Listen to Best Sellers Audiobooks in Classics, British Literature Best Sellers

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Title: Michel de Montaigne (1553 - 1592)

Author: Michel de Montaigne

Narrator: Neville Jason

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-04-13

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

This is an essay from the Favorite Essays collection.

Here, in this unusual collection, are some of the greatest essays in Western literature. Witty, informative and imaginative, the topics vary from starvation in Ireland, fine China, the extension of railways in the Lake District, and the tombs in Westminster Abbey. A little like after-dinner monologues, they are passing thoughts expressed as journalism. Neville Jason reads with urbane clarity.

Editorial Reviews:

Here, Neville Jason shares three works by French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne: "Of Idleness", "Of Quick or Slow Speech", and "That We Should Not Judge of Our Happiness Until After Our Death". These nuggets of wisdom from the 16th century have inspired great thinkers for centuries and are foundational to modern skepticism. Jason's performance gives these thought-provokers their due, handling challenging Latin quotations with aplomb. Though the syntax is a tad antiquated, Jason's clear articulation helps ease the experience. Instead of taking a break to watch TV, give your brain something quick and fascinating to chew on with Neville Jason's collected famous audio essays.

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Title: Sons and Lovers

Author: D. H. Lawrence

Narrator: Flo Gibson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-26-13

Publisher: Audio Book Contractors

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Set near the Nottinghamshire coalfields where his father was a miner, Lawrence's autobiographical novel explores Paul Morel's relationship with his mother and his passion for two other women. It is a conflict which pits love against possessiveness.

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. If ever existed a mater as possessive, as obsessed with her son, and as controlling and manipulative as Gertrude Morel, I'm hard pressed at the moment to recall one. Married to a coal miner whom she has grown to hate, invested in a first son who, when on the verge of promise, dies, Mrs.

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Title: The Return of the Native

Author: Thomas Hardy

Narrator: Flo Gibson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-26-13

Publisher: Audio Book Contractors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Eustacia Vye, sensuous and wild as the moors of Egdon Heath, brings nothing but misfortune to her lovers, Damon Wildeve and Clym Yeobright. This, contrasted with the kindness and faithfulness of the reddleman Diggory Venn, Thomasin, and the local furze cutters, all combine to form a gripping tale.

Members Reviews:

A great classic written by a great author

Thomas Hardy truly captures the time and place in this, one of his most famous novels . Although not one of my favorite Hardy novels,it held me fast as they all do.

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Title: The Wonderful Garden

Author: E. Nesbit

Narrator: Flo Gibson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-05-13

Publisher: Audio Book Contractors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

The book The Language of Flowers, an uncle who writes about magic and a wonderful garden combine to create spells and wonders in the lives of four very imaginative children.

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Title: The Merchant of Venice

Author: William Shakespeare

Narrator: Flo Gibson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-05-13

Publisher: Audio Book Contractors

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Shylock demands a pind of flesh from Antonio's body in payment of a loan. Bassanio's wife Portia, disguised as a lawyer, wins the case for Shylock - but with a very interesting string attached.

Members Reviews:

Many questions

This play is really entertaining and funny, with beautiful monologues like "If you prick us, do we not bleed?", the origin (popularizer?) of sayings such as "All that glitters is not gold" and "others have greatness thrust upon them."

This story is about tests: the tests with the caskets to win a bride, the test of a pound of flesh, the test with the rings... What was the point of the test with the rings- to prove Portia's cleverness? The play left me with many questions. Is Antonio the title character, and if so, why is he not really in the play at all and why would you name your play after the idiot willing to lend his friend a ton of money just to get a girl?

Shylock is cool and persuasive. You can't really fault him for wanting to kill someone ignorant and rude enough to openly mock and hate you while still expecting you to loan him money despite disparaging the profession.

There's a promise made but broken due to a technicality, and then broken promises salvaged based on love. Maybe mercy is what Shakespeare preaches when people break their promises unintentionally, or maybe mercy is what happens when you have good intentions, or maybe you can't expect mercy when public opinion is against you, or maybe there's no moral at all. So many questions!

Of course it rates a 'five'! It's Shakespeare!

As is usually the case with a digitized 'rendering'of a print edition of a work, there are some navigation challenges with this edition of The Merchant. But the minimal footnote edit of this version of the play reduces the annoyance significantly. Kean's notes are a nice touch from a historical perspective. And the Bard is always a bargain for your reading time and dollar.

Five Stars

Very good

I love skylock!

Excellent, I enjoyed this so much; I read the tempest after.

Skylock is my hero! I want a pound of flesh!

I revel in feeding the revenge of the Merchant of Venice

And what is my reason? It is a play.

Hath not a play pages? Hath not a play words, sentences,

soliloquies, diatribes? Sourced from the same brains,

embodied on the same pages, scribed with the same ink,

collecting dust on the same forgotten library shelf?

If you read it, does it not entertain?

If you skim the cliffs notes, does it not make sense?

If you ignore it, does it not become required reading?

If it is like other literature in the rest, it resembles literature in that.

If a novel be more highly regarded than a play, what is the result? New York Times Best Seller.

If a play be more highly regarded than a novel, what is the result? Why, obscurity in the popular forum.

Thus the villany it teaches, teachers will execute, and it shall go onto the syllabus with better the instruction.

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Title: A Christmas Carol

Author: Charles Dickens

Narrator: Flo Gibson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-18-13

Publisher: Audio Book Contractors, Inc.

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Miserly Scrooge is taken by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to view scenes of how he has affected the lives of such unforgettable characters as Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and the Fezziwigs.

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Title: The Fiddler of the Reels

Author: Thomas Hardy

Narrator: Ken Colley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 46 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-20-13

Publisher: The Lindsay Players

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

"Wat Ollamoor - if that were his real name... was a womans man." Occasionally, his dexterous expertise on the fiddle produced a "...moving effect upon the souls of grown-up persons, especially young women of fragile and responsive organization. Such an one was Car'line Aspent.... Though she was already engaged to be married before she met him, Carline, of them all, was the most influenced by Mop Ollamoors heart-stealing melodies...."

Published in 1893, The Fiddler of the Reels illustrates Thomas Hardys compassion and understanding of the frailities and susceptibilities of human nature.

Members Reviews:

I enjoy it each time

I am a fan of Ken Colley who is the narrator of this audio book. I have listened to it many times. I enjoy it each time. Mr. Colley's narration is a bit unique in that he doesn't speak as clearly as other book narrators to whom you may have listened. I don't mind it at all and it doesn't take anything away from the listening experience for me. Interesting story that I wasn't familiar with until downloading this audio.

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Title: Greater Love

Author: Bram Stoker

Narrator: James Langton

Format: Unabridged

Length: 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-20-13

Publisher: Harmonic Wave

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Bill and Joe, two best friends, discover they have both fallen in love with Mary, a girl they have grown up with and enjoyed a close friendship with throughout their lives. They both decide that they do not want to tell her about their feelings, but they must do something about it before another man comes along and steals her away. And so they decide that Joe will go to her first and confess his feelings, and let Mary decide if she feels the same or if she might prefer Bill instead. But even after she makes her choice, the other man winds up making the ultimate sacrifice out of his love for Mary.

Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish writer of novels and short stories, most famous for his Gothic horror novel Dracula. Although he wrote throughout his life while working as a personal assistant and theater manager, he did not achieve much literary fame until after his death.

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Title: The Fatal Gift

Author: Alec Waugh

Narrator: Aaron Abano

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-30-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

If you enjoyed the powerful atmosphere of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby you may just have an inkling of the smoothly professional efficacy of Alec Waugh's The Fatal Gift.

His novel breathes the values and attitudes of the early decades of the 20th century. Raymond Peronne has wealth, is bright, is devastatingly attractive to women: his fatal gift. Second son of a baronet, Perronne goes to Oxford (from which he is rusticated), then to New York (in the '20s and '30s) and is in Egypt during the war (moving in circles then, as in this novel, inhabited by such as Evelyn Waugh, Claud Cockburn and Robin Maugham). In tense anticipation we watch Peronne, for whom good fortune seems always imminent, fall at every point-until he finds the isle of Dominica and begins a love affair the like of which he has never known.

Alec Waugh (1898-1981) was a British novelist born in London and educated at Sherborne Public School, Dorset. Waughs first novel, The Loom of Youth (1917), is a semi-autobiographical account of public-school life that caused some controversy at the time and led to his expulsion. Waugh was the only boy ever to be expelled from The Old Shirburnian Society.

Despite setting this record, Waugh went on to become the successful author of over 50 works, and lived in many exotic places throughout his life which later became the settings for some of his texts. He was also a noted wine connoisseur and campaigned to make the cocktail party a regular feature of 1920s social life.

Members Reviews:

Neglected older brother

Alec Waugh absolutely captures the pre-world war 1 rise of a smart wine merchant merchant and his family into respectability and wealth and on into the 1920s. The narrator has the accents and nuances down pat. I remember older people talking this way into the 1950s. The descriptions of character and place are vivid. The story held me and I was very unhappy when I had finished it. Shell shocked veterans and suffragettes are all there. Excellent escapist summer read and written in beautiful prose.

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Title: Stolthed og Fordom [Pride and Prejudice]

Author: Jane Austen

Narrator: Annette Grunnet

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-19-13

Publisher: Viatone

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Da Elizabeth Bennet frste gang mder Fitzwilliam Darcy, finder hun ham arrogant og indbildsk allerede inden, han ved samme lejlighed hjlydt fornrmer hendes udseende. Da hun senere finder ud af, at Darcy er hovedrsagen til, at hendes elskede sster Jane ikke kan f den mand, hun elsker, vokser hendes i forvejen strke modvilje mod ham endnu mere.

I den begivenhedsrige fortlling, der herefter flger, udstiller Jane Austen, hvor lidt man kan stole p frstehndsindtryk, ligesom hun p karakteristisk ironisk vis udstiller snobberi, dumhed, selvoptagethed og flosset moral i det 19. rhundredes provinsielle middelklasseliv i England. Det lyder mske trivielt, men det er det ikke.

Det er Jane Austen, nr hun er bedst, og Stolthed og Fordom er en af de uomgngelige krlighedsromaner i litteraturhistorien.

Please note: This audiobook is in Danish.

Critic Reviews:

Trods sit antikverede, engelske middelklassemilj med dets liges forldede knsroller evner en roman som Austens Stolthed og fordom (1813) at skildre krlighed og lngsler, s flelserne str tindrende klare for lseren. (Lars Handesten, Berlingske)

Stolthed og Fordom handler ogs om det, alle store romaner omhandler: sgningen efter selvet. Og det er den frste store roman, der lrer os, at denne sgning lige s vel kan finde sted gennem smsnak i dagligstuen som i jagten p en stor hvid hval eller i den offentlige afstraffelse af utroskab. (Anna Quindlen, Modern Library)

Members Reviews:

One Star

The translation is aughfull - I'll never buy anotherbook translatede by Amazon

And this is the same for Emma!

Unacceptable

see my review of "Emma"