United States

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons' perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity....

"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel....

Hunting Jack Reacher is a dangerous business, as FBI Special Agents Kim Otto and Carlos Gaspar are about to find out....

In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town....

Natalia Flores rules her exclusive talent agency with an iron fist, brokering blockbuster deals while keeping everyone at arm's length. But beneath the cold exterior lies a heart that yearns to be understood.

Over the course of a steamy and tense afternoon, twelve jurors deliberate the fate of a 19-year-old boy alleged to have murdered his own father....

Patricia Campbell's life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to give her a goodbye kiss in the morning, her kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she's always a step behind on thank-you notes and her endless list of chores....

For decades, a quartet of Chinese women who have emigrated to San Francisco gather to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk—they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Over the years, their stories have informed the lives of four daughters who feel the weight of family and world history....

Ruby Butterman and her husband, Peanut, cannot have children, but they're given a second chance at a family when eight-year-old orphan Carlie is left in their care. It's a challenge for Carlie to adapt to a new town, a new school, and a new family....

Combine James Patterson and Colleen Hoover and you'll start to understand why audiences are riveted by the Murphy Shepherd series from New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin: gripping action, heart-wrenching emotion, and deep questions that deserve to be considered.

After twenty years of anguish, after twenty years of pain, defense attorney Joe Hennessy has the chance to confront the man who ordered the murder of his ten-year-old son....

Flannery O’Connor’s astonishing and haunting first novel is a classic of 20th-century literature....

For a young woman coming of age in sixteenth-century Guatemala, safeguarding her people’s legacy is a dangerous pursuit in a mystical, empowering, and richly imagined historical novel....

In a magisterial work, Jaan Puhvel unravels the prehistoric Indo-European origins of the traditions of India and Iran, Greece and Rome, of the Celts, Germans, Balts, and Slavs.

I wasn’t looking for love. Putting down roots in this small, Southern town was the last thing on my mind. Ben changed all that with his kind nature and gentle ways. Somehow, he painted over the cracks on the canvas of my heart....

Isabelle is haunted by remorse over a past mistake that drastically changed the lives of those closest to her. Apologizing would be a step in the right direction—if only she could muster the courage to say, "I'm sorry."

For readers of Lucy Score and Sarah Adams comes a charming small-town romance between a hard-working heroine with a sexy alter-ego and the new cinnamon roll math teacher looking to spice up his vanilla life.

When my best friend passes away, her twin brother finally comes home. Regardless of how Silas keeps pinning me with those eyes, or how I can’t breathe whenever he smiles, I won’t forgive how he amputated me from his life a decade ago.

Lucas Covington has everything: Charleston's old money, a successful family business, and Amara—the strong, brilliant professor who turned his world upside down.

Created by Olly Richards, internationally renowned language teacher and author, 101 Conversations in Real Spoken Spanish gives you an education in real Spanish that you won't find anywhere else....

India, 1986: Mukta, a 10-year-old village girl from the lower-caste Yellama cult, has come of age and must fulfill her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute, as her mother and grandmother did....

Ten essential plays by Neil Simon, one of the world’s most celebrated, translated, and widely performed playwrights....

She’s 43 years old…and starting over from scratch. How did this happen? She had it all together. A stable marriage of two decades. Two grown daughters. And now she and her husband, empty nesters, were moving to a beach house. Until he showed up late one night and tore their marriage apart....

A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story....

Inward is a collection of poetry, quotes, and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. It is a reminder that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible....

Een indringend portret van een van Amerika's meest bepalende tijdperken: de Grote Depressie van de jaren dertig. Texas, 1934. Miljoenen mensen zitten zonder werk en langdurige droogte heeft het leven op de Great Plains stevig in zijn greep. Boeren vechten om hun land en hun inkomsten te behouden aangezien de oogsten schraal zijn, het water opdroogt en stofstormen hen dreigen te begraven. Een van de donkerste episodes van de -Grote Depressie, de periode van de Dust Bowl, is aangebroken.

Across the nation’s history, American writers have produced a compelling and diverse body of literary expression, which joins the great literatures of other cultures to create unique perspectives on human life flowing from America’s trailblazing political system, innovative spirit, and history of immigration. In A Literary Tour of the United States, you’ll take an epic excursion across America, from the wide expanse of the continental states to Alaska, Hawaii, and beyond, delving into the jewels of writing that distinguish our nation’s literature across three centuries.

In Too Good to Be Altogether Lost, Wilder expert Pamela Smith Hill dives back into the Little House books, closely examining Wilder's text, her characters, and their stories. Hill reveals that these gritty, emotionally complex novels depict a realistic coming of age for a girl in the American West. This realism in Wilder's novels, once perceived as a fatal flaw, can lead to essential discussions not only about the past but about the present—and the underlying racism young people encounter when reading today.

Quelques règles élémentaires de survie dans le bush australien : Ne jamais conduire en pleine nuit sur une route déserte : un kangourou se ferait une joie de défoncer votre pare-chocs. Ne jamais céder aux charmes d'une auto-stoppeuse du cru. Et ne jamais se laisser droguer, enlever et épouser par ladite autochtone. Dans son village, en effet, le divorce n'est pas autorisé. Mais le nombre de veuves y est impressionnant...

Charles Goh has always played by the rules. It’s how he survived his difficult childhood as the swotty foreigner at a posh English boarding school—and now, his high-pressure job at one of the biggest corporate law firms in London. His job is his life and he's happy that way … until she shows up.

Für Betty war er die Rettung aus existenzieller Not. Für Florence eine Bürde und der Ort ihrer schlimmsten Niederlage. Für Mariel ist er ein Traum, in dem sie sich selbst verwirklicht. Für Julia ist er eine bloße Legende, die nichts mehr mit ihr zu tun hat: Im ›Lakeside Supper Club‹ am Bear Jaw Lake in Minnesota trotzen vier Frauen dem Leben auf ganz unterschiedliche Weise ihr Quäntchen Glück ab.

Avec son sourire carnassier et ses costumes chics, Patrick Bateman est l'incarnation du golden boy new-yorkais. Mais, à la nuit tombante, il laisse libre cours à sa démence. En bon serial killer, Patrick viole, torture et tue. Dans un monde lisse de tout sentiment, jusqu'où l'horreur peut-elle aller ?

In 2008, a serial killer known as the Cajun Cannibal brutally murders and consumes the flesh of eight people in a small Louisiana parish. With law enforcement closing in on him, he takes his own life before he can face the inside of a courtroom.

When Greta Molina’s old friend Tiller offered her the job, a ten-day cattle drive across the Wyoming prairie from the ranching town of Ten Sleep, it sounded like a well-paid break. Three hundred and twenty cows and calves, two guys her age she’s known since college, and a few long days on an ATV will give her time to sort out the mess in her head. The canyon along the trail has a history, sure, but nature has a tendency toward violence. Greta can accept that, even if it makes her insides squirm.

Del otro lado de las nubes, la pequeña ciudad de Davos, rodeada de montañas nevadas, amanecía blanca y billonaria aquel miércoles de enero. Ahí empezaban a llegar el 1% de los primates habladores más ricos y poderosos de la tribu humana. Los así llamados líderes globales. En un mundo donde las diferencias entre ricos y pobres son cada vez más abismales y los cambios tecnológicos y ecológicos tienen efectos expansivos, encontrar soluciones a la crisis humanitaria se convierte en algo urgente.

Jessie, who hasn’t seen her mother since she was 14, is on her way home, bringing with her a foster child who won’t talk and a runaway they’ve picked up along the way. Meanwhile, her estranged mother awaits their arrival at the bus station in Questa, New Mexico, next to a woman who longs for a disappeared love to return.

The River People by Liz Kellebrew is a haunting and lyrical exploration of 19th-century westward expansion into the Pacific Northwest. Through the intertwined journeys of Marilla, John, and Walter—each navigating rivers that serve as both roads and unforgiving forces—the novel weaves together fiction, historical documents, memoir, and poetry. As these characters face hardships and triumphs, their choices and loves reverberate through generations.

Joy Is My Middle Name documents crawling through your twenties and emerging into your thirties. Walking uneasy cities and rural towns, talking about sex, race, womanhood, addiction, sobriety, consumerism and pop culture, these poems pull at the edges of the performed self with conversational ease.

Errol was a war orphan, left to raise himself while his father fought in World War II and while his severely depressed mother struggled to hold together her young family. Growing up in a backwoods town where life more closely resembled the 1920s than the 1940s, Errol hunted pennies to buy treats, surfed on borrowed skiffs behind the paddle wheels of passing river boats, and sought adult influences wherever he could find them.

In a small town where gossip flows, bedridden Mary Ruth McCready reigns supreme, doling out wisdom and meddling in everyone's business with a fervor that would make a matchmaker blush. When her best friend has her world rocked by a scandalous revelation from her dying husband, Mary Ruth kicks into high gear, commandeering the help of her favorite granddaughter, Sarah Elizabeth, in tracking down the truth. Finding clues in funeral condolence cards and decades-old gossip dredged up at the Blue Moon Beauty Emporium, the two stir up trouble faster than you can say "pecan pie."

« Toutes les familles sont des sociétés secrètes. » En lisant ces mots, Alice reste frappée par leur justesse. Les secrets, les non-dits, elle connaît. Chez les Burns, on en a fait une spécialité. La dernière en date ? Cette révélation que son trader de frère, Adam, vient de lui faire depuis le parloir de sa prison... Et qui la ramène une quinzaine d'années en arrière. C'était l'Amérique des années 70, celle des droits civiques et des campus en ébullition. Un vent de liberté attisait les désirs et Alice rêvait d'évasion. C'était l'heure des choix. Les premières notes d'une symphonie à venir.

In this engaging episode of Little Women Podcast, Niina and Emily delve deep into the thought-provoking chapter "Vanity Fair" from Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women. Join them as they explore Meg's transformative experience at the ball, where she’s swept into the dazzling world of wealth and glamour. As the rich girls dress her up in their finest attire, Meg is faced with an internal conflict that challenges her values and ambitions.

It's the Fourth of July, 2000. In a small Southern town, fireworks light the sky above the City Park, while down the street a smaller flash of light changes everything for 19-year-old Connor Burdette. He has just lost the girl he loves. Now, buying beer at the Back Home Market, he becomes an accomplice to a shooting. Out of desperation, he runs. It will take ten years and a death to bring him back. But it's so hard to come home. The town still blames him for his part in the convenience store shooting.

Forced to rebuild his life after a tragic accident, Charlie and his family befriend a local black family. But not everyone is as welcoming. Charlies must navigate life, work, and family through systemic enduring racism.

Many of the writings develop a cause for additional thought by the listener, with thought provoking content and/or the writings that may have an extra little twist before completion.