Fiction audiobooks page 255

The miniature novel Helsinkiin by Juhani Aho was published in 1889. A psychological novel about a young man’s stepping into adult life, it also touches the then heated language politics as Finnish was emerging as a language of academia in the bilingual country. Aho (1861 – 1921) was among the first professional writers in Finland. This reading is in Finnish.

This is a collection of the following short stories: The Ninth Vibration -- The Interpreter : A Romance of the East -- The Incomparable Lady : A Story of China with a Moral -- The Hatred of the Queen : A Story of Burma -- Fire of Beauty -- The Building of the Taj Majal -- How Great is the Glory of Kwannon! -- The Round-Faced Beauty. Many of them are romantic, some of them are fantasy and others are occult fiction.(Introduction by Linda Andrus)

Lewis Carroll (1832-1896) is famous for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is less widely known that he worked as a lecturer for mathematics at Christ Church college, Oxford for 27 years. A tangled tale merges his two talents as storyteller and mathematician. It consists of ten short humorous stories which present one or more mathematical problems. The ten knots as they are called, were first published in The Monthly Packet magazine between April 1880 and March 1885, where readers were invited to solve the problems, and the solution was discussed in a later issue.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. It is a mystery indeed; the serial novel was just half completed at the time of Dickens’ death – leading to much speculation how it might have ended.
The novel is named after Edwin Drood, one of the characters, but it mostly tells the story of his uncle, a choirmaster named John Jasper, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud is Drood’s fiancée, and has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless! Landless comes from Ceylon with his twin sister, Helena. Neville Landless and Edwin Drood take a dislike to one another the moment they meet.
The story is set in Cloisterham, a...

Harry Houdini, master illusionist and contortionist, unmasks the various ways that criminals take advantage of their victims.

Short sketches relating the humourous side of life in 1910. "Professor Leacock has made more people laugh with the written word than any other living author. One may say he is one of the greatest jesters, the greatest humorist of the age." – A. P. Herbert

Gyp, the daughter of ex-Major Charles Claire Winton, at the age of 23 marries Fiorsen, a Swedish violin virtuoso. Her mother, the wife of another man, has been Winton's mistress; she had died when Gyp was born. A highly sensitive child, Gyp has grown up in isolated surroundings with a kind, but very British, father.

As she gets older her father tries to introduce her into society. An attack of gout takes him to Wiesbaden for a cure and, as he never goes anywhere without her, she accompanies him. There she is mesmerised by Fiorsen and his playing. Intensely musical herself and inexperienced, she's flattered by the homage of the violinist although her father soon sees through him. She ...

The story of the war in which the power of the great Mahratta confederacy was broken ended in the firm establishment of the British Empire the Indian Peninsula. When the struggle began, the Mahrattas were masters of no small portion of India; their territory comprising the whole country between Bombay and Delhi, and stretching down from Rajputana to Allahabad; while in the south they were lords of the district of Cuttack, thereby separating Madras from Calcutta. The jealousies of the great Mahratta leaders, Holkar and Scindia, who were constantly at war with each other, or with the Peishwa at Poona, divided and weakened the nation and allowed the British to conquer, although at the cost o...

This is a well written story of the California gold rush of 1849. Four friends decide they are going to go to California and get rich in the gold fields. Follow their adventures as they travel to California across the isthmus of Panama to San Francisco. In their search for gold they encounter hostile Indians, various desperadoes, and natural disasters. Did they strike it rich? Listen and find out.

"In the course of time a very considerable public feeling was aroused in the United States and Canada over this state of affairs. The lack of reciprocity in it seemed unfair. It was felt (or at least I felt) that the time had come when some one ought to go over and take some impressions off England. The choice of such a person (my choice) fell upon myself. By an arrangement with the Geographical Society of America, acting in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society of England (to both of whom I communicated my proposal), I went at my own expense."

And from thence follow the impressions of Canadian political economist and humourist, Stephen Leacock, after a lecturing visit ...