Literary Criticism audiobooks

Classical Mythology

By: Peter Meineck

Narrated by: Peter Meineck

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

In Classical Mythology: The Greeks, widely published Professor Peter Meineck examines in thrilling detail the far-reaching influence of Greek myths on Western thought and literature. The nature of myth and its importance to ancient Greece in terms of storytelling, music, poetry, religion, cults, rituals, theatre, and literature are viewed... Read more

Harry, a History

By: Melissa Anelli

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Length: 10 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

During the brief span of just one decade, hundreds of millions of perfectly ordinary people made history: they became the only ones who would remember what it was like when the Harry Potter saga was still unfinished. What it was like to seek out friends, families, online forums, fan fiction, and podcasts to get a fix between novels. When the... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars

By: Gary Schmidt

Narrated by: Khris Lewin

Length: 1 hour 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Two-time Newbery Medal winner Gary Schmidt talks about the frequently comic mishaps and adventures of a 12-year-old Long Island boy in the Vietnam era. Actor Khris Lewin performs an excerpt from the book. Co-presented with Bank Street Bookstore.

Thalia Kids' Book Club events are lively talks between children's book authors and their fans (ages... Read more

A Way With Words IV

By: Michael Drout

Narrated by: Michael Drout

Length: 8 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

In A Way with Words I, II, and III, Professor Michael D.C. Drout increased listeners' understanding of the way literature works, of the rhetoric that in many ways defines people's lives, and of the intricacies of grammar, all while maintaining a lively tone that conveys the professor's infectious enthusiasm for the subject. In part IV of this... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep

By: Raymond Chandler

Narrated by: Jonathan Lethem, Judith Freeman & Rich Cohen

Length: 1 hour 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) joins Judith Freeman and Rich Cohen in celebrating Raymond Chandler's classic detective novel, The Big Sleep. Read more

James Joyce in 90 Minutes

By: Paul Strathern

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 1 hour 48 minutes

Abridged: No

From a young age, James Joyce showed a precocious, original intellect and a confidence in his own artistic destiny. He would indeed go on to transform the nature of modern literature, employing a unique stream-of-consciousness technique rich in symbolism and wordplay. Through his art, the Dublin native sought to reveal the radiance and meaning... Read more

Borges in 90 Minutes

By: Paul Strathern

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 1 hour 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Weaving fiction with fact, fantastic matter with historical figures, Borges’ frequent theme of a world where time, culture, and place converge is both timely and pertinent in our advance toward globalization. Drawing from his multi-ethnic and -lingual upbringing in Argentina, Borges’ focus on universal themes early on came to belittle the... Read more

Reading Magic

By: Mem Fox

Narrated by: Mem Fox

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

We all hope and expect our children will learn to read, but how many of us realize we can get our kids on the road to reading simply by reading aloud to them every day? With passion and humor, Mem Fox explains why reading aloud to young children has such an impact on their ability to read—and on their entire lives. Writing as an ordinary mother... Read more

Jimmy Carter: We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Former President Jimmy Carter discusses his new book on the Middle East peace process, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work, with Margaret Warner. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book

By: Geraldine Brooks

Narrated by: John Hockenberry & Rita Wolf

Length: 1 hour 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Geraldine Brooks sits down with John Hockenberry to discuss her novel People of the Book. Rita Wolf reads an excerpt. Read more

D. H. Lawrence in 90 Minutes

By: Paul Strathern

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 1 hour 53 minutes

Abridged: No

By the end of his life, Lawrence had despaired of Western civilization, which he felt had corrupted and weakened the human spirit. He believed that we had somehow lost touch with our instinctual being and no longer responded to the 'true voice' of our blood. We still possessed such truth deep within us, but it was smothered by a dead culture.His... Read more

Beckett in 90 Minutes

By: Paul Strathern

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Samuel Beckett’s work evokes passionate responses: readers and playgoers either revere it or consider it a load of pretentious nonsense. But his philosophy of pessimism will always find a new generation of young readers, for it bursts the rainbow soap bubbles of illusion, leaving us blinking with stinging eyes at unremitting reality. Beckett’s... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Jonathan Stroud's Heroes of the Valley

By: Jonathan Stroud

Narrated by: Matthew Cody

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy discusses his new novel with Matthew Cody (author of the upcoming book Powerless) that follows a young shepherd on a hero's quest. Along the way, he encounters highway robbers, terrifying monsters, and the truth about the legends he grew up listening to. Co-presented with Bank Street Bookstore. Read more

Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature

By: Michael Drout

Narrated by: Henry Strozier

Length: 7 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

The overwhelming success of the Lord of the Rings films and the Harry Potter series aptly demonstrates that the fantasy genre is alive and well in the new millennium. The names of authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Terry Brooks evoke ripe tales of heroism and the clash of good versus evil in magical, faraway lands. The rich... Read more

Odyssey of the West I

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 8 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

This course is an interdisciplinary series of connected lectures delivered by eminent scholars from several colleges and universities. Each professor addresses an area of personal expertise and focuses not only on the matter at hand, but on the larger story-on the links between the works and the figures discussed. The lectures address-in... Read more

Odyssey of the West II

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

This course is an interdisciplinary series of connected lectures delivered by eminent scholars from several colleges and universi- ties. Each professor addresses an area of personal expertise and focuses not only on the matter at hand, but on the larger story-on the links between the works and the figures dis- cussed. The lectures address a... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Louise Erdrich's The Red Convertible

By: Louise Erdrich

Narrated by: Louise Erdrich, Amy Goodman & Sonia Manzano

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Louis Erdrich sits down with Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) to discuss her short story collection, The Red Convertible. Sonia Manzano reads an excerpt from the book. Read more

Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong

By: Pierre Bayard

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 4 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Eliminate the impossible, Sherlock Holmes said, and whatever is left must be the solution. But, as Pierre Bayard finds in this dazzling reinvestigation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, sometimes the master missed his mark. Using the last thoughts of the murder victim as his key, Bayard unravels the case, leading the reader to the astonishing... Read more

The Bible and the Roots of Western Literature

By: Adam Potkay & Monica Brzezinski Potkay

Narrated by: Adam Potkay

Length: 6 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

The Bible is renowned as a rich source of myth and parable, prose and poetry. Indeed, much of Western Literature owes an enormous debt to the unique and widely varied writings in this important religious text. Read more

The Ten-Cent Plague

By: David Hajdu

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created in the bold, pulpy pages of comic books. The Ten-Cent Plague explores this cultural emergence and its fierce backlash while challenging common notions of the divide between “high” and “low” art.David Hajdu... Read more

The Souls of Black Folk

By: W. E. B. Du Bois

Narrated by: Richard Allen

Length: 8 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

W. E. B. Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk, his most influential work, is a collection of fourteen beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical. Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the... Read more

Eternal Chalice

By: Monica Brzezinski Potkay

Narrated by: Monica Brzezinski Potkay

Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

The goal of this course is to provide an overview of the many different ways writers of fiction and nonfiction have imagined, and reimagined, the object known as the Grail. We'll look at how the Grail was invented as a powerful literary symbol in the late 12th and early 13th centuries by a group of medieval romancers who celebrated the Grail as... Read more

Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues

By: Mark Eddy Smith

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 2 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

“As I get older and learn more of what sort of person I am, and continue sojourning to the rich soil of the Shire and the high tower of Minas Tirith, I discover that many of my notions of what is good and right and noble in this world have their source in that one.”—from the authorThe Lord of the Rings offers us essential lessons in living. Here... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Cornelia Funke's Inkdeath

By: Cornelia Funke

Narrated by: Madeline Cohen

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times best-selling author Cornelia Funke makes a rare appearance to talk about the stunning conclusion to the beloved Inkheart trilogy, a thrilling adventure series. Co-presented with Bank Street Bookstore, Thalia Kids' Book Club events are lively talks between children's book authors and their fans (ages 9-12) plus one event for teens.... Read more