time National Book Award finalist (Speak and Chains) talks with Maureen Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes) about the compelling novels that have earned her numerous awards and fans of all ages. Her latest release, Forge (the sequel to Chains) is a gripping story filled with plot twists and unforgettable characters. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Sword of Mercy

By: Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson

Narrated by: Matthew Cody

Length: 1 hour 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson sit with Matthew Cody to discuss and read from their children's book Peter and the Sword of Mercy. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Kate DiCamillo's The Magician's Elephant

By: Kate DiCamillo

Narrated by: Lisa Von Drasek & Rita Wolf

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie) sits down with Lisa Von Drasek to discuss her book The Magician's Elephant. Rita Wolf reads an excerpt. Read more

James McGrath Morris

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

PBS Newshour’s Jeffrey Brown talks to biographer James McGrath Morris – a former Missourinet reporter – about Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, his biography on Joseph Pulitzer, the media baron who helped shape the news business. Read more

French Club for Kids

By: Rosi McNab

Length: 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Collins, the world's foremost language learning publisher, introduces a fun way for kids to learn French. Our French Club audio is packed with songs, rhymes, jokes and tongue twisters designed to be engaging, memorable and enjoyable. Children as young as 3 and as old as 12 will enjoy singing along to the catchy rhythms of French... Read more

Liebe, Lust und Leidenschaft - Abridged

By: Barbara Vinken

Narrated by: Barbara Vinken

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

Die Liebe wir alle glauben, sie zu kennen. Und doch scheint jeder anders zu lieben: die Leidenschaft der Sappho lässt sie erglühend erzittern und raubt ihr das Bewusstsein. Didos rasende Liebe zu ihrem Ein und Alles Aeneas führt nach dem Liebesverrat zum Selbstmord. Der vom Eros begeisterte Platoniker vervollkommnet sein Ich und steigt durch die... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Walter Dean Myers' Riot

By: Walter Dean Myers

Narrated by: Madeline Cohen

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: No

The two-time National Book Award finalist discusses his historical novel about the New York City Draft Riots in 1863 with middle graders and teens, ages 12 and up. The event includes a discussion with the audience.

Performance playlist: Reading with the Audience by Walter Dean Myers, then conversation between Walter Dean Myers and Madeline Cohen. Read more

J.D. Salinger: An Appreciation

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The enigmatic American author, best known for The Catcher in the Rye, died at age 91. Jim Lehrer talks with experts about Salinger’s influence on American literature. Read more

Ein knochenharter Job oder Wie ich half, Gott zu retten (Ungekürzt)

By: Barry Jonsberg

Narrated by: Oliver Rohrbeck

Length: 3 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Hörbuchspaß mit Hund: Ein turbulentes Öko-Abenteuer. Was für ein hässlicher Hund! Aber Marcus schafft es nicht, sich dem Drängen des sprechenden Tieres zu widersetzen. Blacky braucht seine Hilfe bei der Befreiung einer gefangenen Echse, deren Art vom Aussterben bedroht ist. Doch wie rettet man "Gott" aus einem Terrarium? Gemeinsam mit seinem... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Thomas Mallon's Yours Ever and John Freeman's The Tyranny of E-mail

By: Thomas Mallon & John Freeman

Narrated by: Thomas Mallon & John Freeman

Length: 1 hour 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Tom Mallon joins John Freeman to discuss their books, Mallon's Yours Ever and Freeman's Tyranny of E-Mail. Read more

Peniel Joseph: Dark Days, Bright Nights

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

In observance of Martin Luther King Day in 2010, Ray Suarez speaks with historian Peniel Joseph about his book Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama. Read more

Galgen mit Blitzableiter

By: Richard Grasshoff

Narrated by: Uwe Neumann & Anette Daugardt

Length: 1 hour 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Lichtenbergs sprühender Witz kann in einem Hörbuch nicht in der Aneinanderreihung seiner brillanten Aphorismen vermittelt werden; diese müssen eingebettet sein in eine "Geschichte“ - was liegt also näher, als die Lebensgeschichte Lichtenbergs mit seinen Aphorismen zu verbinden? Dieses Hörbuch gibt also einen Einblick in das Leben des großartigen... Read more

Heaven in a Wild Flower: The British Romantic Poets

By: Adam Potkay

Narrated by: Adam Potkay

Length: 7 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Professor Adam Potkay brings his renowned expertise on the Romantic era to bear on the period's principal poets. Providing detailed analysis of the lives and works of literary luminaries such as Robert Burns, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats, Professor Potkay examines the nature of Romantic poetry and provides insight... Read more

Gardens

By: Robert Pogue Harrison

Narrated by: Drew Birdseye

Length: 5 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Humans have long turned to gardens—both real and imaginary—for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those gardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh’s garden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their very conception and the marks they bear of human care and cultivation, gardens stand as... Read more

Changing My Mind

By: Zadie Smith

Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat

Length: 12 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

"[These essays] reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite, and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its view of life, literature, and a great deal in between." —Los Angeles Times

Split into five sections--Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering--Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan

By: Scott Westerfeld

Narrated by: Matthew Cody

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times best-selling author of Uglies discusses his latest series - which takes readers on a fantastical adventure around the world, set in an alternate-history World War I, complete with living airships - with Matthew Cody (Powerless) and middle graders and teens ages 12 and up. The event includes a conversation with the... Read more

Classical Mythology

By: Peter Meineck

Narrated by: Peter Meineck

Length: 7 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Rome grew from a tiny community of small hill villages near the River Tiber in central Italy to one of the most powerful empires the world has seen. The Romans themselves believed that their great city was founded in the middle of the eighth century BCE. By the middle of the second century CE, Rome had a population of 1.5 million; Alexandria, in... Read more

Poet Sherman Alexie Talks

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Author Sherman Alexie talks about his new book of poetry called Faces and his new short story collection, War Dances. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Trenton Lee Stewart's Mysterious Benedict Society

By: Trenton Lee Stewart

Narrated by: Madeline Cohen & Trenton Lee Stewart

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Trenton Lee Stewart sits down with Madeline Cohen to discuss and read from his Mysterious Benedict Society series. Read more