Literary Criticism audiobooks

Charles Dickens

By: Jane Smiley

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 6 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Of Charles Dickens, Jane Smiley says that "his novels shaped his life as much as his life shaped his novels." Smiley's Charles Dickens is at once a sensitive profile of the great master and a fascinating meditation on the writing life. Smiley evokes Dickens as he might have seemed to his contemporaries: convivial, astute, boundlessly... Read more

Stephen Ambrose: The Wild Blue

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Gwen Ifill talks with historian and author Stephen Ambrose and World War II pilot and former Senator George McGovern about Ambrose's new book, The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B24's over Germany. Read more

Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle

By: Daniel Stashower

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Length: 15 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

This compelling biography examines the extraordinary life and strange contrasts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the struggling provincial doctor who became the most popular storyteller of his age when he created Sherlock Holmes. From his youthful exploits aboard a whaling ship, to his often stormy friendships with such figures as Harry Houdini and... Read more

Daniel Schorr: Staying Tuned

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Veteran television and radio correspondent Daniel Schorr discusses his life, his career and his new book Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism. Read more

Michael Chabon: Kavalier and Clay

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

In the second of a series of conversations with 2001's Pulitzer Prize winners, Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with fiction winner Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Read more

The Best Business Stories of the Year 2001 - Abridged

By: Andrew Leckey

Narrated by: James Lurie & Eliza Floss

Length: 11 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: Yes

“[The editors] cast their net wide, picking up some excellent stories from nontraditional sources that even avid readers of the business press may have missed.”–USA Today, on the 2001 edition

Series editor Andrew Leckey and guest editor Ken Auletta have scoured the print media, consulted with the editors of major business and general interest... Read more

Jane Austen

By: Carol Shields

Narrated by: Donada Peters

Length: 5 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

With the same sensitivity and artfulness that are the trademarks of her award-winning novels, Shields here explores the life of a writer whose own novels have delighted readers for the past 200 years. In Jane Austen, Shields follows this superb novelist from her early family life in Steventon to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement,... Read more

The Iliad

By: Homer

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 16 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

The first of Homer's epic poems tells of the counsel of Nestor, Achilles' slaying of Hector, and the defeat of the Trojans by the Greeks.Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet, Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek... Read more

Gloria Whelan: Homeless Bird

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Gloria Whelan's book Homeless Bird chronicles the story of 13-year-old Koly who entered an arranged marriage in India and became a widow. In this interview, Whelan discusses Koly's story, widows in white sarees, writing about other places, and more. Read more

On The Road With Charles Kuralt - Abridged

By: Charles Kuralt

Narrated by: Charles Kuralt

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Charles Kuralt's classic bestseller is now on audio!

On The Road With Charles Kuralt

Featuring Charles Kuralt with an introduction by Wallace Kuralt

"To read the front pages, you might conclude that Americans are mostly out for themselves...but you can't travel the back roads very long without discovering a multitude of gentle people doing good for... Read more

Hooking Up - Abridged

By: Tom Wolfe

Narrated by: Tom Wolfe & Ron Rifkin

Length: 6 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Nine unabridged essays from Hooking Up with five read by Tom Wolfe!

Only yesterday boys and girls spoke of embracing and kissing (necking) as getting to first base. Second base was deep kissing, plus groping and fondling this and that. Third base was oral sex. Home plate was going all the way. That was yesterday. Here in the year 2000 we can... Read more

Virginia Woolf

By: Nigel Nicolson

Narrated by: Karesa McElheny

Length: 5 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Virginia Woolf's life as part of the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group has captured the imagination of millions. Now Nigel Nicolson, the distinguished son of British writers Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West (Vita was one of Woolf's closest and most intimate friends) threads his personal reminiscences through the narrative of her life. In so... Read more

Herman Melville

By: Elizabeth Hardwick

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

A single novel, an eternal classic, established him as a founding father of American literature. Now, a century after his death, a new popular surge of interest in Herman Melville calls for Elizabeth Hardwick's rich analysis of "the whole of Melville's works, uneven as it is, and the challenging shape of his life . . . a story of the creative... Read more

Christopher Curtis: Bud, Not Buddy

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

In his children's book Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Curtis shares the story of a young motherless boy who took to the roads to find his father whom he thinks is a famous jazz musician. In this interview, the acclaimed author shares his personal connection with two of the fictional characters, the development of the 10-year-old character, his... Read more

Postscript to Clarissa (Unabridged)

By: Samuel Richardson

Narrated by: Pauline Munro

Length: 37 minutes

Abridged: No

After the publication of his novel 'Clarissa' the author Samuel Richardson received anonymous letters, many of them from his female readers who wanted a more 'fortunate ending', to wit, by reforming Lovelace and marrying him to Clarissa. The author justifies the heavenly reward he gave to his heroine and answers other accusations, including the... Read more

James Joyce

By: Edna O'Brien

Narrated by: Donada Peters

Length: 5 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Ireland's best current novelists provides a thumbnail sketch of Ireland's greatest writer. A passionate and sensuous portrait, James Joyce is a return to the land of politics, history, saints, and scholars that shaped the creator of the twentieth century's groundbreaking novel Ulysses. O'Brien traces Joyce's early days as a rambunctious... Read more

Common Sense

By: Thomas Paine

Narrated by: Adrian Cronauer

Length: 1 hour 42 minutes

Abridged: No

"When my country, into which I had just set foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir," wrote Paine. This pamphlet, which he had published in 1776, put into print the word every man was thinking but no man dared say: Independence! It captured the imagination of the colonists as no other document had. Read more

Frank McCourt: 'Tis

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 11 minutes

Abridged: No

In this 1999 interview, PBS NewsHour correspondent Frank McCourt discussed his book 'Tis, a follow up to his memoir Angela's Ashes. Read more

Richard Ketchum: Saratoga

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

From NewsHour Productions — Richard Ketchum: Saratoga, Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War. Read more

Rafi Zabor: The Bear Comes home

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Author interview with Rafi Zabor, winner of the PEN/Faulkner award for The Bear Comes Home. Read more

Conversation with Toni Morrison

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

A conversation with the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist about her book, Paradise. Read more

Michael Beschloss: Taking Charge

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 14 minutes

Abridged: No

During his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson secretly taped thousands of private conversations. These tapes, which include conversations with various public figures, from Robert Kennedy to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., recently came to light. Phil Ponce discusses the content and significance of these tapes with Michael Beschloss, Presidential... Read more

The Children's Book of Virtues - Abridged

By: William J. Bennett

Narrated by: William J. Bennett

Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Abridged: Yes

From the #1 national bestseller comes the definitive audio treasury of great moral takes for young children and their parents, including ten postcard-sized reproductions of Michael Hague's beautiful illustrations and featuring performances by:

The Bennett Family
(William, Elayne, John and Joseph)

Barbara Bush

Dorian Harewood

Charlton... Read more

William J Bennett Children's Audio Treasury - Abridged

By: William J. Bennett

Narrated by: William J. Bennett

Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The perfect companion to William J. Bennett's bestseller The Book of Virtues, The Children's Book of Virtues Audio Treasury is the ideal storybook for parents and children to enjoy together.

With selections from The Book of Virtues, from Aesop and Robert Frost to George Washington's life as well as Native American and African folklore, The... Read more