Résultats Éditeur "Naxos AudioBooks" dans Littérature et fiction

With one impatient phone call, a young Christopher Isherwood is drawn into the film industry. On the other end of the line is the brilliant yet temperamental Austrian director Friedrich Bergmann. Christopher’s job is to rescue the script of a saccharine love story set in nineteenth-century Vienna, a film called Prater Violet. Meanwhile, in the real Vienna of 1934, the Austrian right crushes a socialist uprising. Bergmann is distraught; his family is in danger in Vienna, while his prophecy of a coming war goes unheeded by his British colleagues.

Frugal and fearsome, Horace Lamb rules his household with whimsical tirades and oppressive sarcasm. While his wife and five children shiver through the cold months and live in quiet dread, the shrewd Bullivant maintains a sharp servant’s grip on all situations. When Horace transforms overnight to be considerate and caring, chaos ensues–and at the heart of the turmoil are the servants, who watch, scheme and survive as the family’s grievances spill out.

Breaking a long silence, Oliver, a young Englishman, writes to his elder brother, Patrick. Oliver, the idealistic younger brother, is living in a Hindu monastery and has decided to take his final monastic vows. Patrick, a successful, long-married publisher, newly in love with a boy in Los Angeles, decides to visit Oliver to persuade him not to renounce the world.

Isak, a strong, stoical ‘tiller of the ground, body and soul’, makes his way into the Norwegian hinterlands and settles on an area of land that suits him, unaware that it belongs to the state. He fashions the land into a farm, named ‘Sellanraa’ by the enigmatic Lensmand Geissler, and builds a life for himself with his wife, Inger, and their children. Together they endure the seasons and the encroachment of industrialisation as they cultivate the land and make it fertile, proving that fulfilment lies with the soil.

The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.

"Abandon all hope you who enter here." ( "Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate.") Dante’s Hell is one of the most remarkable visions in Western literature. An allegory for his and future ages, it is, at the same time, an account of terrifying realism. Passing under a lintel emblazoned with these frightening words, the poet is led down into the depths by Virgil and shown those doomed to suffer eternal torment for vices exhibited and sins committed on earth.

There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.

Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, wine and his peccadilloes.

Charles Dickens was a major contributor to the romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in the Victorian era. With their heart, humor and good morals, Dickens' Christmas stories have made the author's name synonymous with the season. Here we present four charming novellas to complete his series that began with "A Christmas Carol", with echoes of sleigh bells throughout. The stories include "The Chimes", "The Cricket on the Hearth", "The Battle of Life", and "The Haunted Man" - the perfect companion for the yearly celebrations.

Of all the legends of Western civilization, perhaps the glorious adventures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are the best known. The Quest for the Holy Grail, and the undying illicit love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenevere, have provided inspiration for storytellers and poets down the ages, and sparked so many films and books of our own time.

In On the Genealogy of Morals, subtitled "A Polemic", Nietzsche furthers his pursuit of a clarity that is less tainted by imposed prejudices. He looks at the way attitudes towards 'morality' evolved and the way congenital ideas of morality were heavily colored by the Judaic and Christian traditions.

The Beetle is a horror novel that was published in 1897 and significantly outsold Dracula, which appeared in the same year. A polymorphous Egyptian creature – the Beetle – seeks revenge on the eminent British politician Paul Lessingham for crimes committed against the disciples of an ancient cult. Although it is less well-known than Dracula to modern audiences, The Beetle remains a leading example of the Gothic novel.

Quo Vadis, best known for its star-studded 1951 film version, was first published in 1896 and contributed to the author’s Nobel Prize for Literature of 1905. Set in the latter years of the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, the plot concerns the love between a young Christian woman, Lygia, and a Roman patrician, Marcus Vinicius.

Assembled from notes and jottings left unpublished at the time of the author’s death, The Book of Disquiet is a collection of aphoristic prose-poetry musings on dreams, solitude, time and memory. Credited to Pessoa’s alter ego, Bernardo Soares, who chronicles his contemplations in this so-called "factless" autobiography, the work is a journey of one man’s soul and, by extension, of all human souls that allow their minds and hearts to roam far and free.

On a train to Berlin in late 1930, William Bradshaw locks eyes with Arthur Norris. This chance encounter ignites a close friendship between the two Englishmen, one that draws Bradshaw into the seedier quarters of the city. Here, Norris runs a dubious import–export business and lives in excited fear of his bullying secretary, his creditors and his dominatrix girlfriend, Anni. Yet there is something sinister about Norris himself. Bradshaw’s new companion is a man of contradictions: heavily in debt but extraordinarily lavish, excessively polite but sexually deviant.

Young Julien Sorel, the son of a country timber merchant, carries a portrait of his hero Napoleon Bonaparte and dreams of military glory. A brilliant career in the Church leads him into Parisian high society, where, 'mounted upon the finest horse in Alsace', he gains high military office and wins the heart of the aristocratic Mlle Mathilde de la Mole. Julien's cunning and ambition lead him into all sorts of scrapes.

Sir Ian McKellen, fresh from his performance as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, is Prospero, and heads a strong cast in Shakespeare’s last great play. The wronged duke raises a tempest to shipwreck his old opponents on his island so that he can ensure justice is done. With Emilia Fox as Miranda, Scott Handy in the pivotal role of the sprite Ariel, and Ben Owukwe as Caliban.

From the perspective of an unbeliever, Fear and Trembling explores the paradox of faith, the nature of Christianity, and the complexity of human emotion. Kierkegaard examines the biblical story of Abraham, who was instructed to sacrifice his son Isaac, and forces us to consider Abraham's state of mind. What drove Abraham, and what made him carry out such an absurd and extreme request from God? Kierkegaard argues that Abraham's agreement to sacrifice Isaac, and his suspension of reason, elevated him to the highest level of faith.

Father Ambrosio, the most pious and venerated monk in all of Madrid, is held as a paragon of virtue. But after 30 years of study and prayer, evil thoughts begin to permeate his mind. As two plots cleverly converge, torture, murder, incest, rape, poison, and magic prevail, sustained by an elegance in the writing of the 19-year-old Matthew Lewis.