Back to School with Audiobooks
Turn any time into study time, with audiobook versions of classic works of English literature. We've scoured Australia's high school English reading lists and pulled this collection together to make it easier for you and your teen to get their fill of Shakespeare, Austen, Winton and Keats. Audiobooks are a great way for students to get a curriculum fix as they walk the dog, chill out in the park or even during car trips (if you don't also mind listening to Dickens). These classics and bestsellers include some of our finest actors and narrators performing works from the world's most brilliant authors. So get into these audiobooks and discover a great way to learn.Classic Literature
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Pride and Prejudice
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Rosamund Pike
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One of Jane Austen’s most beloved works, Pride and Prejudice, is vividly brought to life by Academy Award nominee Rosamund Pike ( Gone Girl). In her bright and energetic performance of this British classic, she expertly captures Austen’s signature wit and tone. Her attention to detail, her literary background, and her performance in the 2005 feature film version of the novel provide the perfect foundation from which to convey the story of Elizabeth Bennet, her four sisters, and the inimitable Mr. Darcy.
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Wonderful reading of a gorgeous book
- By Belinda on 23-08-2016
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The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal ( Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. There, he has a firsthand view of Gatsby’s lavish West Egg parties - and of his undying love....
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Enjoyable & a reminder of a well spoken novel
- By Adam Sutherton on 26-04-2015
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A Passage to India
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dr. Aziz is a young Muslim physician in the British Indian town of Chandrapore. One evening he comes across an English woman, Mrs. Moore, in the courtyard of a local mosque; she and her younger travelling companion Adela are disappointed by claustrophobic British colonial culture and wish to see something of the 'real' India. But when Aziz kindly offers to take them on a tour of the Marabar caves with his close friend Cyril Fielding, the trip results in a shocking accusation....
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Crapy performance of an insightful work.
- By ravi on 25-12-2016
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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great story poorly presented
- By Richard Try on 11-05-2015
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Pride and Prejudice
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Rosamund Pike
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
One of Jane Austen’s most beloved works, Pride and Prejudice, is vividly brought to life by Academy Award nominee Rosamund Pike ( Gone Girl). In her bright and energetic performance of this British classic, she expertly captures Austen’s signature wit and tone. Her attention to detail, her literary background, and her performance in the 2005 feature film version of the novel provide the perfect foundation from which to convey the story of Elizabeth Bennet, her four sisters, and the inimitable Mr. Darcy.
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Wonderful reading of a gorgeous book
- By Belinda on 23-08-2016
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The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal ( Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. There, he has a firsthand view of Gatsby’s lavish West Egg parties - and of his undying love....
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Enjoyable & a reminder of a well spoken novel
- By Adam Sutherton on 26-04-2015
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A Passage to India
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dr. Aziz is a young Muslim physician in the British Indian town of Chandrapore. One evening he comes across an English woman, Mrs. Moore, in the courtyard of a local mosque; she and her younger travelling companion Adela are disappointed by claustrophobic British colonial culture and wish to see something of the 'real' India. But when Aziz kindly offers to take them on a tour of the Marabar caves with his close friend Cyril Fielding, the trip results in a shocking accusation....
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Crapy performance of an insightful work.
- By ravi on 25-12-2016
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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great story poorly presented
- By Richard Try on 11-05-2015
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Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
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Men really are the worst, huh
- By James on 25-08-2020
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Great Expectations
- The Audible Dickens Collection
- By: Charles Dickens, Howard Jacobson
- Narrated by: Matt Lucas, Howard Jacobson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this Audible Exclusive performance by Matt Lucas of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens demonstrates that conscience, loyalty and empathy are virtues far more valuable than intellect, wealth and social standing. First published in Dickens’ own periodical, All the Year Round, the novel was divided into nine monthly instalments, from December 1860 to August 1861. Unsurprisingly, it was an instant success and managed to sell over 100,000 copies per week. Though written at a challenging time in Dickens’ life, when the impending breakdown of his marriage loomed over him, Great Expectations proves to be one of his most optimistic, comical and romantic novels.
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A Classic worth revisiting. Enhanced by the reader
- By Anonymous User on 09-02-2024
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North and South
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....
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Beautiful Classic
- By Kait on 27-10-2015
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Emma
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Jenny Agutter
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Emma can be enjoyed as a charming love story, a detective story, and a comic and lively picture of English life 200 years ago. Austen's beautiful, clever, wilful but fallible heroine Emma Woodhouse believes she knows best. Perfectly content with her life she sees no need for either love or marriage, yet nothing pleases her more than meddling in the romantic lives of others.
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Wonderful reading brought the story alive.
- By Amazon Customer on 09-04-2021
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As I Lay Dying
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman, Robertson Dean, Lina Patel, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One of William Faulkner’s finest novels, As I Lay Dying, originally published in 1930, remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundren’s family sets out to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her native Jefferson, Mississippi, far from the miserable backwater surroundings of her married life.
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Finally finished it
- By Anonymous User on 29-04-2023
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1984
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Big Brother is watching you.... 1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party’s power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party’s department for propaganda, Winston Smith’s job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair.
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Brilliant read
- By Johnny on 14-03-2016
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Frankenstein
- By: Mary Shelley
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Narrator Dan Stevens ( Downton Abbey) presents an uncanny performance of Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel, an epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror.
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Great way to get through a classic
- By DoctorFirefly on 19-09-2017
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Gulliver's Travels: A Signature Performance by David Hyde Pierce
- By: Jonathan Swift
- Narrated by: David Hyde Pierce
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A Signature Performance: Four-time Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce delivers an air of lovable self-importance in his rendition of the classic social satire that remains as fresh today as the day it was published.
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Love the imagination, droned at times
- By TJ Edwards on 24-01-2024
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Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Annette Bening
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mrs. Dalloway, perhaps Virginia Woolf’s greatest novel, vividly follows English socialite Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for a party in post-World War I London. Four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening ( American Beauty, The Kids Are All Right) brings Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style of storytelling to life, exploring the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman’s life in a brilliant performance.
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Highly original with poetic prose
- By Melinda on 26-04-2015
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The Loaded Dog
- And More Classic Favourites from Henry Lawson
- By: Henry Lawson
- Narrated by: Colin Friels
- Length: 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Henry Lawson's works, along with those of Banjo Paterson, have become an essential part of the Australian literary tradition. Henry Lawson's storytelling focuses on the bush, on droving and shearing, on the characters and resilience of life in the outback. Born in a tent on the Grenfell goldfields in 1867, Lawson could well remember the roaring days of the gold rush and the life of pioneers.
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Henry Lawson
- A Selection
- By: Henry Lawson
- Narrated by: Wyn Roberts, Roger Cardwell, Drew Forsythe, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As either realist or romancer, Henry Lawson was described in his own lifetime as the "first articulate voice of the real Australia", later to become fondly known as the "bard of the bush". His death in 1922 left Australia with a wealth of literary works unequalled by any artist. In this selection of short stories, accompanied by classical music, Lawson captures the true Australian spirit of his fellow countrymen.
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The Drover's Wife
- By: Henry Lawson
- Narrated by: Cathy Dobson
- Length: 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Henry Lawson's poignant tale of a woman bringing up her four children alone in the Australian outback. When her family is threatened by a venomous snake that has invaded their home, she (with the help of Alligator, the family's dog-of-all-breeds) must find a way to defend her children.
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Prefer a different reader
- By Janice on 11-02-2019
Modern Literature
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The White Tiger
- By: Aravind Adiga
- Narrated by: Bindya Solanki
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, 2008.
Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. Too poor to finish school, he has to work in a teashop until the day a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The city is a revelation. Balram becomes aware of immense wealth all around him, and realizes the only way he can become part of it is by murdering his master. The White Tiger presents a raw and unromanticized India, both thrilling and shocking.
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Great narration!
- By Anonymous User on 05-06-2023
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Cat's Eye
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for 40 years. An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize.
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Too long!
- By Andrew Church on 04-08-2020
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Hag-Seed
- The Tempest Retold
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Robert Holmes Thomson
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And brewing revenge. After 12 years revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison.
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Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood
- By Anonymous User on 21-02-2023
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The Meursault Investigation
- By: Kamel Daoud, John Cullen - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
He was the brother of "the Arab" killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus' classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling's memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: He gives his brother a story and a name - Musa - and describes the events that led to Musa's casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach.
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A Disturbingly Interpretation of the Stranger
- By Anonymous User on 12-01-2023
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All the Light We Cannot See
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighbourhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorise it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.
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Stunning
- By Sophie on 20-05-2015
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Feed
- By: M.T. Anderson
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.
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Encapsulates the mood so well!
- By Felicity on 08-08-2017
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The White Tiger
- By: Aravind Adiga
- Narrated by: Bindya Solanki
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, 2008.
Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. Too poor to finish school, he has to work in a teashop until the day a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The city is a revelation. Balram becomes aware of immense wealth all around him, and realizes the only way he can become part of it is by murdering his master. The White Tiger presents a raw and unromanticized India, both thrilling and shocking.
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Great narration!
- By Anonymous User on 05-06-2023
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Cat's Eye
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for 40 years. An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize.
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Too long!
- By Andrew Church on 04-08-2020
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Hag-Seed
- The Tempest Retold
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Robert Holmes Thomson
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And brewing revenge. After 12 years revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison.
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Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood
- By Anonymous User on 21-02-2023
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The Meursault Investigation
- By: Kamel Daoud, John Cullen - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
He was the brother of "the Arab" killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus' classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling's memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: He gives his brother a story and a name - Musa - and describes the events that led to Musa's casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach.
-
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A Disturbingly Interpretation of the Stranger
- By Anonymous User on 12-01-2023
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All the Light We Cannot See
- By: Anthony Doerr
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighbourhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorise it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.
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Stunning
- By Sophie on 20-05-2015
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Feed
- By: M.T. Anderson
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.
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Encapsulates the mood so well!
- By Felicity on 08-08-2017
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Unabridged)
- By: Mark Haddon
- Narrated by: Ben Tibber
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns, and the truth.
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Narration doesn't make sense and is just annoying
- By Nathan on 05-07-2016
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Burial Rites
- By: Hannah Kent
- Narrated by: Morven Christie
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Agnes is sent to wait out the months leading up to her execution on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife, and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force everyone to work side by side, the family’s attitude to Agnes starts to change - until one winter night.
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I hadn’t expected this
- By Linda Marea on 07-02-2018
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The Left Hand of Darkness
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement.
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Excellent story, but narration does not work well
- By Kaz on 04-10-2019
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Small Island
- By: Andrea Levy
- Narrated by: Andrea Levy
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Andrea Levy's acclaimed Small Island is a delicately wrought and profoundly moving novel of empire, prejudice, war, and love. It was awarded the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction, the 2004 Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize. It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun.
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A luminous book
- By Alison R. Cave on 11-06-2019
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Katherine Mansfield
- The Short Stories
- By: Katherine Mansfield
- Narrated by: Eve Karpf
- Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
These three stories are amongst the finest by Katherine Mansfield, a woman highly regarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. In these bittersweet tales, she gently reveals the emotions and feelings within the lives of apparently unexceptional people. Her stories offer a sensitive insight into human behaviour, achieved not by creating scenes of high drama, but by revealing the motives and thoughts of believable characters.
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
- By: Rachel Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Broadbent
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof, or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking - to save someone else's life.
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A beautiful story
- By Anonymous User on 03-08-2020
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Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield
- By: Katherine Mansfield
- Narrated by: Emma Hignett, Emma Topping
- Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A collection of Katherine Mansfield's finest short stories including "Miss Brill", "The Garden Party", "The Singing Lesson", and "Bank Holiday". Listen to this enchanting collection and discover (or remind yourself) why Mansfield is widely regarded as one of the greatest short story writers of the last century.
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Bliss and Other Stories
- By: Katherine Mansfield
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the realm of the short story, Katherine Mansfield established a highly original style. Undramatic, poetic and lyrical, her writing is exquisitely subtle in its treatment of human behaviour. When these 14 short stories were published in 1920, she had already effected a transformation in this form of fiction, and her influence has been deeply felt by subsequent writers.
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What a shame
- By Amazon Customer jo on 18-03-2020
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- By: Mary Ann Shaffer
- Narrated by: Taylor Owynns
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
To give them hope she must tell their story. It's 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer's block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a secondhand book - she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
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Narrator ruins it
- By Chelsea on 13-02-2019
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Station Eleven
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: Jack Hawkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Day one: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the Earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. Week Two: Civilization has crumbled. Year Twenty: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.
-
-
Good book if you dont think about it too much
- By Denison on 02-06-2015
-
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
- By: Madeleine Thien
- Narrated by: Angela Lin
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ai-Ming tells the story of her family in revolutionary China, from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao's ascent to the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989. It is a history of revolutionary idealism, music and silence, in which three musicians - the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow; the violin prodigy, Zhuli; and the enigmatic pianist, Kai - struggle during China's relentless Cultural Revolution to remain loyal to one another and to the music they have devoted their lives to.
-
-
Boring
- By Mary on 31-12-2019
-
Short Stories
- The Brilliant Wit of Katherine Mansfield
- By: Katherine Mansfield
- Narrated by: Cathy Dobson
- Length: 2 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eight brilliant short stories from the best female short story writer of her age. Katherine Mansfield's wit, pathos and descriptive genius combine in this collection to take the listener from a wry smile one minute to the verge of tears the next.
Australian Literature
-
The Lieutenant
- By: Kate Grenville
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1787 Lieutenant Thomas Rooke sets sail from Portsmouth with the First Fleet and its cargo of convicts, destined for New South Wales. As a young officer and a man of science, the shy and quiet Rooke is full of anticipation about the natural wonders he might discover in this strange land on the other side of the world. After the fleet arrives in Port Jackson, Rooke sets up camp on a rocky and isolated point, and starts his work of astronomy and navigation.
-
-
Slow start, but stick with it...
- By alison on 28-06-2015
-
Like a House on Fire
- By: Cate Kennedy
- Narrated by: James Millar, Federay Holmes, Vanessa Coffee
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From prize - winning short - story writer Cate Kennedy comes a new collection to rival her highly acclaimed Dark Roots. In Like a House on Fire, Kennedy once again takes ordinary lives and dissects their ironies, injustices and pleasures with her humane eye and wry sense of humour. In Laminex and Mirrors, a young woman working as a cleaner in a hospital helps an elderly patient defy doctor's orders. In Cross - Country, a jilted lover manages to misinterpret her ex's new life.
-
-
A bit depressing
- By TS on 17-07-2019
-
The Golden Age
- By: Joan London
- Narrated by: Daniel Koek
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perth, 1954. Thirteen-year-old Frank, a refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio. At The Golden Age Children's Convalescent Home, he meets Elsa, and the two patients form a forbidden, passionate bond. The Golden Age becomes the little world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs: love, desire, music, death and poetry.
-
-
Shame about the narration
- By Anonymous User on 08-12-2019
-
The White Earth
- By: Andrew McGahan
- Narrated by: Edwin Hodgeman
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William is eight-years-old when his father is killed in a farming accident and he is invited, along with his psychologically fragile mother, to live with his great-uncle John McIvor at the decaying homestead of Kuran House. The property is the original station of the Darling Downs and the imminent Native Title Act is of great concern to the local landowners. McIvor, a hard and driven man, is organising a rally against the Act, whilst at the same time testing William as a potential heir of Kuran House.
-
-
Australian Gothic
- By Anonymous User on 10-07-2018
-
Past the Shallows
- By: Favel Parrett
- Narrated by: David Wenham
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Past the Shallows is the award-winning, best-selling debut novel from Favel Parrett about the bonds of brotherhood and the fragility of youth, narrated by David Wenham. Everyone loves Harry. Everyone except his father. Three brothers - Joe, Miles and Harry - are growing up on the remote south coast of Tasmania. The brothers' lives are shaped by their father's moods - like the ocean he fishes, he is wild and unpredictable. He is a bitter man warped by a devastating secret.
-
-
Heartbreaking, honest and brutal and real.
- By Carol @readingwritingandriesling on 24-04-2016
-
After Darkness
- By: Christine Piper
- Narrated by: Damien Warren-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is early 1942, and Australia is in the midst of war. While working at a Japanese hospital in the port of Broome, Dr. Ibaraki is arrested and sent to Loveday internment camp in a remote corner of South Australia. As tensions at the isolated camp escalate, the doctor's beliefs are thrown into question, and he is forced to confront his past: the promise he made in Japan and its devastating consequences.
-
-
Highly recommended
- By Hiro on 04-10-2020
-
The Lieutenant
- By: Kate Grenville
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1787 Lieutenant Thomas Rooke sets sail from Portsmouth with the First Fleet and its cargo of convicts, destined for New South Wales. As a young officer and a man of science, the shy and quiet Rooke is full of anticipation about the natural wonders he might discover in this strange land on the other side of the world. After the fleet arrives in Port Jackson, Rooke sets up camp on a rocky and isolated point, and starts his work of astronomy and navigation.
-
-
Slow start, but stick with it...
- By alison on 28-06-2015
-
Like a House on Fire
- By: Cate Kennedy
- Narrated by: James Millar, Federay Holmes, Vanessa Coffee
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From prize - winning short - story writer Cate Kennedy comes a new collection to rival her highly acclaimed Dark Roots. In Like a House on Fire, Kennedy once again takes ordinary lives and dissects their ironies, injustices and pleasures with her humane eye and wry sense of humour. In Laminex and Mirrors, a young woman working as a cleaner in a hospital helps an elderly patient defy doctor's orders. In Cross - Country, a jilted lover manages to misinterpret her ex's new life.
-
-
A bit depressing
- By TS on 17-07-2019
-
The Golden Age
- By: Joan London
- Narrated by: Daniel Koek
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perth, 1954. Thirteen-year-old Frank, a refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio. At The Golden Age Children's Convalescent Home, he meets Elsa, and the two patients form a forbidden, passionate bond. The Golden Age becomes the little world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs: love, desire, music, death and poetry.
-
-
Shame about the narration
- By Anonymous User on 08-12-2019
-
The White Earth
- By: Andrew McGahan
- Narrated by: Edwin Hodgeman
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William is eight-years-old when his father is killed in a farming accident and he is invited, along with his psychologically fragile mother, to live with his great-uncle John McIvor at the decaying homestead of Kuran House. The property is the original station of the Darling Downs and the imminent Native Title Act is of great concern to the local landowners. McIvor, a hard and driven man, is organising a rally against the Act, whilst at the same time testing William as a potential heir of Kuran House.
-
-
Australian Gothic
- By Anonymous User on 10-07-2018
-
Past the Shallows
- By: Favel Parrett
- Narrated by: David Wenham
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Past the Shallows is the award-winning, best-selling debut novel from Favel Parrett about the bonds of brotherhood and the fragility of youth, narrated by David Wenham. Everyone loves Harry. Everyone except his father. Three brothers - Joe, Miles and Harry - are growing up on the remote south coast of Tasmania. The brothers' lives are shaped by their father's moods - like the ocean he fishes, he is wild and unpredictable. He is a bitter man warped by a devastating secret.
-
-
Heartbreaking, honest and brutal and real.
- By Carol @readingwritingandriesling on 24-04-2016
-
After Darkness
- By: Christine Piper
- Narrated by: Damien Warren-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is early 1942, and Australia is in the midst of war. While working at a Japanese hospital in the port of Broome, Dr. Ibaraki is arrested and sent to Loveday internment camp in a remote corner of South Australia. As tensions at the isolated camp escalate, the doctor's beliefs are thrown into question, and he is forced to confront his past: the promise he made in Japan and its devastating consequences.
-
-
Highly recommended
- By Hiro on 04-10-2020
Non-fiction
-
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
- By: Katherine Boo
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Benjamin on 22-07-2017
-
The Hare with Amber Eyes
- A Hidden Inheritance
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the 2010 COSTA Biography Award. A total of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his Great Uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined.…
-
-
An Artist's Journey
- By Margaret Fisher on 05-04-2015
-
Schindler's List
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. A stunning novel based on the extraordinary true story of German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler, who came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II.
-
-
After a while I forgot it was an Aussie
- By Saxon Fraser on 21-03-2021
-
Speak Memory
- An Autobiography Revisited
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Luhzin Defense.
-
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
- By: Katherine Boo
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Benjamin on 22-07-2017
-
The Hare with Amber Eyes
- A Hidden Inheritance
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the 2010 COSTA Biography Award. A total of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his Great Uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined.…
-
-
An Artist's Journey
- By Margaret Fisher on 05-04-2015
-
Schindler's List
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. A stunning novel based on the extraordinary true story of German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler, who came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II.
-
-
After a while I forgot it was an Aussie
- By Saxon Fraser on 21-03-2021
-
Speak Memory
- An Autobiography Revisited
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Luhzin Defense.
-
Unpolished Gem
- My Mother, My Grandmother, and Me
- By: Alice Pung
- Narrated by: Melissa Chambers
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"This story does not begin on a boat." So commences Alice Pung’s memoir. This is an original take on a classic story - how a child of immigrants moves between two cultures. In place of piety and predictability, however, Unpolished Gem offers a vivid and ironic sense of both worlds. It combines the story of Pung’s life growing up in suburban Footscray with the inherited stories of the women in her family - stories of madness, survival, and heartbreak. Original and brave, this is a girl’s own story that introduces an unforgettable voice and captures the experience of Asian immigrants to Australia.
-
-
narrator sounds so sarcastic
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-2021
-
Reckoning
- A Memoir
- By: Magda Szubanski
- Narrated by: Magda Szubanski
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia’s most beloved performers, tells her story. In this extraordinary memoir, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family.
-
-
Moving and powerful
- By Stan on 11-01-2016
-
I Am Malala
- By: Malala Yousafzai
- Narrated by: Archie Panjabi, Malala Yousafzai
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009 Malala Yousafzai began writing a blog on BBC Urdu about life in the Swat Valley as the Taliban gained control, at times banning girls from attending school. When her identity was discovered, Malala began to appear in both Pakistani and international media, advocating the freedom to pursue education for all. In October 2012, gunmen boarded Malala's school bus and shot her in the face, a bullet passing through her head and into her shoulder. Remarkably, Malala survived the shooting. At a very young age, Malala Yousafzai has become a worldwide symbol of courage and hope.
-
-
Don't wait to read, read it now!
- By Katie Barrett on 03-09-2018
-
Dark Emu
- Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?
- By: Bruce Pascoe
- Narrated by: Bruce Pascoe
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been understated in modern retellings of Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.
-
-
Important book, but read critically
- By Anonymous User on 21-08-2019
Shakespeare and other Theatre
-
Waiting for Godot
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, David Burke, Terence Rigby, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.
-
-
What is this? Two retired sheep dogs conversing or what?
- By Anonymous User on 05-01-2022
-
A Doll House
- By: Henrik Ibsen
- Narrated by: Calista Flockhart, Tony Abatemarco, Tim Dekay, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 10 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nora Helmer has everything a young housewife could want: Beautiful children, an adoring husband, and a bright future. But when a carelessly buried secret rises from the past, Nora’s well-calibrated domestic ideal starts to crumble. Ibsen’s play is as fresh today as it was when it first stormed the stages of 19th-century Europe.
-
The Crucible
- By: Arthur Miller
- Narrated by: Stacy Keach, Richard Dreyfuss, Ed Begley Jr., and others
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town. In a searing portrait of a community engulfed by panic—with ruthless prosecutors, and neighbors eager to testify against neighbor—The Crucible famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip in the 1950’s.
-
-
Adapted
- By Lucy on 18-01-2017
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Frank Duncan, and others
- Length: 2 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lovers lives are complicated by city law, feuding faerie royalty, and, yes, love. Sir Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Frank Duncan, and Joan Hart perform Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
-
The Merchant of Venice
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Trevor Peacock, Bill Nighy, Haydn Gwynne, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 16 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Shakespeare's most controversial play, the opposing values of justice and mercy must be resolved. Antonio promises money to help his friend Bassanio woo Portia. He borrows the sum needed from the cruel Shylock, but there will be a dreadful penalty if the loan is not repaid. The golden world of Portia's Belmont calls forth some of Shakespeare's most lyrical love poetry. But the dark shadow of Shylock is never far from the heart of this brilliant comedy as it moves toward its courtroom climax.
-
-
Incredible and engaging
- By Nicole Crampton on 08-04-2020
-
The Secret River
- By: Kate Grenville
- Narrated by: Paul Blackwell
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife, Sal, and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand. But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim 100 acres for himself. Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan, and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.
-
-
Wonderful vivid story telling!
- By Margaret on 10-10-2016
-
Waiting for Godot
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, David Burke, Terence Rigby, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.
-
-
What is this? Two retired sheep dogs conversing or what?
- By Anonymous User on 05-01-2022
-
A Doll House
- By: Henrik Ibsen
- Narrated by: Calista Flockhart, Tony Abatemarco, Tim Dekay, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 10 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nora Helmer has everything a young housewife could want: Beautiful children, an adoring husband, and a bright future. But when a carelessly buried secret rises from the past, Nora’s well-calibrated domestic ideal starts to crumble. Ibsen’s play is as fresh today as it was when it first stormed the stages of 19th-century Europe.
-
The Crucible
- By: Arthur Miller
- Narrated by: Stacy Keach, Richard Dreyfuss, Ed Begley Jr., and others
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town. In a searing portrait of a community engulfed by panic—with ruthless prosecutors, and neighbors eager to testify against neighbor—The Crucible famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip in the 1950’s.
-
-
Adapted
- By Lucy on 18-01-2017
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Frank Duncan, and others
- Length: 2 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lovers lives are complicated by city law, feuding faerie royalty, and, yes, love. Sir Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Frank Duncan, and Joan Hart perform Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
-
The Merchant of Venice
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Trevor Peacock, Bill Nighy, Haydn Gwynne, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 16 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Shakespeare's most controversial play, the opposing values of justice and mercy must be resolved. Antonio promises money to help his friend Bassanio woo Portia. He borrows the sum needed from the cruel Shylock, but there will be a dreadful penalty if the loan is not repaid. The golden world of Portia's Belmont calls forth some of Shakespeare's most lyrical love poetry. But the dark shadow of Shylock is never far from the heart of this brilliant comedy as it moves toward its courtroom climax.
-
-
Incredible and engaging
- By Nicole Crampton on 08-04-2020
-
The Secret River
- By: Kate Grenville
- Narrated by: Paul Blackwell
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife, Sal, and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand. But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim 100 acres for himself. Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan, and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.
-
-
Wonderful vivid story telling!
- By Margaret on 10-10-2016
-
Measure for Measure: The Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Roger Allam, Stella Gonet
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Telling his followers he is leaving the city on affairs of state, the Duke of Vienna appoints the puritanical Angelo to govern in his absence. Will Angelo prove as virtuous as he seems once power is in his hands? Roaming the city disguised as a friar, the duke looks on as Angelo's lust for the virtuous Isabella sweeps him into the corruption he has so sternly condemned in others. The duke's manipulation at last produces a happy ending for this dark comedy, with its brilliant exploration of the themes of justice and mercy.
-
John Gielgud's Hamlet (Dramatised)
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: John Gielgud
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This outstanding historical recording made in 1941 for radio is widely regarded as one of the finest Hamlet performances ever, and one of John Gielgud's greatest moments. Though he went on to record it for commercial release, nothing matched this recording in the BBC studios, made before the days of editing.
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-
Great
- By Mathew Hobbs on 09-07-2017
-
Henry IV, Part One
- Henry IV, Part One (Dramatized)
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Julian Glover, Jamie Glover, Full Cast
- Length: 2 hrs and 17 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Father and son Julian Glover and Jamie Glover star as King Henry and his son Hal in this powerful production, which also stars Timothy West and Prunella Scales. BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly-formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of making Shakespeare to be heard.
-
King Richard III
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh, Geraldine McEwan, Nicholas Farrell, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written in 1593, King Richard III is one of Shakespeare's earliest plays. This play differs from its predecessors, being amore structured piece, examining the development and motivations of a single character, Richard Duke of Gloucester, who will stop at nothing to gain control of the throne occupied by his brother Edward IV.
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-
Very helpful
- By LYNN JENNINGS on 04-03-2019
-
The Tempest
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Sir Ian McKellen, Emilia Fox, Scott Handy, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
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Story
Sir Ian McKellen, fresh from his performance as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, is Prospero, and heads a strong cast in Shakespeare’s last great play. The wronged duke raises a tempest to shipwreck his old opponents on his island so that he can ensure justice is done. With Emilia Fox as Miranda, Scott Handy in the pivotal role of the sprite Ariel, and Ben Owukwe as Caliban.
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Shakespeare and McKellen - a Perfect Combination
- By Roderic on 12-08-2019
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SmartPass Plus Audio Education Study Guide to Hamlet (Unabridged, Dramatised, Commentary Options)
- By: William Shakespeare, Simon Potter
- Narrated by: Joan Walker, Stephen Elder, Paul Clayton
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The multi award-winning SmartPass study guide with and without commentary options. This is a full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Universally accepted as Shakespeare's finest play, we peel back the layers of Hamlet to discover how and why it deserves such a place of honour in world literature.
Poetry
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The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- By: Emily Dickinson
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez, Richard Mitchely, Tim Graham, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst Massachusetts. Rightly regarded as a major American poet, her life was sheltered, introverted, and reclusive. Despite writing over 1800 poems, only a dozen or so were published during her lifetime. Her structures and wordings are at times difficult to get to grips with, though recurring themes of religion and death certainly shadow many of her works.
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The Poems of T. S. Eliot
- Read by Jeremy Irons
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons, Dame Eileen Atkins
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons' perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity. Major poems range from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' through the post-war desolation of 'The Waste Land' and the spiritual struggle of 'Ash-Wednesday', to the enduring charm of 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.
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It was over all too quickly!
- By Pia Horan-Gross on 22-09-2018
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The Waste Land and Other Poems
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Ted Hughes
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
'The Waste Land' is a landmark in 20th-century poetry. Here it is read by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Published in 1922, it is a brilliant exploration of a faithless, immoral society trying to rebuild itself after the devastation of the Great War. Rich in literary references and steeped in allusive and evocative imagery, 'The Waste Land' is widely considered to be the pinnacle of modernist poetry.
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The Great Poets: Robert Browning
- By: Robert Browning
- Narrated by: David Timson, Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 1 hr and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Robert Browning’s popular poems "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and "How They Brought the Good News" are often anthologised, but it is in his dramatic lyrics such as "My Last Duchess" and the chilling "Porphyria’s Lover" that his poetic genius shines. Browning, with his unusual use of language, can be a challenging poet, but one who is always rewarding. This selection shows the many imaginative facets of this often neglected Victorian poet.
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Four Quartets
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Ralph Fiennes
- Length: 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A masterly new recording by Ralph Fiennes. Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in 20th-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author.
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Ralph Fiennes does a magnificent job
- By Paula Constant on 12-10-2020
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Four Quartets
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Ted Hughes
- Length: 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With its intricate structure and imagery, Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career. Its greatness is done full justice in this rendition by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Containing some of the most melodic passages in modern poetry, Four Quartets blends the religious, the philosophical and the personal themes that preoccupied T. S. Eliot.
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Absolutely brilliant and beautiful
- By Garybaldy on 05-11-2019
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The Poetry of Robert Frost
- By: Robert Frost
- Narrated by: Susan Anspach, Roscoe Lee Browne, Elliott Gould, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Drawing upon everyday incidents, common situations, and rural imagery, Robert Frost fashioned poetry of great lyrical beauty and potent symbolism. His language is simple, clear, and colloquial, yet dense with meaning and wider significance.
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great poetry
- By Tom Oo on 05-10-2022
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Seamus Heaney I Collected Poems (published 1966-1975)
- Death of a Naturalist; Door into the Dark; Wintering Out; North
- By: Seamus Heaney
- Narrated by: Seamus Heaney
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume one of the definitive collection of Seamus Heaney reading his own work, recorded in 2009 by RTE. Volume one contains four collections published between 1966 and 1975: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out and North.
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The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- By: Emily Dickinson
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez, Richard Mitchely, Tim Graham, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst Massachusetts. Rightly regarded as a major American poet, her life was sheltered, introverted, and reclusive. Despite writing over 1800 poems, only a dozen or so were published during her lifetime. Her structures and wordings are at times difficult to get to grips with, though recurring themes of religion and death certainly shadow many of her works.
-
The Poems of T. S. Eliot
- Read by Jeremy Irons
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons, Dame Eileen Atkins
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons' perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity. Major poems range from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' through the post-war desolation of 'The Waste Land' and the spiritual struggle of 'Ash-Wednesday', to the enduring charm of 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.
-
-
It was over all too quickly!
- By Pia Horan-Gross on 22-09-2018
-
The Waste Land and Other Poems
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Ted Hughes
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'The Waste Land' is a landmark in 20th-century poetry. Here it is read by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Published in 1922, it is a brilliant exploration of a faithless, immoral society trying to rebuild itself after the devastation of the Great War. Rich in literary references and steeped in allusive and evocative imagery, 'The Waste Land' is widely considered to be the pinnacle of modernist poetry.
-
The Great Poets: Robert Browning
- By: Robert Browning
- Narrated by: David Timson, Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 1 hr and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Browning’s popular poems "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and "How They Brought the Good News" are often anthologised, but it is in his dramatic lyrics such as "My Last Duchess" and the chilling "Porphyria’s Lover" that his poetic genius shines. Browning, with his unusual use of language, can be a challenging poet, but one who is always rewarding. This selection shows the many imaginative facets of this often neglected Victorian poet.
-
Four Quartets
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Ralph Fiennes
- Length: 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterly new recording by Ralph Fiennes. Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in 20th-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author.
-
-
Ralph Fiennes does a magnificent job
- By Paula Constant on 12-10-2020
-
Four Quartets
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Ted Hughes
- Length: 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With its intricate structure and imagery, Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career. Its greatness is done full justice in this rendition by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Containing some of the most melodic passages in modern poetry, Four Quartets blends the religious, the philosophical and the personal themes that preoccupied T. S. Eliot.
-
-
Absolutely brilliant and beautiful
- By Garybaldy on 05-11-2019
-
The Poetry of Robert Frost
- By: Robert Frost
- Narrated by: Susan Anspach, Roscoe Lee Browne, Elliott Gould, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Drawing upon everyday incidents, common situations, and rural imagery, Robert Frost fashioned poetry of great lyrical beauty and potent symbolism. His language is simple, clear, and colloquial, yet dense with meaning and wider significance.
-
-
great poetry
- By Tom Oo on 05-10-2022
-
Seamus Heaney I Collected Poems (published 1966-1975)
- Death of a Naturalist; Door into the Dark; Wintering Out; North
- By: Seamus Heaney
- Narrated by: Seamus Heaney
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume one of the definitive collection of Seamus Heaney reading his own work, recorded in 2009 by RTE. Volume one contains four collections published between 1966 and 1975: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out and North.