Essay/Short nonfiction audiobooks page 10

In dit aangrijpende korte werk beschrijft de schrijver en psychiater Frederik van Eeden het leven en met name de dood van Paul, de jongste zoon uit zijn eerste huwelijk, op 24-jarige leeftijd. Hij schreef het in de 3 maanden na diens overlijden in 1913. (Samenvatting geschreven door Anna Simon)

In an introductory paragraph, Lafcadio Hearn declares his intention: "The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the outer life of Japan, for which reason they have been grouped under the title Kokoro (heart). Written with the above character, this word signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve; sentiment; affection; and inner meaning, just as we say in English, "the heart of things."" The result is a highly eclectic collection of stories, diary entries, cultural essays, and collected traditional texts that illustrate not only the state of Japanese society in the 1890s but also the endlessly fascinating issue of the intersection of cul...

De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the vernacular) is a short essay written by Dante Alighieri in Latin. The work remains incomplete; only one and a half books are extant. It is believed to have been composed during Dante's exile, probably at some point between 1302 and 1305. The work revolves around the relationship between Latin and vernacular, and the need for a literary language, with an excourse on the poetic forms in vernacular.

This is a series of late-19th Century essays about Florida’s flora & fauna written by a Massachusetts-based naturalist.

Miniature wargaming got its start with the publication in 1913 of this thoroughly entertaining little account of how H.G. Wells, with certain of his friends, took their childhood toys and turned play into acceptable middle-aged sport by subjecting the exercise to the civilizing influence of actual rules.

While wargaming progressed far past these beginnings, Wells observes how “little wars” with even his elementary rules can suggest the wholesale crudity of the real thing.

“You have only to play at Little Wars three or four times to realise just what a blundering thing Great War must be. Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, bu...

Eighteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include literary figures--Alice Mangold Diehl, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Arthur Hugh Clough; philosophers--Hegel, Kierkegaard; religious thinkers--Martin Luther, Cotton Mather; political leaders--Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy; important documents--the Constitution of Japan (1946), the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; moments in history--the Battle of the Crater, the Dred Scott Decision; historical figures--the Pseudo Dionysius and Xenophon; and, lastly, shopper's tips for watermelons and cantaloupes.

Issue seven of this seminal science-fiction magazine

“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass beads or frost-work but the solidest thing we know....” is how Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the ties of friendship in one of his essays titled Friendship, more than a hundred years ago.

This and other interesting essays are included in Essays First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the distinguished American philosopher and writer. Apart from writing, he was also a very gifted and popular public speaker who toured the length and breadth of the country sharing his ideas with the larger public. A distinguishing feature of Emerson's work in both lectures an...

As a teenager, Benjamin Franklin apprenticed with his brother James at the shop where The New-England Courant was printed. Since James would not publish any of Benjamin's works, fifteen-year-old Benjamin sent letters to The New England Courant under the pseudonym Silence Dogood. A total of fourteen letters were sent, one each fortnight, between April and December of 1722. (Introduction by Darcy Smittenaar)