Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Literature & Fiction

Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.

In The Soft Machine, William S. Burroughs begins an adventure that will take us into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a book only he could create.

1983. The US nuclear submarine USS Roanoke embarks on a classified spy mission into Soviet waters. Their goal: to find evidence of a new, faster, and deadlier Soviet submarine that could tip the balance of the Cold War. But the Roanoke crew isn't alone. Something is on board with them. Something cunning and malevolent. Trapped in enemy territory and hunted by Soviet submarines, tensions escalate and crew members turn on each other. When the lights go out and horror fills the corridors, it will take everything the crew has to survive the menace.

Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben, North Carolina, with high hopes. But Step's new job with a software company turns out to be a snake pit, and 8-year-old Stevie's school is worse. As Stevie retreats into himself, focusing more and more on a mysterious computer game and a growing troop of imaginary friends, the Fletchers' concern turns to terror.

Living in a peaceful, prosperous African-American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mack Street is a mystery child who has somehow found a home. Discovered abandoned in an overgrown park, raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack comes and goes from family to family, a boy who is surrounded by boisterous characters and yet deeply alone.

Unscrupulous financial speculator Ferdinand Lopez, aspiring to marry into respectability and wealth, has society at his feet, with well-connected ladies vying with each other to exert influence on his behalf. Even Lady Glencora, the wife of Plantagenet Palliser, prime minister of England, supports the exotic imposter. Palliser, respectable man of power and inherited wealth, is appalled by the rise of this man who seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Loosely based on sensational press reports of a Moscow student’s murder by fellow revolutionists, The Possessed depicts the destructive chaos caused by outside agitators who move into a provincial town. The enigmatic Stavrogin dominates the novel. His magnetic personality influences his tutor, the liberal intellectual poseur Stepan Verhovensky, and the teacher’s revolutionary son Pyotr, as well as other radicals.

When Brazos Keene, a haunted cowboy with an honorable streak, comes across Twin Sombreros Ranch, he finds himself dragged into a vicious family feud. A convenient fall guy, Brazos is accused of the murder of Allen Neece, son of Abe Neece. The Neeces are the former owners of Twin Sombreros but lost it to the Surface family when their $50,000 herd of cattle mysteriously disappeared. Brazos barely manages to avoid a hanging, but when he falls for one of the Neece girls, he can't leave without finding out who really killed Allen and what's at the bottom of this war over the ranch.

Told through the experiences of the four women who loved him, this imaginative account of Frank Lloyd Wright's raucous life blazes with Boyle's trademark wit and invention. Boyle's protean voice captures these very different women and, in doing so, creates a masterful ode to the creative life in all its complexity and grandeur.

Daniel Bradford, a poor young Brit, is separated in a cruel twist of fate from his sister, Lyna, and left to rot in the infamous Dartmoor Prison. His only hope for escape comes when he agrees to a seven-year indenture in America. But he discovers he had traded one imprisonment for another under a cruel and exacting master, Sir Leo Rochester.

Twenty-eight and filthy rich, Matt Cannon is the youngest broker on Wall Street. He may be a "boy wonder", but he's every inch a man. Ask any woman-any night. But when Matt's latest fling makes scandalous headlines, his clients get anxious, and his bosses at Wolfe Investments level an ultimatum: Keep his assets zipped, get a "real" girlfriend, and clean up his act. Only one woman can help Matt with something this hard.

Dr. Jake Ross, a university astronomer, wants nothing more than to teach a few classes each semester and continue his research. Instead, he finds himself aggressively recruited to be the science advisor to Frank Tomlinson, an ambitious politician with his eye on the US Senate. Tomlinson is in need of an edge that will allow him to defeat his opponent at the polls, and Dr. Ross can contribute just that: MHD. MHD, or magnetohydrodynamics, is a new innovation that will allow electricity to be generated efficiently and cheaply. But MHD is still in its infancy, and there are deadly risks.

In late 1926, the newly married Daisy Dalrymple and Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard take an ocean voyage to America for their honeymoon. Daisy and Alec are accompanied by Daisy's childhood friend, Phillip Petrie; his wife, Gloria; and Gloria's father, American millionaire industrialist Caleb P. Arbuckle, and all are looking forward to a pleasant, uneventful trip. But at the last minute they are joined by Arbuckle's new friend, Yorkshire millionaire Jethro Gotobed, and his new wife, Wanda.

Wolf tells the story of a man who - after too many nameless women and drunken nights - leaves Manhattan to roam the wilderness of northern Michigan, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare wolves that prowl that territory. Returning Harrison fans will be ecstatic to re-discover this early novel once again, and for new listeners, this work serves as the perfect introduction to Harrison’s remarkable insight, storytelling skill, and evocation of the natural world.

No one tells tales of the frontier better than Louis L'Amour, who portrays the humanside of westward expansion - the good and the bad - before the days of law and order. Collected here are six stories penned by America's favorite Western author.

Caught in the middle of the American Revolution against the English Crown, two families are divided by their loyalties. Dake Bradford, a blazing American patriot under the command of George Washington, has taken a stand against the British. Clive Gordon, a young physician and Dake's first cousin, is the son of an English colonel who has sworn to put down the rebellion. Fanned by fires of patriotism, sides have been drawn, and there can be no turning back.

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.

This brilliant satirical novel, tracing the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex, has continued in popularity since its original publication in 1903. Every generation finds in The Way of All Flesh a reaffirmation of youth's rightful struggle against the tyranny of harsh parents and its admirable will for freedom of personal expression.

Peter Huchthausen, a river patrol officer on Vietnam's Mekong River Delta in 1967, rescued a badly wounded Vietnamese child, Nguyen Thi Lung. He and his men arranged for the girl's treatment and education, only to lose track of her when her town was overrun by the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive.

Byron's exuberant masterpiece tells of the adventures of Don Juan, a handsome and charming young man naturally gifted with the ladies. After his first illicit love affair at the age of 16 in his native Spain, he is exiled to Italy. Following a dramatic shipwreck, his exploits take him to Greece, where he is sold as a slave, and to Russia, where he becomes a favorite of the Empress Catherine, who sends him on to England.