Showing results by narrator "Elliott Gould"

Raymond Chandler began his writing career at age 45. His muscular, fast-paced style set the standard for American hard-boiled mysteries. He distilled the essence of life in Southern California in the 1940s and 1950s. In The Long Goodbye, private eye Philip Marlowe befriends a down-on-his-luck war veteran with the scars to prove it. Then he finds out that Terry Lennox has a very wealthy nymphomaniac wife, whom he's divorced and remarried. She ends up dead. Soon Lennox is on the lam, and the cops and a crazy gangster are after Marlowe.

For sustained dramatic intrigue and sophistication of plot, William Shakespeare's sonnets are at least the equal of his greatest plays. Throughout the centuries since their first publication in 1609, critics, psychologists and curiosity-seekers alike have pondered the nature of the poet's relationships with the mysterious young man, "Mr. W.H.", and the "ill-coloured" Dark lady.

Private eye John Dalmas sets out to rescue a rich young playboy from the clutches of a fortune-hunting redhead and a blackmailing gambler. But as he through the seamy underside of L.A.'s wealth and glitz, he keeps bumping into dead bodies.

Robert Altman - visionary director, hard-partying hedonist, eccentric family man, Hollywood legend - comes roaring to life in this rollicking cinematic biography, told in a chorus of voices that can only be called Altmanesque.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Drawing upon everyday incidents, common situations, and rural imagery, Robert Frost fashioned poetry of great lyrical beauty and potent symbolism. His language is simple, clear, and colloquial, yet dense with meaning and wider significance.

Phoenix Books offers listeners this second volume of our Philip Marlowe collection. This volume includes Playback, Poodle Springs, and Perchance to Dream. With our warmest wishes for a joyous holiday season!

Elliott Gould, Burt Reynolds, Meryl Streep, and a host of other celebrities read over 100 poems by four of America's greatest poets. Walt Whitman celebrates the brash and rugged individualism of his country in exuberant language. The spare, precise language of Emily Dickinson conveys her penetrating vision of the natural world and an acute understanding of the most profound human truths.

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch." Before there was Philip Marlowe, there was John Dalmas, a character very much like Marlowe. (In some later editions of this short story, the protagonist's name is actually changed to Marlowe's.) Here, he investigates a series of murders in classic hard-boiled fashion.

Spenser crossed paths with Paul Giacomin a decade ago. Now Paul's mother has vanished, and he enlists Spenser's aid to find her. Following her trail to its astonishing conclusion, Spenser is led back through Paul's own rites of passage - along the lanes of his own memories. The boy Spenser was and the man Paul must race toward a confrontation that may break their hearts, and threaten their lives.

Marlowe is assigned to tail classy, well-endowed redhead Betty Mayfield - a cinch, he thinks, until lounge lizard Larry Mitchell turns up dead outside Betty's hotel room a few hours after pawing her in a California club. Filled with Chandler's famed snappy repartee and starkly frightening scenes, Playback simmers with suspense as Marlowe tries to solve a tale of big money - and, of course, murder.

The Sternwood family, immortalized in The Big Sleep, is in trouble again. Lovely Vivian's psychotic sister, Carmen, has disappeared from the sanitarium, and Vivian herself has once again fallen into the clutches of the shady underworld character Eddie Mars. Enter Philip Marlowe, the original tough-but-tender private eye, resurrected by Robert B. Parker, creator of his own phenomenally popular Spenser mystery series.

So there I was, holed up in my office, trying to duck the bill collectors, when she walked in. She was the kind of sweet cookie that made your eyes water like you were hit with a 10-ton blackjack. She told me Raymond Chandler created the hard-boiled private eyes that rule American crime fiction, and this collection traces the genesis of Chandler's style in such stories as "Mandarin's Jade", "The Man Who Liked Dogs", and "Try the Girl".

Here are four classic mysteries from the master of the American detective story. "Killer in the Rain" and "The Curtain" are early works that laid the groundwork for the creation of the Philip Marlowe character. "Goldfish" and "Finger Man" feature Marlowe at his very best. A must-have collection for every Chandler fan.

Hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe follows the trail of a missing woman in Raymond Chandler's classic mystery tale. Experience Chandler's cool wit and taut language as his most famous character travels through the sunbaked streets of Southern California, unraveling a tangled web of murder and deception. Elliott Gould, who played Marlowe in Robert Altman's film version of The Long Goodbye, once again brings L.A.'s toughest private eye to life.

Looking out the window of the Phoenix Books office at Hollywood and Vine, we often gaze up the street towards Ivar Avenue to the corner now known as Raymond Chandler Square, in hopes of catching a glimpse of Phillip Marlowe as he enters the building that houses the 6th floor office of Marlowe P.I. (or as Marlowe affectionately refers to it “his dog house on the 6th floor”). With that thought in mind, we’ve compiled here the first of a two-part collection of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. 

Washington Irving's tales of romance, travel, biographical discourse, and literary musing introduced such classic fictional figures as Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and the Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow. A sage, storyteller, and wit, Irving earned his preeminence in early American literature with these masterpieces in miniature.  

A collection of stories featuring animals includes works by such authors as Beatrix Potter, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen. Complete narrative cast includes Terry Bradshaw, Carol Channing, Harvey Fierstein, Elliott Gould, Melissa Manchester, Eleanor Mondale, Jason Priestley, and Jean Stapleton.

Aesop's Fables present examples of selfishness turning to generosity, deception evolving into honor, and gloom unfolding to pleasure. These are moral tales which have survived since the life of Aesop and have traveled by language and distance. Celebrity performers include Harvey Fierstein, Sharon Stone, Michael York, Eddie Albert, Glenda Jackson, Rod Steiger, Gregory Hines, Cathy Moriarty, Stephanie Beacham, Elliott Gould, and Vanessa Redgrave.

Dating back to the sixth century BC, Aesop's Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Though almost nothing is known of Aesop himself, and some scholars question whether he existed at all, these stories stand as timeless classics known in almost every culture in the world.

A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune - the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.