Great Audiobooks

Latest Episodes:

The Harvester, by Gene Stratton-Porter. Part IV. Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

David Langston (a.k.a. the Harvester) is 26 years old and lives a simple life in the Midwest with his dog, cultivating and harvesting trees, plants and herbs near his home that he sells as medicinal ingredients to pharmaceutical houses. When the first bluebird arrives each spring David traditionally asks his dog whether he should remain a bachelor or find a wife. For the first time in six years the dog “advises” him to find a wife. The Harvester is not happy with this advice but that night he has a vision of a very beautiful dark-haired woman in white who slowly walks towards him and bestows a kiss. This vision immediately changes the Harvester’s perspective of his life and he then sets out on a single-minded quest to find this unknown woman whom he is certain will become his wife. But David finds that his pursuit of love is not a straightforward journey.

Gene Stratton-Porter endowed the Harvester with strength, honesty, kindness and "always do the right thing" attitude. Many have likened him to Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice fame. The Harvester’s love interest, Ruth, must learn how to love, and be loved, more deeply than she could ever imagine. And with her sharp tongue, Granny dispenses much-needed advice on love and relationships.

The Harvester was the #1 selling novel in 1912. The story was made into a silent movie in 1927.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Harvester, by Gene Stratton-Porter. Part III. Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

The Harvester was the #1 selling novel in 1912. The story was made into a silent movie in 1927.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Harvester, by Gene Stratton-Porter. Part II. Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

The Harvester was the #1 selling novel in 1912. The story was made into a silent movie in 1927.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Harvester, by Gene Stratton-Porter. Part I. Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

The Harvester was the #1 selling novel in 1912. The story was made into a silent movie in 1927.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

First Love, by Ivan Turgenev. Part III. Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

The title of the novella is almost an adequate summary in itself. The "boy-meets-girl-then-loses-her" story is universal but not, I think, banal - despite a surprise ending which notoriously turns out to be very little of a surprise.

First Love is given its originality and poignancy by Turgenev's mastery of the piercing turning-point (akin to Joyce's "epiphanies") that transforms the character's whole being, making a tragic outcome inevitable.

Even the nature symbolism is rescued from triteness by lovely poetic similes - e.g. "but at that point my attention was arrested by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who busily climbed up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a musician behind the bass-viol."

Translated by Constance Garnett.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

First Love, by Ivan Turgenev. Part II. Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

Translated by Constance Garnett.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

First Love, by Ivan Turgenev. Part I. Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

Translated by Constance Garnett.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fast in the Ice, by R. M. Ballantyne. Part II. Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

At the age of 16 Ballantyne went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. His rule in writing, being in every case, was to write as far as possible from personal knowledge of the scenes he described.

In this book he details the lives of the crew as they must overwinter in the frozen north including their meetings with Eskimos and bears and their struggles with disease. This is a realistic account of what life was like for the explorers of the Arctic. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fast in the Ice, by R. M. Ballantyne. Part I. Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

An Ideal Husband, by Oscar Wilde. Part II. Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

The "Ideal Husband" of the title is Sir Robert Chiltern, with his equally upright wife Lady Chiltern. He has never committed a crime, never had a "past" and never bowed to corruption or influence, or so she thinks... The disreputable Mrs Cheveley is about to appear and try her hand at both politics and blackmail - can the Chilterns come through the encounter with both public and private honour intact? And what about Miss Mabel Chiltern's roguish beau, Lord Goring? What does he have to do with all of this?

Oscar Wilde's witty comedy of manners, trust and politics shows human nature in a typically merciless light. The main themes are blackmail, political corruption and the uses and abuses of power both in politics and in private life. Quote from the play: “It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”

This is a dramatic reading.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy