Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in World Literature

In this award-winning screenplay, Bee Haden convinces her son, Tom, to drive with her from Los Angeles to Cape Cod. On the road they eventually discover that love is the only thing we can really give our children.

Written by Hermann Hesse in 1922, Siddhartha is a timeless tale of a man’s quest for self-discovery and enlightenment. The story follows Siddhartha from youth to old age, chronicling his profound journey to understand himself and the world around him.

One of Hemingway's most acclaimed novels, "A Farewell to Arms," narrated by Mike Vendetti. Set during World War I, this poignant love story draws upon Hemingway's own experiences as an ambulance driver. Within the backdrop of war's brutality, the narrative balances moments of humor with the profound horrors of battle. Hemingway, a master of literary expression, skillfully captures the complex emotions of love, fear, and the occasional levity that can emerge even in the darkest of circumstances, offering listeners a deeply immersive experience.

In the blistering heat of rural Mississippi, the Bundren family loads their dead matriarch, Addie, into a handmade coffin and sets out on a bleak, often darkly comic journey to bury her in her hometown of Jefferson. Each mile of flooded rivers, broken bones, starving mules, and simmering resentments peels back another layer of this family's grief, faith, and desperation, as husband Anse and children Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman tell the story in their own, often clashing voices.

Possibly one of the most dissected poems ever, Eliot's poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism, and the Hindu Upanishads. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.

War and Peace is rightly considered to be one of the most important books ever written. Leo Tolstoy's epic novel chronicles the Napoleonic Wars from the viewpoint of five noble Russian families: Rostov, Bolkonsky, Bezukhov, Drubetskoy and Kuragin. The main story begins in 1805 with Napoleon's impending invasion of Austria, and ends with his disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1813, moving deftly between geopolitics, military strategy, family alliances, religion and philosophy as the men and women of these families try to survive and get ahead.

Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, published in 1905, is considered one of the earliest feminist science fiction works, especially in South Asian literature.

This collection of 35 poems is a sequel to a volume of lyrical ballads first published in 1798. While the first volume was a collaboration between Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this anthology contains verses by Wordsworth only. Generally, the poems are less well-known than those of the earlier volume but do include major narrative pieces, like "The Pastoral Epics", "The Brothers", and "Michael".

The action of this play, which occurs during a conflict on the Balkans, is initiated by the discovery by Raina, the daughter of an military officer, of a man who has taken refuge in her bedroom. Unfortunately, the man belongs to the opposing army. How will she deal with a notional enemy who behaves with such quixotic courtesy?

Queen Marguerite de Navarre was one of the most powerful women of her age. Her masterpiece, The Heptameron, is a collection of some 72 stories told by five gentlemen and five ladies who find themselves stranded in an abbey. Proposed as an edifying way of passing the time while a bridge is being repaired, the tale-telling - as well as the conversations that follow each story - quickly becomes a battle of wits between the sexes, with tales concerning illicit lovers, romantic conquests, lecherous monks, manly honor, and women's virtue.

Pangloss would have been right at home in a post-truth, social media world. You can imagine the tweets, “I was hanged and survived #soggyrope,” or, “#nosyphilisnochocolate.” Candide, written in 1759, was never more relevant than today. Blind obeisance and denial, barbarous villainy, greed, and rapacity, are all in a day’s toil for the young Candide. And this is in the best of all possible worlds!

In his first collection of golfing stories, presided over benignly by the Oldest Member, Wodehouse extracts high comedy from the noble and mysterious game. Including the clash of literature and golf that impedes the romantic progress of Cuthbert Banks; the horror of golfing garrulity; two cases of ordeal by golf between romantic rivals of sharply varying skill; the advantages of encouraging women to take up golf; and the remarkable golfing career of American multi-millionaire Vincent Jopp, whose overwhelming confidence seems certain to make him amateur champion in his first season.

Audie-nominated narrator Deepti Gupta shares a classic love story set among the fires of India's struggle for independence. Bimala is torn between her commitment to her husband, Nikhil, who holds Western beliefs, and the radical Sandip, a leader of the Swadeshi movement under the British Raj. Bimala finds herself asking what freedom truly means for herself and for her country.

A British newspaper editor in India does some favors for a memorable pair of strangers who confide in him their plan to become kings in Afghanistan. Then, two years later, he has a bizarre return visit - kings they have become, sure enough, but they've found the price of kingly mistakes was very high!

Imagine waking up one morning and finding that you are a giant insect, a cockroach, still perceiving your surroundings and family as they are, but unable to comminicate. This is what happens to Gregor Samsa. Yesterday he was a traveling salesman, and today he finds himself a repulsive vermin.

Keats commenced writing his epic poem, Hyperion, in 1818 and ceased working on it in the spring of 1819. He said that he gave the project up for having "too many Miltonic inversions." The unfinished poem, which ceases in the middle of the third canto, was published in 1820. The narrative is based on the Titanomachia, or War of the Titans, and describes the aftermath of their fall to the Olympian Gods.

Alexander Pope was celebrated for his command of classical Greek and produced seminal translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Prior to the preparation of these translations, Pope took advantage of his mastery of the classical style and also his waspish wit to compose a burlesque epic about the theft of a lock of hair. The incident that inspired Pope was related to him by his friend John Caryll. Lord Petre had cut off a lock of the hair of Arabella Fermor, whom he was courting at the time, without asking the lady's permission.

In "The Auction" by Stephen Crane, brought to life by Mike Vendetti, we are transported to a public auction featuring the possessions of a former sailor named Ferguson. Tired of life at sea, Ferguson meets a woman who symbolizes everything he wishes to embrace away from the ocean's call. They marry and begin building their life together on dry land. During his time at sea, Ferguson had a pet parrot that traveled with him, and his wife soon became enamored with the lively bird, making it a beloved member of their home.

Award-winning audiobook narrator Mike Vendetti performs Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, one of Poe's best. Poe had a fear of being buried alive, and this theme runs through many of his tales, as it does this one. Poe may have also been a bit mad, and there is definitely madness in the House of Usher. Turn out the lights, and give this Gothic tale of horror a listen, but make sure you aren't alone.

Here are the best-loved poems from the final phase of Robert Browning's long and ever-productive career—sharp-eyed and quick-witted, brimming with zest and verve and sparkle, yet equally keen to probe the "bad dreams," the dim-seen, sinister crannies within the human soul.