From his remarkable debut The Hawk in the Rain (1957) to his death in 1998, Ted Hughes was a colossal presence in the English literary landscape. He was also admired as a performer of his own work. Tales from Ovid, Ted Hughes' masterful versions of stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses, includes those of Phaeton, Actaeon, Echo and Narcissus, Procne, Midas and Pyramus and Thisbe as well as many others.

John Lithgow and B.D. Wong here recreate their original roles from the Tony Award-winning production. Inspired by an actual espionage scandal, a French diplomat discovers the startling truth about his Chinese mistress.

A young sea captain discovers a stowaway - and allows him to stay, eventually seeing in him a reflection of himself. Or perhaps that's all there ever was. Wendy Mullen's contralto voice captures the music of the sea; you'll be mesmerized by the telling and the tale. Conrad is at his best, and Mullen's reading captivates.

Playwright, poet, and novelist Ntozake Shange originally composed for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf in as a mesmerizingly original choreopoem. The New York Post called it "rich with the author's special voice: by turns bitter, funny, ironic, and savage; fiercely honest and personal." Now a new audiobook, it chronicles the interconnected lives of a group of women facing shatteringly difficult issues, and evokes the indomitable power of enduring hope and joy.

An Oprah's Book Club Selection regarded as one of Faulkner's greatest and most accessible novels, Light in August is a timeless and riveting story of determination, tragedy, and hope. In Faulkner's iconic Yoknapatawpha County, race, sex, and religion collide around three memorable characters searching desperately for human connection and their own identities.

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes's strange and sinuous tour de force novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna - a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction.

In Ordinary Love, Smiley focuses on a woman's infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure. Good Will describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations.

Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin - he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills - meet one summer and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella, the first book published by Philip Roth, explores issues of both class and Jewish assimilation into American culture. It won the National Book Award in 1960.

While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson and a woman named Annemarie - letters are that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters’ language - but does not see Carson as history has portrayed her. And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of Carson's life.

In a stunning narrative combining the gritty rhythms of Junot Diaz with the noir genius of Walter Mosley, Bodega Dreams pulls us into Spanish Harlem, where the word is out: Willie Bodega is king. Need college tuition for your daughter? Start-up funds for your fruit stand? Bodega can help. He gives everyone a leg up, in exchange only for loyalty - and a steady income from the drugs he pushes.

Jean Toomer's Cane is one of the most significant works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, and is considered to be a masterpiece in American modernist literature because of its distinct structure and style. First published in 1923 and told through a series of vignettes, Cane uses poetry, prose, and play-like dialogue to create a window into the varied lives of African Americans living in the rural South and urban North during a time when Jim Crow laws pervaded and racism reigned. 

This collection of nine short stories by Flannery O'Connor was published posthumously in 1965. The flawed characters of each story are fully revealed in apocalyptic moments of conflict and violence that are presented with comic detachment.

First published in 1929, Faulkner created his "heart's darling", the beautiful and tragic Caddy Compson, whose story Faulkner told through separate monologues by her three brothers: the idiot Benjy, the neurotic suicidal Quentin, and the monstrous Jason.

Inspired by a true story, A Land More Kind Than Home is a spellbinding, heartbreaking tale about cruelty and innocence - and the failure of religion and family to protect a child. It is thick with stories and characters connected by faith, infidelity, and a sense of hope that is both tragic and unforgettable.