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When Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1929), the citation made special mention of his first novel, “Buddenbrooks,” published in 1901, describing it as “the first great novel of the 20th century.”Events in the novel center on the Buddenbrook family, bourgeois owners of a wholesale grain enterprise in the northern German city of Lübeck. (The city is never named as such, but detailed references to landmarks leave no doubt that the setting is closely based on Mann’s hometown, just as the story is inspired by the Mann family history.) We follow four generations of ...

Unamuno nos pone frente a frente con una de las pasiones humanas más viles y destructivas: La envidia.Joaquín y Abel son amigos íntimos desde la infancia y ya desde el instituto Joaquín quiere tener y ser todo lo que representa Abel. Abel es un muchacho popular entre los compañeros, simpático, al que le encanta la pintura y mucho menos los libros. Joaquín por el contrario es aplicado y estudioso, pero no goza del encanto y la simpatía de Abel.Unamuno hace una magnífica radiografía de esta pasión malsana que se apodera de Joaquín y que desgraciadamente está presente en todas las ...

Royal Highness is the story of Prince Klaus Heinrich, a member of a struggling German duchy and an exotic American heiress who comes to live as his neighbor. The novel is a microcosm of Europe before World War I, with Mann's depiction of a decaying society that is rejuvenated by modern forces. A true modern day fairy tale. (Summary by Margaret Espaillat)

LibriVox recording of Bible Passages Collection 002 with selections from the American Standard Version; King James Version (KJV); World English Bible; Open English Bible; and Updated King James Version (UKJV).

The final book of the Holy Scriptures describes a dramatic, often terrifying vision by John, who may or may not have been the same John who was an apostle to Jesus Christ. A prisoner on the island of Patmos, John sees the unveiling of Christ as He really is, through colorful and haunting symbols depicting the trials and tribulations of the saints of God, as well as the coming New Jerusalem. This book is believed to have been written this way as a kind of "secret code" for Christians suffering under the intense persecution of Rome. (Introduction by Mark Penfold)

Galatians is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia. Paul is principally concerned with the controversy surrounding Gentile Christians and the Mosaic Law within Early Christianity.The main theme of Ephesians is “the Church, the Body of Christ.” The Church is to maintain the unity in practice which Christ has brought about positionally. Another major theme in Ephesians is the keeping of Christ's body (that is, the Church) pure and holy.Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul circa 62 while Paul was in ...

Originating in the circumstance of a multicultural church (primarily Jewish and Hellenistic), Ephesians addresses issues appropriate to the diverse religious and cultural backgrounds present in the community. Paul addresses hostility, division, and self-interest more than any other topic in the letter, leading many scholars to believe that his primary concern was not doctrinal, but behavioral.Some theologians agree the main theme of Ephesians is in response to the newly converted Jews who often separated themselves from their Gentile brethren. The unity of the church, especially between Jew ...

Librivox's Bible Passages Collection 001: a collection of passages, verses, and chapters from multiple public domain editions of the Holy Bible. - Summary by Kangaroo692

Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians to warn them of how they were changing their belief of the gospel. They were subtly starting to believe that they must finish in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit. They had forgotten the simplicity of the gospel. The Galatian church had been infected with "another gospel." The Letter to the Galatians is the Apostle Paul's antidote. They had been led to believe that what was begun in the Spirit was to be perfected through the flesh. They had been led astray. Paul's correction is two-fold: the completeness of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus, ...

The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians (and written as 1 Corinthians), is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible. Paul of Tarsus composed this letter in Greek, to the Christians of Corinth, Greece. Corinth was the meeting point of many nationalities because the main current of the trade between Asia and western Europe passed through its harbors. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to correct what he saw as erroneous views in the Corinthian church. Several sources informed Paul of conflicts within the church at Corinth. Paul then wrote this letter ...

Albatros ont été décrits comme "le plus légendaire de tous les oiseaux". Un albatros est un emblème central à La Rime du vieux marin de Samuel Taylor Coleridge, un albatros en captivité est également une métaphore de la poète maudit dans un poème de Charles Baudelaire. C'est à partir du poème de Coleridge que l'utilisation d'albatros comme une métaphore est tirée, quelqu'un avec un fardeau ou un obstacle, dit-on "un albatros autour du cou", la peine infligée dans le poème pour le navigateur qui a tué l'albatros. En partie à cause du poème, il ya un mythe largement répandu ...

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a sophisticated novell with extremely hard to comprehend philosophical ideas lying on the border of paranoia, orthodoxal believing of God and psychological researches on human nature. Every sentence sounds like a sort of revelation to an unprepared reader’s mind and causes a deep flashback thoughts which are impossible to get rid of, which also require an immediate solution.Though it’s hard to define precisely what kind of content presented in novell but one can say it is a sort of impossible mixture of traditional Dostoevsky’s ideas of ...

Although titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoyevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles The Devils or Demons. An extremely political book, Demons is a testimonial of life in Imperial Russia in the late 19th century. As the revolutionary democrats begin to rise in Russia, different ideologies begin to collide. Dostoyevsky casts a critical eye on both the radical idealists, portraying their ideas and ideological foundation as demonic, and the conservative establishment's ineptitude in dealing with those ideas and their social consequences. This form of ...

The staid academic title belies the freewheeling prose of D.H. Lawrence's essays, which are as contrarian, penetrating, and sometimes unpalatable as one might expect from the author. "America has never been easy, and is not easy to-day. Americans have always been at a certain tension." - Summary by Kazbek

Thomas Mann’s epic novel depicts a decaying, corrupted European society on the eve of the First World War. Set in a luxurious sanatorium high up in the Swiss mountains, we follow the destinies of a variety of exotic characters – members of a bourgeois elite drawn from all parts of Europe. Most suffer from consumption, dream of a cure - yet are at the same time squeezing as much pleasure and distraction as they can out of a situation ever-shadowed by sickness, pain, and death. Part surreal comedy, part grim tragedy, part allegory, and part novel of ideas, Mann’s novel is regarded by many ...

The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, often referred to as Second Corinthians (and written as 2 Corinthians), is the eighth book of the New Testament. The letter, originally written in Koine Greek, is from Paul of Tarsus (and Timothy) to the Christians of Corinth, Greece.Paul defends his authority as an apostle. He also states the importance of forgiving others, and God’s new agreement that comes from the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3), and the importance of being a person of Christ and giving generously to God’s people in Jerusalem, and ends with his own experience of how ...

Cervantes siempre quiso triunfar como autor de teatro, tarea casi imposible al tener que competir en los mismos dias con "el fénix de los ingenios", el autor teatral más prolífico e innovador de la Historia: Don Lope de Vega. Evidentemente no consiguió ese objetivo, pero nos ha dejado una colección de Entremeses (piezas cómicas de un sólo acto) que están considerados, por varios motivos, la cumbre del género.Don Miguel de Cervantes nos regala 8 situaciones del Siglo de Oro, mezclando verdades como puños con burlas y agudo sentido del humor, con ese sabor tan castizo como universal ...

The book of Romans was written by Paul the Apostle on his third missionary journey. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write about life as a person before Christ and life as a believer after Christ. He talks about the life before Christ being impossible to live, as the flesh has dominion over a person. Gloriously bringing hope, he writes of the One who did live the impossible life, and how He now lives within the believer. Jesus becomes the new manager of their body to produce what fruit glorifies Himself. This book is so clearly pointing to the Life-giver; the believer who was once dead, may ...

This is a collection of French poems by Charles Baudelaire, originally titled "Les Fleurs du mal." It was popular in the symbolist and modernist movements of the 19th century, and the poems are about decadence and eroticism. (Summary by Assaf Koss)

Thomas Mann’s epic novel depicts a decaying, corrupted European society on the eve of the First World War. Set in a luxurious sanatorium high up in the Swiss mountains, we follow the destinies of a variety of exotic characters – members of a bourgeois elite drawn from all parts of Europe. Most suffer from consumption, dream of a cure - yet are at the same time squeezing as much pleasure and distraction as they can out of a situation ever-shadowed by sickness, pain, and death. Part surreal comedy, part grim tragedy, part allegory, and part novel of ideas, Mann’s novel is regarded by many ...