Classic Audiobook Collection

Latest Episodes:

Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill ~ Full Audiobook [religion] Aug 14, 2025

Show notes

Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill audiobook.

Genre: religion

Practical Mysticism is Evelyn Underhill's inviting guide to the mystical life as a real, disciplined way of seeing and living, not an escape into vagueness or rare experiences. Writing with clarity and quiet intensity, Underhill argues that mysticism is rooted in attention, love, and inner transformation, and that it can be pursued amid ordinary duties rather than only in monasteries or secluded retreats. She introduces the reader to the core movements of the spiritual journey: awakening to a deeper reality, learning to pray with the whole self, training the will, and gradually re-centering life on what is eternal. Along the way, she challenges common misunderstandings, warns against self-deception and spiritual impatience, and emphasizes humility, balance, and ethical steadiness. Drawing on Christian tradition while speaking in a broadly accessible voice, Underhill offers practical counsel on contemplation, work, and relationships, showing how the hunger for God can shape daily choices. The central conflict is the struggle between surface living and a life oriented toward the Real, and the book becomes both a map and a companion for readers who want spirituality with rigor, warmth, and purpose.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:09:17) Chapter 01

(00:26:37) Chapter 02

(00:48:34) Chapter 03

(01:12:22) Chapter 04

(01:26:17) Chapter 05

(01:52:50) Chapter 06

(02:12:04) Chapter 07

(02:36:19) Chapter 08

(03:04:54) Chapter 09

(03:36:31) Chapter 10

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XLI Poems by E. E. Cummings ~ Full Audiobook [poetry] Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

XLI Poems by E. E. Cummings audiobook.

Genre: poetry

XLI Poems by E. E. Cummings is a bracing, playful, and often tender collection that showcases a poet determined to make language feel newly alive. Across forty-one pieces, Cummings tests what a poem can do on the page and in the ear: lines fracture, punctuation becomes part of the music, and familiar words are rearranged until they surprise. The voices in these poems move between intimacy and satire, praising love with startling directness while also skewering social conformity, hollow politics, and the impersonality of modern city life. Nature appears not as a calm backdrop but as a vivid counterpoint to mechanized routine, and the speaker repeatedly returns to the question of how to stay fully human in a world that rewards sameness. Whether whispering, laughing, or sharply accusing, the collection invites listeners to lean in, follow the rhythms, and trust the emotional clarity beneath the formal experimentation. XLI Poems is an ideal entry point into Cummings' distinctive modernist imagination: bold, lyrical, and fiercely committed to individual feeling.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:00:52) Chapter 02

(00:01:51) Chapter 03

(00:02:40) Chapter 04

(00:03:29) Chapter 05

(00:04:25) Chapter 06

(00:05:30) Chapter 07

(00:06:18) Chapter 08

(00:07:21) Chapter 09

(00:08:13) Chapter 10

(00:09:01) Chapter 11

(00:10:05) Chapter 12

(00:11:05) Chapter 13

(00:11:55) Chapter 14

(00:13:15) Chapter 15

(00:15:06) Chapter 16

(00:16:30) Chapter 17

(00:17:40) Chapter 18

(00:18:45) Chapter 19

(00:20:38) Chapter 20

(00:22:00) Chapter 21

(00:23:03) Chapter 22

(00:24:44) Chapter 23

(00:28:10) Chapter 24

(00:29:02) Chapter 25

(00:30:14) Chapter 26

(00:31:26) Chapter 27

(00:32:36) Chapter 28

(00:33:47) Chapter 29

(00:35:00) Chapter 30

(00:36:15) Chapter 31

(00:37:30) Chapter 32

(00:38:53) Chapter 33

(00:40:00) Chapter 34

(00:41:16) Chapter 35

(00:42:27) Chapter 36

(00:43:43) Chapter 37

(00:44:49) Chapter 38

(00:45:48) Chapter 39

(00:46:57) Chapter 40

(00:48:02) Chapter 41

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Abraham Lincoln - The Prairie Years by Carl Sandburg ~ Full Audiobook [biography] Aug 12, 2025

Show notes

Abraham Lincoln - The Prairie Years by Carl Sandburg audiobook.

Genre: biography

Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln - The Prairie Years is a sweeping, intimate portrait of Lincoln before the White House, tracing how a shy frontier boy became a self-made lawyer, gifted storyteller, and rising political figure. Moving from the hard edges of Kentucky and Indiana to the broader horizons of Illinois, Sandburg follows Lincoln through manual labor, restless reading, early failures and reinventions, and the formation of a mind that could argue with precision and speak to ordinary people with uncommon force. Along the way, the book introduces the friends, rivals, mentors, and communities that shaped him: the rough humor and hardship of small towns, the demanding discipline of the law circuit, and the fierce debates over slavery and the nation's future that increasingly define public life. Sandburg blends documented history with vivid, scene-rich narration, capturing Lincoln's wit, melancholy, ambition, and moral seriousness while situating his private struggles inside a country lurching toward crisis. The central tension is clear: can a man of the prairie translate personal resilience and principle into leadership, as the stakes of politics grow larger and the Union strains at its seams?

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:14:20) Chapter 01

(00:31:58) Chapter 02

(00:50:35) Chapter 03

(01:13:03) Chapter 04

(01:31:13) Chapter 05

(01:56:07) Chapter 06

(02:14:45) Chapter 07

(02:34:28) Chapter 08

(03:02:57) Chapter 09

(03:30:25) Chapter 10

(03:48:04) Chapter 11

(04:11:09) Chapter 12

(04:21:15) Chapter 13

(05:11:48) Chapter 14

(05:34:19) Chapter 15

(05:53:06) Chapter 16

(06:15:10) Chapter 17

(06:33:35) Chapter 18

(06:59:35) Chapter 19

(07:20:43) Chapter 20

(07:51:34) Chapter 21

(08:19:48) Chapter 22

(08:40:41) Chapter 23

(09:05:08) Chapter 24

(09:27:43) Chapter 25

(09:53:31) Chapter 26

(10:18:10) Chapter 27

(10:32:29) Chapter 28

(10:58:08) Chapter 29

(11:23:00) Chapter 30

(11:48:21) Chapter 31

(12:23:25) Chapter 32

(12:46:03) Chapter 33

(13:03:37) Chapter 34

(13:28:27) Chapter 35

(13:50:51) Chapter 36

(14:19:23) Chapter 37

(14:46:53) Chapter 38

(15:19:09) Chapter 39

(15:41:07) Chapter 40

(16:07:00) Chapter 41

(16:32:50) Chapter 42

(16:51:34) Chapter 43

(17:16:59) Chapter 44

(17:34:10) Chapter 45

(18:08:28) Chapter 46

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The Astral Plane - Its Inhabitants, Scenery, and Phenomena by C. W. Leadbeater ~ Full Audiobook [religion] Aug 11, 2025

Show notes

The Astral Plane - Its Inhabitants, Scenery, and Phenomena by C. W. Leadbeater audiobook.

Genre: religion

In The Astral Plane: Its Inhabitants, Scenery, and Phenomena, C. W. Leadbeater offers a brisk, systematic tour of an unseen world described in the Theosophical tradition. Writing as a careful observer rather than a storyteller, Leadbeater lays out what the astral plane is said to be, how it relates to physical life, and why reports of hauntings, apparitions, dreams, and clairvoyant visions often seem to overlap. He catalogs the kinds of beings and influences that, in his view, populate this subtle realm - from the lingering impressions of human emotion to more organized nonphysical entities - and explains the conditions under which people may perceive or enter it, whether through natural sensitivity, deliberate training, or accidental circumstances. Along the way he describes typical landscapes and atmospheres, the way thought and desire shape experience there, and the practical risks of confusion, fear, and self-deception. Part metaphysical field guide and part cautionary handbook, this classic work invites listeners into a structured occult cosmology while urging disciplined judgment about extraordinary claims and experiences.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:01:51) Chapter 01

(00:16:24) Chapter 02

(00:40:12) Chapter 03

(00:54:33) Chapter 04

(01:14:24) Chapter 05

(01:32:44) Chapter 06

(01:42:12) Chapter 07

(01:59:39) Chapter 08

(02:12:31) Chapter 09

(02:24:03) Chapter 10

(02:36:56) Chapter 11

(02:55:09) Chapter 12

(03:11:30) Chapter 13

(03:27:43) Chapter 14

(03:50:21) Chapter 15

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The Man of Genius by Cesare Lombroso ~ Full Audiobook [science] Aug 09, 2025

Show notes

The Man of Genius by Cesare Lombroso audiobook.

Genre: science

In The Man of Genius, pioneering Italian psychiatrist and criminologist Cesare Lombroso sets out to answer a provocative question: what separates extraordinary creative power from illness, obsession, and instability? Drawing on 19th-century medicine, anthropology, and early psychology, Lombroso assembles a wide-ranging inquiry into the lives and works of celebrated poets, painters, composers, philosophers, and inventors. He traces recurring patterns in temperament, habits, and family histories, arguing that genius often appears alongside nervous disorders, melancholia, mania, or other forms of mental strain. Through biographical sketches, clinical observations, and comparisons between artistic inspiration and pathological symptoms, the book builds a case that brilliance is not merely a gift of education or environment, but may be rooted in heredity and bodily constitution. The central conflict is intellectual and moral: if genius is linked to abnormality, how should society understand, celebrate, or even protect those whose talents may come with personal costs? Part scientific treatise and part cultural critique, Lombroso's work is influential, controversial, and revealing of its era's hopes and anxieties about the origins of human greatness.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:14:12) Chapter 01

(00:22:16) Chapter 02

(01:35:06) Chapter 03

(02:33:22) Chapter 04

(03:41:18) Chapter 05

(04:16:20) Chapter 06

(04:51:57) Chapter 07

(05:28:41) Chapter 08

(05:32:33) Chapter 09

(05:49:22) Chapter 10

(06:24:34) Chapter 11

(07:17:06) Chapter 12

(08:24:29) Chapter 13

(08:57:45) Chapter 14

(10:03:46) Chapter 15

(10:48:45) Chapter 16

(11:18:44) Chapter 17

(11:29:06) Chapter 18

(12:01:08) Chapter 19

(12:12:03) Chapter 20

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Dymer by C. S. Lewis ~ Full Audiobook [poetry] Aug 08, 2025

Show notes

Dymer by C. S. Lewis audiobook.

Genre: poetry

Dymer is C. S. Lewis's early narrative poem, written in rich, mythic language and shaped like a modern fable. It follows Dymer, a restless young man raised in a gray, rule-bound city where imagination and desire are treated as threats. When he breaks away from the safety of conformity, Dymer sets out into a strange landscape of shifting kingdoms, seductive promises, and uncanny rites, driven by a hunger for freedom and a longing he cannot fully name. Along the way he encounters figures who offer order, pleasure, authority, and transcendence, each demanding a different kind of surrender. As Dymer's choices ripple outward, his private rebellion becomes entangled with public forces, and his search for selfhood turns into a perilous confrontation with the consequences of pride, power, and half-understood worship. By turns dreamlike, satirical, and solemn, Dymer explores themes Lewis would later revisit in his fiction and essays: the lure of false gods, the cost of isolation, and the complicated path from appetite to meaning. This is a lyrical journey through temptation and transformation, told with the intensity of a dark fairy tale.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:13:38) Chapter 02

(00:27:11) Chapter 03

(00:40:33) Chapter 04

(00:55:22) Chapter 05

(01:08:38) Chapter 06

(01:23:20) Chapter 07

(01:37:16) Chapter 08

(01:48:14) Chapter 09

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Clematis by Bertha B. Cobb ~ Full Audiobook [family] Aug 07, 2025

Show notes

Clematis by Bertha B. Cobb audiobook.

Genre: family

On a warm spring day in a crowded New York street, a quiet little girl in shabby clothes sits alone with a kitten hidden inside her coat. She can only give one name - Clematis - and she insists the kitten, Deborah, is her own. Kind policeman Jim Cunneen cannot leave her there, and soon Clematis is carried from the hard edge of the sidewalk into the strict routines of a Children's Home, where beds are lined in rows, meals come by rule, and every child is expected to work, obey, and fit in. Clematis is brave, but she is also stubborn, bewildered, and fiercely protective of the one comfort she trusts: her cat. As days pass, she begins to learn the small skills that make a life feel steady - friendships, chores, and the courage to speak up - yet questions about who she is and where she came from will not stay quiet. When an unexpected visitor appears and whispers of a hidden past, Clematis is drawn into a tender mystery that reaches beyond the city and into the open promise of the countryside. With gentle humor, warmth, and a love of animals and growing things, this classic children's story follows one lost child as she searches for belonging, safety, and a place to finally bloom.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:08:44) Chapter 02

(00:15:43) Chapter 03

(00:22:42) Chapter 04

(00:28:41) Chapter 05

(00:33:51) Chapter 06

(00:40:27) Chapter 07

(00:48:18) Chapter 08

(00:54:32) Chapter 09

(01:01:17) Chapter 10

(01:07:59) Chapter 11

(01:14:59) Chapter 12

(01:21:06) Chapter 13

(01:29:22) Chapter 14

(01:36:03) Chapter 15

(01:43:22) Chapter 16

(01:51:08) Chapter 17

(01:59:12) Chapter 18

(02:07:01) Chapter 19

(02:10:38) Chapter 20

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A Brief History of Forestry by Bernhard Eduard Fernow ~ Full Audiobook [history] Aug 06, 2025

Show notes

A Brief History of Forestry by Bernhard Eduard Fernow audiobook.

Genre: history

Originally developed from a series of lectures delivered to students at the Yale Forest School, Bernhard E. Fernow's A Brief History of Forestry offers a brisk, wide-ranging survey of how societies learned, often the hard way, to manage forests as more than an endless frontier. Writing as a leading early forester and educator, Fernow begins with the forest world of the ancients and then traces the slow emergence of laws, institutions, and practical methods meant to curb waste and secure future timber supplies. He devotes special attention to Germany, following changes in ownership, forest use rights, administration, and the rise of silviculture, mensuration, and professional training. From there, the narrative widens across Europe and beyond, comparing national approaches in Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, France, Russia and Finland, the Scandinavian states, and the Mediterranean region, then moving to Great Britain and its colonies, including India and Canada, as well as Japan and Korea. The closing sections turn to the United States, examining early conditions, the pressures of settlement and industry, and the first steps toward public forest policy and forestry education. Throughout, Fernow emphasizes long time horizons, cause and effect, and the recurring patterns that shape conservation debates.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:05:16) Chapter 01

(00:18:15) Chapter 02

(00:43:58) Chapter 03

(01:24:18) Chapter 04

(02:11:33) Chapter 05

(02:56:11) Chapter 06

(03:51:14) Chapter 07

(04:46:54) Chapter 08

(05:35:56) Chapter 09

(05:47:01) Chapter 10

(06:19:39) Chapter 11

(07:12:22) Chapter 12

(07:45:39) Chapter 13

(08:29:49) Chapter 14

(08:44:36) Chapter 15

(09:22:32) Chapter 16

(09:37:03) Chapter 17

(09:45:59) Chapter 18

(09:58:55) Chapter 19

(10:10:38) Chapter 20

(10:35:03) Chapter 21

(10:53:11) Chapter 22

(10:59:53) Chapter 23

(11:26:09) Chapter 24

(12:18:47) Chapter 25

(13:11:59) Chapter 26

(13:21:15) Chapter 27

(13:46:31) Chapter 28

(13:48:44) Chapter 29

(14:08:12) Chapter 30

(14:33:19) Chapter 31

(15:11:32) Chapter 32

(15:23:27) Chapter 33

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The Silent Bullet by Arthur B. Reeve ~ Full Audiobook [mystery] Aug 05, 2025

Show notes

The Silent Bullet by Arthur B. Reeve audiobook.

Genre: mystery

When a baffling killing strikes New York society, the evidence points everywhere and nowhere at once: a victim collapses with scarcely a sound, the scene offers no clear weapon, and the witnesses can only agree on one thing - something unseen delivered death with chilling precision. Into the confusion steps Professor Craig Kennedy, a brilliant criminologist whose laboratory methods make him as much scientist as sleuth. Alongside his friend and chronicler, the journalist Walter Jameson, Kennedy follows a trail that winds from drawing rooms and shadowed corridors to backstreet intrigue and modern technology. As rumors spread and suspects multiply, Kennedy races to identify the mechanism behind the crime and the mastermind who understands that fear itself can be a weapon. Blending turn-of-the-century suspense with ingenious forensic experimentation, The Silent Bullet explores the dangers of unchecked invention, the limits of conventional policing, and the thrill of reason applied to the seemingly impossible. Each clue pushes Kennedy toward a confrontation where one misstep could make the next victim anyone.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:03:38) Chapter 01

(00:42:44) Chapter 02

(01:26:12) Chapter 03

(02:07:58) Chapter 04

(02:47:29) Chapter 05

(03:37:21) Chapter 06

(04:20:46) Chapter 07

(05:05:15) Chapter 08

(05:50:23) Chapter 09

(06:32:42) Chapter 10

(07:16:35) Chapter 11

(08:06:55) Chapter 12

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The Spy Company, a Story of the Mexican War by Archibald Clavering Gunter ~ Full Audiobook [adventure] Aug 04, 2025

Show notes

The Spy Company, a Story of the Mexican War by Archibald Clavering Gunter audiobook.

Genre: adventure

In the uneasy years just before the Mexican War flares into open conflict, a young woman who has been polished by New York society learns that her roots lie far from ballrooms and parlors. Raised to be a debutante, she is jolted by loss and driven by a single, urgent question: who is the father she has never met, and what kind of life waits for her on his vast Texas ranch? Her journey west becomes a gauntlet of riverboat passage and frontier roads, where steamboat gamblers, smooth-talking swindlers, and desperate outlaws circle like vultures. With the borderlands turning volatile, she is forced to rely on the hard protection of Texas Rangers and U.S. soldiers, including the formidable Captain Sharpe Hampton, whose courage is matched by his wariness of secrets. As rumors of spies and coded loyalties thicken, the road carries her toward Matamoros and its dangerous allure, where a dancing girl named Carmelita and other shadowy figures hint that the war is being fought not only with rifles, but with deception. By the time the ranch is finally in sight, she must decide whom to trust, and whether the truth she has chased is worth the price of learning it.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:40:16) Chapter 02

(01:03:03) Chapter 03

(01:36:47) Chapter 04

(02:07:16) Chapter 05

(02:33:35) Chapter 06

(03:01:16) Chapter 07

(03:30:25) Chapter 08

(04:08:10) Chapter 09

(04:44:24) Chapter 10