-
Late Essays
- 2016-2017
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 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
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Late Essays
Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Pole
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Exacting yet unpredictable, pithy yet complex, J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, extravagantly white-haired pianist and interpreter of Chopin who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish Spanish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his concert in Barcelona. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold and his “gleaming dentures,” she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A simple yet complex story about lov
- By Jeannie Newstadt on 02-07-24
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Waiting for the Barbarians
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 132
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 133
For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
An Interesting Read For The Current Times
- By Jen on 04-05-20
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 29
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Rebel
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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
-
Disgrace
- A Novel
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Michael Cumpsty
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 329
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 233
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 232
Written with the austere clarity that has made J. M. Coetzee the winner of two Booker Prizes, Disgrace explores the downfall of one man and dramatizes, with unforgettable, at times almost unbearable, vividness the plight of a country caught in the chaotic aftermath of centuries of racial oppression.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book - aptly named
- By JOHN on 07-18-10
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 22
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
The Pole
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Exacting yet unpredictable, pithy yet complex, J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, extravagantly white-haired pianist and interpreter of Chopin who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish Spanish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his concert in Barcelona. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold and his “gleaming dentures,” she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A simple yet complex story about lov
- By Jeannie Newstadt on 02-07-24
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Waiting for the Barbarians
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 132
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 133
For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
An Interesting Read For The Current Times
- By Jen on 04-05-20
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Schooldays of Jesus
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 29
David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog, Bolivar, to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon, and he should be at school. And so, with the guidance of the three sisters who own the farm where Simon and Ines work, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
SEXUAL PERVERSION PRESENTED AS BRILLIANT
- By Amazon Customer on 09-29-18
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Rebel
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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
-
Disgrace
- A Novel
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Michael Cumpsty
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 329
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 233
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 232
Written with the austere clarity that has made J. M. Coetzee the winner of two Booker Prizes, Disgrace explores the downfall of one man and dramatizes, with unforgettable, at times almost unbearable, vividness the plight of a country caught in the chaotic aftermath of centuries of racial oppression.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book - aptly named
- By JOHN on 07-18-10
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 22
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
Secondhand Time
- The Last of the Soviets
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich - translator
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, and others
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 760
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 675
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 673
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre", describing her work as "a history of emotions - a history of the soul". Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The Heart, Soul & Iron Fist Of Russia
- By Sara on 02-22-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
The Myth of Sisyphus
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 900
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 752
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 753
One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant work, excellently narrated
- By Richard B. on 04-30-19
By: Albert Camus
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 950
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 828
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 822
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Magical Journey
- By Paul on 08-20-20
By: Thomas Mann
-
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,097
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,793
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,776
In 1957, four years before his death, Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychologist, began writing his life story. But what started as an exercise in autobiography soon morphed into an altogether more profound undertaking.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Dr. Jung's Life Would Make A Good Movie
- By M. Clarke on 05-17-16
By: Carl Jung
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Iliad of Homer
- By: Elizabeth Vandiver, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Vandiver
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,649
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,461
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1,452
For thousands of years, Homer's ancient epic poem the
Iliad has enchanted readers from around the world. When you join Professor Vandiver for this lecture series on the Iliad, you'll come to understand what has enthralled and gripped so many people. Her compelling 12-lecture look at this literary masterpiece -whether it's the work of many authors or the "vision" of a single blind poet - makes it vividly clear why, after almost 3,000 years, the
Iliad remains not only among the greatest adventure stories ever told but also one of the most compelling meditations on the human condition ever written.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Vandiver never disappoints
- By Machteacher on 07-23-13
By: Elizabeth Vandiver, and others
-
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 559
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 459
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 461
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
-
Mythologies
- The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
- By: Roland Barthes, Annette Lavers - translator, Richard Howard - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 132
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 109
When Roland Barthes's groundbreaking Mythologies first appeared in English in 1972, it was immediately recognized as one of the most significant works in French theory - yet nearly half of the essays from the original work were missing. This new edition of Mythologies is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic. It includes the brilliant "Astrology", never published in English before.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fun and engaging
- By Chris Hall on 01-08-19
By: Roland Barthes, and others
-
Labyrinths
- Selected Stories & Other Writings
- By: Jorge Luis Borges
- Narrated by: Dominic Keating
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 139
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labelled Borgesian.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Look, this is Borges
- By Lars Spuybroek on 05-27-20
-
The Swerve
- How the World Became Modern
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,394
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,935
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,926
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
-
How to Live
- Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 614
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 523
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 524
This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the religious wars....
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting and in parts Inspired.
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 28 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,263
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,058
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,043
The first new collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens since 2004, Arguably offers an indispensable key to understanding the passionate and skeptical spirit of one of our most dazzling writers, widely admired for the clarity of his style, a result of his disciplined and candid thinking. Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Grab it
- By Davol2449 on 09-02-11
Publisher's summary
A new collection of 22 literary essays from the Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee
J.M. Coetzee is not only one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in the world, he is also an accomplished and insightful literary critic. In Late Essays, a thought-provoking collection of 22 pieces, he examines the work of some of the world's greatest writers - from Daniel Defoe and Samuel Beckett to Irene Nemirovsky and Goethe.
Challenging yet accessible, literary master Coetzee writes these essays with great clarity and precision, offering listeners an illuminating and profound analysis of a remarkable list of writers and their works.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
The Man Who Invented Fiction
- How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
-
The Fellowship
- The Literary LIves of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
- By: Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 26 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 487
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 444
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 441
C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
If You Love Literature...
- By Ray M on 07-14-16
By: Philip Zaleski, and others
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 229
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 132
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,047
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 921
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 915
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
A Wicked Company
- The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent Book on Radical Enlightenment
- By EJJ on 02-15-15
By: Philipp Blom
-
The Man Who Invented Fiction
- How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
-
The Fellowship
- The Literary LIves of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
- By: Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 26 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 487
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 444
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 441
C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
If You Love Literature...
- By Ray M on 07-14-16
By: Philip Zaleski, and others
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 229
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 132
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,047
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 921
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 915
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
A Wicked Company
- The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent Book on Radical Enlightenment
- By EJJ on 02-15-15
By: Philipp Blom
-
Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 277
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 246
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 247
Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
-
To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
-
I Am Dynamite!
- A Life of Nietzsche
- By: Sue Prideaux
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 328
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 286
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 284
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating; tragic
- By Cineaste21 on 12-30-18
By: Sue Prideaux
-
Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 137
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
-
Figuring
- By: Maria Popova
- Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 265
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 235
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 231
Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Stunning
- By Laura on 03-12-19
By: Maria Popova
-
The Swerve
- How the World Became Modern
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,394
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,935
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,926
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
-
Angels and Ages
- A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
-
The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
-
Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 173
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
Bolder even than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity's first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
- By Darwin8u on 02-11-18
-
William Blake vs the World
- By: John Higgs
- Narrated by: John Higgs
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Best book ever
- By idamae on 11-04-22
By: John Higgs
-
The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 48
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi