Modern Classics

Galapagos takes the listener back one million years to AD 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Galapagos Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave, new, totally different human race. Kurt Vonnegut, America's master satirist, looks at our world and shows us all that is sadly, madly awry - and all that is worth saving.

When Garnet Raven was three years old, he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Having reached his mid-teens, he escapes at the first available opportunity, only to find himself cast adrift on the streets of the big city. Having skirted the...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Charlotte Ritchie, best known for her roles as Oregon in Channel 4's Fresh Meat, Hannah in the BBC Three comedy Siblings, and as Barbara Gilbert in BBC drama Call the Midwife. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail...

Evil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense. For 18th-century Europeans, the Lisbon earthquake was manifest evil. Today we view evil as a matter of human cruelty, and Auschwitz as its extreme incarnation. Examining our understanding of evil from the Inquisition to contemporary terrorism, Susan Neiman explores who we have become in the three centuries that separate us from the early Enlightenment. In the process, she rewrites the history of modern thought and points philosophy back to the questions that originally animated it.

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth-century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

Instant New York Times and USA Today Bestseller “Compulsively readable...a gothic thriller laced with arsenic.” ––EW One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021: CNN Newsweek Vulture PopSugar Parade BuzzFeed E!Online TimeOut Woman's Day Goodreads She...

Authors Brett and Kate McKay provide a guide for every 21st-century man to achieve true manliness and live life to its full potential.

An Oprah's Book Club Selection regarded as one of Faulkner's greatest and most accessible novels, Light in August is a timeless and riveting story of determination, tragedy, and hope. In Faulkner's iconic Yoknapatawpha County, race, sex, and religion collide around three memorable characters searching desperately for human connection and their own identities.

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without...

Firebrand NY Times columnist and bestselling author Lindy West unpacks the beloved rom-coms and cult classics we love in order to dissect the culture we've created. Lindy West was once the in-house movie critic for Seattle's alternative newsweekly The Stranger, where she covered film with brutal...

In his essay On Anger, the Roman Stoic thinker Seneca argues that anger is the most destructive passion. This splendid new translation of essential selections from On Anger, presented with an enlightening introduction, offers listeners a timeless guide to avoiding and managing anger. Drawing on his great arsenal of rhetoric, including historical examples, anecdotes, quips, and soaring flights of eloquence, Seneca builds his case against anger with mounting intensity.

“Insanely big-hearted.” —The Washington Post “Electric.” —The New York Times “Tender, immersive, and thrilling." —Gabrielle Zevin, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow "One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship.” —Stephen King, #1 bestselling author...

Rigorous, practical, and deeply reverent, Divine Providence speaks to the struggles of believers today as it tackles difficult questions with biblical truth. Does God govern the world-and how? Is he the author of sin? Why do good people suffer while bad people thrive? What does God's providence mean for how we should live our lives?

This program is read by the authors (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker), Laura Orrico and Joe Praino, with special appearances by an all-star cast of comedy giants, including the film's stars, Julie Hagerty and Robert Hays, as well as Beau Bridges, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Peter...

Packed full of adventure, this collection features eight of the best-loved stories from the creators of The Gruffalo, read by Julia Donaldson – perfect for listening to at home, in the car, at bedtime or any time at all! Join in the adventure as Mouse wanders through the deep dark wood to meet...

23 stories, all unabridged, from a diverse group of star writers and readers. A truly memorable collection with a wide appeal. Includes "The Years Midnight" by Helen Simpson, read by Harriet Walter; "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful Morning" by Haruki Marukami, read by Walter Lewis; "Bablady" by A. S. Byatt, read by Roslaind Eyres; "Hotel des Vaoyaguerus" by William Boyd, read by Martin Jarvis; and "Who?" by Fay Weldon, read by Julie Christie.

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Joan Didion's Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil—literally in Hollywood, Las...

Durraghglass is a beautiful mansion in Southern Ireland, now crumbling in neglect. The time is the present - a present that churns with the bizarre passions of its owners' past. The Swifts - three sisters of marked eccentricity, defiantly christened April, May and Baby June, and their only brother, one-eyed Jasper - have little in common, save vivid memories of darling Mummy, and a long lost youth peculiarly prone to acts of treachery.

Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist, creates a living creature from body parts, only to be horrified by his monstrous creation. Rejected by society and seeking vengeance, the creature embarks on a path of destruction.