Small Souls by Louis Couperus audiobook.

Genre: drama

In late-19th-century The Hague, the dignified Van Lowe household lives by routine, reputation, and the weekly Sunday gathering presided over by the formidable Mrs. van Lowe. Into this carefully maintained world returns her daughter Constance, absent for years after a scandal that polite society has never truly forgiven: a divorce, a forbidden love, and a second marriage to the diplomat Henri van der Welcke that cost them both status and security. Now Constance and Henri come home with their sensitive son, Adriaan (Addie), hoping time has softened old judgments. Instead, they step into a web of half-welcomes, sharp smiles, and whispered stories that travel faster than any official invitation. As relatives close ranks, alliances shift and petty cruelties surface, Constance must decide what reconciliation really means - and what it costs to demand it. Meanwhile Addie, hearing fragments of gossip he cannot understand, feels the chill of inherited shame and begins to question who his parents are in the eyes of others. With psychological insight and biting social observation, Couperus exposes the smallness of a world that calls itself respectable.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:02:50) Chapter 01

(00:16:53) Chapter 02

(00:47:57) Chapter 03

(00:59:28) Chapter 04

(01:27:47) Chapter 05

(01:54:26) Chapter 06

(02:03:22) Chapter 07

(02:19:24) Chapter 08

(02:27:49) Chapter 09

(02:34:12) Chapter 10

(02:57:04) Chapter 11

(03:13:50) Chapter 12

(03:21:45) Chapter 13

(03:31:46) Chapter 14

(03:51:03) Chapter 15

(04:24:21) Chapter 16

(04:41:14) Chapter 17

(04:55:34) Chapter 18

(05:07:08) Chapter 19

(05:24:35) Chapter 20

(05:41:10) Chapter 21

(06:01:52) Chapter 22

(06:20:28) Chapter 23

(06:38:07) Chapter 24

(07:07:35) Chapter 25

(07:20:50) Chapter 26

(07:33:59) Chapter 27

(07:55:34) Chapter 28

(08:04:01) Chapter 29

(08:33:18) Chapter 30

(08:43:18) Chapter 31

(08:55:52) Chapter 32

(09:06:02) Chapter 33

(09:21:57) Chapter 34

(09:37:52) Chapter 35

(09:45:42) Chapter 36

(10:04:00) Chapter 37

(10:27:23) Chapter 38

(10:41:40) Chapter 39

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Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 06 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne audiobook.

Genre: biography

In Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 06, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - Napoleon's longtime associate and former private secretary - continues his insider chronicle of the astonishing ascent of a man who remade France and unsettled all of Europe. Writing as both participant and observer, Bourrienne draws readers behind the curtains of power, where proclamations and battlefield victories are only part of the story. This volume follows the rhythms of an expanding regime: urgent councils, shifting alliances, rivalries among ministers and generals, and the practical machinery required to feed armies, manage intelligence, and keep a nation focused on a single dominating will. Alongside Napoleon's public image, Bourrienne emphasizes the private habits, strategic instincts, and personal relationships that shaped decisions at critical moments. As ambitions grow and pressures multiply, the narrative highlights a central tension: how far discipline, loyalty, and political theater can carry a leader - and what the costs become for friends, institutions, and the country itself. Rich with anecdote and detail, this installment explores the intoxicating momentum of power and the fragile human networks that sustain it.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:20:13) Chapter 02

(00:53:30) Chapter 03

(01:16:33) Chapter 04

(01:43:13) Chapter 05

(02:01:30) Chapter 06

(02:20:41) Chapter 07

(02:45:01) Chapter 08

(03:16:23) Chapter 09

(03:27:06) Chapter 10

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Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 05 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne audiobook.

Genre: biography

In Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume 05, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, one of Napoleon's early companions and a longtime secretary, continues his intimate chronicle of a man who remade France and unsettled the old order of Europe. Writing with the confidence of an insider, Bourrienne moves through the machinery of power: the daily routines of the leader at the center of events, the private conversations that shape public decisions, and the shifting loyalties of ministers, marshals, and courtiers who must guess which way the wind is turning. Alongside portraits of figures who orbit Napoleon, from family members to diplomats and rivals, the narrative reveals how ambition is translated into policy, how information is controlled, and how personal relationships can become political weapons. This volume deepens the central tension that runs through the memoirs: the collision between Napoleon's relentless drive and the practical limits imposed by war, governance, and human nature. Part eyewitness record, part character study, Bourrienne's account invites listeners to weigh charisma against calculation, and legend against the messy realities behind it.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:22:35) Chapter 02

(00:44:38) Chapter 03

(01:16:40) Chapter 04

(01:41:15) Chapter 05

(02:05:11) Chapter 06

(02:31:19) Chapter 07

(02:51:04) Chapter 08

(03:02:45) Chapter 09

(03:33:56) Chapter 10

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Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 04 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne audiobook.

Genre: history

In Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 04, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Napoleon's boyhood schoolmate and later trusted insider, follows the general's return to Paris and the precarious first steps of the Consulate. France is still at war, Europe watches the new regime with suspicion, and every public gesture must balance promise and threat: overtures of peace to foreign powers, careful appointments at home, and the constant need to appear as the restorer of order. Bourrienne takes listeners behind the official proclamations into the private calculations of power, where diplomacy with England and Austria becomes a test of both patience and ambition, and where the polished, elusive Talleyrand enters as a decisive instrument of policy. At the same time, unsettling reports from Egypt surface - letters and accusations that challenge the heroic narrative and force Napoleon's circle to manage reputation as fiercely as armies. Blending eyewitness detail with sharp commentary, this volume captures the tense moment when a revolutionary republic begins to harden into personal rule, and when loyalty, propaganda, and strategy collide in the making of a modern state.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:14:34) Chapter 02

(00:54:09) Chapter 03

(01:29:43) Chapter 04

(02:02:09) Chapter 05

(02:17:42) Chapter 06

(02:37:24) Chapter 07

(03:14:14) Chapter 08

(03:43:24) Chapter 09

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Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 03 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne audiobook.

Genre: biography

Written by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Napoleon Bonaparte's schoolmate at Brienne and later his private secretary, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 03 offers a ground-level, insider account of a campaign where ambition collides with distance, disease, and politics. Picking up amid the French occupation of Egypt, Bourrienne chronicles Napoleon's efforts to impose order on an unfamiliar land through new administrations, uneasy local alliances, and relentless military demands. From councils and proclamations in Cairo to hard decisions driven by supply shortages and wavering morale, the narrative follows a commander trying to project certainty while absorbing unsettling news and mounting pressures. Bourrienne's strength is not only in recounting events, but in capturing the atmosphere: rivalries among officers, the careful management of reputation, the constant flow of dispatches, and the private conversations that reveal how strategy, emotion, and calculation intertwine. More than a battle narrative, this volume explores how power is built and maintained when circumstances refuse to cooperate, and how a single leader's choices can ripple outward through an army and an empire-in-waiting.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:14:54) Chapter 02

(00:50:23) Chapter 03

(01:22:46) Chapter 04

(01:52:44) Chapter 05

(02:25:28) Chapter 06

(02:50:12) Chapter 07

(03:14:10) Chapter 08

(03:35:31) Chapter 09

(04:05:43) Chapter 10

(04:32:04) Chapter 11

(04:59:39) Chapter 12

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Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 02 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne audiobook.

Genre: biography

In Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 02, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne continues his vivid, close-quarters portrait of Napoleon as France convulses through revolution and war. Writing as a longtime confidant and insider, Bourrienne traces the young general's accelerating rise from ambitious officer to national figure, showing how strategy, politics, and personality collide behind the public victories. Through conversations, letters, and scenes from military headquarters and government corridors, the narrative highlights Napoleon's relentless work habits, sharp memory, and instinct for turning uncertainty into advantage, even as rival factions and shifting loyalties threaten to undo him. Volume 02 deepens the human story as well: friendships tested by power, reputations made and broken, and the private calculations that accompany public glory. Part eyewitness testimony, part character study, these memoirs invite listeners to weigh the costs of ambition and the machinery of empire in the making, while keeping the reader close to the decisions and pressures that shaped one of history's most consequential lives.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:12:51) Chapter 02

(00:33:50) Chapter 03

(01:03:59) Chapter 04

(01:28:49) Chapter 05

(01:47:29) Chapter 06

(02:09:34) Chapter 07

(02:41:50) Chapter 08

(03:09:14) Chapter 09

(03:40:15) Chapter 10

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Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 01 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne audiobook.

Genre: biography

Written by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, a schoolmate of Napoleon and later one of his closest secretaries, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Volume 01 opens the door on the private workshops of power behind the most talked-about soldier-statesman of his age. From the early days when a brilliant, intense young Corsican fights for recognition, to the first rungs of influence climbed amid Revolution-era turbulence, Bourrienne recounts conversations, habits, and calculations that official histories often smooth away. This first volume follows Napoleon as ambition hardens into strategy, friendships are tested by politics, and Europe begins to sense the rise of a new kind of leader, one who treats war, administration, and public image as parts of a single design. Bourrienne writes not as a distant chronicler but as an eyewitness, balancing admiration with unease as he watches loyalty, rivalry, and necessity collide in the making of an empire-in-waiting. What emerges is a portrait of a man and a moment when personal will could reshape nations, and when every letter, meeting, and rumor might tip the future.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:31:58) Chapter 01

(00:56:27) Chapter 02

(01:29:45) Chapter 03

(01:53:03) Chapter 04

(02:10:27) Chapter 05

(02:31:14) Chapter 06

(02:55:52) Chapter 07

(03:15:25) Chapter 08

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The Charwomans Shadow by Lord Dunsany audiobook.

Genre: fantasy

In a fairy-tale Spain of proud towers, dusty roads, and old church bells, young Ramon Alonzo is sent away by his impoverished father, Gonsalvo, Lord of the Tower, with one urgent task: learn enough sorcery to turn lead into gold and save the family's honor with a proper dowry. His destination is a secluded magician whose house is as unsettling as it is wondrous, and whose servants include a bent old charwoman with one impossible absence: she has no shadow. The villagers fear her, the magician owns what she lost, and the price of learning the Black Art proves higher than Ramon ever imagined. When the wizard demands payment that touches the soul as well as the body, Ramon must navigate bargains, deception, and the strict judgments of priests and nobles alike, all while his sister's fate and a dangerous experiment in love-magic draw powerful strangers into the family's orbit. As Ramon struggles to set right what the magician has stolen, Dunsany spins a luminous fable about conscience, social rank, and what a person is worth when the light falls at the wrong hour.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:20:58) Chapter 02

(00:40:12) Chapter 03

(00:53:32) Chapter 04

(01:10:25) Chapter 05

(01:27:37) Chapter 06

(01:42:22) Chapter 07

(01:54:33) Chapter 08

(02:05:21) Chapter 09

(02:19:17) Chapter 10

(02:30:52) Chapter 11

(02:47:33) Chapter 12

(02:59:09) Chapter 13

(03:10:54) Chapter 14

(03:31:34) Chapter 15

(03:46:56) Chapter 16

(03:57:55) Chapter 17

(04:16:28) Chapter 18

(04:31:52) Chapter 19

(04:48:04) Chapter 20

(05:00:12) Chapter 21

(05:12:02) Chapter 22

(05:23:38) Chapter 23

(05:43:00) Chapter 24

(06:01:45) Chapter 25

(06:16:18) Chapter 26

(06:27:06) Chapter 27

(06:50:47) Chapter 28

(07:04:32) Chapter 29

(07:30:00) Chapter 30

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Clean Break by Lionel White audiobook.

Genre: thriller

Fresh out of prison and living on borrowed time, Johnny Clay believes he has designed the perfect score: rob a New York racetrack on its busiest day, when the cash is piled high and the crowd provides cover. Johnny is no dreamer, though. He knows the biggest risk is people, so he builds his crew from seemingly ordinary men with money troubles and quiet desperation: Marvin Unger, a court stenographer who can bankroll the operation; Big Mike, a racetrack bartender with access and nerve; Randy Kennan, a cop squeezed by debts and bad bets; and George Peatty, a cashier whose unhappy home life makes him dangerously vulnerable. Around them, Johnny arranges a series of precise distractions, timed to the minute, meant to pull guards and police in the wrong direction just long enough for the takedown. Told in tight, shifting viewpoints, Clean Break turns preparation into suspense, tracing how greed, pride, and mistrust ripple through a plan that depends on everyone staying silent and steady. It is classic hard-boiled noir: lean, relentless, and obsessed with the cost of one clean escape.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:33:43) Chapter 02

(01:05:58) Chapter 03

(01:33:05) Chapter 04

(01:59:58) Chapter 05

(02:29:40) Chapter 06

(02:51:02) Chapter 07

(03:24:53) Chapter 08

(03:49:21) Chapter 09

(04:15:53) Chapter 10

(04:32:25) Chapter 11

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The Land of Enchantment - From Pikes Peak to the Pacific by Lilian Whiting audiobook.

Genre: history

In The Land of Enchantment - From Pike's Peak to the Pacific, journalist and travel writer Lilian Whiting invites listeners on an early 20th century journey through the American Southwest at a moment when rail travel and grand hotels were opening vast new horizons. Setting out beneath the high skies of Colorado, she lingers in Denver's growing elegance and the dramatic country around Pike's Peak, weaving scenic impressions with stories of settlement, frontier enterprise, and the larger forces shaping the region. From there the route turns to New Mexico, where Whiting explores the layered legacy of Spanish colonial life, the enduring presence of Indigenous cultures, and the storied streets and plazas of Santa Fe. Crossing into Arizona, the narrative widens into a pageant of desert light and geological wonder: ancient ruins, extraordinary stone forests, and the stark, otherworldly landscapes that seem to rewrite the map of imagination itself. A final sweep toward Southern California and the Grand Canyon frames the West as both a place of beauty and a test of perception, asking what it means to truly see a country still being defined.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:15:15) Chapter 02

(01:00:56) Chapter 03

(01:27:55) Chapter 04

(01:57:53) Chapter 05

(02:24:31) Chapter 06

(02:51:04) Chapter 07

(03:19:26) Chapter 08

(03:50:44) Chapter 09

(04:22:33) Chapter 10

(04:49:57) Chapter 11

(05:14:11) Chapter 12

(05:46:08) Chapter 13

(06:21:33) Chapter 14

(06:38:25) Chapter 15

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