Publisher: Good Press
"Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things" by Henry Van Dyke is a book for fishing lovers far and wide. Providing a history of the sport, its appearance in literature throughout the years, as well as commentary on what roles luck and skill play in it, it's a surprisingly fascinating read that will hold your attention until the last page.
The Wooden Guest is an odd little tale by Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky. It starts off as a kind of fairy tale for grownups and develops into a brief lesson in philosophy, with frightening implications when it comes to human nature.Show book
One of the best books of all time, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. If you haven't read this classic already, then you're missing out - listen to this audiobook edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy today!A heartbreaking portrayal of a woman faced by an impossible choice in the pursuit of happiness.When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her ‘cousin’ Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and with its powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy’s novels.Show book
After the young Prince Edward VI of England and a peasant boy switch places, the "little king" tries to escape from a world in which he must beg for food, sleep with rodents, face ridicule, and avoid assassination. Meanwhile, the peasant, who is now the prince, dreads exposure and possible execution; members of the Court believe he has gone mad. As a result of the swap, both boys learn that social class, like so much of life, is determined by chance and random circumstance. Originally published in 1881, The Prince and the Pauper is one of Mark Twain's earliest social satires. With his caustic wit and biting irony, Twain satirizes the power of the monarchy, unjust laws and barbaric punishments, superstitions, and religious intolerance. Although usually viewed as a child's story, The Prince and the Pauper offers adults critical insight into a people and time period not really all that different from our own.Show book
“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.” ― Charles Dickens, Hard Times Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town. The story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality. A classic audiobook publishing event. Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.Show book
The top 10 short stories of all time written by British authors. Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. The British literary tradition almost needs no introduction. World famous authors are not sprinkled but saturate history with a remarkable range of genres and forms that few, if any, can equal. Down the centuries they have written in ground-breaking ways on the world they know and the one they imagine. Genius really does have many names. 1 - The Top 10 - The British - An Introduction 2 - A Somewhat Improbable Story by G K Chesterton 3 - An Informer by Joseph Conrad 4 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 5 - Sextons Hero by Elizabeth Gaskell 6 - August Heat by W F Harvey 7 - Lost Hearts by M R James 8 - The Rocking Horse Winner by D H Lawrence 9 - The Interlopers by Saki 10 - The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson 11 - Solid Objects by Virginia WoolfShow book
G.K. Chesterton’s surreal fantasy “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” is set in the year 1984. Chesterton’s view of a London 80 years hence from the year in which he wrote the story is not the frightening totalitarian state foreseen by George Orwell in his book titled with that same year, (although it is thought that Orwell chose that year from his knowledge of Chesterton’s story). Chesterton’s more humorous and fantastical look into the near future finds England to be much the same as in 1904 except that the concept of Monarchy has fallen into such an inconsequential position (as the world has moved away from individual autonomous states, all the better to avoid wars) that the Monarch is now determined by lot in an alphabetical book. When Auberon Quinn unexpectedly finds himself announced as the new King he considers the whole affair one big regal joke and to amuse himself (and annoy his pompous political friends) he indulges himself by concocting a cod history and pageantry for the London Boroughs. Little does he realise that his preposterous joke might be taken seriously and that the ceremonial swords and halberds would become weapons of an actual war between the differing London factions. It only takes one zealous and determined mad man to take him all too seriously. Head Stories Audio presents "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" narrated by Simon Hester. With original music.Show book
