Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Classics

The city of Bulikov once wielded the powers of the gods to conquer the world, enslaving and brutalizing millions - until its divine protectors were killed. Now Bulikov has become just another colonial outpost of the world's new geopolitical power, but the surreal landscape of the city itself - first shaped, now shattered, by the thousands of miracles its guardians once worked upon it - stands as a constant, haunting reminder of its former supremacy. Into this broken city steps Shara Thivani.

Elnora Comstock lives with her widowed mother at the edge of Limberlost Swamp. Her mother is harsh and critical of her daughter, but Elnora is a loving girl who befriends all creatures. She is especially drawn to the beautiful moths that flutter through the trees in Limberlost. Although Elnora longs to go to high school, she has no money to pay for tuition and books. When her cruel mother refuses to help, all seems lost, until Elnora learns she can sell the rare insects she collects. Still, her journey through high school and college will be full of challenges - and surprises.

Recently orphaned, young Rose Campbell is sent to the "Aunt Hill", where Uncle Alex, her six aunts, and seven boy cousins live in noisy confusion. It is nothing like the quiet girls’ boarding school that has been Rose’s home for the past year. Surrounded by a bewildering array of pets, relatives, and unfamiliar foods, the fragile girl wonders if she will ever get used to this new life. Fortunately, Uncle Alex is her guardian. He keeps the aunts from coddling her too much, and makes sure that she has plenty of time to play outside with her cousins.

Vergil's innovative experiment restructuring the cells of a common virus becomes a nightmare when, in order to save his research, Vergil injects the entire culture into his bloodstream.

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is universally regarded as one of literature's finest achievements, as the great Russian novelist explores the inner workings of a troubled intellectual. Raskolnikov, a nihilistic young man in the midst of a spiritual crisis, makes the fateful decision to murder a cruel pawnbroker, justifying his actions by relying on science and reason, and creating his own morality system. Dehumanized yet sympathetic, exhausted yet hopeful, Raskolnikov represents the best and worst elements of modern intellectualism. The aftermath of his crime and Petrovich's murder investigation result in an utterly compelling, truly unforgettable cat-and-mouse game. This stunning dramatization of Dostoevsky's magnum opus brings the slums of St. Petersburg and the demons of Raskolnikov's tortured mind vividly to life.

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s startling book led, almost 30 years later, to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the "Fall of the Wall". One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brilliantly portrays a single day, any day, in the life of a single Russian soldier who was captured by the Germans in 1945 and who managed to escape a few days later. Along with millions of others, this soldier was charged with some sort of political crime, and since it was easier to confess than deny it and die, Ivan Denisovich "confessed" to "high treason" and received a sentence of 10 years in a Siberian labor camp.

Newland Archer is a young lawyer, a member of New York’s high society, and engaged to be married to May Welland. Countess Ellen Olenska is May’s cousin, and wants a divorce from the Polish nobleman she married. Intelligent and beautiful, she comes back to New York where she tries to fit into the high society life she had before her marriage. Her family and former friends, however, are shocked by the idea of divorce within their social circle, and she finds herself snubbed by her own class. Ellen and Newland fall in love and must choose between passion and conventions.

Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.

Eight hundred women and children begin a 1,200-mile journey on foot across Japanese-occupied Malaya. At journey’s end, only 30 will still be alive. This is the story of one woman, of her ordeal, and of how she was saved by the sacrifice of an Australian soldier. It is a story of rare individual courage in the face of certain death, and hope in the face of despair.

This collection of 11 stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as "The Snowstorm", "Lucerne", "The Diary of a Madman", and "The Devil" are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious thought that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy.

Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.

They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one - the great WE. In all that was left of humanity, there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge.

This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin. And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimand-sol, King’s Raider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle. And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies.

Audie Award, Literary Fiction, 2016. The story of Jack Crabbe, raised by both a white man and a Cheyenne chief. As a Cheyenne, Jack ate dog, had four wives, and saw his people butchered by General Custer's soldiers. As a white man, he participated in the slaughter of the buffalo and tangled with Wyatt Earp.

Lady Chatterley’s husband returns from the War paralysed from the waist down. Frustrated by his attitudes as much as his disability, she begins a love-affair with the gamekeeper, Mellors. She realises that to be fully alive she must live the life of the body as well as the mind, but in doing so she angers the conventions of her day. Banned for over 30 years for the explicit nature of its language and descriptions of sex, Lady Chatterley’s Lover also exposes the dehumanisation of the mechanical age, and underlines the profound power of tenderness.

Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is as vast and deep as the whole wide world that lies beyond the city limits. It is a pair of brand-new tennis shoes, the first harvest of dandelions for Grandfather's renowned intoxicant, the distant clang of the trolley's bell on a hazy afternoon. It is yesteryear and tomorrow blended into an unforgettable always. But as young Douglas is about to discover, summer can be more than the repetition of established rituals whose mystical power holds time at bay.

Laurence Sterne's beloved comic novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, is the "biography" of Tristram Shandy - a wonderfully humorous and eccentric narrator who guides the listener from his conception to his birth and on to his life as an adult. The twists and turns of Tristram's life expose him to such memorable characters as Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Parson Yorick, Dr. Slop, and the Widow Wadman - whose own stories enrich the central narrative of Tristram's life.

Dramatic, intense, and gripping, The Inferno of Dante is an astonishing masterpiece that no listener can afford to miss. Robert Pinsky, the distinguished American poet, preserves the burning clarity and universal relevance of this 13th-century literary masterpiece in a triumphant new translation for our times. Line by line, canto by canto, Robert Pinksy affirms The Inferno as a powerful living classic for today’s listeners.

Some things never go away, like vile enemies, bad ale, and annoying kin. But I thought I was finished with the one dragon I’d have done anything for: Éibhear the Blue, a big, gorgeous, blue-haired beast who thinks the world belongs to him. The world, and apparently, me. So if Éibhear wants to play the caring hero and travel into the most forsaken of Gods forsaken lands to protect the one woman who doesn’t need it - namely me - I’ll let him

Middle-aged big game hunter Allan Quartermain accompanies Sir Henry Curtis on an expedition in search of Curtis’ estranged younger brother George, who had headed north in search of treasure two years before and was never seen again. Curtis believes his brother was following an ancient map that he hoped would lead him to Solomon’s Mines, part of the lost riches of the biblical King Solomon.