Showing results by narrator "Denis Daly" in All Categories

While he is most famous for his didactic fable, The Prophet, the works of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) address a wide range of philosophical and social issues. The overriding theme of his narratives is not the religious universalism that he is supposed to represent, but rather the inevitable conflict between human aspirations and the remorseless machinations of fate.

This short work is one of the first great classics of self-help literature, and has never been out of print since it was first published in 1902. Allen's main thesis is that thought is not just a vehicle for comprehending and explaining the world, but is also the prime mechanism for creating and changing human experience. While Allen's views may remain controversial, a vast audience has found his work greatly inspiring. A new recording of one of the most revered self-help classics narrated by Denis Daly.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (aka PG Wodehouse) wrote in excess of 90 books, 40 plays, and 200 short stories between 1902 and 1974 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest humorists of the 20th century. Right Ho, Jeeves! is his second in a series of books written about a luckless young British millionaire named Bertram Wooster and his sharp valet, Jeeves.

This 1918 novella presents the life history of an ideal inamorata, universally admired and doomed to an untimely passing. The author uses the story to explore in-depth the concept of beauty, both personal and spiritual.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a poetic marvel, a work that has survived translation into many languages, while losing little of its force and its wry character. As a source of literary imagery and memorable quotations it ranks with the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. While Edward Fitzgerald was neither the first nor the most scholarly of the English translators of the Rubaiyat, his translation has been largely responsible for the world-wide popularity of this monument of classic Persian poetry.

Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It are usually regarded as Shakespeare’s crowning achievements in the world of mirth and humor. In this group of plays, written during the playwright’s Second Period (1595–1600), the author depicts chiefly the cheerful, energetic side...

Among the monuments of world literature, few works have been as influential as the Divine Comedy. Dante's compendious allegory of a journey through the world of the afterlife is significant on many levels. It established Italian as a literary language, and consolidated the position of Florentine Italian as the lingua franca of the Italian peninsula. As an engaging portrait of the social and intellectual life in medieval Florence it is unrivalled

This book on memory is not a catalogue of mnemonic techniques but rather a survey of its whole structure and operation. In the first chapter, Atkinson writes: "We see that the cultivation of memory is far more than the cultivation and development of a single mental faculty—it is the cultivation and development of our entire mental being—the development of our selves."

This universalist spiritual treatise is the best known work by the Lebanese-born poet and artist Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). The central figure of the narrative is a fictional prophet, Al Mustafa, who is about to set off on a journey back to his homeland. His departure is delayed when he encounters a group of people who urgently seek his advice on a wide range of topics ranging from the mundane to the highest flights of spiritual introspection.

James Allen (1864-1912) was a philosopher and pioneer of the New Thought movement. A prolific author, his works have become a fundamental source for many of the concepts used today in motivational and self-help programs. The Mastery of Destiny is Allen's treatise on the apparent conflict between fate and free will. He states that there is a method by which these opposing forces can be reconciled.

Dooman's translation of the Rubaiyat, containing 180 quatrains, was first published in 1911. It has a roughhewn quality, reminiscent of the style of an earlier American translator, John Payne, who published a collection of 845 quatrains in 1898.

Together with the Iliad, the Odyssey, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost, the Aeneid is one of the true monuments of world literature. Like all these great classics, over the centuries it has become stultified by academic formalism, and its true glory as a narrative of thrilling power and richness has become very much obscured. This new translation seeks to highlight the vigor and immediacy of Virgil's epic while still respecting the grandeur of the original language.

Gitanjali (song offerings) is a collection of 103 devotional poems written originally in Bengali and first published in 1910. In 1912 a translation into English by the author was published in 1912, and led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is one of the earliest and most compelling presentations of the story of a man who sold his soul to the Devil. It is based on the popular history of Johann Georg Faust (1466–1541) a German chemist and magician, allegedly perished in an explosion during an alchemical experiment. In the theologically charged world of early reformation Germany, a report spread that his violent death was a demonstration that the devil had come to collect his soul. The legend spread quickly and has formed the basis of many later literary and dramatic works.

Caliban is a major character in The Tempest by Shakespeare. He is a deformed monster, the offspring of Sycrorax, a witch. Prospero, a magician who presides over the island where Caliban dwells, has made him a servant. This galls Caliban's spirit, as he believes himself to be the rightful ruler of the island. Setebos is the deity who was worshipped by Sycorax and is mentioned by Caliban in two scenes.

Thomas Troward was a divisional Judge in British-administered India, who had a particular interest in the study of comparative religion. The major influence on his thinking, as well as on his writing, was the Bible, although he also considered the elements of ancient Mesopotamian religions, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in his deliberations. After his retirement from the judiciary in 1896, Troward applied himself to the study of cause and effect in the spiritual realms using the principles of judicial investigation.

This collection of miscellaneous essays was published posthumously in 1921. In the first and largest section, The Hidden Power, the author identifies Spirit as the "innermost within" of all things and the unseen essence of all phenomena. He develops this proposition to claim that Spiritual Science has fixed laws just as does Physical Science, and that an understanding of the laws could enable man to develop powers of which he is currently unaware. The other essays cover a range of topics relating to metaphysics, the Bible and other arcana of religion.

In Rhonda Byrne's self-help book, The Secret, published in 2006, the theory of the Law of Attraction is presented as a re-discovery of an ancient metaphysical principle, buried in ages of historical neglect. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Exactly a century earlier, prolific New Thought author William Walker Atkinson published Thought Vibration, a succinct but thorough examination of the power of thought and its function in the creation and control of personal circumstances.

Although the historicity of Sun Tzu is today in dispute, his short treatise on the art of war has remained a pre-eminent classic of military philosophy and practice. In this small audiobook, the author describes in trenchant detail the approach and methods required for success in any combative endeavor. The principles he enunciates have been widely applied not only by leaders in the military but also in business, politics, sports, and education.

In this poem, Arnold tells the story of an Oxford student who abandons academic life to join a band of gypsies. He learns their mysterious, almost magical, and clearly unacademic knowledge and devotes himself to a lifelong quest for direct perception of truth. Unlike the people with whom the poet is surrounded, he never becomes distracted or challenged by corrosive doubt or concern about the trivialities of suburban life.