Showing results by narrator "Nadia May" in All Categories

To appreciate the beauty of great works of music, we must be familiar with the lives of the geniuses who composed them. For in the personalities and life-stories of great composers is the key to their masterpieces.

Notes on Nursing is a classic by Florence Nightingale (the first modern nurse). Florence Nightingale's methods were revolutionary in her time, and they form the basis for the techniques of patient management that have been taught ever since. Notes on Nursing is a great overview, in her own words, of Florence Nightingale's ideas on care, cleanliness, and the nursing process in general. Her directives are widely applicable today. First published in 1860, Notes on Nursing served as the cornerstone of the curriculum at the Nightingale School and other nursing schools established.

Elizabeth Gaskell's comic portrait of early Victorian life in a country town describes with poignant wit the uneventful lives of its lady-like inhabitants, offering an ironic commentary on the separate spheres and diverse experiences of men and women. As the external world necessarily impinges even on Cranford, the unlikely juxtapositions of old and new brought about by the pace of change are also explored.

Just as Anne had to use a male pseudonym in order to publish, Helen Graham, the novel's protagonist and a battered wife, must assume an alias in order to gain freedom from her suffering. With her young child, Helen takes up residence at Wildfell Hall, shrouding her past in secrecy, yet earning the attentions of a young, unmarried country gentlemen.

The English Governess at the Siamese Court, written in 1870, vividly recounts the experiences of one Anna Harriette Leonowens as governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam, and translator and scribe for the King himself. Bright, young, and energetic, Leonowens was well-suited to her role and her writings convey a heartfelt interest in the lives, legends, and languages of Siam's rich and poor.

After an absence of a year, Catherine LeVendeur and her husband Edgar are glad to return to Paris. When they enter the house, however, they are shocked by the discovery of the dead body of a Knight Templar. Although innocent, Catherine fears that she or her family will be incriminated. Her father Hubert has recently announced his Jewish roots, and twelfth-century Europe is not a safe place for Jews.

This collection contains poems Elizabeth Browning wrote in her early days as well as the last poems she wrote before her death at 55: ballads, religious, social-reforming, and political verse. Included are: "The Dream," "The Image of God," and "The Tempest."

Set in London's backstreet slums, Oliver Twist is the story of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a den of thieves, where some of Dickens' most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger; the barbarous bully Bill Sikes; and the terrible Fagin, whose knavery threatens to send them all to the gallows. This was the first of Dickens' works to depict realistically London's impoverished underworld, and to illustrate his belief that poverty leads to crime.

Harvey Cheyne is the pampered son of a multimillionaire who falls off an ocean liner and is rescued by a small fishing boat. After being punched in the nose by the captain of the vessel for smart-mouthing him, Harvey quickly learns respect, toughness, and gratitude. He steps up from self-centeredness into the difficult but fulfilling realm of self-reliance and unselfishness.

In the indulgence of their egotistical ambitions and reckless whims, kings, conquerors and dictators have frequently presented a spectacle, sometimes comic but more often tragic in its results, that the authors have tried to bring back to life in this book. Here are living biographies of twenty famous rulers including: King Solomon, Caesar, Ivan the Terrible and more.

In Paradise Regained, Satan again is on the prowl, having successfully tempted Adam and Eve, and forced their departure from the Garden of Eden, here he sets out to tempt again - this time Jesus himself, as he comes to the end of his 40 days in the desert. The magisterial poetry of Milton enriches the encounter and, while not matching the greatness achieved in Paradise Lost, provides drama and depth.

The national debate over popular music's effect on character is both furious and confused. Conservatives complain primarily about lyrics, appealing to public decency and safety. Liberals, swift to the defense of any self-expression, simultaneously celebrate rock's liberating ethos and deny its cultural influence.

This absorbing audiobook presents the lives of 20 great founders and leading advocates of the world's foremost religions. Here are the historical facts and legends associated with these forceful personalities who have inspired and influenced humankind through the centuries.

This dramatic story of two men's efforts to save a small Wisconsin daily from obliteration at the hands of the nation's largest newspaper chain brings together startling case histories of the dubious tactics practiced by Gannett and unsparing insights into the newspaper industry.

First published in 1915, The Voyage Out marked the literary debut of one of the great pioneers of the modern novel. Virginia Woolf's extraordinary narrative follows a group of lively, eccentric British tourists embarking on a sea voyage from London to South America. Among them is Rachel Vinrace, a shy, motherless young woman who has been taken along under the wing of her Aunt Helen, so that she may learn "how to live".

Left by harrowing circumstances to fend for herself in the great capital of a foreign country, Lucy Snowe, the narrator and heroine of Villette, achieves by degrees her independence from both outer necessity and inward grief. Lucy flees from an unhappy past in England to begin a new life as a teacher at a French boarding school in the cosmopolitan capital of Villette.

This is the story of one of Church history's most revered women, the godly mother of John and Charles Wesley. This biography recounts the story of a woman who used her strong leadership and faith to raise well educated and spiritually disciplined children. Her unwavering devotion to God and family in the face of grief, poverty, and a sometimes difficult marriage is a tremendous inspiration.

This book, written by a woman who wished to remain anonymous, covers the social customs and manners of her time, the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the times of Jane Austen and of Napoleon. It is devoted in large part to the "English lady's costume" but also covers deportment, movement, the correct dances, propriety, and aids to beauty and health.

An American heiress newly arrived in Europe, Isabel does not look to a man to furnish her with destiny; instead, she desires, with grace and courage, to find it herself. Two eligible suitors approach her and are refused. She then becomes utterly captivated by the languid charms of Gilbert Osmond.

As the thrilling adventures of Ursula Blanchard, secret agent for Queen Elizabeth I, continue, she finds herself in France, reunited with her husband, Matthew de la Roche, in a passionate but flawed relationship. But when Ursula learns that her daughter, Meg, has mysteriously disappeared, she immediately sets out on a frantic and dangerous search. The trail leads back to England, to Vetch Castle: a grim, haunted keep owned by the enigmatic Philip Mortimer.