-
Fantastic Tales
- Visionary and Everyday
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 23 hrs and 39 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Fantastic Tales
Buy for $25.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Italian Folktales
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 28 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Chosen as one of the New York Times's 10 best books in the year of its original publication, this collection immediately won a cherished place among lovers of the tale and vaulted Calvino into the ranks of the great folklorists.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
At Last: Unbridled Delight
- By John on 06-12-20
By: Italo Calvino
-
Numbers in the Dark
- And Other Stories
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino's dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition. Here are speculative stories on life in the digital age, genre-bending wonders, and “impossible interviews” with the likes of Montezuma and a Neanderthal.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Mr. Palomar
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 10
Mr. Palomar, whose name purposely evokes that of the famous telescope, is a seeker after knowledge, a visionary in a world sublime and ridiculous. Whether contemplating a cheese, a woman's breasts, or a gorilla's behavior, he brings us a vision of a world familiar by consensus, fragmented by the burden of individual perception.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This is an AMAZING Book!
- By The on 09-13-19
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Complete Cosmicomics
- Translated by Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, & William Weaver
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator, Tim Parks - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Italo Calvino's beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these 34 dazzling stories - collected here in one definitive anthology - relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Moments of Greatness = Worth the Read
- By Amazon Customer on 08-06-18
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8
A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven but worth listening to if you like Calvino
- By Daniel on 02-21-24
By: Italo Calvino
-
Why Read the Classics?
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino was not only a prolific master of fiction, he was also an uncanny reader of literature, a keen critic of astonishing range. Why Read the Classics? is the most comprehensive collection of Calvino's literary criticism available in English, accounting for the enduring importance to our lives of crucial writers of the Western canon. Here - spanning more than two millennia, from antiquity to postmodernism - are 36 immediately relevant, accessible ruminations on the writers, poets, and scientists who meant most to Calvino at different stages of his life.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Italian Folktales
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 28 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Chosen as one of the New York Times's 10 best books in the year of its original publication, this collection immediately won a cherished place among lovers of the tale and vaulted Calvino into the ranks of the great folklorists.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
At Last: Unbridled Delight
- By John on 06-12-20
By: Italo Calvino
-
Numbers in the Dark
- And Other Stories
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino's dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition. Here are speculative stories on life in the digital age, genre-bending wonders, and “impossible interviews” with the likes of Montezuma and a Neanderthal.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Mr. Palomar
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 10
Mr. Palomar, whose name purposely evokes that of the famous telescope, is a seeker after knowledge, a visionary in a world sublime and ridiculous. Whether contemplating a cheese, a woman's breasts, or a gorilla's behavior, he brings us a vision of a world familiar by consensus, fragmented by the burden of individual perception.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This is an AMAZING Book!
- By The on 09-13-19
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Complete Cosmicomics
- Translated by Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, & William Weaver
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator, Tim Parks - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Italo Calvino's beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these 34 dazzling stories - collected here in one definitive anthology - relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Moments of Greatness = Worth the Read
- By Amazon Customer on 08-06-18
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8
A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven but worth listening to if you like Calvino
- By Daniel on 02-21-24
By: Italo Calvino
-
Why Read the Classics?
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino was not only a prolific master of fiction, he was also an uncanny reader of literature, a keen critic of astonishing range. Why Read the Classics? is the most comprehensive collection of Calvino's literary criticism available in English, accounting for the enduring importance to our lives of crucial writers of the Western canon. Here - spanning more than two millennia, from antiquity to postmodernism - are 36 immediately relevant, accessible ruminations on the writers, poets, and scientists who meant most to Calvino at different stages of his life.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Hermit in Paris
- Autobiographical Writings
- By: Martin McLaughlin translator, Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2
This posthumously published collection offers a unique, puzzle-like portrait of one of the postwar era's most inventive and mercurial writers. In letters and journals, occasional pieces and interviews, Italo Calvino recalls growing up in seaside Italy and fighting in the antifascist resistance during World War II, traces the course of his literary career, and reflects on his many travels, including a journey through the United States in 1959 and 1960.
By: Martin McLaughlin translator, and others
-
The Written World and the Unwritten World
- Essays
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3
An extraordinary collection of essays, forewords, articles, and interviews, The Written World and the Unwritten World displays the remarkable intelligence and razor-sharp wit of prolific Italian writer Italo Calvino as he explores the meaning of literature in a rapidly changing world.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Difficult Loves
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
In Difficult Loves, Italy's master storyteller weaves tales in which cherished deceptions and illusions of love-including self-love-are swept away in magical instants of recognition. A soldier is reduced to quivering fear by the presence of a full-figured woman in his train compartment; a young clerk leaves a lady's bed at dawn; a young woman is isolated from bathers on a beach by the loss of her bikini bottom. Each of them discovers hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Marcovaldo
- or The Seasons in the City (Translated by William Weaver)
- By: Italo Calvino, William Weaver - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer. Much to the puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams - but the results are never the expected ones.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Perfect narrator and wonderful story
- By Drew on 12-17-17
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Collection of Sand
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino's unbounded curiosity and masterly imagination are displayed in peak form in Collection of Sand, the last of his works published during his lifetime. Here he applies his graceful intellect to the delights of the visual world in essays on subjects ranging from cuneiform and antique maps to Mexican temples and Japanese gardens.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful prose, topics, and narration
- By Drew on 06-02-19
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Cloven Viscount
- Translated by Archibald Colquhoun
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 2 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 40
In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures. In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bissected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. The two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, fight a bloody duel, and achieve a miraculous resolution.
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Road to San Giovanni
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
In five elegant autobiographical meditations Calvino delves into his past, remembering awkward childhood walks with his father, a lifelong obsession with the cinema, and fighting in the Italian Resistance against the Fascists. He also muses on the social contracts, language, and sensations associated with emptying the kitchen rubbish and the shape he would, if asked, consider the world. These reflections on the nature of memory itself are engaging, witty, and lit through with Calvino's alchemical brilliance.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
- By: Italo Calvino, Geoffrey Brock - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 29
At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Here, in Six Memos for the Next Millennium, are the five lectures he completed, forming not only a stirring defense of literature but also an indispensable guide to the writings of Calvino himself. He devotes one "memo" each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
The Rebel
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 125
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he reveals how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book is amazing
- By Amazon Customer on 10-06-19
By: Albert Camus
-
Personal Writings
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 11
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 11
Albert Camus (1913-1960) is unsurpassed among writers for a body of work that animates the wonder and absurdity of existence. Personal Writings brings together, for the first time, thematically-linked essays from across Camus's writing career that reflect the scope and depth of his interior life. Grappling with an indifferent mother and an impoverished childhood in Algeria, an ever-present sense of exile, and an ongoing search for equilibrium, Camus's personal essays shed new light on the emotional and experiential foundations of his philosophical thought....
By: Albert Camus
-
Collected Fictions
- By: Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley - translator
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 558
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 458
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 460
From his 1935 debut with "The Universal History of Iniquity", through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges' talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good but incomplete
- By Aaron on 12-17-18
By: Jorge Luis Borges, and others
-
A Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 22,349
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 18,532
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 18,426
A Signature Performance: Tim Curry rescues Charles Dickens from the jaws of Disney with his one-of-a-kind performance of the treasured classic. Our listeners loved this version so much that it inspired our whole line of Signature Classics.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful!!!
- By Alia on 12-11-09
By: Charles Dickens
Publisher's summary
"The true theme of the nineteenth-century fantastic tale is the reality of what we see: to believe or not to believe in phantasmagoric apparitions, to glimpse another world, enchanted or infernal, behind everyday appearances." (from Calvino's introduction to Fantastic Tales)
Vampires, ghosts, and other horrors abound in this collection of 19th-century fantastic literature, selected and edited by Italo Calvino, a 20th-century master of the speculative. This posthumously published anthology of enchanting, uncanny, terrifying, and immortally entertaining short stories includes E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman", Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose", Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp", and many more, each with an introduction by Calvino.
Fantastic Tales is a delight for the mind and a feast for the senses.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told
- Best Stories Ever Told
- By: Stephen Brennan - editor
- Narrated by: J. M. Badger, Imelda Pot
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 192
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 191
A big, brilliant, spooky collection of classic and contemporary ghost stories that will make you hesitate before turning off that light.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A very mixed review
- By Michael Mayer on 08-05-15
-
Les Misérables
- Penguin Classics
- By: Christine Donougher, Victor Hugo, Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: Adeel Akhtar, Natalie Simpson, Adrian Scarborough, and others
- Length: 65 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 162
Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
-
Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 57 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,221
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,541
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,554
Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
one happy insomniac
- By Kathryn on 01-27-05
By: Victor Hugo
-
A Christmas Carol
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Benjamin May
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
The timeless tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his adventures on Christmas Eve continue to teach an important lesson, even to this day. Author Charles Dickens introduces us to the main character by painting him in a negative light, a selfish and miserly old man who will barely pay enough money to keep his office heated. When Scrooge returns home after work, the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, visits him and tells him that because of the wrongdoing he had done during his life, he has been condemned to walk in his ghost years shackled....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fine audio Interpretation
- By Lee Gregory Stewart on 02-03-23
By: Charles Dickens
![Dracula [Audible Edition] Audiobook By Bram Stoker cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ef+s6y42L._SL320_.jpg)
-
Dracula [Audible Edition]
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34,756
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 31,444
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31,354
The modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
IS THAT NOT SO?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-05-15
By: Bram Stoker
-
The Jewel of Seven Stars
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 734
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 630
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 630
The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Mother of all Mummy-Stories
- By Dorothea on 03-15-08
By: Bram Stoker
-
The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told
- Best Stories Ever Told
- By: Stephen Brennan - editor
- Narrated by: J. M. Badger, Imelda Pot
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 192
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 191
A big, brilliant, spooky collection of classic and contemporary ghost stories that will make you hesitate before turning off that light.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A very mixed review
- By Michael Mayer on 08-05-15
-
Les Misérables
- Penguin Classics
- By: Christine Donougher, Victor Hugo, Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: Adeel Akhtar, Natalie Simpson, Adrian Scarborough, and others
- Length: 65 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 162
Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
-
Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 57 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,221
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,541
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,554
Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
one happy insomniac
- By Kathryn on 01-27-05
By: Victor Hugo
-
A Christmas Carol
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Benjamin May
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
The timeless tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his adventures on Christmas Eve continue to teach an important lesson, even to this day. Author Charles Dickens introduces us to the main character by painting him in a negative light, a selfish and miserly old man who will barely pay enough money to keep his office heated. When Scrooge returns home after work, the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, visits him and tells him that because of the wrongdoing he had done during his life, he has been condemned to walk in his ghost years shackled....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fine audio Interpretation
- By Lee Gregory Stewart on 02-03-23
By: Charles Dickens
-
Dracula [Audible Edition]
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34,756
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 31,444
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31,354
The modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
IS THAT NOT SO?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-05-15
By: Bram Stoker
-
The Jewel of Seven Stars
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 734
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 630
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 630
The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Mother of all Mummy-Stories
- By Dorothea on 03-15-08
By: Bram Stoker
-
Collected Stories
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 142
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Whether it's a 300-year-old ghost who's scared out of his wits, a tenderhearted statue with a mission of mercy, or the suave Lord Savile who cannot commit a crime, the characters in these stories by witty Oscar Wilde make the tales priceless delights. Absurd, ironic, poignant, or scathing, these small gems of the storyteller's art are sure to become favorites. This collection, narrated by Frank Muller, includes "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime," "The Model Millionaire," "The Nightingale and the Rose," and more.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Very Poor Recording
- By Anne in State College on 09-09-07
By: Oscar Wilde
-
The Great God Pan
- Esoteric Classics: Occult Fiction
- By: Arthur Machen
- Narrated by: Shea Taylor
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 161
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 145
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 143
Machen's novella The Great God Pan is often cited as one of Lovecraft's most notable influences. In it, Dr. Raymond's ultimate goal is to devise a way to open the mind of man so that he may experience all the world has to offer. He calls this "seeing the great god Pan". After much study of the human mind, he devises an experiment that involves minor brain surgery. He performs this experiment on a young woman named Mary, but when she awakens she is terrified and mentally crippled.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
classic horror
- By Shantee on 05-04-16
By: Arthur Machen
-
The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1
- By: Anton Chekhov
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1860-1904), was born in Russia at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His name has become synonymous with a certain literary style much admired and widely copied since his death. Typically, a Chekhov story is a "mood", a state of mind, usually with regard to relations between one person and another. Under the influence of the constant, infinitesimal, and unforeseen pinpricks of life, there occurs a gradual transformation of that state of mind.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Box of Chocolates
- By Darlene on 02-08-05
By: Anton Chekhov
-
Orlando
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Clare Higgins
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,034
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 868
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 873
Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Magical
- By Mayca on 05-31-05
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
TOO Abridged, Read Only if You Won't Read More
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
By: Victor Hugo
-
Christmas Stories
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Charles Dickens was a major contributor to the romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in the Victorian era. With their heart, humor and good morals, Dickens' Christmas stories have made the author's name synonymous with the season. Here we present four charming novellas to complete his series that began with "A Christmas Carol", with echoes of sleigh bells throughout. The stories include "The Chimes", "The Cricket on the Hearth", "The Battle of Life", and "The Haunted Man" - the perfect companion for the yearly celebrations.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Delightful
- By Tad Davis on 08-22-16
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Hero of Our Time
- By: Mikhail Lermontov
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 166
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
In A Hero of Our Time, Grigory Pechorin is a bored, self-centered, and cynical young army officer who believes in nothing. With impunity he toys with the love of women and the goodwill of men. He is brave, determined, and willful, but his wasted energy and potential ultimately result in tragedy.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Genius Presentation of Ywtsaxt fas
- By Brad Isaak on 11-06-16
-
Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 246
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 198
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 197
This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Mark of the Beast
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 284
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 254
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 253
When a carousing Englishman disgraces the consecrated effigy of Hanuman, a leprous "Silver Man" marks him with a hideous curse. The ensuing night brings new terrors to the house of the doomed man.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Must listen again
- By uffdasuzanne on 10-06-17
By: Rudyard Kipling
-
Ghosts: Edith Wharton's Gothic Tales
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin, Jonathan Epstein, Corinna May, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 158
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 143
Beneath the brilliance that was behind The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome was a dark side. A dark side which produced magnificent tales of the unseen influences in our lives, such as "Mr. Jones", "The Eyes", "Kerfol", "The Ladie's Maid's Bell", and "The Looking Glass".
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Ghastly Shadows of the Feminine Condition
- By Diane on 10-16-12
By: Edith Wharton
-
Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 364
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 258
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 260
Emma Bovary is not content to be the mere dutiful wife of a French country doctor. She yearns for excitement and a sense of romance that pulls at her so strongly she is powerless to resist, even though pursuing her dreams will exact a terrible price. Learn why Gustave Flaubert's compelling heroine has enchanted and puzzled readers for centuries.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Now Here's a Story
- By P. Giorgio on 09-06-03
By: Gustave Flaubert
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 19,870
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 18,157
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 18,077
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Italian Folktales
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 28 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Chosen as one of the New York Times's 10 best books in the year of its original publication, this collection immediately won a cherished place among lovers of the tale and vaulted Calvino into the ranks of the great folklorists.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
At Last: Unbridled Delight
- By John on 06-12-20
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Complete Cosmicomics
- Translated by Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, & William Weaver
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator, Tim Parks - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Italo Calvino's beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these 34 dazzling stories - collected here in one definitive anthology - relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Moments of Greatness = Worth the Read
- By Amazon Customer on 08-06-18
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Why Read the Classics?
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino was not only a prolific master of fiction, he was also an uncanny reader of literature, a keen critic of astonishing range. Why Read the Classics? is the most comprehensive collection of Calvino's literary criticism available in English, accounting for the enduring importance to our lives of crucial writers of the Western canon. Here - spanning more than two millennia, from antiquity to postmodernism - are 36 immediately relevant, accessible ruminations on the writers, poets, and scientists who meant most to Calvino at different stages of his life.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Mr. Palomar
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 10
Mr. Palomar, whose name purposely evokes that of the famous telescope, is a seeker after knowledge, a visionary in a world sublime and ridiculous. Whether contemplating a cheese, a woman's breasts, or a gorilla's behavior, he brings us a vision of a world familiar by consensus, fragmented by the burden of individual perception.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This is an AMAZING Book!
- By The on 09-13-19
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Cloven Viscount
- Translated by Archibald Colquhoun
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 2 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 40
In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures. In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bissected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. The two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, fight a bloody duel, and achieve a miraculous resolution.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Last Comes the Raven
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1
Blending reality and illusion with elegance and precision, the stories in this collection - one of Calvino’s earliest - take place in a World War II era and postwar Italy tinged with the visionary and fablelike qualities that would come to define this master storyteller’s later style. A trio of gluttonous burglars invade a pastry shop; two children trespass upon a forbidden garden; a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Italian Folktales
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 28 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Chosen as one of the New York Times's 10 best books in the year of its original publication, this collection immediately won a cherished place among lovers of the tale and vaulted Calvino into the ranks of the great folklorists.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
At Last: Unbridled Delight
- By John on 06-12-20
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Complete Cosmicomics
- Translated by Martin McLaughlin, Tim Parks, & William Weaver
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator, Tim Parks - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Italo Calvino's beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these 34 dazzling stories - collected here in one definitive anthology - relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Moments of Greatness = Worth the Read
- By Amazon Customer on 08-06-18
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Why Read the Classics?
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino was not only a prolific master of fiction, he was also an uncanny reader of literature, a keen critic of astonishing range. Why Read the Classics? is the most comprehensive collection of Calvino's literary criticism available in English, accounting for the enduring importance to our lives of crucial writers of the Western canon. Here - spanning more than two millennia, from antiquity to postmodernism - are 36 immediately relevant, accessible ruminations on the writers, poets, and scientists who meant most to Calvino at different stages of his life.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Mr. Palomar
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 10
Mr. Palomar, whose name purposely evokes that of the famous telescope, is a seeker after knowledge, a visionary in a world sublime and ridiculous. Whether contemplating a cheese, a woman's breasts, or a gorilla's behavior, he brings us a vision of a world familiar by consensus, fragmented by the burden of individual perception.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This is an AMAZING Book!
- By The on 09-13-19
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Cloven Viscount
- Translated by Archibald Colquhoun
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 2 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 40
In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures. In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bissected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. The two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, fight a bloody duel, and achieve a miraculous resolution.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Last Comes the Raven
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1
Blending reality and illusion with elegance and precision, the stories in this collection - one of Calvino’s earliest - take place in a World War II era and postwar Italy tinged with the visionary and fablelike qualities that would come to define this master storyteller’s later style. A trio of gluttonous burglars invade a pastry shop; two children trespass upon a forbidden garden; a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him.
By: Italo Calvino
-
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 626
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 555
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 550
Italo Calvino imagines a novel capable of endless mutations in this intricately crafted story about writing and readers. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but 10, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The position of the feet during reading...
- By literate rose on 02-09-18
By: Italo Calvino
-
Invisible Cities
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Richard Higgins
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance2.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo—Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Such a wonderful book ruined by terrible narration
- By anonymous on 08-18-23
By: Italo Calvino
-
Collection of Sand
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino's unbounded curiosity and masterly imagination are displayed in peak form in Collection of Sand, the last of his works published during his lifetime. Here he applies his graceful intellect to the delights of the visual world in essays on subjects ranging from cuneiform and antique maps to Mexican temples and Japanese gardens.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful prose, topics, and narration
- By Drew on 06-02-19
By: Italo Calvino
-
Difficult Loves
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
In Difficult Loves, Italy's master storyteller weaves tales in which cherished deceptions and illusions of love-including self-love-are swept away in magical instants of recognition. A soldier is reduced to quivering fear by the presence of a full-figured woman in his train compartment; a young clerk leaves a lady's bed at dawn; a young woman is isolated from bathers on a beach by the loss of her bikini bottom. Each of them discovers hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life.
By: Italo Calvino
-
Marcovaldo
- or The Seasons in the City (Translated by William Weaver)
- By: Italo Calvino, William Weaver - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer. Much to the puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams - but the results are never the expected ones.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Perfect narrator and wonderful story
- By Drew on 12-17-17
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Numbers in the Dark
- And Other Stories
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino's dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition. Here are speculative stories on life in the digital age, genre-bending wonders, and “impossible interviews” with the likes of Montezuma and a Neanderthal.
By: Italo Calvino
-
A Naked Singularity
- By: Sergio De La Pava
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 27 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 47
A Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi, a child of Colombian immigrants who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan as a public defender - one who, tellingly, has never lost a trial. Never. In the book we hear what happens when his sense of justice and even his sense of self begin to crack - and how his world then slowly devolves. It's a huge, ambitious novel clearly in the vein of DeLillo, Foster Wallace, Pynchon, and even Melville, and it's told in a distinct, frequently hilarious voice, with a striking human empathy at its center.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book isn't for everyone! But it is quite good
- By Matthew Dakus on 07-25-16
-
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8
A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven but worth listening to if you like Calvino
- By Daniel on 02-21-24
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Written World and the Unwritten World
- Essays
- By: Italo Calvino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3
An extraordinary collection of essays, forewords, articles, and interviews, The Written World and the Unwritten World displays the remarkable intelligence and razor-sharp wit of prolific Italian writer Italo Calvino as he explores the meaning of literature in a rapidly changing world.
By: Italo Calvino
-
The Path to the Spider's Nests
- By: Italo Calvino, Martin McLaughlin - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 4
Italo Calvino was only 23 when he first published this bold and imaginative novel. It tells the story of Pin, a cobbler's apprentice in a town on the Ligurian coast during World War II. He lives with his sister, a prostitute, and spends as much time as he can at a seedy bar where he amuses the adult patrons. After a mishap with a Nazi soldier, Pin becomes involved with a band of partisans. Calvino's portrayal of these characters, seen through the eyes of a child, is not only a revealing commentary on the Italian resistance but an insightful coming-of-age story.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
-
Forbidden Notebook
- A Novel
- By: Alba de Céspedes
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Valeria Cossati never suspected how unhappy she had become with the shabby gentility of her bourgeois life—until she begins to jot down her thoughts and feelings in a little black book she keeps hidden in a closet. This new secret activity leads her to scrutinize herself and her life more closely, and she soon realizes that her individuality is being stifled by her devotion and sense of duty toward her husband, daughter, and son.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
UNSETTLING
- By Susan on 02-02-23
By: Alba de Céspedes
What listeners say about Fantastic Tales
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Grant
- 11-06-20
Unexpected pleasure
Ordered this on a whim and it is becoming one of my favorites. A nice variety of materials and authors, some well known some more obscure. Everyone will have their favorites but all are well done. Excellent narration. And kudos to the producer for making labeled track breaks correspond with works, which is great for an anthology.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Linda C.
- 08-24-23
Stories of ghosts and demons
A good way to find the great older stories of odd visions of reality. Many of these I had heard of but never read. Gogol and HG Wells were wonderful.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!