Literary Criticism audiobooks

The World of George Orwell

By: Michael Shelden

Narrated by: Michael Shelden

Length: 7 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Big Brother Is Watching You: The words are inextricably associated with the classic dystopian novel 1984 and with its revered author, George Orwell. The Modern Scholar series continues its exploration of great authors with this course from esteemed professor Michael Shelden. In these lectures Orwell, who also penned the epitome of the political... Read more

Invisible Listeners

By: Helen Vendler

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

Length: 2 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

When a poet addresses a living person - whether friend or enemy, lover or sister - we recognize the expression of intimacy. But what impels poets to leap across time and space to speak to invisible listeners, seeking an ideal intimacy - George Herbert with God, Walt Whitman with a reader in the future, John Ashbery with the Renaissance painter... Read more

Children's Literature

By: Seth Lerer

Narrated by: Tony Craine

Length: 15 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Ever since children have learned to read, there has been children's literature. Children's Literature charts the makings of the Western literary imagination from Aesop's fables to Mother Goose, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Peter Pan, from Where the Wild Things Are to Harry Potter.The only single-volume work to capture the rich and... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Nicole Krauss' Great House

By: Nicole Krauss

Narrated by: Deborah Treisman & Lois Smith

Length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Nicole Krauss sits down with Deborah Treisman to discuss her book, Great House. Lois Smith reads an excerpt. Read more

Things I Say to Myself

By: Dale Andrews

Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

As a local TV talk show host and occasional standup comedian, author Dale Andrews has moved audiences to laughter and tears. Today, through his new book, he encourages anyone in the throes of contemporary life to make just one more day with dignity and purpose.

Each morning, Andrews starts his day off with a simple written one–page statement... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Wendy Mass' The Candymakers

By: Wendy Mass

Narrated by: Rebecca Stead & Max Bier

Length: 1 hour 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Wendy Mass sits down with Rebecca Stead to discuss her book The Candymakers. Max Bier reads an excerpt. Read more

David Rakoff's Half Empty and Sloane Crosley's How Did You Get This Number

By: David Rakoff & Sloane Crosby

Narrated by: Ira Glass

Length: 1 hour 24 minutes

Abridged: No

The whip-smart and funny authors of the essay collections Don't Get Too Comfortable (Rakoff) and I Was Told There'd Be Cake (Crosley) join up to examine our contemporary culture and the many ways life can go awry in New York City, as presented in their new books. Ira Glass (This American Life) will introduce the authors. Read more

The Heroine’s Bookshelf

By: Erin Blakemore

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 4 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

The literary canon is filled with intelligent, feisty, never-say-die heroines, and legendary female authors. Like today’s women, they too placed a premium on personality, spirituality, career, sisterhood, and family. When their backs were against the wall, characters like Scarlett O’Hara, Jo March, Jane Eyre, and Elizabeth Bennet fought... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Sara Pennypacker and Marla Frazee's Clementine series

By: Sara Pennypacker & Marla Frazee

Narrated by: Sara Pennypacker & Marla Frazee

Length: 1 hour 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Author Sara Pennypacker and illustrator Marla Frazee discuss and read from their Clementine series of children's books. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Pseudonymous Bosch's This Isn't What It Looks Like

By: Pseudonymous Bosch

Narrated by: Pseudonymous Bosch & Matthew Cody

Length: 1 hour 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Pseudonymous Bosch sits down with Matthew Cody to discuss and read from his children's book, This Isn't What It Looks Like. Read more

Musen, Nymphen und Sirenen

By: Friedrich Kittler & Klaus Sander

Narrated by: Friedrich Kittler

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

"Zwei Münder vereinigen sich zu einer schönen Sangstimme. Weil sie alles wissen und weil sie alle Lust versprechen,die möglich ist, soll Odysseus das Schiff anlegen, an der Insel. Das sind die beiden Sirenen,die in der späteren ikonographischen Tradition auf den Vasen immer drei sind und immer schreckliche Mischwesen: oben Jungfrauen mit Busen,... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Zombies vs. Unicorns

By: Holly Black, Naomi Novik, Alaya Dawn Johnson, L...

Narrated by: Justine Larbalestier

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Justine Larbelustier moderates an all-star panel (Holly Black, Naomi Novik, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Maureen Johnson, Scott Westerfeld, and Libba Bray) to celebrate the book that decides the ultimate battle: Zombies vs. Unicorns. Read more

Ruin the Sacred Truths

By: Harold Bloom

Narrated by: Mort Crim

Length: 7 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by... Read more

Desperate Measures

By: William Logan

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 12 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

William Logan has been called "the most hated man in American poetry" and the most dangerous poetry critic since Randall Jarrell. Desperate Measures continues the critical fevers of Reputations of the Tongue (UPF, 1999), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award in criticism. Beginning with an exploration of some of Robert Frost's... Read more

The Enchanted Places

By: Christopher Milne

Narrated by: Peter Dennis

Length: 5 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

This is Christopher Milne’s first autobiography, which was followed by Part 2—The Path through the Trees. From his much publicized childhood on Cotchford Farm to his war experiences, his marriage, and his proprietorship of a successful bookshop in a small English town, the life of the famous author’s son was one of much joy and some pain. It was... Read more

William Power: Hamlet's Blackberry

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

William Power, author of Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age talks about how he and his family disconnected from their communication devices in order to reconnect with life. Read more

Leaves of Grass

By: Walt Whitman

Narrated by: Mel Foster

Length: 15 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." And Ralph Waldo Emerson found Leaves of Grass "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed," calling it a "combination of the Bhagavad Gita and the New York Herald." Published at the author's own... Read more

Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry

By: Robert Pinsky

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 1 hour 47 minutes

Abridged: No

The place of poetry in modern democracy is no place, according to conventional wisdom. The poet, we hear, is a casualty of mass entertainment and prosaic public culture, banished to the artistic sidelines to compose variations on insipid themes for a dwindling audience. Robert Pinsky, however, argues that this gloomy diagnosis is as wrongheaded... Read more

Detective Fiction

By: M. Lee Alexander

Narrated by: M. Lee Alexander

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

From mysterious origins, through the Victorian sleuths and the "Golden Age" of the genre (the 1920s through the 1940s), and to the present day, detective fiction, mysteries, and spy thrillers have consistently topped best-seller lists around the world. Professor M. Lee Alexander provides listeners with a lively discussion of groundbreaking... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

By: Aimee Bender

Narrated by: Heidi Julavits & Lillo Wei

Length: 1 hour 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Aimee Bender sits down with Heidi Julavits to discuss her book, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Lillo Wei reads an excerpt from the book. Read more

10 Books Every Conservative Must Read

By: Benjamin Wiker

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 10 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Offering a “CliffsNotes guide” to some of the most important literary works of our time, Wiker, author of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World, turns his discerning eye from the great texts that have done damage to Western civilization to the great texts that could help rebuild it. This book features a range of works, from classics such as... Read more

Wes Moore: The Other Wes moore

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Judy Woodruff talks to Baltimore native Wes Moore about his new book, The Other Wes Moore which explores the stories of two inner-city young men who share the same name, but lead very different lives. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles

By: Rick Riordan

Narrated by: Rick Riordan, Matthew Cody & Sonia Manzano

Length: 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) sits down with Matthew Cody to discuss his novel The Kane Chronicles. Sonia Manzano reads an excerpt. Read more

Tim O'Brien

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Thirty five years after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, Tim O'Brien's collection of stories about an American platoon, The Things They Carried, is being reissued as it celebrates its own 20th anniversary. Jeffrey Brown talks to the author about the experiences that led him to write the book. Read more