Literary Criticism audiobooks

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

The Middle Parts of Fortune

By: Frederic Manning

Narrated by: Stanley McGeagh

Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

First published anonymously in 1929 because its language was considered far too frank for public circulation, The Middle Parts of Fortune was hailed by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, by Lawrence of Arabia and Ernest Hemingway, as an extraordinary novel. Its author was in fact Frederic Manning, an Australian writer who fought in the Battle of the... 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

Walt Whitman and the Birth of Modern American Poetry

By: Karen Karbiener

Narrated by: Karen Karbiener

Length: 8 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

In this course, Walt Whitman and the Birth of Modern American Poetry, we'll explore how Walt Whitman broke with the tyranny of European literary forms to establish a broad, new voice for American poetry. By throwing aside the stolid conventions and clichEd meters of old Europe, Walt Whitman produced a vital, compelling form of verse, one... Read more

Shakespeare

By: Harold Bloom

Narrated by: Harold Bloom

Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Shakespeare invented characters in a new kind of way. He not only gave them personality and depth, he gave them life. Not a life that went simply from point to point, but one that developed rather than unfolded. In so doing, Shakespeare created characters with whom everyone can identify, whether the characters were kings and queens or fools and... Read more

Masterpieces of Medieval Literature

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: George K. Wilson

Length: 8 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

It is during the Middle Ages that modern Europe, indeed, modern Western culture as we know it, comes to be. Classical Mediterranean culture drew from the ancient Middle East, and more directly, from the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. The Middle Ages add the Northlands, Celts, and Germans, and ultimately, Slavs as well, to the mix. And the Middle... Read more

Collections of Nothing

By: William Davies King

Narrated by: Robert Pavlovich

Length: 5 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don’t think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing—and a lot of it. With Collections of Nothing, he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate. Part... Read more

El Príncipe

By: Nicolás Maquiavelo

Narrated by: Staff Audiolibros Colección

Length: 2 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

El príncipe constituye un capítulo fundacional del pensamiento y la literatura occidental, y, sin embargo, el lector tiene que sortear la inercia de tópicos seculares al intentar aventurarse por sus páginas. Pero, en última instancia, Maquiavelo fue sobre todo un esforzado patriota florentino, y gran parte de su vida estuvo dedicada al servicio... Read more

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading

By: Maureen Corrigan

Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan

Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A book reviewer for The Washington Post and NPR's Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan is obsessed with books-so much so that they caused her to delay marriage. This audiobook explores her obsession with all things literary. Corrigan expertly weaves together her own life story withthe stories from the books she loves. Read more

Ayn Rand Answers

By: Ayn Rand

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 10 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

After the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, Ayn Rand turned to nonfiction writing and occasional lecturing. Her aim was to bring her philosophy to a wider audience and to apply it to current cultural and political issues. The taped lectures and the question-and-answer sessions that followed added not only an eloquent new dimension to Ayn... Read more

Thalia Book Club: David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

By: David Wroblewski

Narrated by: Dan Menaker

Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Abridged: No

David Wrobleski sits down with Dan Menaker to discuss and read excerpts from his book, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Read more

Shakespeare

By: Raphael Shargel

Narrated by: Raphael Shargel

Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Professor Raphael Shargel channels his passion for teaching and expertise as a Shakespearean scholar into this illuminative study of the Immortal Bard's eight great comedies. Shakespeare's genius is as readily apparent in these comedies as in his timeless tragedies. Often marked by internal and external conflicts, young lovers struggling for... Read more

Odyssey of the West VI

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt, Joel F. Recheimer & Katherine...

Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The Odyssey of the West series, a grand exploration of art, literature, revolutionary theories, and intellectual progress through the ages, concludes with a fascinating look at the twentieth century. Series editor and esteemed university professor Timothy B. Shutt is joined by contributing lecturers for a lively discussion of the major works and... Read more

Leaves of Grass

By: Walt Whitman

Narrated by: Robin Field

Length: 18 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daring new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character and have continued to provide inspiration to people and poets for generations.Leaves of Grass is Whitman's masterpiece,... Read more