Great Literature

Annoying but loving family? Check. Picturesque small town with a hot police chief? Check. A rescue hellhound, a black cat with attitude, and a pet python that thinks he’s a puppy? Triple check. My story has all the hallmarks of a sweet and cozy supernatural tale, but there’s a twist—I am evil. Well, I’m supposed to be evil thanks to both nature and nurture, but I fight it with every fiber of my being. I just want to live a normal life. I even joined the FBI instead of the Federal Bureau of Magic, until my powers reared their ugly head and the agency sent me packing back to my hometown.

Josh feels like he's starting to make it big! Jaden, the school reporter, says he's going to take the baseball team to number one. Then his dad pulls him off the field and signs him up with Coach Rocky Valentine's youth championship team, the Titans. He says Josh has what it takes to be a baseball great and the Titans will help him get there. Now Josh is gulping down Rocky's "Super Stax" milkshakes to build muscle and trying to fit in with his new teammates.

Rosie Jones has been dumped by every boyfriend she’s ever had - most recently by Dinosaur Dave, live on TV, during the ‘phone-a-friend’ segment of a quiz show. After the footage goes viral Rosie receives a bunch of flowers with a message: I love you, I should have never let you go, I want you back x But who sent them?

The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret's books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children's book publishing revolution.

This collection of wonderful stories read by John Lavelle and penned by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat will find a place on any Nate the Great fan's bookshelf.

Julia Cummings has long been acquainted with loss - her mother, her brother, her sister, her friend, all gone too soon. But the loss that pushed her grief to the limit as a young girl was that of her best friend, Lucas Jonquil, who abandoned her without looking back. Now, eight years later, Lucas has returned to Lampton Park, and Julia has steeled herself - she will never forgive the man who broke her heart.

Detectives' Row is full of talented investigators, but Toby Montrose isn't one of them. He's only an assistant at his uncle's detective agency, and he's not sure he's even very good at that. Toby's friend Ivy is the best sleuth around—or at least she thinks so. They both see their chance to prove themselves when the famed Hugh Abernathy announces a contest to choose the world's greatest detective.

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

Instead of saying "I do" to Mr. Irresistible, Lucy Jorik hitches a ride on the back of a beat-up motorcycle with a rough looking, bad-tempered stranger who couldn't be more foreign to her privileged existence. While the world searches for her, Lucy must search for herself, and she quickly realizes that her customary good manners are no defense against a man who's raised rudeness to an art form. Lucy needs to toughen up - and fast. Her great escape takes her to his rambling beach house on a Great Lakes island. Here, she hopes to find a new direction...and to unlock the secrets of this man who knows so much about her.

Brad Cranston is having a normal Friday afternoon in Shelter Harbor, Michigan when he receives a desperate call from his brother, who disappeared six years ago. Conrad’s message is clear: head south, bring a boat, do not involve the police, and there is a load of money involved - click. After enlisting the service of rookie Private Investigator Allison Shannon - a retired master diver who is haunted by her own demons - the two start to realize that Conrad Cranston has become much more than a lost hiker.

Sylvestre Bonnard is a mild-mannered, kind-hearted book collector and antiquarian, a little tyrannized by his housekeeper maybe, but nonetheless respected and eminent in his field of research into the abbeys, abbots and monks of medieval France. He has spent his life with his books, and knows little of the ways of the world. Resigned to reaching old age and retirement without being able to complete his life's work, he suddenly comes across the one thing that would not only complete it, but that would crown it with success. He heads off on an adventure to get his hands on this treasure and ...

Dive into the enchanting world of opera where musical mastery meets literary brilliance! In "From Page to Stage: The Literature Behind Great Operas," seasoned violist and longtime principal player of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, Richard Fleischman takes readers on an illuminating journey through the rich tapestry of stories that have inspired some of the most beloved operatic works in history. Drawing on decades of experience performing works by iconic composers like Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini, as well as witnessing the evolution of new operas—including the Grammy-winning Cold Mountain ...

Gil Gamesh, the only pitcher who ever literally tried to kill the umpire. The ex-con first baseman, John Baal, “The Babe Ruth of the Big House,” who never hit a home run sober. If you’ve never heard of them—or of the homeless baseball team the Ruppert Mundys—it’s because of the Communist plot, and the capitalist scandal, that expunged the entire Patriot League from baseball memory.

Philip is a good boy, a really good boy, who accidentally gets sent to hell to become the devil's heir. The devil, Lucifer, is dying and desperately in need of a successor, but there's been a mistake, and Philip is the wrong boy. Lucifer has no other choice than to begin the difficult task of training Philip in the ways of evil. Philip is terrible at being bad, but when he falls in love with the she-devil Satina and experiences the powerful forces of love and jealousy, the task becomes much easier.

Charlie Bucket and his family are rushing around the Earth at seventeen-thousand miles an hour in a great glass elevator. It belongs to the fantastic Mr Willy Wonka, and the adventure becomes even greater upon discovering they're not the only ones orbiting the Earth at that particular time....

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

The Man in the Brown Suit is Agatha Christie at her best, as a young woman makes a dangerous decision to investigate a shocking “accidental” death she witnesses at a London tube station. In Agatha Christie’s classic crime adventure novel, They Came to Baghdad, a bright young adventure seeker in the Middle East finds more excitement than she bargained for when a wounded spy expires in her hotel room.

At the age of 48, film critic David Denby returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, to re-experience the core humanities courses he had taken as a freshman 30 years before. Facing the question of what he really knows, Denby re-examines the besieged Western classics, ranging from Homer, Sappho, and Sophocles to Dante, Nietzsche, and Woolf. What relevance do the writers and thinkers of the past have to our current life? The answer surprised Denby and will surprise and enlighten his listeners.

This audiobook includes four Spongebob Squarepants stories: Tea at the Treedome, Naughty Nautical Neighbors, Hall Monitor, and The World’s Greatest Valentine.

The Friendship Formula shows listeners how to create and maintain long-lasting, nurturing and functioning friendships. Friendship is a beautiful thing, but there are lots of difficult times in life where it can be tricky to navigate: when friendship becomes toxic; how to break up with a friend; what to do if a friend 'ghosts' you and surviving friendship betrayal; how motherhood can impact female friendships; friendship grief and how to cope with losing a friend.