Modern Classics

It is the far future. The artificial intelligences created by humanity are now gods, and mankind mere ants who scrabble in their shadows across a million worlds. The Lords of the Great Houses on the ever-night Moon of Hexator are suspected of the murder of one of their own. And merchant William Roxley, once a magistrate-priest, is unwillingly coopted to uncover the truth behind the killings. With only the help of his naive young assistant and a brutish robot bodyguard, the man they call 'Sweet William' digs into the Moon's eerie existence. A collapsing society where many strange, terrible ...

This audiobook contains six of the most popular Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer translated into Modern English Slang (without swear words, of course). This is a fun way to get the old English storyline and understand the original text.

Three grownup Tales from the Dreamtime in one novella…Open the door and enter the Dreamtime, the world of fairytales, the flower of all that is delightful and mysterious, frightening and amazing.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales II: Modern Verse Translation collection.

It is 1797, and the African kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, is at the height of its power. Yet Dousika Traore, the king's most trusted advisor, feels nothing but dread. Change is coming. From the East, a new religion, Islam. From the West, the slave trade. These forces will tear his country, his village and the lives of his beloved sons apart, in Maryse Condé's glittering epic.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales I: Modern Verse Translation collection. Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of "The Knight's Tale" to the joyous bawdy of the Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigor in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

Robert Benjamin Lewis (1802 - 1858) was an African American and Native American author, inventor, and entrepreneur. In the ethnological work Light and Truth, Lewis claims that Adam and Eve were people of color, as were the Egyptians and many great figures of the ancient world, including Julius Caesar and Plato. Denouncing notions of white superiority, he asserts that all humans have a common origin, and pointed to a shared cultural history between Africans and Native Americans.

Ever miss a prime opportunity for a snappy comeback or a perfect putdown? We all have, kicking ourselves later when we think of what we could have said. The well-aimed insult was never in better shape than when Shakespeare mastered the art of defining dramatic conflict with rapier wit rather than swordplay.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Last Witnesses, by Svetlana Alexievich, read by Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson and Allen Lewis Rickman. What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War? In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich started interviewing people who had experienced war as children, the generation that survived and had to live with the trauma that would forever change the course of the Russian nation.

Mimei Ogawa, a prolific author of short stories nearly 100 years ago, is considered to be one of the founding figures of modern Japanese children’s literature. He has also been called the Hans Christian Andersen of Japan because of how his works were influenced by Andersen. This collection contains a fresh, modern translation of one of Mimei Ogawa’s most famous works, "The Mermaid and the Red Candles", as well as several other stories that have never been translated and published in English before.

Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its 12 chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and mysterious explosions. The delicate prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time afterwards.

An experimental novella reimagining the main figure of TS Eliot's classic poem of memory, hopelessness, and loss in a contemporary setting. "No one wants to hear a lonely middle aged man talk about cities or memory. No one wants to know that the world exists in a kaleidoscope of colors. For one man, indigo is life, and he does not have time for the man for whom yellow is."

Melinda Van Allen is beautiful, headstrong and sexy. Unfortunately for Vic Van Allen, she is his wife. Their love has soured, and Melinda takes pleasure in flaunting her many affairs to her husband. When one of her lovers is murdered, Vic hints to her latest conquest that he was responsible. As rumours spread about Vic's vicious streak, fiction and reality start to converge. It's only a matter of time before Vic really does have blood on his hands.

Victor Frankenstein learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger and more powerful than the average man. Frankenstein rejects the creature, and lives to regret his desire to create life, after it kills his brother William. Frankenstein is a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.

Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by Mary Shelley, first published in 1818. This Gothic classic tells the haunting tale of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who defies the natural order by creating life from death. However, his monstrous creation becomes a terrifying and tragic figure, struggling with isolation and rejection from society. Shelley's story explores themes of ambition, the consequences of playing God, and the destructive potential of knowledge.

Orphaned at a young age. Rejected by her stepfamily. Shipped off to boarding school. Has Jane finally found her fairy tale as a live-in tutor for the daughter of the infamously moody yet strangely compelling rap artist Edward Richmond, aka “E.R.”? Maybe Beauty and the Beast. Except she’s no beauty - just plain Jane. And his rock-and-roll lifestyle disturbs and even endangers her. It’s safer following her principles than passion. Yet Jane finds herself simultaneously attracted and repelled by this reputed “bad boy” who seems oddly determined to win her approval.

An accomplished poet and the author of Canadian Hungarian Literature (1897 - 2017), Frank Veszely brings to the English listener the rich treasure-house of folk, classical, and modern Hungarian poetry (1000 - 2020).

This is a modern adaptation of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. The story and characters remain the same; the text has been completely rewritten in modern language.

Jagua Nana, no longer young but still irresistible, lives a life of hedonism in Lagos: men, parties, fights, wild nights in the Tropicana with her handsome young boyfriend, Freddie. Rushing from one experience to the next in search of something she can't quite grasp, Jagua finds herself embroiled in shady politics, caught up in village feuds and the source of drama wherever she goes. In this vivid depiction of 1960s Nigeria, everyone is hustling and everyone is on the make - and a woman like Jagua must find her own unconventional path to fulfilment.

It is the final years of the 18th century, but a world which few would recognise. The people of Europe shelter in small islands of safety, havens from the enchanted wilderness - the strange boundless forests people call the Tumble. It is across this demon-haunted landscape that the low-born officer Taliesin must lead his men, caught up in the deadliest of intrigues while fighting wars for a noble class which despises him. With vicious murderers from the worst gutters in the Realm marching behind him, and the forces of the most powerful nations of the mainland arrayed against him, the odds ...