Literary Criticism audiobooks

A Writer’s People

By: V. S. Naipaul

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 5 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Born in Trinidad of Indian descent, a resident of England for his entire adult life, and a prodigious traveler, V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting one civilization to another." Here, he takes us into his sometimes inadvertent process of creative and intellectual assimilation, which has shaped both his writing and his... Read more

Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From the 'Fuku' of the Dominican Republic to Klingon from Star Trek, the world of author Junot Diaz is a vibrant mix of cultures and languages. He discusses his influences and winning the Pulitzer Prize earlier this month for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Wao. Read more

Armageddon in Retrospect

By: Kurt Vonnegut

Narrated by: Rip Torn

Length: 5 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestseller from the author of Slaughterhouse-Five—a “gripping” posthumous collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s previously unpublished work on the subject of war and peace.

A fitting tribute to a literary legend and a profoundly humane humorist, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve previously unpublished writings. Imbued... Read more

The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis & Narnia - Abridged

By: Jon Kennedy

Narrated by: Mark Warner

Length: 4 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The Lion, the Witch, and the man behind it all. Now, more than ever, the works of C.S. Lewis enthrall and entertain listeners of all ages. But who was this man of intellect and imagination? The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis and Narnia gives you an in-depth look at this master storyteller, his life and times, and his best-known works. You'll... Read more

Those Who Walk in Darkness

By: John Ridley

Narrated by: Patricia R. Floyd

Length: 11 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

John Ridley, the best-selling author of The Drift, is renowned for his gritty, violent tales and their razor-sharp dialogue. This foray into science fiction is an explosive thriller. In the near future, superheroes are very real. But so are supervillains. When San Francisco is toasted during a superbeing clash, America has had enough. All... Read more

The Philosophical Dictionary

By: Voltaire

Narrated by: Donal Donnelly

Length: 4 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

-A collection of Voltaire's ideas and thoughts that were too short for pamphlets but worth saving for later development-wise and witty entries on subjects as diverse as atheism and kissing. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising

By: Susan Cooper

Narrated by: Daniel Gerroll

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Susan Cooper talks with Symphony Space's education director about The Dark Is Rising sequence, her series of five thrilling fantasy novels for young readers, among them The Dark Is Rising and 1976 Newbery Medal winner The Grey King.

The heroic series, originally published in the 1960s and 70s, is inspired by Arthurian myths and depicts an epic... Read more

Memoirs of Africa with Alexandra Fuller and Wendy Kann

By: Alexandra Fuller & Wendy Kann

Narrated by: Isaiah Sheffer

Length: 1 hour 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Isaiah Sheffer sits down with two memoirists, Alexandra Fuller and Wendy Kann, to discuss their memoirs from Africa: Fuller's Scribbling the Cat and Kann's Casting With a Fragile Thread. Read more

Ex Libris

By: Anne Fadiman

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 4 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Anne Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.

Anne Fadiman is—by her own admission—the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Mastering the Art of Writing About Cooking

By: Julia Child, Judith Jones & Alex Prud'Homme

Narrated by: Various

Length: 1 hour 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Judith Jones and Alex Prud'homme discuss and read from their kitchen-based memoirs: Prud'homme's My Life in Food and Jones's My Life In Paris (co-authored by Prud'homme and Julia Child). Read more

Die griechische Literatur. Von Homer bis zum Ende der Antike - Abridged

By: Martin Hose

Narrated by: Martin Hose

Length: 1 hour 37 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Die Epen Homers, die Tragödien des Sophokles oder die Dialoge Platons gehören zu den Fixpunkten der europäischen Literatur. Zugleich sind sie Wegmarken der griechischen Literaturgeschichte, die mit einer technischen Revolution, der Nutzung der Schrift, einsetzt und in einem Prozess von fast 1500 Jahren in stetig wachsender Verfeinerung eine... Read more

Thalia Book Club: Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying

By: Edwige Danticat

Narrated by: Jonathan Demme

Length: 1 hour 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Edwidge Danticat sits down with director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) to discuss and read from her book, Brother, I'm Dying. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children

By: Claire Messud

Narrated by: Valerie Martin & Hope Davis

Length: 1 hour 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Claire Messud joins Valerie Martin to discuss her book, The Emperor's Children. Hope Davis reads an excerpt from the book. Read more

Thalia Book Club: Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land

By: Richard Ford

Narrated by: Richard Ford, Isaiah Sheffer & David Strathairn

Length: 1 hour 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Richard Ford joins Isaiah Sheffer to discuss his novels The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land. David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck, Temple Grandin, Lincoln) reads excerpts from Ford's works. Read more

The Buried Book

By: David Damrosch

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

Etched in the wedge-shaped letters known as cuneiform on clay tablets, the Epic of Gilgamesh stands as the earliest classic of world literature. Its earliest surviving fragments date back to the eighteenth century BC, more than 3,700 years ago. In The Buried Book, David Damrosch tells the story of George Smith, a self-taught linguist, who one... Read more

Do I love thee… …let me count…

By: Various Authors

Narrated by: Robert Bethune, Susie Berneis, Amy Caldwell & K...

Length: 1 hour 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Are you in love? Have you ever been in love? Do you wish you were in love? Or perhaps you wish you weren't in love? For everyone who loves, who ever loved, who searches for love, who suffers from love, who rejoices in love, this set of 70 poems is for you. It ranges in time from classical Greece to the early 20th century. It includes voices from... Read more

Adam Resurrected

By: Yoram Kaniuk

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 15 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

The crowning achievement of one of Israel's literary masters, Adam Resurrected remains one of the most powerful works of Holocaust fiction ever written.A former circus clown who was spared the gas chamber so that he might entertain thousands of other Jews as they marched to their deaths, Adam is now the ringleader at an asylum populated solely... Read more

How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read

By: Pierre Bayard

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 4 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

In this delightfully tongue-in-cheek book, a #3 bestseller in France, literature professor Bayard contends that, in this age of infinite publication, the truly cultivated person is not the one who has read a book but the one who understands the book’s place in our culture. Using examples from works by Graham Greene, Umberto Eco, and others (and... Read more

PONS mobil Sprachtraining Aufbau: Italienisch

By: Giorgio Piva, Beatrice Rovere-Fenati & Christop...

Narrated by: Various Artists

Length: 2 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Sie besitzen bereits italienische Grundkenntnisse und Sie möchten mehr dazulernen und mehr können? PONS mobil Sprachtraining enthält 12 Dialoge und Interviews mit Menschen aus Italien. Nach jedem Dialog bzw. Interview folgen Übungen, die Ihnen helfen - gesprochenes Italienisch leichter zu verstehen - die Grammatik zu wiederholen - Ihren... Read more

Shakespeare

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Bill Bryson

Length: 5 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Shakespeare: The Illustrated Edition is an exquisitely illustrated, updated edition of Bill Bryson’s bestselling biography of William Shakespeare that takes the reader on an enthralling tour through Elizabethan England and the eccentricities of Shakespearean scholarship. With more than 100 color and black-and-white illustrations throughout, and... Read more

Jimmy Carter: Beyond the White House

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 11 minutes

Abridged: No

In this October 2007 interview, Former President Jimmy Carter discusses his recent trip to the Darfur region of Sudan and themes in his new book, Beyond the White House. Read more

PONS mobil Sprachtraining Aufbau: Präsentieren auf Englisch

By: Phil Newton

Narrated by: Various Artists

Length: 2 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Das praktische Englisch-Training für unterwegs: Präsentieren Sie professionell auf Englisch! Ob mit pie chart oder bar chart: meistern Sie souverän die häufigsten Situationen aus Bereichen wie Marketing, Vertrieb, Personal, Finanzen... Bereiten Sie sich auf das Moderieren, Vortragen oder Präsentieren auf Englisch vor und werden Sie bald so... Read more

Sam Quinones: Antonio's Gun and Defino's Dream

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

A book conversation about the lives and dreams of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. in the 1920s and the current day with Sam Quinones, author of Antonio’s Gun and Defino’s Dream. Read more

The Secret of The Secret

By: Karen Kelly

Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney

Length: 6 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

The Secret has taken the book world by storm, giving people the power to live happier, more prosperous lives through the law of attraction.

In the same vein as Breaking the Da Vinci Code, The Secret of "The Secret" takes an independent look at the people and the ideas behind the bestseller and examines what made The Secret so successful.

Some... Read more