Literary Criticism audiobooks

Unbuttoning America

By: Ardis Cameron

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 8 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Published in 1956, Peyton Place became a bestseller and a literary phenomenon. A lurid and gripping story of murder, incest, female desire, and social injustice, it was consumed as avidly by readers as it was condemned by critics and the clergy. Its author, Grace Metalious, a housewife who grew up in poverty in a New Hampshire mill town and had... Read more

A Whiff of Wilde, a Pinch of Poe, and a Frisson of Frost

By: Elliot Engel, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe & Ro...

Narrated by: Elliot Engel, Stefan Rudnicki, various narrator...

Length: 6 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown—until now. In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a leading authority on the lives of great authors,... Read more

Dead White Guys

By: Matt Burriesci

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 9 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

After his daughter was born prematurely in 2010, Matt Burriesci set out to write a book about thirty-two great books, from Plato to Karl Marx, and how their lessons have applied to his life. As someone who has spent a long and successful career advocating for great literature, Burriesci defends the great books in this series of tender and candid... Read more

Self-Editing on a Penny

By: Ashlyn Forge

Narrated by: Faust Kells & Sandy Vernon

Length: 2 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

You've just written a book—a masterpiece, the next great classic, the single piece of literature that's going to be required reading a hundred years from now long after you're good and dead and most of mankind has been replaced by robots. But...now what?Can you afford an editor? How do you decide on a good one? And how much of it can you do by... Read more

Women of Will

By: Tina Packer

Narrated by: Tina Packer & Nigel Gore

Length: 15 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Women of Will, a narrative combining trenchant analysis and riveting scenes, explores the themes of love, loss, freedom, control, violence, and power through the heroines of Shakespeare’s text. Drawing on her knowledge as director, actor, and teacher, Packer traces the chronological evolution of Shakespeare’s female characters and examines... Read more

Why Homer Matters

By: Adam Nicolson

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 9 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Adam Nicolson sees the Iliad and the Odyssey as the foundation myths of Greek—and our—consciousness, collapsing the passage of 4,000 years and making the distant past of the Mediterranean world as immediate to us as the events of our own time.

Homer's poems occupy, as Adam Nicolson writes "a third space" in the way we relate to the past: not... Read more

The Eating of the Gods

By: Jan Kott

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 8 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

In The Eating of the Gods the distinguished Polish critic Jan Kott reexamines Greek tragedy from the modern perspective. As in his earlier acclaimed Shakespeare, Our Contemporary, Kott provides startling insights and intuitive leaps which link our world to that of the ancient Greeks. The title refers to the Bacchae of Euripides, that tragedy of... Read more

The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

By: Caroline Kennedy

Narrated by: Caroline Kennedy, Edward M. Kennedy, Viola Davi...

Length: 2 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis loved literature, especially poetry. "Once you can express yourself," she wrote, "you can tell the world what you want from it...All the changes in the world, for good or evil, were first brought about by words". Now, Caroline Kennedy shares her mother's favorite poems and the inspiration behind her strong belief in... Read more

Discontent and its Civilizations

By: Mohsin Hamid

Narrated by: Mohsin Hamid

Length: 4 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

From “one of his generation’s most inventive and gifted writers” (The New York Times), intimate and sharply observed commentary on life, art, politics, and “the war on terror.”
 
Mohsin Hamid’s brilliant, moving, and extraordinarily clever novels have not only made him an international bestseller, they have earned him a reputation as a “master... Read more

W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn

By: W.G. Sebald

Narrated by: Rick Moody, Dinaw Mengestru, Denis O'Hare & Har...

Length: 1 hour 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Rick Moody (The Ice Storm), Dinaw Mengestu (All Our Names), and Hari Kunzru (Gods Without Men) lead a spirited conversation of Sebald's classic. Denis O'Hare (American Horror Story) will read an excerpt. Read more

Notes of a Native Son

By: James Baldwin

Narrated by: Ron Butler

Length: 5 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

At last, a new audio edition of the book many have called James Baldwin's most influential work!Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained... Read more

Discrimination: The Defining Of Discrimination Through To Kill A Mockingbird And A Time To Kill

By: Trevor Clinger

Narrated by: K. Zens

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

In this insightful exploration, the pervasive issue of discrimination is examined through the lens of history, contemporary society, and political dynamics. While strides have been made in combatting discrimination, challenges persist for individuals based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. With a nuanced understanding of... Read more

Rabih Alameddine's An Unnecessary Woman

By: Rabih Alameddine

Narrated by: Elizabeth Strout & Mia Dillon

Length: 1 hour 16 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the Middle East's most celebrated writers, Rabih Alameddine, discusses his novel An Unnecessary Woman, an intimate and moving portrait of a reclusive book-loving 72-year-old Lebanese woman who views her complicated past through the lens of her favorite works of literature.

In conversation with Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge). Mia... Read more

I Think You're Totally Wrong

By: David Shields & Caleb Powell

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross & Luis Moreno

Length: 5 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

A debate, nearly to the death, about life and art, cocktails included. And a soon-to-be major motion picture from James Franco! Caleb Powell always wanted to become an artist, but he overcommitted to life (he' s a stay-at-home dad to three young girls), whereas his former professor David Shields always wanted to become a human being, but he has... Read more

Shakespeare, Our Contemporary

By: Jan Kott

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 11 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Shakespeare, Our Contemporary is a provocative, original study of the major plays of Shakespeare. More than that, it is one of the few critical works to have strongly influenced theatrical productions.Peter Brook and Charles Marowitz are among the many directors who have acknowledged their debt to Jan Kott, finding in his analogies between... Read more

Rien ne s'oppose à la nuit de Delphine de Vigan (Fiche de lecture)

By: lePetitLitteraire & Elena Pinaud

Narrated by: Denise Dubois

Length: 31 minutes

Abridged: No

Décryptez Rien ne s'oppose à la nuit de Delphine de Vigan avec l'analyse du PetitLittéraire.fr !Que faut-il retenir de Rien ne s'oppose à la nuit, roman incontournable de la littérature française ? Retrouvez tout ce que vous devez savoir sur cette œuvre dans une fiche de lecture complète et détaillée.Vous trouverez notamment dans cette fiche :•... Read more

A Bit of Brontës, a Dollop of Dickinson, an Offering of Austen

By: Elliot Engel

Narrated by: various narrators, Joan Allen, Stephanie Beacha...

Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown—until now. In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a leading authority on the lives of great authors,... Read more

Un hivernage dans les glaces de Jules Verne (Fiche de lecture)

By: lePetitLitteraire & Dominique Coutant-Defer

Narrated by: Denise Dubois

Length: 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Décryptez Un hivernage dans les glaces de Jules Verne avec l'analyse du PetitLittéraire.fr !Que faut-il retenir d'Un hivernage dans les glaces, le récit d'aventures qui plonge les lecteurs au cœur du Grand Nord ? Retrouvez tout ce que vous devez savoir sur cette œuvre dans une fiche de lecture complète et détaillée.Vous trouverez notamment dans... Read more

Moby Dick

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 4 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

No American masterpiece casts quite as awesome a shadow as Melville's monumental Moby Dick. Mad Captain Ahab's quest for the White Whale is a timeless epic--a stirring tragedy of vengeance and obsession, a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity. It is the greatest sea story ever told. Far ahead of its own time, Moby... Read more

Roz Chast and Jules Feiffer

By: Roz Chast & Jules Feiffer

Narrated by: Franciose Mouly

Length: 1 hour 19 minutes

Abridged: No

The iconic and irresistible cartoonists join up to talk about their new books: Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a graphic memoir by Chast, and Kill My Mother, a noir graphic novel by Feiffer.

In conversation with New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly. Presented in association with Strand Bookstore. Read more

Thalia Book Club: No Land's Man

By: Aasif Mandvi

Narrated by: Dean Obeidallah

Length: 1 hour 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Comedian and Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi presents his new (and first) book No Land's Man, a laugh-out-loud account of a second-generation immigrant's search for meaning and identity in an increasingly confusing world. In this collection of personal essays, Mandvi reveals the many contradictory layers of his past in Bombay, England, and... Read more

Updike

By: Adam Begley

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 20 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

A masterful, much-anticipated biography of one of the most celebrated figures in American literature: Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Updike—a candid, intimate, and richly detailed look at his life and workIn this magisterial biography, Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, the acclaimed novelist, poet, short-story... Read more

The Secret History of Wonder Woman

By: Jill Lepore

Narrated by: Jill Lepore

Length: 9 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story—and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism

Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as... Read more

The Republic of Imagination

By: Azar Nafisi

Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò

Length: 10 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times bestseller

The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America
 
Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, which told the story of how,... Read more