Download Best Sellers Audiobooks in Classics, American Literature

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Title: Roughing It

Author: Mark Twain

Narrator: Robin Field

Format: Unabridged

Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-08-10

Publisher: Mission Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 16 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Listeners to Roughing It will find themselves laughing along with the author, as the Wild West gets a little bit wilder in this charming edition of Twains American adventures, mishaps and musings.

Members Reviews:

Wonderful wit

Twain is a master of throwaway lines, and there are so many here. It is read with intelligence and a very good insight into Twain's language.

The story is about travelling by stage from Missouri to Nevada through perilous deserts inhabited by native Americans and alsorts of bad and good guys. Twain's brilliant observation and ability to describe everything that happens to them with humour and consummate language skills is enhanced by Robin Field's excellent reading. Can't praise this book enough.

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Title: Redburn

Author: Herman Melville

Narrator: Kirby Heyborne

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-30-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 21 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Drawn from Melville's own adolescent experience aboard a merchant ship, Redburn charts the coming-of-age of Wellingborough Redburn, a young innocent who embarks on a crossing to Liverpool together with a roguish crew. Once in Liverpool, Redburn encounters the squalid conditions of the city and meets Harry Bolton, a bereft and damaged soul, who takes him on a tour of London that includes a scene of rococo decadence unlike anything else in Melvilles fiction. Redburn is not a document; it is a work of art by the unexpected genius of a sailor, Herman Melville.

Editorial Reviews:

With few other choices left open, young Wellingborough Redburn signs on the Highlander, a merchant ship leaving New York City for England. Narrator Kirby Heyborne's youthful, easy performance expresses the intrepid Redburn's thoughts with charm and sympathy as he finds out that life at sea isn't what he'd naively expected. Heyborne, who has received numerous AudioFile Earphone Awards, as well as the Odyssey Award, describes Redburn's difficulties on the ship with dismay and resignation, and he intensifies the shock when the boy arrives in Liverpool and witnesses the corruption, desperation, and poverty there. As Redburn returns to New York, listeners will hear his new-found maturity in Heyborne's sober narration.

Members Reviews:

A funky autobiographical novel/bildungsroman

It must be awful as a writer to dash off a novel for money or tobacco in a couple of weeks and have it praised, but see your earlier serious novel (Mardi) panned, and your later novel (Moby-Dick) under-appreciated until years after your death. That is the genius of a select group of writers -- they are destined to exist in this weird space between art and the public. Perhaps the strong bitter of Melville's art was just too early and too strange for the public, but they WERE ready for his swipes.

If you are into literature of the sea (The Sea Wolf, The Pilot, Captains Courageous, etc.,) or you are just into Melville, you will want to read this. If, however, this is your first Melville, I'd stick with Moby-Dick.

A leisurely if perplexing voyage

What did you like best about Redburn? What did you like least?

I liked the hints of the themes Melville would elaborate in Moby Dick. The start was promising, if heavily "based on a true story" and I presume heavily autobiographical. The Famine emigrants in Liverpool and at sea gain some attention, perhaps notable in fiction. But I disliked the "Harry" diversion and the latter part of the story weakened the plot. It reminded me of how Huck Finn also falls apart after a strong start, a few decades later.

If youve listened to books by Herman Melville before, how does this one compare?

I have not heard any (yet).

What aspect of Kirby Heybornes performance would you have changed?

I liked Kirby Heyborne dramatizing David Mitchell's own "heavily autobiographical" coming-of-age "Black Swan Green." So I purchased this on that strength. But Kirby H. mispronounces hillocks, shillelagh, Lothario, Hecate, indefatigable, and over and over tarpaulin, to name but a few words he surely should have known, or checked. My rating reflects this shortcoming.

Was Redburn worth the listening time?

It unfolds more slowly than any other audiobook I can recall outside of, say, the dense Thomas Sowell treatise on Marxism.

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Title: Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House

Author: Harriet Wilson

Narrator: Robin Miles

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-30-10

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 33 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

This is the autobiographical novel by Harriet Wilson, the first African-American to publish a novel in North America. Originally published in 1859, it was rediscovered in 1982.

The novel begins as Frado, a six-year-old mulatto, is abandoned by her white mother. While serving the Bellmont family as an indentured servant, she is treated cruelly. Frado earns her freedom at the age of 18 but has many difficulties earning a living on her own. She marries Tom, a fugitive slave and a lecturer for the Abolitionist Movement. Frado has a baby, but is again abandoned and must find a way to support herself. At the end of the novel, the author appeals in her own voice for sales of her book.

Editorial Reviews:

As her multiple awards and nominations can attest, narrator Robin Miles is adept at creating an intimate connection with listeners. For Harriet Wilson's semi-autobiographical novel about precocious little girl Frando, who is given away to servitude at age six, Miles once more eases her way into listeners' hearts with her elegant and moving performance.

Frando inspires both sympathy and anger as she endures deprivation and isolation as an indentured servant in antebellum New Hampshire, revealing the pervasiveness of racism even in the supposedly free north. Miles gives Frando a determined, spirited voice and never slips into sentimentality or hyperbole, instead letting her quiet intensity command listeners' empathy and attention.

Members Reviews:

Finally a Truthful account of Northern Slavery

What did you love best about Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House?

I loved the honest portrayal of the harsh and unkind treatment of the Blacks in the North before the Civil War.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I could have listened to the entire book at one time but it deserves the full attention of the listener to do justice of the topic.

Not a great book but an important one

Would you try another book from Harriet Wilson and/or Robin Miles?

Harriet Wilson never wrote another book which is why this one is so important as a snap shot of slavery in the Northern states. As for Robin Miles, she did an admirable job narrating the material she had.

Has Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. I want to read the slave narratives recorded in the 1930's as well as The Autobiography of Frederick Douglas and Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave.

Have you listened to any of Robin Miless other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, I have not heard any of Robin Mile's other performances.

Was Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House worth the listening time?

Yes, but it was not a great read and neither was Wilson a great writer. Our Nig is more important from a historical point of view and not from an artistic point of view. I am unlikely to listen to it again, but I recommend it to people studying slave narratives.

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Title: This Side of Paradise

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-03-10

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 21 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

If the Roaring Twenties are remembered as the era of "flaming youth", it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who lit the fire. His semiautobiographical first novel, This Side of Paradise, became an instant best seller and established an image of seemingly carefree, party-mad young men and women out to create a new morality for a new, post-war America. It traces the early life of Amory Blaine from the end of prep school through Princeton to the start of an uncertain career in New York City.

Alternately self-confident and self-effacing, torn between ambition and idleness, the self-absorbed, immature Amory yearns to run with Princeton's rich, fast crowd and become one of the "gods" of the campus. Hopelessly romantic, he learns about love and sex from a series of beautiful young "flappers", women who leave him both exhilarated and devastated.

Fitzgerald describes it all in intensely lyrical prose that fills the novel with a heartbreaking sense of longing, as Amory comes to understand that the sweet-scented springtime of his life is fragile and fleeting, disappearing into memory even as he reaches for it.

Members Reviews:

Narration Was Dry Like Reading a Dictionary

I would prefer reading the book itself than listening to this version of the audiobook. The narration was haste, dry, detached, and emotionless. It takes away what enjoyment a reader could have derived from the literature itself.

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Title: Leaves of Grass

Author: Walt Whitman

Narrator: Mel Foster

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-10

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful". And Ralph Waldo Emerson found Leaves of Grass "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed," calling it a "combination of the Bhagavad Gita and the New York Herald."

Published at the author's own expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass initially consisted of a preface, 12 untitled poems in free verse (including the work later titled "Song of Myself", which Malcolm Cowley called "one of the great poems of modern times"), and a now-famous portrait of a devil-may-care Walt Whitman in a workman's shirt. Over the next four decades, Whitman continually expanded and revised the book as he took on the role of a workingman's bard who championed American nationalism, political democracy, contemporary progress, and unashamed sex. This volume, which contains 383 poems, is the final "Deathbed Edition", which was published in 1892.

Members Reviews:

a passionate and believable interpretation

Mel Foster has a very good understanding of Walt Whitman's poetry. He must have read a lot of it before he did this recording. He probably loved Whitman's poetry before he got this job.

I for one am sick of "way back then" styles of reading poetry. It wasn't "back then" when it was written. It should be read by someone who thinks of it as immediate and meaningful. Especially Walt Whitman's poetry.

I'm baffled as to what some people were expecting.

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Title: Little Women

Author: Louisa May Alcott

Narrator: Janet Leigh, June Allyson

Format: Abridged

Length: 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-22-10

Publisher: Saland Publishing

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Louisa May Alcott's classic novel following the lives of four sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March and based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters.

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Title: Emerson on Nature

Subtitle: The Environmental Philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrator: Don Randall

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-18-10

Publisher: Divergent Arts LTD

Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Ralph Waldo Emerson was the first American philosopher to seriously consider Nature as an essential component of human serenity. The carefully chosen chosen selections in this audiobook include essays interspersed with classic Emerson poetry.

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Title: The Call of the Wild

Author: Jack London

Narrator: Mike Boris

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-05-10

Publisher: Trout Lake Media

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 264 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Jack London's masterpiece tells the gripping tale of a dog named Buck who is wrenched out of his life of ease and luxury to become a sled dog in Alaska. Drawing on his wolf heritage, Buck must fight for survival in an alien environment.

Members Reviews:

Great Adventure Story

The opening sentence is a classic, foreshadowing the entire tale. Some anthropomorphism here, but it doesn't destroy a great adventure story, a look into the past, the Gold Rush in Alaska. The relationship between Buck and Thornton reminds us of how close man and dog can be, and the story never flags until the satisfying ending when Buck, too powerful a force to remain in civilization, returns to the wild.

I couldn't stop listening!

I read a few pages of the paperback book before I gave it to my nine-year-old grandson. When I listened to it on audible realized what an excellent story it was. Maybe a little gory for a young one. Very well read by the narrator.

FREEDOM TO CHOOSE

America is a dog obsessed nation. Jack London, in Call of the Wild, sets the pace for hundreds, if not thousands, of well-trodden stories about dogs.

Londons story is set in the time of Alaskas gold rush. Dog sledding and the value of dogs increased in proportion to a ballooning Alaskan population. Buck, after being dog-napped, is sold to various owners in Alaska to serve the burgeoning demand for improved transportation. Buck is described as a big, growing fierce, intelligent dog. He learns how to deal with sub-zero temperatures by observing and copying the habits of other dogs. London describes how Buck learns to dig a hole in sub-zero temperatures and curl into a ball to protect himself.

London shows humans to be ethnocentric users of the animal kingdom. (This is not a surprise based on sentient beings history of abuse and slavery.) On a literal plane, Buck is a dog that is exploited by humans to drive sleds across the snow and ice of Alaska. Buck competes in the animal kingdom for supremacy by defeating or cowering other dogs to become a pack leader. However, Buck is chained to a life of toil by mans domination of the non-human animal kingdom. These two forms of existence meld into one when Buck is saved by a human from abuse by his last owner; i.e. Buck becomes free to choose; free to return to the wild or stay with his human savior, not as a subject of domination but as a companion. Buck chooses to stay until his savior is murdered by a fictional tribe of Alaskan Indians. The Call of the Wild tears Buck away from humans because the wild is ironically more predictable than human civilization.

Londons story is about a dog but it is also a story about the best and worst of human beings. Whether dogs have human feelings, or humans project their feelings on dogs, or dogs are just other sentient beings is not important but freedom to choose is shown by London to be a preeminent condition of all sentient life.

Wonderful for anyone gender and any age!

What made the experience of listening to The Call of the Wild the most enjoyable?

The story moved along at a steady pace. Always gripping intriguing!

What did you like best about this story?

Honesty about human nature and our relationship to "Man's Best Friend," our dogs.

Even though I do not have a dog myself - I have total respect for what dogs can do for people. It is amazing!!

What about Mike Boriss performance did you like?

He kept me captivated as he related the story.

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Title: Moby Dick

Author: Herman Melville

Narrator: Norman Dietz

Format: Unabridged

Length: 25 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-26-10

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 60 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

On a previous voyage, a mysterious white whale had ripped off the leg of a sea captain named Ahab. Now the crew of the Pequod, on a pursuit that features constant adventure and horrendous mishaps, must follow the mad Ahab into the abyss to satisfy his unslakeable thirst for vengeance. Narrated by the cunningly observant crew member Ishmael, Moby Dick is the tale of the hunt for the elusive, omnipotent, and ultimately mystifying white whale - Moby Dick.

On its surface, Moby Dick is a vivid documentary of life aboard a 19th-century whaler, a virtual encyclopedia of whales and whaling, replete with facts, legends, and trivia that Herman Melville had gleaned from personal experience and scores of sources. But as the quest for the whale becomes increasingly perilous, the tale works on allegorical levels, likening the whale to human greed, moral consequence, good, evil, and life itself. Who is good? The great white whale who, like Nature, asks nothing but to be left in peace? Or the bold Ahab who, like scientists, explorers, and philosophers, fearlessly probes the mysteries of the universe? Who is evil? The ferocious, man-killing sea monster? Or the revenge-obsessed madman who ignores his own better nature in his quest to kill the beast?

Members Reviews:

A different but compelling reading

James Joyce once said that if Dublin were blown off the map, it could be rebuilt, brick by brick, from "Ulysses." Herman Melville tried to do something similar here: if the Nantucket whaling industry disappeared from history, it could be reconstructed in all its particulars from "Moby Dick".

It's an incredible novel. In fact, calling it just a novel is misleading: it's part documentary, part theater, part incantation, part philosophy; partly Biblical and partly Shakespearean. The riven Ahab towers over the action, his single-minded obsession occasionally giving way to a more mundane kindness; but leading him on inexorably for all that, to the smashing, chilling, crunching, annihilating climax.

Anthony Heald has given a brilliant and well-received reading of the novel. Dietz's version isn't better (or worse), just different. He is clearly reading it, where Heald sometimes sounds like he's making it up as he goes along; but there's a beautiful rhythm to Dietz's reading, a relentless pace, one phrase after another pouring out, rising and falling until the final gasp. The only thing marring it are Dietz's idiosyncratic pronunciations of some of the words: "mariner," for example, always comes out as "mah-riner," and "Ishmael" sounds more like "Ish-me-all." (Attempts to sound New Englandish?) Both readings illuminate a different aspect of the novel. I plan to keep both and listen to both again.

Cross one off the Literature Bucket List

I know people that lie about reading books: Ulysses, anything by Proust, Infinite Jest, Pride and Prejudice, even the very short Catcher in the Rye; the enjoyable Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; surprisingly the Harry Potter series; and understandably, the Russian tomes War and Peace and Crime and Punishment. Myself, I lied, by omission, about Moby Dick, having read the Cliffs Notes and passed the test in high school. It didn't bother my conscience that much since the Cliffs Notes were a whopping 100 plus pages, and I got an A.

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Title: Washington Square (Recorded Books Edition)

Author: Henry James

Narrator: John McDonough

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-12-10

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 24 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Henry James stories are classic gems of subtle wit and irony. Set in the exacting social landscape of New York City at the turn of the century, Washington Square is the tale of a wealthy but shy young woman caught between conflicting family expectations. John McDonoughs warm narration traces her remarkable inner journey.

Editorial Reviews:

In Henry James' Washington Square, a loving but simple daughter struggles to live up to her brilliant father's expectations. This tragicomedy looks at family and betrayal through this one strained parent-child relationship. John McDonough, in his versatile British voice, performs this classic stylishly. With a bright and formal tone, McDonough tackles the lyrical language with vigor. Using his vocal range, McDonough spiritedly embodies both male and female characters. Moreover, his expert pacing and smart pauses make this audiobook a cinch to follow.

Members Reviews:

Henry James is a hoot

What did you love best about Washington Square (Recorded Books Edition)?

This edition brought out the deep and sly humour in this an early work of the master.

What other book might you compare Washington Square (Recorded Books Edition) to and why?

can't think

Have you listened to any of John McDonoughs other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, he is the perfect reader for James. He has an old New England voice which gets the pronouncation of the vowels perfectly. A male Katherine Hepburn

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

A bit long, but I would if I could

Any additional comments?

This reading really brings alive an amusing tale by a master storyteller

Timeless Classic and insightful

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Our Book Club read this novel. We are a critical literary group and WS was an excellent study in early 1900's literature. We are now reading 'The Master' by Colm Toibin in a study of Henry James.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Washington Square (Recorded Books Edition)?

When the sister of the suitor told the Doctor 'Don't let your daughter marry my brother". That turned the tide.

What does John McDonough bring to the story that you wouldnt experience if you just read the book?

His deep well spoken voice was easy to listen to and suited the story.

'One of the nicest old ladies I ever met'

On a lifetime goal of reading all the classics and at least one novel by each critically renowned author, I've repeatedly avoided Henry James. I finally started on Washington Square, choosing it primarily because it's the shortest of James' novels.

This is the unhappy story of a rich, controlling, widowed father and his only child, a daughter whom the dad considers unattractive, unintelligent and uninteresting to potential suitors. So when a suitor comes calling at a society party in Washington Square, NYC, and within a few weeks asks the daughter to marry, the father suspects monetary motives. After some investigation, the father forbids the marriage, else he'll disinherit the daughter.