Showing titles in World Literature

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman and Hall and first released on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

Russian literature of the 19th century is among the richest, most profound, and most human traditions in the world. This course explores this tradition by focusing on four giants: Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. Their works had an enormous impact on Russian understanding of the human condition.

On Valentine's Day, 1989, Vina Apsara, a famous and much-loved singer, disappears in a devastating earthquake. Her lover, the singer Ormus Cama, cannot accept that he has lost her and so begins his eternal quest to find her and bring her back. His journey takes him across the globe and through cities pulsating with the power of rock 'n' roll, to Bombay, London and New York.

A BBC Radio 4 production of Wynyard Browne’s classic play about a 1950s family homecoming at Christmas. It is Christmas Eve and the family are gathering at Reverend Martin Gregory’s Norfolk vicarage. A soldier son destined for Oxbridge, two elderly aunts with a passion for chatter, a cousin with a military background and a pair of daughters who are both hiding secrets join the vicar to celebrate the festive season.

As a woman used to traveling and living the high life in Bangkok, Leanne Shirtliffe recognized the constant fodder for humor while pregnant with twins in Asia's sin city. But in spite of deep-fried bug cuisine and nurses who cover newborn bassinets with plastic wrap, Shirtliffe manages to keep her babies alive for a year with help from a Coca-Cola deliveryman, several waitresses, and a bra factory. Then she and her husband return home to the isolation of North American suburbia.

Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and Ebenezer Scrooge come to marvelous life in Patrick Stewart's critically-acclaimed solo interpretation of A Christmas Carol. The star of X-Men and The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart has performed his one-man stage production of this holiday classic to sell-out audiences.

Two archive BBC Radio programmes in which Judi Dench and Michael Williams, accompanied by friends John Moffatt and Alec McCowen, read a cornucopia of poetry and prose. In this enchanting pair of programmes from 1991 and 1996, Dame Judi Dench and husband Michael Williams shared an eclectic selection of pieces that they loved, admired or simply found entertaining.

Actual events during the Cold War inspired this thriller that takes place in a suburb of London during the autumn and winter of 1960-1961. Loyalty, duty, and friendship collide when the Jacksons slowly discover the Krogers, their neighbors and cherished friends, are not what they appear. A gripping play that may leave you wondering exactly what it is those nice people next door are really up to.

On Broadway, this fresh take on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has become a modern classic. Heralded as “The best new musical of the season” by The Wall Street Journal and “Sumptuous. Gorgeous. As good as it gets” by The New York Times, the show was a breakout hit, with its poignant social commentary and spellbinding music and lyrics. In this audiobook, Anaïs Mitchell takes listeners inside her more than decades-long process of building the musical from the ground up.

A haunting dream that will not relent pulls author Kent Nerburn back into the hidden world of Native America, where dreams have meaning, animals are teachers, and the "old ones" still have powers beyond our understanding. In this moving narrative, we travel through the lands of the Lakota and the Ojibwe, where we encounter a strange little girl with an unnerving connection to the past, a forgotten asylum that history has tried to hide, and complex, unforgettable characters.

Ever since her mother died, 12-year-old Katy has attempted to look after her five younger brothers and sisters. Her father, Dr. Carr, depends on her to set a good example while he takes care of patients. But no matter how hard Katy tries to be good, trouble always finds her. She tears all her dresses and breaks the dishes. She forgets to do her homework, so she gets bad grades. And her quick temper hurts the feelings of those she loves the most. But the day she refuses to listen when Aunt Izzie forbids her to use the new swing changes her life forever.

While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Twenty-five years later, as the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history.

In the last years of the ninth century, King Alfred of Wessex is in failing health, and his heir is an untested youth. The Danes, who have failed so many times to conquer Wessex, smell opportunity.... First comes Harald Bloodhair, a savage warrior leading a Viking horde, who is encouraged to cruelty by his woman, Skade. But Alfred still has the services of Uhtred, his unwilling warlord, who leads Harald into a trap and, at Farnham in Surrey, inflicts one of the greatest defeats the Vikings were ever to suffer.

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland 1963. On the face of it, life is idyllic for Eli and Lena Kogan. Living in their beautiful house in the Irish countryside, their children are growing up happy and safe surrounded by a loving community. So when a letter arrives one day threatening to shatter their peaceful and prosperous world, Lena and Eli have no option but face the dark reality of their situation. How best to do that, is something that drives a wedge between them.

Brzeziny, Poland, 1939. Zofia's comfortable lifestyle overturns when her husband, Jabez, who monitors Nazi activity, has gone missing. Rather than fleeing the country with her young son, as she had promised Jabez who is fearing retaliation, she decides to stay. She cannot possibly leave her friend, Aanya. Since their childhood they have amazed fellow Brzeziners that it does not matter that Aanya is Jewish and deaf, and that Zofia is Catholic and hearing. Now, more than ever with war looming, Zofia will do whatever is necessary to protect her family and Aanya.

Legal Immigrant is Alan Cumming's collection of musings on his experiences as a US citizen, growing older, and what it feels like to be an immigrant in today's America, featuring songs and stories that are as eclectic and idiosyncratic as Alan himself. The audio, recorded live at the Minetta Lane Theatre, is a smorgasbord of genres, styles, and tales. Replete with laughter, tears and, of course, provocation, featuring covers of songs made famous by a diverse array of musical legends.

An extraordinary tale of desire, betrayal, and death from Britain's longest running and best loved radio serial. Wealthy, philandering gentleman farmer Brian Aldridge embarked on a casual fling with freelance translator Siobhan Hathaway, but what ensued was the most explosive affair in the history of Ambridge.

Set in 1938 Brooklyn, this gripping psychological mystery begins when attractive, level-headed Sylvia Gellburg suddenly loses her ability to walk. The only clue lies in Sylvia’s obsession with news accounts from Germany. Though safe in Brooklyn, Sylvia is terrified by Nazi violence—or is it something closer to home?

The New York Times best-selling author of seagoing epics now celebrates an American classic.Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an aura of difficulty that too often keeps readers at bay. Fortunately, one unabashed fan wants passionately to give Melville's masterpiece the broad contemporary audience it deserves.

In 1942, Eva is forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children escaping to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva realises she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember their own identities.