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Kreutzer Sonata

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Published 1800 - 1900
Chapter: 28 | Listen: 13

Publication of The Kreutzer Sonata in 1889 was a significant intellectual event worldwide. Censored in Russia, it set off an explosive debate in Europe, America, and Asia on matters relating to sexual abstinence and the hypocrisy of marriage. The novella emphasizes Tolstoy’s controversial view on sexuality, which asserts that physical desire is an obstacle to relations between men and women and may result in tragedy. The Kreutzer Sonata has been recognized as among the best examples of Tolstoy’s art of storytelling.(Introduction by Dorlene Kaplan) [chương_files]

American Politician

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Published 1800 - 1900
Chapter: 23 | Listen:

In 1880’s Boston, Mass. the good life is lead according to all the Victorian era societal rules of the New World. Political ambitions and the business of making money go hand in hand. A Senate seat suddenly opens up due to the current junior senator’s unexpected death, and the political machinations to fill the seat begin. Senatorial candidate John Harrington is a young idealist who thinks that fighting for truth and justice, regardless of political affiliation, is the way. But he is told he can’t possibly win because he isn’t partisan enough. His opponents in the iron mine, railroad and shipping business sabotage his first bid for office, because he wants to do away with protectionism in trade to open up global competition. He eventually succeeds in winning a Senate seat. He gives a rousing speech to Congress as they gather to elect a President in a race which has ended in a three way tie. His message is that blindly following a party’s positions and principles is not being free and independent, and will not always lead to the best person being elected, or to the best decisions being made for the country as a whole. (Summary written by Maire Rhode) [chương_files]

Idiot (Part 01 and 02)

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Published 1800 - 1900
Chapter: 28 | Listen:

The extraordinary child-adult Prince Myshkin, confined for several years in a Swiss sanatorium suffering from severe epilepsy, returns to Russia to claim his inheritance and to find a place in healthy human society. The teeming St Petersburg community he enters is far from receptive to an innocent like himself, despite some early successes and relentless pursuit by grotesque fortune-hunters. His naive gaucheries give rise to extreme reactions among his new acquaintance, ranging from anguished protectiveness to mockery and contempt. But even before reaching the city, during the memorable train journey that opens the novel, he has encountered the demonic Rogozhin, the son of a wealthy merchant who is in thrall to the equally doomed Natasha Filippovna: beautiful, capricious and destructively neurotic, she joins with the two weirdly contrasted men in a spiralling dance of death… (Summary by Martin Geeson) This project is Part 1 & 2 of the 4 part novel Parts 3 & 4 of the novel [chương_files]

Mirror of the Sea (Version 2)

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Essays & Short Works
Chapter: 15 | Listen: 2

“Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces that, friendly to-day, without changing their nature, by the mere putting forth of their might, become dangerous to-morrow, make for that sense of fellowship which modern seamen, good men as they are, cannot hope to know.” In this volume of essays, more than in any other single work, we get to see clearly just what Joseph Conrad’s years working on sail-powered ships meant to him — and they certainly meant a great deal to him, for all Conrad’s subsequent fretting that he might be typed as “only” a writer of the sea. This collection is particularly renowned for the lengthy episode titled “The Tremolino”, where Conrad gives us, in the character of the real-world Dominic, the model of his fictional Nostromo, as well as an account of personalities and gun-running activities he would later depict in “The Arrow of Gold”. (Summary by Peter Dann) [chương_files]

Hidden Hand

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Published 1800 - 1900
Chapter: 61 | Listen: 3

“If you will listen to this book, you will meet a cast of unforgettable characters, as different from one another as the sun and moon. But they have one thing in common – all of them hide many, many secrets. The plot of this book is full of twists which may leave you guessing until the end. Bridget’s lively reading adds much to the joy of listening to this book.” (Summary by Stav Nisser) [chương_files]

Sammlung kurzer deutscher Prosa 058

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Anthologies, Essays & Short Works
Chapter: 10 | Listen: 3

Diese Sammlung umfasst 10 deutschsprachige Prosa-Texte verschiedener Genres. – Summary by schrm [chương_files]

L’Art d’être grand-père

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Poetry
Chapter: 68 | Listen: 1

L’Art d’être grand-père est un recueil de poèmes que Victor Hugo a publié en 1877. Suite à la mort de Charles Hugo, un de ses fils, et de sa femme, Victor Hugo prend en charge ses deux petits enfants Georges et Jeanne Hugo. Il écrit plusieurs poèmes illustrant les comportements et l’innocence reliée à ses petits-enfants qu’il élève seul et avec tendresse. (Résumé par Wikipédia) L’Art d’être grand-père (”The Art of Being a Grandfather”) is a series of eighteen poems by Victor Hugo, published in 1877. They were among the last he wrote. On 13 March 1871, his 44-year-old son Charles died of a stroke, while riding in a carriage to a farewell dinner for some of Victor’s friends at a restaurant in Bordeaux. Charles’s wife died shortly afterwards, and Victor Hugo became the guardian of their children, Georges and Jeanne Hugo. The poems describe the feelings of a grandfather entrusted with innocent young children. Love and tenderness are celebrated, and the complexities, politics, and grand themes of his other poems are set aside. [chương_files]

Wine, Water and Song

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Poetry
Chapter: 16 | Listen: 1

A collection of 16 poems by G.K. Chesterton. All of the poems in this book, except for “The Strange Ascetic” are taken from “The Flying Inn”, a book by the same author. [chương_files]

The Lays of Ancient Rome

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Poetry
Chapter: 4 | Listen: 5

The Lays of Ancient Rome comprise four narrative poems comprised by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay: recalling popular episodes from Roman historical-legends that were strongly moral in tone: exemplifying Roman virtue against Latine perfidy. The four poems are: – Horatius – Horatius and two companions seek to hold back a large invading Etruscan force at the far end of a bridge over the Tiber River. The trio are willing to lay down their lives so as to prevent the Etruscans crossing and sacking the otherwise ill-defended Rome: it is a desperate gamble to buy enough time for the Romans to destroy the bridge in advance of the hostile army. But will their efforts succeed? – The Battle of Lake Regillus – The Romans take arms against the powerful Latine league headed by the expelled Tarquin nobles. The fighting is desperate and bloody: the event is decided only after the arrival upon the battlefield of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. – Virginia – Virginia is the daughter of Virginius – a poor, honest Roman farmer-citizen. In former years Virginius enlisted as a legionary and shed his blood to fight Rome’s enemies: now Virginius – like other Romans of the humbler sort – suffer the usurious exactions of noblemen like the wicked Appius Claudius. Appius Claudius uses spurious legal means to take possession of Virginia as his “runaway slave”: action guaranteed to succeed given the incumbent corrupt magistracy. So what can Virginius do? To what extremes is the father forced to protect […]

Honour of the Gout

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Essays & Short Works, Humor, Medical
Chapter: 8 | Listen:

This droll and ‘enflammatory’ pamphelet doth be a grondebreaking worke of musing upon a great aflicktion of Man, upon the better nature of that aflicktion, and upon the vain and mischievous cheats who affeckt to cure it. The gauntlet here so-toss’d by Philander Misaurus was later pick’d up by surgeon John Marten in his rejoinder, titled by the name–”The Dishonour of the Gout”. Which seeketh to shew all minds swayed by Philander’s prettie words that—indubitably—Gout is misfortune. – Summary by Alasdair (Alister) [chương_files]