Classic Essays

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's greatest works: six novels, three books of non-fiction, a collection of his most well-renowned essays and the complete collection of his poetry.

The Narrow Road to the Interior and Hojoki are two of the best-loved works of their kind; famous for their beautiful, delicate verse and subtle insight into the human condition. It has been said of The Narrow Road that 'it was as if the very soul of Japan had itself written it'. It takes the form of a travel diary, and traces the poet's journey from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to the northern interior.

The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles, written between 1897 and 1888, advocating for the ratification of the United States Constitution. They serve as a primary source for interpretation of the Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed system of government.

What if the Beatles wrote “Help!” in the age of anxiety—or “Eleanor Rigby” in a world obsessed with connection but drowning in loneliness? Yesterday, Today reimagines 20 of the most iconic Beatles songs through a modern lens. From social media and mental health to shifting cultural values, this book explores what these timeless tracks might look and sound like if they were written in today's world. Author Steven Michaels, a longtime musician and English teacher, has spent more than two decades guiding teenagers through Beatles lyrics—uncovering new interpretations and emotional ...

On the Shortness of Life was written by Seneca around the year 49AD. He argues that we waste so much time because we do not properly value it. We expend great effort in protecting other valuables such as money and property, but because time appears intangible, we allow others to occupy it and take time away from us. Wise people, on the other hand, understand that time is the most valuable of all resources, and with effort can free themselves from external control to engage in meaningful introspection and create an intentional life.

"Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word orthodox. In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law - all these like sheep had gone astray...."

One of the most famous of all literary dogs, Flush was the golden cocker spaniel belonging to Elizabeth Barrett. In this charming and heartfelt biography, Viginia Woolf tells his story: his early days as Miss Mitford's puppy running across the fields in wild abandon and fathering another, then the years spent in his invalid mistress' bedroom in Wimpole Street.

W.E.B. Du Bois said, on the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise, The Souls of Black Folk, "for the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line", a prescient statement. Setting out to show to the audience "the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the 20th century", Du Bois explains the meaning of the emancipation, and its effect, and his views on the roles of the leaders of his race.

Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.

Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance" and "The Over-Soul". Together with "Nature", these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period.

"Essays: The Second Series", is a series of essays written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1844, concerning transcendentalism. This audiobook contains nine essays: "The Poet", "Experience", "Character", "Manners", "Gifts", "Nature", "Politics", "Nominalist and Realist", "New England Reformers". Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of his age. He was a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of society.

This highly regarded volume features a modern translation of all ten books of The Republic. Translated by Raymond Larson. The Republic is an explosion of thought; a ten-book brainstorm of one of the greatest minds of all-time.

This outstanding collection brings together Orwell's longer, major essays and a fine selection of shorter pieces that includes 'My Country Right or Left', 'Decline of the English Murder', 'Shooting an Elephant' and 'A Hanging'. With great originality and wit Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defence of English cooking.

For Isaiah Berlin, there is a fundamental distinction in mankind: those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things - foxes - and those who relate everything to a central all-embracing system - hedgehogs. It can be applied to the greatest creative minds: Dante, Ibsen and Proust are hedgehogs, while Shakespeare, Aristotle and Joyce are foxes. Yet when Berlin reaches the case of Tolstoy, he finds a fox by nature, but a hedgehog by conviction.

From one of America’s most beloved authors, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces, offering a fresh perspective on the remarkable literary mind of Harper Lee. The Land of Sweet Forever combines Lee’s early short fiction and later nonfiction in a volume offering an unprecedented look at the development of her inimitable voice.

The revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those 'outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women'. Uncompromising, angry and yet full of hope, this collection of her essential prose - essays, speeches, letters, interviews - explores race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic and the need for female solidarity and includes her landmark piece 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House'.

Plato recorded the final days of his mentor, Socrates, who was tried and condemned in Athens in 399 B.C. on trumped-up charges of being a heretic and corrupter of the young. This collection comprises 4 books: Euthyphro, in which Socrates engages Euthyphro in a debate on the steps of the courthouse where he is to stand trial, The Apology, in which Socrates argues on his own behalf, Crito, in which Socrates's friends and supporters visit him in prison and urge him to recant.

The work opens with Serenus asking Seneca for counsel, and this request for help takes the form of a medical consultation. Serenus explains that he feels agitated and in a state of unstable immobility, "As if I were on a boat that doesn't move forward and is tossed about." Seneca uses the dialogue to address an issue that cropped up many times in his life: the desire for a life of contemplation and the need for active political engagement. Seneca argues that the goal of a tranquil mind can be achieved by being flexible and seeking a middle way between the two extremes.

Whenever the subject of Lincoln is brought up, it usually produces a mixed response ranging from adoration to excoriation. Back in 1931 when Lincoln the Man appeared, there were few willing to publicly judge Lincoln on the basis of anything less than hagiographic platitudes. That all changed when the famous poet and writer Edgar Lee Masters published Lincoln the Man. This book is less a biography and more of an analysis of Lincoln’s thinking process and political evolution from backwoods lawyer to president of the United States.

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau, one of the principal New England Transcendentalists, left the town for the country. Beside the lake of Walden, he built himself a log cabin and returned to nature, to observe and reflect, while surviving on $8 a year. From this experience emerged one of the great classics of American literature, a deeply personal reaction against the commercialism and materialism that he saw as the main impulses of mid-19th century America.