Literary Criticism audiobooks

The Banished Immortal

By: Ha Jin

Narrated by: David Shih

Length: 10 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

From the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting: a narratively driven, deeply human biography of the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai—also known as Li Po

In his own time (701–762), Li Bai's poems—shaped by Daoist thought and characterized by their passion, romance, and lust for life—were never given their proper due by the official literary... Read more

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

By: Colm Toibin

Narrated by: Colm Toibin

Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From the multiple award-winning author of The Master and Brooklyn, an illuminating look at Irish culture, history, and literature through the lives of the fathers of three of Ireland’s greatest writers—Oscar Wilde's father, William Butler Yeats's father, and James Joyce's father—“Thrilling, wise, and resonant, this book aptly unites Tóibín’s... Read more

Black Is the Body

By: Emily Bernard

Narrated by: Emily Bernard

Length: 5 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.” 

In these twelve deeply personal, connected... Read more

Yestermorrow

By: Ray Bradbury

Narrated by: Jim Frangione

Length: 5 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Essays discuss Bernard Berenson, Walt Disney, Federico Fellini, the cities of Paris and London, art, literature, history, science fiction, and the design of public places Read more

The Book

By: Amaranth Borsuk

Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen

Length: 5 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Amaranth Borsuk considers the history of the book, the future of the book, and the idea of the book. Tracing the interrelationship of form and content in the book's development, she bridges book history, book arts, and electronic literature to expand our definition of an object we... Read more

Possessed by Memory

By: Harold Bloom

Narrated by: Stephen Mendel

Length: 16 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

In arguably his most personal and lasting book, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than eighty texts by canonical authors-- texts he has had by heart since childhood.

Gone are the polemics. Here, instead, in a memoir of sorts--an inward journey from childhood to ninety--Bloom argues... Read more

Shakespeare's Sonnets, Retold

By: William Shakespeare & James Anthony

Narrated by: Paapa Essiedu, James Anthony & Stephen Fry

Length: 5 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

An enlightening and entertaining collection of the most esteemed love poems in the English canon, retold in contemporary language everyone can understand
 
James Anthony has long enjoyed poetry with a strict adherence to beat, rhythm, and rhyming patterns, which he likens to the very best pop songs. This drew him to the rewarding 14-line... Read more

Cold Warriors

By: Duncan White

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 24 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

A brilliant, invigorating account of the great writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who played the dangerous games of espionage, dissidence and subversion that changed the course of the Cold War.During the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the... Read more

Transforming Harry

By: John Alberti & P. Andrew Miller

Narrated by: Shaun Grindell & Esther Wane

Length: 6 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Transforming Harry: The Adaptation of Harry Potter in the Transmedia Age is an edited volume of eight essays that look at how the cinematic versions of the seven Harry Potter novels represent an unprecedented cultural event in the history of cinematic adaptation. The movie version of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's... Read more

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

By: Jessica Brody

Narrated by: Jessica Brody

Length: 10 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

The first novel-writing guide from the best-selling Save the Cat! story-structure series, which reveals the 15 essential plot points needed to make any novel a success.

Novelist Jessica Brody presents a comprehensive story-structure guide for novelists that applies the famed Save the Cat! screenwriting methodology to the world of novel writing.... Read more

All the Lives We Ever Lived

By: Katharine Smyth

Narrated by: Brittany Pressley

Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

A wise, lyrical memoir about the power of literature to help us read our own lives—and see clearly the people we love most.

“Transcendent.”—The Washington Post • “You’d be hard put to find a more moving appreciation of Woolf’s work.”—The Wall Street Journal

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TOWN & COUNTRY

Katharine Smyth was a student... Read more

Bearing Witness

By: John R. Carpenter

Narrated by: Joel Richards

Length: 9 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

It has been said that during times of war, the Muses fall silent. However, anyone who has read the major figures of mid-twentieth-century literature—Samuel Beckett, Richard Hillary, Norman Mailer, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others—can attest that it was through writing that people first tried to communicate and process the horrors that... Read more

The Traveling Feast

By: Rick Bass

Narrated by: Rick Bass

Length: 7 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Acclaimed author Rick Bass decided to thank all of his writing heroes in person, one meal at a time, in this "rich smorgasbord of a memoir . . . a soul-nourishing, road-burning act of tribute" (New York Times Book Review).

From his bid to become Eudora Welty's lawn boy to the time George Plimpton offered to punch him in the nose, lineage has... Read more

Shakespeare and the Resistance

By: Clare Asquith

Narrated by: Allan Corduner

Length: 7 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Shakespeare's largely misunderstood narrative poems contain within them an explosive commentary on the political storms convulsing his country

The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems... Read more

Hollywood's Eve

By: Lili Anolik

Narrated by: Jayme Mattler

Length: 7 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

The quintessential biography of Eve Babitz (1943-2021), the brilliant chronicler of 1960s and 70s Hollywood hedonism and one of the most original American voices of her time.

“I practically snorted this book, stayed up all night with it. Anolik decodes, ruptures, and ultimately intensifies Eve’s singular irresistible glitz.” —Jia Tolentino, The... Read more

To Shape a New World

By: Tommie Shelby & Brandon M. Terry

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly, Priya Ayyar, Cary Hite, Robin Mi...

Length: 16 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America’s most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. On the fiftieth anniversary of King’s assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever. But despite his stature, the significance of King’s writings and political... Read more

Book Girl

By: Sarah Clarkson

Narrated by: Erica Sullivan

Length: 8 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

When you hear a riveting story, does it thrill your heart and stir your soul? Do you hunger for truth and goodness? Do you secretly relate to Belle’s delight in the library in Beauty and the Beast?If so, you may be on your way to being a book girl.Books were always Sarah Clarkson’s delight. Raised in the company of the lively Anne of Green... Read more

The Age of Disenchantments

By: Aaron Shulman

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Length: 12 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

A gripping narrative history of Spain’s most brilliant and troubled literary family—a tale about the making of art, myth, and legacy—set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War and beyond.In this absorbing and atmospheric historical narrative, journalist Aaron Shulman takes us deeply into the circumstances surrounding the Spanish Civil War... Read more

After the Love (O.L.D. & M.A.T.U.R.E.)

By: Jeffrey V. Perry

Narrated by: Barry Schwam

Length: 1 hour 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Finding one’s self is not a product of age or time. But, learning to love and accept ourselves can be. Every day we learn that we cannot deceive our self until we must face our truth. You need no mirror nor any outside help. You will only have you.This poetry is written in various styles and on different subjects. It is inspired writing on... Read more

Doctor Who Psychology

By: Travis Langley

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies & Esther Wane

Length: 6 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

How does an immortal deal with death? What kind of person makes the best Companion? Why does the Doctor say he and Freud "got on very well"? How do the Daleks and Cybermen reflect concerns about losing our humanity? And what can looking at an ancient Time Lord teach us about real human nature? Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman with a Box explores... Read more

Star Trek Psychology

By: Travis Langley

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer & Natasha Soudek

Length: 7 hours

Abridged: No

The next entry in Sterling's Popular Culture Psychology series features twenty chapters and exclusive interviews with cast members and Rod Roddenberry. In a fun and accessible way, Star Trek Psychology delves deep into the psyches of the show's well-known and beloved characters. The trailblazing franchise spans five TV series, thirteen films,... Read more

The Morning Mind

By: Dr. Robert Carter III & Kirti Salwe Carter, MBB...

Narrated by: Wayne Campbell

Length: 5 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Unleash positive thinking and productive imagination, and flip negative thoughts and behaviors into a lifetime to improve every aspect of your life—each morning, one day at a time.Bad habits. Bad feelings. Bad mornings that turn into regrettable days. Banish them all with simple brain hacks that flip negative thoughts and behaviors into... Read more

Sense of Wonder

By: Bill Schelly

Narrated by: Derek Botten

Length: 10 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

A fascinating story of growing up as a gay fan of comic books in the 1960s, building a fifty-year career as an award-winning writer, and interacting with acclaimed comic book legends

Award-winning writer Bill Schelly relates how comics and fandom saved his life in this engrossing story that begins in the burgeoning comic fandom movement of the... Read more

The Wave in the Mind

By: Ursula K. Le Guin

Narrated by: Christina Moore

Length: 10 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women’s shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of readings.
The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin’s finest literary... Read more