Discover the New Releases Audiobooks in Classics, British Literature Best Sellers

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Title: Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

Narrator: Martin Jarvis

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-01-11

Publisher: The Copyright Group

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

A story of love and broken dreams, Great Expectations is regarded by many as Dickens' finest achievement. He combines a gripping, melodramatic plot with a rich and memorable cast of characters, some comic, some tragic, some eccentric and some exemplary, like the generous-spirited Joe Gargery. The tale is told by Pip, an orphan of humble origins, who rises to be a gentleman through a mysterious benefactor. But his world is turned upside-down by a revelation, the nature of which he could never have guessed.

Members Reviews:

TV and Movies versions were good, but the book is better. . .

One of my co-workers encouraged me to read this since I have only seen the TV/Movie versions. It was a quick read and very enjoyable. Fortunately, the TV/Movie versions weren't too far off the mark. Regardless, there were facets of the story that you would only get through the book, which is why reading the book will always be my favorite option.

BAH! HUMBUG!! "God bless Us, Every One"

A Christmas Carol is a beloved Christmas favorite. Nothing says Christmas like favorite Christmas stories. This timeless tale has been told in many versions. Iâve seen the movie and play but Iâve never read the book. I thought it was about time to finally read this tale.

The illustrations throughout the book were fun to look at. Not common to find illustrations in books today unless they are children stories.

Lots of great quotes come from this story but the most famous is BAH! HUMBUG! followed by:

"God bless Us, Every One!"

Standalone

As great to read vs as to watch as a production.

We've enjoyed many kinds of productions of this classic Scrooge story. The original makes us 'rise to the occasion' - or at least gets us to mentally take the time to step back in that era. Life was so different, so the real factor is (I think) a little richer, than already assembled viewables. Emotional, and the older language adds some incentive to digging into the story.

A must read!

Dickens has always intimidated me. Somehow, I made my way through high school and college without having to read one of his novels. Finally, a few weeks before Christmas, I decided to give this a try when I learned it is relatively short. I figured if it took some work, at least it wouldn't take all that long. I'm sorry I waited so long. It was impossible for me to separate this from the many versions of A Christmas Carol I've seen over the years. I loved it. I enjoyed the glimpse into the time and place of the story. The story and theme are, of course, legendary.

Don't be intimidated. This is a book everyone should read at least once.

Classic I Know

I have tried this one before and was distracted within the first five chapters but with the advise of a colleague I am going to attempt this one again. I am late 30's and sometimes have a tough time focusing for long spans of time unless the story is captivating from the get go, you have to appreciate writing for the sake of verb-age and description to get into this. So, because it is a classic and I think the classics should be read - I'll give it another go but not looking forward to it despite the wonderful reviews. Hated Pride and Prejudice too - just depends on personal taste I suppose. Loved The Divine Comedy....

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Title: Mary Barton

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell

Narrator: Maggie Ollerenshaw

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-01-11

Publisher: The Copyright Group

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

There are stark differences between rich and poor in the Manchester of Elizabeth Gaskells novel, Mary Barton. Factory owners such as Mr Carson, do not understand the anger of their poverty stricken workers, and care little for their welfare. For the mill-workers, employment means food on the table and being one step away from starvation, but trying to gain any political power means risking a loss of livelihood. The author does not depict the owners as intrinsically wicked, but shows through her writing that it is characters like The Bartons who deserve the readers sympathy. By the end of the novel, Mrs Gaskell proves that the rich need not be heartless.

Members Reviews:

Mary Barton

I am new to Elizabeth Gaskell, but I am a fan. This is the second work of hers I have read and I really enjoyed this one even better than North and South. She is a writer who though her books may be a little slow to begin, knows how to make you love her characters. They are all fully developed and important to her stories. She gives satisfactory endings to ask the strings of her stories though this area not always happy. I also like that her stories have over arching societal themes and that she shows both sides of issues balance. An excellent edition of this book.

Excellent 19th century book

This is an excellent book for people who enjoy 19th century English literature. The plot held my interest to the end. Mrs. Gaskell is an great writer, and the book flowed along smoothly. There are some religious overtones, but the book is never "preachy." This is also a good book for people who are interested in the Manchester-Liverpool area of England.

Manchester's Heroic People

Mary Burton is a treasure of 19 century literature. The characters possess integrity of moral purpose that provides them with a richness not hidden by their poverty in life. Truth, honesty,devotion, modesty, and responsibility are exemplified by rich and poor alike in this tale of love and honor.The author digs beneath the superficial to show crime and it's consequences, but also the reader learns what motives drive men and women to act...how the human heart reacts to injustice and often change their lives as a result. We KNOW Mary Burton and Jem; we ache for John Burton and Mr. Carson. We applaud Margaret's strength despite her blindness. We care about these people as we do for family.

Excellent historical novel.

Very engaging and good historical read. A bit hard to get into because of the sentence structure but grabs you quickly. Worth staying with it. I learned a lot about mid 1800 century English and what it took to endure life especially about women and mothers.

Another good story by Gaskell.

After reading " North and South", I was pleased to find another 19th Century novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. This one,too, focuses on the effects of industrialization on the factory owners as well as the working class. The characterization, as well as the details of daily life, bring the story alive.

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Title: Women In Love

Author: DH Lawrence

Narrator: Bob Peck

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-01-11

Publisher: The Copyright Group

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Women In Love studies the nature of relationships between men and women through four very different characters, each of whom seeks fulfilment in their own way. Gudrun seeks an intellectual equal, while for Ursula, overwhelming love is all that will suffice; Gerald attempts to fill his emotional void with success and physicality, whereas Birkin desires total commitment from both his lover and his friend. Lawrence uses the foursome to form a complex emotional web, voicing his own views through the semi-autobiographical figure of Birkin.

Members Reviews:

Four Stars

Did not expect the ending AT all.

Must Read

Absolutely phenomenal book. The writing is beautiful and intelligent. The characters are very vivid but complex and the points made in this story are spot on and completely relevant in our society today. It is one of my favorite books and will definitely be enjoyed by anyone with keen observation and a lack of agreement with society's idolization of mediocrity.

I got a good deal out of the book

I got a good deal out of the book, I just didn't like the hyper-emotional hand-wringing that dominates a lot of the story (which seems to exist only to support the characters' emotional states). Perhaps I'm too left-brained. My gf wanted me to read this and I'm already taking heat for my take on it. Still, I did read it, and as I say, it has some very good takeaways, but just a bit slow for me.

Interesting views on relationships

This is a classic! The philosphical underpinnings of this book make it a must read for anyone interested in the dynamics of human relationships. If you don't want to read the book, watch the movie. They are both worthwhile experiences.

It's fun to read these classics when you are well seasoned ...

I did not understand it until I subsequently read The Rainbow. Since I am not a student in an English class I am just reading what I ignored while pursuing a different course of study. It's fun to read these classics when you are well seasoned in the mysteries of life.

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Title: Sons & Lovers

Author: DH Lawrence

Narrator: Robert Powell

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-01-11

Publisher: The Copyright Group

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Lawrences style is bold, intimate and inventive and he always has the capacity to shock. His great strength comes from the realism of the characters he portrays and the play on tension first seen in the exchanges between Gertrude and Morel and continuing with Paul, his Mother and his two women which never lets up. Then marvel at the depth and quality of the writing as the story moves relentlessly towards its conclusion.

Members Reviews:

Unsettling relationships ......

This Kindle version is not the unexpurgated test first published by Cambridge University Press in 1992, It is the version extensively edited by Edward Garnett and first published in 1913, and omits approximately 100 pages of Lawrence's original manuscript. Garnett also made several editorial changes to make the text less controversial for the times. This was the only version available to readers for almost 80 years after it was written.

"Sons and Lovers" is a semi-autobiographical novel in which the story's main protagonist, Paul Morel, struggles to maintain relationships with two female characters (Miriam and Clara) despite an almost Oedipian relationship with his mother, whose own disastrous marriage drives her to focus an abnormal amount of affection on her sons. Paradoxically he ends up killing his mother (out of kindness) rather than his father. Paul is a frustratingly complex individual and, for me, less than authentic. If this were not so evidently autobiographical I would be more skeptical. Lawrence himself, while the son of an essentially illiterate coal miner and a school teacher, attended Nottingham Grammar School and the University of Nottingham before becoming a teacher himself. His alter ego in the novel, Paul Morel, leaves school at the age of thirteen and becomes employed one year later, taking night school lessons and studying art. Despite his father and presumably his boyhood friends speaking in a thick East Midlands accent (although his mother does not) he seems to develop an almost unbelievably artiiculate manner of speech. Where does something like âOh. You make me knit the brows of my very soul and cogitateâ come from? It doesnât ring true to me, although Lawrence himself was obviously very intelligent. Paul Morel lacks his education however.

The seeming oversuse of the word "hate" throughout the text also puzzles me. As an example: "And why did he hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the thought of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering then he hated her - and he easily hated her." And this is the girl he is supposedly falling in love with. Perhaps "hate" implied something different almost 100 years ago. Is this an example of semantic drift? I found it disturbing.

Despite these minor irritations I did enjoy reading "Sons and Lovers" and immediately went on to read the unexpurgated version of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" which Lawrence wrote towards the end of his relatively short life while living in Italy. I found that to be a much more enjoyable read.

Escaping a Hardscrabble Start and Possessive Mother

Literature features few characters as blown this way and that and as snuggly tied to a mother's apron strings as Paul Morel, D. H. Lawrence's stand-in for himself.

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Title: The Hound Of The Baskervilles

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Narrator: Peter Egan

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-18-11

Publisher: The Copyright Group

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

It is strange to consider that, although The Hound Of The Baskervilles is Conan Doyles most popular novel, his hero is absent for much of the time. Notice how he sets up an atmosphere of supernatural horror right from the start through Dr Mortimers reading of the ancient curse, and how he then presents as assortment of bizarre clues in particular, the riddle of the missing boots which Holmes will have to unravel.

Members Reviews:

A laid-back reading

I love Peter Egan's beautifully-modulated and elegant voice, and since there are very few of his recordings available on Audible I plumped for this title. In practice Egan was an odd choice for narrator, as it's strange to hear such a melodramatic tale told by an actor with such a wonderfully laid-back, gentle voice. There's not a huge amount of character acting going on either. If you like your melodrama full of blood and thunder, better look elsewhere. I enjoyed it to a degree but not because the story and narrator were well-matched.

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Title: The Old Wives Tale

Author: Arnold Bennett

Narrator: Eileen Atkins

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-14-11

Publisher: The Copyright Group

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Spanning nearly half a century, The Old Wives Tale is epic in scale and scope, tracing as it does the effects of time on two sisters and their surroundings. The novel is a domestic story told with tenderness, and is concerned not with heroic statesmen or soldiers, but with small details of daily life in a way which demonstrates Bennetts great debt to french realist writers. The action is concentrated mainly within the provincial town of Bursley, a startling contrast to Paris where Sophia and Gerald elope.

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Título: Los hombres dichosos [The Happy Men]

Autor: Robert Louis Stevenson

Narrador: Jesús Rois Frey

Formato: Unabridged

Duración: 2 hrs and 4 mins

Idioma: Español

Fecha de publicación: 02-10-11

Editor: Audiomol

Categorías: Classics, British Literature

Resumen del editor:

Los hombres Dichosos son los arrecifes que se observan desde Eilean Aros, la casa a la que Charlie, el protagonista de esta historia, regresa tras su formación universitaria, en pos del tesoro de un viejo galeón español perteneciente a la Armada Invencible, el Espíritu Santo. En Eilean Aros conviven Rorie, el viejo mayordomo, la prima Mary- Ellen, el padre de ésta, Gordon Darnaway, los recuerdos de infancia y el Mar, aquí una deidad terrible que provoca un terror reverencial. A pesar de sus muchos elementos, todos ellos combinados con enorme soltura, Los hombres Dichosos es una historia que escarba en los sustratos íntimos derivados de un ambiente opresivo. La locura y la perfidia corren de la mano en la historia que más imágenes legará para la posteridad. Un drama rural que pudo haber inspirado a John Ford para El hombre Tranquilo o a John Meade Falkner para su excepcional Moonfleet, en mi opinión, la segunda mejor novela de piratería de todos los tiempos (tras La isla del tesoro).

Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.

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Título: Al Final del Camino

Autor: Rudyard Kipling

Narrador: Víctor Prieto

Formato: Unabridged

Duración: 1 hr and 2 mins

Idioma: Español

Fecha de publicación: 12-21-10

Editor: NEAR, S.A.

Calificaciones: 4 de 5 de 1 votos

Categorías: Classics, British Literature

Resumen del editor:

Novelista inglés, Kipling escribió novelas, poemas y relatos ambientados principalmente en la India y Birmania durante la época de gobierno británico. Nació el 30 de diciembre de 1865 en Bombay y a la edad de 6 años lo enviaron a estudiar a Inglaterra. Regresó a la India y a partir de ese momento trabajó para la Civil and Military Gazette de Lahore en calidad de editor y escritor de relatos. Posteriormente viajó por Asia y Estados Unidos, donde contrajo matrimonio con Caroline Balestier en 1892, y en 1903 se estableció en Inglaterra. Kipling fue un escritor prolífico y popular. En 1907 obtuvo el Premio Nobel de Literatura, convirtiéndose en el primer autor inglés merecedor de este galardón. Su literatura gira siempre en torno a tres ejes: el patriotismo, el deber de los ingleses de llevar una vida de intensa actividad y el destino de Inglaterra, llamada a ser un gran imperio. Falleció el 18 de enero de 1936 en Londres.

AL FINAL DEL CAMINO - Cuatro caballeros británicos, que viven afincados en India, se ven obligados a ser amigos por las circunstancias. Hummil es ingeniero; Lowndes es funcionario; Motram, agrimensor y Spurstow, médico. El cuarteto tiene la costumbre de reunirse en casa de Hummil todos los domingos para jugar a las cartas. Los cuatro tienen muy pocas cosas en común, pero se necesitan para mantener su estatus frente a la población indígena. Un domingo, tras la cena, Motram y Lowndes vuelven a sus hogares, mientras que Hummil y Spurstow se quedan a pasar la noche allí. Hummil sufre un ataque de naturaleza desconocida, y es atendido por el Doctor Spurstow. A la mañana siguiente, el médico se va, una vez que se ha asegurado de que su amigo se ha recuperado. Fieles a la cita semanal, Motram, Lowndes y Spurstow llegan a la casa de Hummil y se topan con una noticia totalmente inesperada con respecto a Hummil, el anfitrión; un suceso que sobrecoge a sus tres amigos porque tiene todos los visos de estar envuelto en el más inexplicable misterio.

Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.

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Title: The Importance of Being Earnest

Author: Oscar Wilde

Narrator: Alec McCowan, Lynn Redgrave

Format: Original Recording

Length: 1 hr and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-20-10

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

A wonderfully charming recording available for the first time as a digital download.

Jack Worthing lives in the country with his budding young ward Cecily Cardew and her fusspot governess, Miss Prism. To escape his situation, Jack invents a brother named Ernest who lives in London and frequently needs him. When in London, Jack then poses as Ernest. This elaborate fabrication proceeds smoothly - until Jack/Ernest falls in love and his fiancées mother discovers there is more or, rather, less to him than meets the eye.

Members Reviews:

Hilarious

Hilarious, highly recommend!

Five Stars

This play completely cracked me up. I couldn't stop laughing. It is timeless.

Five Stars

great

Five Stars

Love it!

Four Stars

This is such a cool and messed up play. I love it and it's deceptive twists.

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Title: Love among the Haystacks (Adaptation)

Subtitle: Oxford Bookworms Library Classics

Author: D. H. Lawrence, Jennifer Bassett (adaptation)

Narrator: Francis Middleditch

Format: Abridged

Length: 1 hr and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-16-10

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

It is hay-making time on the Wookey farm. Two brothers are building the haystack, but thinking about other things about young women, and love. There are angry words, and then a fight between the brothers. But the work goes on, visitors come and go, and the long, hot summer day slowly turns to evening.

Then the sun goes down, covering the world with a carpet of darkness. From the hedges around the hayfield comes the rich, sweet smell of wild flowers, and the hay will make a fine, soft bed.

An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Mark Twain original by Jennifer Bassett.

Critic Reviews:

"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of storytelling." (David R. Hill, ELT Journal Review)

Members Reviews:

A Classic

This beatufil book is written with a love and wit not seen in most modern literature. The words flow by seamlessly, bringing beauty and marvel to each page. Rather than give a short interpretation of the book, I will only recomend you read it yourself, and find the greatness this has to offer. Read it!