Showing results by author "Dream audio books" in All Categories

This is James Joyce's first novel, the semi-autobiographical story of a young Irish boy who struggles with family, country, and religion to become an artist and a man. (Summary by Peter Bobbe)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s semi-autobiographical first novel. It traces the early life of Stephen Dedalus and his inner struggle with the oppression of Irish society and the Catholic church, ending with his awakening as a poet and writer and self-imposed exile from Ireland.“Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”(Description by T. Hynes, with quote from the book)

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1875. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, "Culture [...] is a study of perfection". He further wrote that: "[Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an ...

The poem begins with the beloved god Balder, thought to be invulnerable, dead at the hands of the inoffensive blind god Hoder, in a game. Loki, whose deceit brought about this catastrophe, is promptly punished with exile, and Odin, Balder's father, sponsors a heroic quest to rescue his son from the land of the dead. This desperate venture unexpectedly meets with partial success, a conditional agreement to release Balder if everyone in the land of the living mourns his death. And even though over every hope hangs the threat of the ultimate end of the reign of the Norse gods, the mother of the ...

Delightful and charmingly predictable, this sweet romance will make you reflect one minute and laugh out loud the next. It's the kind of cozy read that will make the ideal companion on a dreary afternoon or snowy winter's evening. Enjoy!! - Summary by Celine Major

"Balder Dead" is a beautiful epic poem by Matthew Arnold. It draws from Norse mythology to retell the story of the the death of Odin's son, Balder, instigated by the treacherous jealousy of Loki. (Summary by Nathan)

The Amoretti (meaning little love poems) is a sequence of 89 sonnets written in the tradition of the Petrarchan sonnets, a popular form for poets of the Renaissance period. Spenser’s sequence has been largely neglected in modern times, while those of his contemporaries William Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney have been acclaimed. However, because of the artistic skill, along with the emotion and the humor exhibited, these poems deserve a broader hearing, even though they may be somewhat difficult for the present-day reader, partly through Spenser’s love for words and expressions that were...

Cranford is set in a small market town populated largely by a number of respectable ladies. It tells of their secrets and foibles, their gossip and their romances as they face the challenges of dealing with new inhabitants to their society and innovations to their settled existence. It was first published between 1851 and 1853 as episodes in Charles Dickens’ Journal Household Words. Appended to this recording is a short sequel, The Cage at Cranford, written ten years later and published in the journal All the Year Round. In a letter to Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte wrote: “Thank you for ...

Come and hear the strange tale of The Boss Hank Morgan, a modern day (at the time of publication) Connecticut Yankee who inexplicably finds himself transported to the court of the legendary King Arthur (as the title of the book implies). Hank, or simply, The Boss, as he comes to be most frequently known, quickly uses his modern day knowledge and education to pass himself off as a great magician, to get himself out of all sorts of surprising, (and frequently amusing) situations, as well as to advance the technological and cultural status of the nation in which he finds himself.In the rather ...

In a little town of Buckskin, population 100, or 200 depending on who did the counting, all kinds of trouble is brewing. See, there was a rivalry going on between Buckskin and a nearby town, Perry's Bend. That rivalry had turned sour, and involved the four nearby ranches. Hopalong Cassidy lives on the Bar-20, and the cows from the C 80 were mixing with his herd. There are gun fights, barroom brawls and stampedes to make live exciting out there on the Texas-New Mexico line!

The poems and stories in this collection were selected with the reader’s grandchildren in mind. “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie,” both by James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet were favorites of the reader when she was a child on a farm in Indiana. Other favorites were picked up along the way as she read to her own daughter and to her students, while other gems were discovered while looking for poems and stories to include in this collection. It is hoped that this collection will bless the hearts of many children and parents alike as they listen together.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The work is a very early example of time travel in literature, anticipating by six years H. G. Wells' The Time Machine of 1895 (however, unlike Wells, Twain does not give any real explanation of his protagonist's traveling in time). Some early editions are entitled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Dick Brewster is implicated in a murder and comes to his aunt's farm to hide. His Aunt Sarah stands by him in his need and they all move to the city in the effort to clear his name. She investigates on her own account and.... - Summary by The AuthorCast list:Lily Ann, Help at the farm: Devorah AllenAaron Flint, the hired man: Alan MapstoneMrs. Brewster, from New York: TJ BurnsHelen Brewster, her daughter: Jenn BrodaLeonard Fillmore, a young country lawyer: skypigeonSarah Newcomb, sister of Mrs. Brewster: AvailleDick Brewster: David PurdyHenson, a butler: Adrian StephensRalph Deering: Matthew ...

The turmoil of the world we cannot avoid, but the disturbances of mind we can overcome. The duties and difficulties of life claim our attention, but we can rise above all anxiety concerning them. Surrounded by noise, we can yet have a quiet mind; involved in responsibilities, the heart can be at rest; in the midst of strife, we can know the abiding peace. The twenty pieces which comprise this book, unrelated as some of them are in the letter, will be found to be harmonious in the spirit, in that they point the reader towards those heights of self-knowledge and self-conquest which, rising above...

Anarchy explained by the anarchist Errico Malatesta. (Summary by Vineshen Pillay)

The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. (From Wikipedia.)

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 science fiction novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott. As a satire, Flatland offered pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture. However, the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions; in a foreword to one of the many publications of the novella, noted science writer Isaac Asimov described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions." As such, the novella is still popular amongst mathematics, physics and computer science students. (...

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s classic example of pulp science fiction, A Princess of Mars (1912), is considered to be one of the original inter-planetary romance novels, a trope that would continue throughout science fiction for decades to come. The book follows Confederate veteran John Carter after he is suddenly transported from a cave in Arizona to the planet Mars. Carter falls in with a gang of Martians called Tharks, and eventually wins the heart of Heliumite princess Dejah Thoris. A Princess of Mars is the first in Burroughs's Barsoom series, which includes eleven books in total. A Princess ...

After a long exile on Earth, John Carter finally returned to his beloved Mars. But beautiful Dejah Thoris, the woman he loved, had vanished. Now he was trapped in the legendary Eden of Mars—an Eden from which none ever escaped alive. Three monstrous white apes sprang into the arena. On her throne, Issus, the living goddess of the First Born, leaned forward in keen anticipation. At length the apes spied the huddled knot of terror-stricken maidens and, with demoniacal shrieks of bestial frenzy, charged upon them. A wave of mad fury surged over me. A single blow sent my guard unconscious to the...

"Olalla" was a "shilling shocker" written for the Christmas season in 1885, just before the publication of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The nameless protagonist of this Gothic tale, a wounded soldier, goes to the Spanish countryside to recuperate. He finds himself enthralled by the beautiful Olalla, the daughter of his hostess, whose family conceals a terrible secret.