Literature audiobooks page 46

"I am very glad that "The Story of the Seven Who Were Hanged" will be read in English. The misfortune of us all is that we know so little, even nothing, about one another—neither about the soul, nor the life, the sufferings, the habits, the inclinations, the aspirations of one another. Literature, which I have the honor to serve, is dear to me just because the noblest task it sets before itself is that of wiping out boundaries and distances."
-- Leonid Andreyev, in a letter to Herman Bernstein

One of Balzac's most popular works, set around 1815 during the re-ascendancy of the Bourbon kings following the defeat of Napoleon. Said to have been an inspiration to Charles Dickens and Henry James as well as others, the novel seeks to portray the realism of scenes and people. It is also a commentary upon the changing social strata and mores of the day.

Krates (een gebochelde) is een wees, met een groot muzikaal gevoel, een grote erfenis en prachtige mooie bruine ogen die hem geliefd bij de meisjes maakt. Een echte 'Charles Dickens' maar dan korter en uit Nederland. Het is ook een boek over het lied Ich Grolle nicht (Ik zoek geen wraak) van Heinrich Heine op muziek van Robert Schumann. Samenvatting door Marcel Coenders

A collection of short stories by famed humorist and Punch magazine staff member, F. Anstey, pseudonym for Thomas Anstey Guthrie. They range from humorous and whimsical to haunting and thought-provoking.

Candide vivait paisible et innocent chez le baron de Thunder-ten-tronckh, en Westphalie. Dans son château, le précepteur Pangloss (« qui discourt de tout » en grec), représentation de Gottfried Leibniz, professait un optimisme béat. Candide partageait cette plénitude d’autant plus qu’il était amoureux de Cunégonde, fille du baron. Un jour, ce même baron surprend leurs amours et chasse Candide à coups de pied « dans le derrière ».
(Résumé par Wikipédia)

This novella tells the tale of a young man, Candide (meaning “ingenuous”), who has been indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism but becomes disillusioned after witnessing and experiencing many great hardships.

The House of Dust is a poem written in the four-movement format of a classical symphony. Hauntingly beautiful despite its bleak post-World War I depictions of human mortality and loss, the poem develops its movements around central images such as Japanese ukiyo-e ("floating world") woodblock prints, touching the reader's senses with endlessly evocative allusions to wind, sea, and weather. In this underlying Japanese sensibility and dependence on central perceptual images, Aiken's poem is similar to poetry of Imagists of the time such as Amy Lowell. Also deeply influenced by the concepts of modern psychology, Aiken delved deeply into individual human identity and emotion.

Een hollandsche jonge man, Bertie, een liederlijke vagabond, die te Londen door eenen vriend in huis genomen een wereldsche fat wordt van de oneerlijkste soort, die in 't geheim alles doet om zijnen vriend (Frank) het leven te bederven, welke bij diens geliefde zijne eerlijkheid en goede trouw met alle intriganten-manieien ondermijnt, hem zijn geld aftrochelt, om hem te verraden, en dan de verantwoordelijkheid voor die daden van zich afschuift, op het Schicksal, op het Fatum, dat is de hoofdpersoon.

Daar tegenover staat de vriend Frank, een recht onnoozele bloed, die het hart van een eerlijk meisje wegens zijne eerlijkheid heeft veroverd, doch weldra mistrouwd wordt, ten gevolg...

Saving for the baby's education: how can a young family be disciplined so as to regularly put money in the pig (bank)? Why, put a tariff on all items coming into the house, just like the U.S. Government does/did for items coming into the country! But the devil is in the details; what about taxing items brought in by visitors? Is the housemaid herself a taxable item? What items really are 'necessaries' versus luxuries? When visitors arrive these guests stoop to either 'smuggling' in their luggage items to avoid having to pay up to 30% of the value, or wear only what they came dressed in. The hosts are equally hypocritical, but all parties accuse the others of cheating. How will the educati...

Grace Abounding is the spiritual autobiography of John Bunyan, who also penned Pilgrim’s Progress, perhaps one of the most significant pieces of Christian literature, second only to the Bible. Grace Abounding follows Bunyan’s struggle to find true repentance and forgiveness, his battle with Satan’s temptations of unbelief, his comfort found in the Bible and his overarching victory gotten by the grace of God through Jesus Christ his Son. Readers familiar with Pilgrim’s Progress will recognize that many of the allegorical points in his famous work came out of Bunyan’s own struggles and discoveries, and it has been said that Bunyan could not have written Pilgrim’s Progress without first g...

This novel, published in 1856, was one of the popular and beloved novels in the Victorian era. It is told in the first person by Phineas Fletcher, an invalid son of a Quaker tanner who is presented to us in the beginning as a lonely youth. John Halifax, the first friend he ever had, is a poor orphan who is taken in by his father to help in the work which his sickly son can't constantly do. Phineas tells us in an unforgettable way how John succeeded in rising from his humble beginning and become a wealthy and successful man. But with the money come horrible troubles... In an unforgettable manner, we learn to know all the characters of the novel as if they really lived.