Showing titles in Themes & Styles

The epic poem, by Maharishi Valmiki Muni, narrates the life of Lord Rama, a legendary prince of Ayodhya city in the kingdom of Kosala. The epic follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest urged by his father King Dasharatha, on the request of Rama's stepmother Kaikeyi. He traveled across forests in the Indian subcontinent with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. Rama endured the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana–the demon king of Lanka, which resulted in a great war; and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king amidst jubilation and celebration. The

Mirabai was a Rajput princess born to the Rathore clan in 1498 in Kudaki, Rajasthan, in northern India. Despite being one of the most significant saints in the Bhakti tradition and an immensely popular Hindu mystic and religious poet, very few facts are actually known about her life including her date of birth. It is clear that her mother died when she was very young and she was greatly influenced by her father, also a worshipper of Krishna. From a young age, Mirabai’s devotion to Krishna was absolute surrender and complete devotion.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Book of Longing written and read by Leonard Cohen. Book of Longing is Leonard Cohen's first book of new poetry since Book of Mercy was published two decades ago. It collects Cohen's poetry written between the 1980s and 2006, when this book was first...

साहित्य में हमें मदिरा के ऊपर तो बहुत कुछ लिखा हुआ नज़र आता है, परंतु धूम्रपान के ऊपर कोई विशेष कार्य नहीं हुआ है। विश्व में करीब 100 करोड़ लोग सिगरेट फूँकते हैं और करीब 10 अरब सिगरेट रोज़ बिकती हैं। इतने व्यापक अस्तित्व के कारण...

The Iliad. Join Achilles at the Gates of Troy as he slays Hector to Avenge the death of Patroclus. Here is a story of love and war, hope and despair, and honor and glory. The recent major motion picture Helen of Troy starring Brad Pitt proves that this epic is as relevant today as it was twenty five hundred years ago when it was first written. So journey back to the Trojan War with Homer and relive the grandest adventure of all times. The Odyssey.

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is narrated by Singer/Songwriter and folk-punk icon Frank Turner. Frank Turner has released eight solo studio albums, the most recent of which was No Man's Land, which contained songs celebrating some of the most important women throughout history...

A classic in the Bukowski poetry canon, Love Is a Dog from Hell is a raw, lyrical, exploration of the exigencies, heartbreaks, and limits of love. A book that captures the Dirty Old Man of American letters at his fiercest and most vulnerable, on a subject that hits home with all of us. Charles...

The Iliad tells the dramatic story of the Trojan War, focusing on the wrath of Achilles and the clash between honor, pride, and fate. This timeless masterpiece, attributed to the Greek poet Homer, is brought to life through an immersive narration that captures the grandeur, fury, and poetry of ancient warfare. With dramatic performances, vibrant storytelling, and evocative soundscapes, this audiobook invites listeners into the heart of one of the most influential works in literary history.

"In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost." When you find yourself suddenly without bearings, as Dante Alighieri voiced so well centuries ago, where will you look for guidance? Throughout the ages, teaches David Whyte, the language of poetry...

Dead Souls, Gogol's epic poem in prose, is widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. We follow Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned conman, through the countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise as he arrives in the provincial town of 'N' and begins visiting various landowners to make each a strange and ghostly offer.

Rumi's Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture - and of all time. Rumi examines our human separation from reality, love, and truth. He shows how love - neither erotic nor sentimental but divine, by which the universe is held together - enlightens ignorance and dissolves suffering. The first book of the Masnavi is the key to the whole work: It takes off from simple, amusing tales into realms unimaginable, but wholly familiar to the human heart.

Our quoted authority is not the people in white coats but those with a quill, a heart and a soul that can take these feelings of love and loss and with the ink of words put to verse feelings and emotions that can be re-lived and shared by all. As they venture through depression, war, slavery to heartache and the loss of loved ones our eyes may mist and tears gently fall at what collectively we have done, have experienced, have witnessed and lost.

Paradise Lost, along with its companion piece, Paradise Regained, remain the most successful attempts at Greco-Roman style epic poetry in the English language. Remarkably enough, they were written near the end of John Milton's amazing life, a bold testimonial to his mental powers in old age. And, since he had gone completely blind in 1652, 15 years prior to Paradise Lost, he dictated it and all his other works to his daughter.

From the celebrated author of Inward comes a new collection of poetry and short prose that illuminates how past wounds impact our present relationships. In Clarity and Connection, Yung Pueblo explores how intense emotions accumulate in our subconscious and condition us to act and react the ways...

The Courage to Embrace the Gifts and Losses in Life If you never knew disappointment, would you ever grow? If you had never felt loss, could you have compassion for another? Without real heartache, would you ever know the greatness of love? On When the Heart Breaks, David Whyte invites you to...

प्रेम कितना मोहक, सम्मोहक और मादक होता है.. उसके विभिन्न पड़ावों से गुजरते हुए मैंने यह जाना है। 'मन पतंग दिल डोर' को लिखते हुए मैंने महसूस किया है कि मोहब्बत का कोई मौसम नहीं होता। वो जब हो जाए वही उसका मौसम हो जाता है। यौवन जब आता है तो अनेक मधुर एहसास लिए आता है.. उन एहसासों को शब्द मैंने नहीं दिए हैं बल्कि उन्होंने खुद अपने लिए शब्द चुने हैं।

Dante's Inferno by Dante Alighieri. The first part of Dante's Divine Comedy , the "Inferno" (or "Hell"), begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, "halfway along our life's path". Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical life expectancy of 70, lost in a dark wood, assailed by beasts he cannot evade, and unable to find the straight way to salvation. Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a deep place where the sun is silent, Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld.

Rainer Maria Rilke has been called the most significant and compelling poet of spiritual experience of the 20th century. His exploration of the struggle between life and art and the supremacy of divine love over personal love has touched the hearts of men and women everywhere. The poems in this reading are from the selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell.

From Tiktok phenomenon Whitney Hanson, a revised edition of her bestselling Home, now with a new introduction and more than a dozen new poems "the bees aren't going to go away but they are going to change with you sometimes they will be chaotic sometimes they will rest sometimes they will give...