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The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd. Gogol’s tales of inconsequential civil servants, mixing the everyday with the surreal, foreshadow the work of his later acolytes, Bulgakov and Kafka. None is more cutting than the main story, "The Diary of a Madman", where a government clerk descends to insanity, claiming that he can communicate with dogs and that he is next in line to the throne of Spain. Translator: Constance Garnett.
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Fathers and Sons
- By: Ivan Turgenev
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father by criticising the landowning way of life and by his outspoken determination to sweep away the traditional values of contemporary Russian society.
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The greatest novel I'll ever read
- By Dan Harlow on 07-07-13
By: Ivan Turgenev
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 57 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
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.
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one happy insomniac
- By Kathryn on 01-27-05
By: Victor Hugo
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Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Story
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.
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TOO Abridged, Read Only if You Won't Read More
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
By: Victor Hugo
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Anna of the Five Towns
- By: Arnold Bennett
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Set in stifled, industrial Staffordshire in the late 19th century, against a strong evangelical background, Anna of the Five Towns tells of the courting of hard businessman Ephraim Tellright's daughter by prosperous and accomplished Henry Mynors. As her father's fortune grows, so does Anna understanding. She realises her legacy and responsibility for the possible ruination of her father's tenants, Titus Price and his son, Willie, who also loves her.
By: Arnold Bennett
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Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
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Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert, Lydia Davis - translator
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she is married to the provincial doctor Charles Bovary yet harbors dreams of an elegant and passionate life. Escaping into sentimental novels, she finds her fantasies dashed by the tedium of her days. Motherhood proves to be a burden; religion is only a brief distraction. In an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs.
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Ironic, humorous, and restrained
- By Esther on 05-13-13
By: Gustave Flaubert, and others
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The Leopard
- A Novel
- By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Archibald Colquhuon - translator
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue The Leopard with its particular melancholy beauty and power, and place it among the greatest historical novels of our time.
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Timeless
- By Robert Massarella on 12-05-23
By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, and others
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 30 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is closely modelled on the 18h-century novels that Charles Dickens loved as a child, such as Robinson Crusoe, in which the fortunes of a hero shape the plot. The likeable young Nicholas, left penniless on the death of his father, sets off in search of better prospects.
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loved it much more than expected!
- By Blue Ridge Book Lover on 05-29-12
By: Charles Dickens
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Dead Souls
- By: Nikolai Gogol, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Gogol's great Russian classic is the Pickwick Papers of Russian literature. It takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata but especially the devious complexities in Russia, with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Chichikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead 'souls', or serfs, whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogol's characters.
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Hilarious and well done, but massive sections of the manuscript are missing?
- By C. E. Johnson on 11-19-18
By: Nikolai Gogol, and others
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The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Selected from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Mirgorod, and Petersburg Tales and arranged in order of composition, the 13 stories in The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol encompass the breadth of Gogol's literary achievement. From the demon-haunted “St. John's Eve” to the heartrending humiliations and trials of a titular councilor in “The Overcoat”, Gogol's knack for turning literary conventions on their heads, combined with his overt joy in the art of storytelling, shines through in each of the tales.
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Quirky, funny stories
- By SmartShopper on 03-01-23
By: Nikolai Gogol
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Dead Souls
- Penguin Classics
- By: Nikolay Gogol, Robert Maguire
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'dead souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov.
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Excellent Narration
- By A. T. Howarth on 03-19-22
By: Nikolay Gogol, and others
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The Overcoat and Other Russian Tales
- By: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A lowly government clerk, Akay Akakiyevich, must scrimp and save to purchase a new coat for the cold Russian winter in “The Overcoat”. But after one night of basking in the warmth of his new coat and the respect of his colleagues, Akaky’s one-of-a-kind overcoat is stolen. In his pursuit of justice, Akaky receives no help and is consumed by the loss of his prized possession. In “The Viy”, Gogol recounts a popular folk story in which a monstrous creature, known to Little Russia as the king of gnomes, helps a witch get revenge on a young student who escaped from her trap.
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not able to access options
- By LookoutSF on 07-13-22
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The House of the Dead
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Completed six years after Dostoyevsky's own term as a convict, The House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical account of life in a Siberian prison camp, and the physical and mental effects it has on those who are sentenced to inhabit it. Alexandr Petrovitch Goryanchikov, a gentleman of the noble class, has been condemned to 10 years of hard labor for murdering his wife.
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This was FAR better than what I was expecting!
- By Savva on 05-12-20
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The Master and Margarita
- By: Mikhail Bulgakov
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn't all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don't burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy, The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world's great novels.
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Satisfying Satanic Satire
- By Jacob on 12-06-11
By: Mikhail Bulgakov
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Dead Souls
- By: Nikolai Gogol, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gogol's great Russian classic is the Pickwick Papers of Russian literature. It takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata but especially the devious complexities in Russia, with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Chichikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead 'souls', or serfs, whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogol's characters.
-
-
Hilarious and well done, but massive sections of the manuscript are missing?
- By C. E. Johnson on 11-19-18
By: Nikolai Gogol, and others
-
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Peter Batchelor
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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Selected from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Mirgorod, and Petersburg Tales and arranged in order of composition, the 13 stories in The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol encompass the breadth of Gogol's literary achievement. From the demon-haunted “St. John's Eve” to the heartrending humiliations and trials of a titular councilor in “The Overcoat”, Gogol's knack for turning literary conventions on their heads, combined with his overt joy in the art of storytelling, shines through in each of the tales.
-
-
Quirky, funny stories
- By SmartShopper on 03-01-23
By: Nikolai Gogol
-
Dead Souls
- Penguin Classics
- By: Nikolay Gogol, Robert Maguire
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'dead souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov.
-
-
Excellent Narration
- By A. T. Howarth on 03-19-22
By: Nikolay Gogol, and others
-
The Overcoat and Other Russian Tales
- By: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lowly government clerk, Akay Akakiyevich, must scrimp and save to purchase a new coat for the cold Russian winter in “The Overcoat”. But after one night of basking in the warmth of his new coat and the respect of his colleagues, Akaky’s one-of-a-kind overcoat is stolen. In his pursuit of justice, Akaky receives no help and is consumed by the loss of his prized possession. In “The Viy”, Gogol recounts a popular folk story in which a monstrous creature, known to Little Russia as the king of gnomes, helps a witch get revenge on a young student who escaped from her trap.
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not able to access options
- By LookoutSF on 07-13-22
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The House of the Dead
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
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Completed six years after Dostoyevsky's own term as a convict, The House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical account of life in a Siberian prison camp, and the physical and mental effects it has on those who are sentenced to inhabit it. Alexandr Petrovitch Goryanchikov, a gentleman of the noble class, has been condemned to 10 years of hard labor for murdering his wife.
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This was FAR better than what I was expecting!
- By Savva on 05-12-20
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn't all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don't burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy, The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world's great novels.
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Satisfying Satanic Satire
- By Jacob on 12-06-11
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The Inspector General
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Laurence Olivier
- Length: 18 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nikolai Gogol's The Inspector General, known also as The Government Inspector, was first published in 1836. It was based on an anecdote first recounted to Gogol by Pushkin. Laurence Olivier plays the irresponsible gambler Ivan Alexandrovic Khlestakov in this satire on the greed, corruption and stupidity of Imperial Russia.
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Amusing satire of greed, stupidity and corruption.
- By Savva on 05-21-20
By: Nikolai Gogol
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The Possessed
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
- Length: 27 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence.
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Womderful
- By Tad Davis on 12-07-17
By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others
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Fathers and Sons
- By: Ivan Turgenev
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father by criticising the landowning way of life and by his outspoken determination to sweep away the traditional values of contemporary Russian society.
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The greatest novel I'll ever read
- By Dan Harlow on 07-07-13
By: Ivan Turgenev
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A Hero of Our Time
- By: Mikhail Lermontov
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Genius Presentation of Ywtsaxt fas
- By Brad Isaak on 11-06-16
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Eugene Onegin
- A Novel in Verse
- By: Alexander Pushkin, James E. Falen - translator
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s imperial Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, and Pushkin's mercurial Muse.
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Pushkin and Falen are brilliant, Corkhill not bad
- By Jabba on 05-17-15
By: Alexander Pushkin, and others
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Dead Souls
- By: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"?
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Bait & Switch
- By Alexander on 02-16-11
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The White Guard
- By: Mikhail Bulgakov
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bulgakov’s first full-length novel is set in the harsh and chaotic winter of 1918-19, as power struggles start to play out with brutal consequences. Echoing Tolstoy’s approach in War and Peace, Bulgakov contrasts the concerns of domestic life with the wide-ranging and destructive historical events; but where Tolstoy’s structure is clear, Bulgakov interweaves narrative, details of military action, snatches of songs, dreams, dialogue and fragments of thought to capture this swirl of confusion on every level.
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Good translation
- By DF_NYC on 05-03-23
By: Mikhail Bulgakov
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Notes from Underground and The Gambler
- Notes from the Underground and The Gambler
- By: Constance Garnett - translator, Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Considered one of the first existentialist novels, Notes from Underground contains one of the most unsettling characters in 19th-century fiction. Resentful, cruel, entitled, and pitiful, Dostoyevsky's Underground Man is a disturbing human being bent on humiliating others for his own amusement. The Gambler is perhaps the most personal of Dostoyevsky's novels. Written to pay off the author's own gambling debts, the book follows the obsessions and anxieties of Alexey Ivanovitch, a sympathetic character who has given in to the forces of addiction.
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The Russian psyche
- By Amazon Customer on 03-27-22
By: Constance Garnett - translator, and others
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Evgenii Onegin
- A New Translation by Mary Hobson
- By: Alexander Pushkin, Mary Hobson - translator
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Evgenii Onegin is best known in the West through Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. But the original narrative poem (consisting of 389 stanzas, the form of which has become known as the "Pushkin sonnet") is one of the landmarks of Russian literature. In the poem, the eponymous hero repudiates love, only to later experience the pain of rejection himself. Pushkin’s unique style proves timeless in its exploration of love, life, passion, jealousy, and the consequences of social convention.
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'Breathtakingly brilliant tour de force'
- By Joseph M. on 11-01-12
By: Alexander Pushkin, and others
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Classic Russian Short Stories, Volume 1
- By: Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and others
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Russian literature exudes an atmosphere of mysticism, which is said to be a natural result of the simplicity of her people. Often, instead of being "about" anything, Russian stories sometimes seem to be the "thing" in itself. Be this as it may, it is an undeniable fact that with hardly any portent of future greatness to come, Russian literature suddenly sprang fully developed into existence in the 19th century.
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Excellent
- By Alessandro on 10-30-05
By: Alexander Pushkin, and others
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A Madman's Diary, and Other Stories
- By: Lu Xun
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
This is A Madman's Diary, and Other Stories by Lu Xun, a renowned writer of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun was a novelist, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, and poet who wrote both in Vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese. He became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai in the 1930s.
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highly recommend
- By Mao Li on 05-02-24
By: Lu Xun
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Oblomov
- By: Ivan Goncharov
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A member of the landed gentry, with a seemingly guaranteed income from his estate in the country, Oblomov lives in Petersburg, uninterested in the business that provides his living and barely aware that the revenue is diminishing. Not that he leads a dissolute life of extravagance, balls and entertainment. Instead he is a dreamer, a sybarite, content above all to spend most of the day supine, in bed. The novel opens with Oblomov thus ensconced, attended only by his dirty, grumbling, indolent servant Zahar, who has looked after him since childhood, catering to his every need.
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funny and smart
- By Bennett Weiss on 07-29-20
By: Ivan Goncharov
What listeners say about The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bee
- 08-10-23
Great stories, just can’t tell when they end
I loved the stories themselves. I wish I could give five stars, I’m about half way through and this is the first audible book that’s truly left me frustrated. The lack of story differentiation with anything to signify the beginning and end makes it so they all kind of run together. It may be my fault for not paying extremely close attention, but as it’s somewhat of a task for me to stay completely focused to begin with, this makes it even harder and more confusing. Wishing there was another option with more clearly defined ends and beginnings.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kory Grow
- 04-01-22
Brilliant writer, fantastic narration, plus TOC
Gogol's stories are strange, funny, horrifying, enlightening. I particularly enjoyed "The Diary of a Madman," "The Nose," "The Portrait," "The Overcoat," "Christmas Eve," "A Terrible Vengeance" and "Viy." Nicholas Boulton really brought each story to life uniquely. Since the book doesn't have a proper table of contents, here's how it breaks down:
1. Petersburg Tales. Nevsky Prospect
10. The Diary of a Madman
16. The Nose
23. The Carriage
26. The Portrait
41. The Overcoat
49. Ukranian Tales. St John’s Eve
53. Christmas Eve
64. A Terrible Vengeance
75. Ivan Fyodorovitch Shponka and his Aunt
81. Old-World Landowners
86. Viy
96. The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovitch quarelled…
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24 people found this helpful
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- Tad Davis
- 08-21-18
Delightful start to finish
I can’t imagine a better narrator than Nicholas Boulton for this delightful collection of stories. Every character gets his due, every lyrical description of nature its music.
I’d read The Nose and The Overcoat but had never dipped far into Gogol’s stories. They are grouped into Petersburg Tales (6 stories) and Ukrainian Tales (7 stories), and the two sets of stories are quite different. The Nose and The Overcoat belong to the first group, and while the stories are urban and mostly realistic, there are (obviously) flights of fancy and absurdity. The second group, mostly populated by Cossack soldiers and villagers, occasionally takes a darker turn: there are witches, devils, and wizards weaving in and out of these stories: there are dead men who rise from their graves and moan about being stifled.
One of them, Viy, is the scariest ghost story I’ve ever read. Another one, Christmas Eve, pictures a world where witches and devils show up in a small village to wreak havoc. A blacksmith loves a young woman, but she sets him an almost impossible task: to give her a pair of shoes worthy of the Tsaritsa. But the story hardly follows a straight line. It reads like an improvisation, a story told by a master storyteller who had no idea how his story would end when he started telling it. I mean that in a good way: the story is always surprising and ultimately very satisfying.
A great collection and a treat to listen to. It left me hungering for more Gogol.
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20 people found this helpful
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- mdc205
- 08-29-18
The Diary of a Madman and other stories
The Diary of a Madman and other stories
By Nikolai Gogol
Gogol's stories are so entertaining, so fresh & original. As a writer, he has been given great imaginative gifts. Other stories include the Nevski Prospect, The Portrait, Dead Souls, The Overcoat, Christmas Eve, The Nose and the Inspector General.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Ashraf Abaza
- 11-07-19
Amazing imagination
He is very funny. He lives to laugh and make us laugh. I loved this collection. Long live Gogol.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Vitor
- 09-03-23
Great narration, absent metadata
The narration is wonderful. Having no metadata is ridiculous—it is not hard for Amazon to do a better job. I am very disappointed.
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- Andrew
- 11-16-20
Contents are horrible; disappointed.
There are 107 chapters. They are labeled Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. They do not correspond to the beginnings or ends of stories, and there is no way to tell what stories they are part of nor is there even any way to know exactly which stories are in the book. This makes for a frustrating experience that is totally unnecessary and leaves me disappointed.
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14 people found this helpful