Showing results by publisher "MuseumAudiobooks.com" in Genre Fiction

The Tale of Genji is an exquisitely crafted classic work of Japanese literature written in the 11th century. Some consider it to be the world's first novel, or the first modern or psychological novel. The narrative of 54 chapters is embellished by hundreds of little poems spread like a string of pearls through the prose. The story recounts the life of Hikaru Genji, the son of an ancient Japanese emperor and a concubine. Removed from the line of succession, Genji pursues a series of love affairs and a career as an imperial officer.

1984 is a novel by the British author George Orwell in 1949. The narrative unfolds in an imagined future when most of the world has fallen prey to omnipresent government surveillance, propaganda, and endless war. Great Britain has become a province of the super state Oceania, which is ruled by the Party, whose leader is called Big Brother. The Party employs the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Winston Smith, the protagonist, is an ordinary worker who secretly despises the Party and dreams of rebellion.

Hammurabi (c. 1810 BC-c. 1750 BC) was the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty. The Code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws and was written in Akkadian. It prescribed specific penalties for every crime and is among the earliest codes to establish the presumption of innocence. The code also dealt with the economic life of ancient Babylonians, like the duties and rights of tenant farmers.

The Star Rover is a 1914 collection of science fiction short stories with the theme of reincarnation. It tells the story of Darrell Standing, an inmate of San Quentin’s death row. The narrator escapes the horror of prison life by withdrawing into altered states and the memory of past lives. Forming the body of the work, the accounts of these past lives are vivid but disconnected. They include a desert island survival story, one which involves a Roman perspective on Christ, a tale of medieval Korea, and one which takes place in a prehistoric era.

The New Atlantis (1627) is a utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon in which he describes a vision of the future of human discovery, expressing his aspirations and ideals for humanity. The novel portrays a utopian world where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the dominant qualities of the inhabitants.

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer. Three of his most prominent works are included here: Gitanjali is a cycle of 103 poems about the bliss of living and dying in wonder of the creation, while Stray Birds is a collection of some 300 poems. The poems are short but profound and the imagery lingers. The novel, The Home and the World is set on an estate in 1908; it’s a blend of love story and political intrigue against the background of the conflict in India.

Andy Adams (1859-1935) was born to pioneer parents in Indiana, worked in Texas for a decade driving cattle, and settled in Colorado Springs, where he penned his cowboy narratives. The Log of a Cowboy chronicles a five-month drive of three thousand head of cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana. This classical work of fiction provides fascinating insights of everyday life on the Great Western Cattle Trail with a team of 12 cowhands, a cook, a horse wrangler and a foreman.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and Renaissance humanist. Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about an imaginary island society and its religious, social, and political customs. While imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534, he wrote A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation. It is a fictional dialogue focusing on the comfort of God in distress, the benefits of suffering, atonement for evil acts, faintheartedness and the temptation to suicide.

The Iliad - attributed to Homer - is the most famous ancient Greek epic poem. It recounts the struggle between King Agamemnon and the hero Achilles during the final months of the Trojan War, with frequent detours into earlier legends and myths. In its portrayal of battle scenes and the constant interventions of the gods, The Iliad explores themes of wrath, glory, and fate, and has provided the subject matter for many later Greek, Roman, and Renaissance writings.

Anatole France (1844-1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist who wrote several best sellers. The Revolt of the Angels is a mischievous take on the theology of modern society; it chronicles the thoughts of Arcade, a lowly guardian angel, as he discovers the ugly truths of his divine master in the library of his human charge As Maurice, the young man abandoned by Arcade, struggles to get his guardian back, one gets a view of a wide variety of the author’s artistic personalities, most of whom are fallen angels.

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, was an Irish writer known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. His book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, comprises two parts, the first being the "Kwaidan Proper" and the second, "Insect-Studies", which consists of an essay each on ants, butterflies and mosquitos. According to the author, most of the folk tales and ghost stories in the first part were translated from old Japanese texts. The themes encompass resurrection, sacrifice, magic, and the realm of dreams.

A Girl of the Limberlost, a novel by the writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter, was published in 1909 as the sequel to her earlier novel Freckles. The tale unfolds in and around the Limberlost Swamp of north-eastern Indiana and in the nearby town of Onabasha. The main character, Elnora Comstock, lives with her widowed mother, Katharine Comstock, on the edge of the wetlands. The embittered Katharine blames her daughter for the death of her husband, who was swallowed by quicksand.

A classic of modernist literature, Ulysses by the Irish writer James Joyce, was published in 1922. It chronicles a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, his friends Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus, his wife, Molly, and a cast of supporting characters. The novel is loosely based on the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey and establishes a set of correspondences between the characters and experiences of Bloom and Odysseus, Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, Molly Bloom and Penelope.

Anna Karenina is a complex novel in eight parts with more than a dozen major characters. The narrative deals with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, and Russian society against a backdrop of rapid transformation due to the liberal reforms of Emperor Alexander II. The plot revolves around an extramarital affair between Anna and the cavalry officer Count Alexei Vronsky that scandalizes Saint Petersburg society and compels the young lovers to flee to Italy in search of an elusive happiness.

The Great Gatsby, the 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, follows a cast of characters on Long Island in the summer of 1922. It is considered a classic of the Jazz Age or Roaring Twenties. The story is told by Nick Carraway, a Yale University graduate from the Midwest who has moved to New York to pursue a stock-market career. Recounting the events of a summer he spent on Long Island, his narrative emerges as a series of flashbacks.

Villette (1853), was Charlotte Brontë's third novel and the last published during her lifetime. After an unspecified family catastrophe, the main character, Lucy Snowe, travels to Belgium to teach in a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette. She falls in love with a man she cannot marry, which triggers a nervous breakdown. Ultimately, a new, strong Lucy emerges who becomes the owner and head of her own school.

The novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was published under the pen name "Currer Bell" in 1847. Considered one of the most famous romance novels of all time, Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman which chronicles the experiences of Jane, including her childhood as an orphan, her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr. Rochester, the master of Thornfield Hall. It was the first English novel that focused on its protagonist's moral and spiritual development by way of an intimate first-person narrative, in which events are marked by psychological intensity.

My Bondage and My Freedom is Frederick Douglass’s second autobiography, published 10 years after Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Written during his career as a newspaper editor and orator, the book placed Douglass in the international spotlight as a spokesman for American blacks. Examining the meaning of race, slavery and freedom, the book extends the story of his life by providing more detail on his childhood and including his experiences as a traveling lecturer in the United States and Europe.

The Call of the Wild and White Fang are two masterpieces of American literature set in the desolate cold North. The Call of the Wild is the story of a gentle domestic dog that rejects civilization and returns to the wilderness due to the cruelty of mankind. White Fang is a companion narrative and a thematic mirror to The Call of the Wild; it tells the tale of a wolf-dog hybrid who struggles to survive and ultimately changes from a fearsome wild beast into a creature of love.

The Golden Ingot is the sad tale of a man who thought he was creating gold through a process of alchemy. His daughter pitied him and went to great lengths to support his delusion. His quest to turn metals into gold ended in tragedy.