Literary Criticism audiobooks

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

Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups

By: B. Coates & E. Foley

Narrated by: Daniel Weyman

Length: 9 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

An essential guide to Shakespeare, from the international bestselling authors of Homework for Grown-Ups

The Bard was so incredibly prolific that even most Shakespeare scholars would welcome the occasional refresher course, and most of the rest of us haven’t even got a clue as to what a petard actually is. Fear not, the bestselling authors of... 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

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

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

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

In A Dark Wood

By: Joseph Luzzi

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

Length: 7 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

In the aftermath of a heartbreaking tragedy, a scholar and writer uses Dante’s Divine Comedy to shepherd him through the dark wood of grief and mourning—a rich and emotionally resonant memoir of suffering, hope, love, and the power of literature to inspire and heal the most devastating loss.Where do we turn when we lose everything? Joseph Luzzi... Read more

The Art of Memoir

By: Mary Karr

Narrated by: Mary Karr

Length: 7 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Bestselling author and renowned professor Mary Karr offers a master class in the essential elements of great memoir—delivered with her signature wit, insight, and candor.Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash... Read more

The Dab of Dickens, The Touch of Twain, and The Shade of Shakespeare

By: Elliot Engel

Narrated by: Elliot Engel, Geoffrey Howard, Grover Gardner, ...

Length: 6 hours 31 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

New Ways to Kill Your Mother

By: Colm Toibin

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 11 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Novelist and critic Colm Tóibín provides “a fascinating exploration of writers and their families” (Entertainment Weekly) and “an excellent guide through the dark terrain of unconscious desires” (The Evening Standard) in this brilliant collection of essays that explore the relationships of writers to their families and their work.

Colm... Read more

Building Bridges

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Stephen King

Length: 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Listen as Stephen King, one of America's most celebrated authors, shares his acceptance speech at the 2003 National Book Awards as he's awarded the illustrious Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.

Each Autumn, in conjunction with the conferring of The National Book Awards in Fiction,... Read more

The Iliad

By: Homer

Narrated by: Alfred Molina

Length: 16 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

From the renowned translator of Rilke, Tao Te Ching, and Gilgamesh, a vivid new translation of Western civilization’s foundational epic: The Iliad.

Tolstoy called the Iliad a miracle; Goethe said that it always thrust him into a state of astonishment. Homer’s story is thrilling, and his Greek is perhaps the most beautiful poetry ever sung or... Read more

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

By: Sarah Vowell

Narrated by: Conan O'Brien, Seth Green, Stephen Colbert, Pau...

Length: 5 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

From This American Life contributor and self-described “history nerd” Sarah Vowell comes a collection of humorous and personal essays investigating American history, pop culture, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell travels through the American past and in doing so ponders a number of... Read more

Letters to a Young Poet

By: Rainer Maria Rilke

Narrated by: Dan Stevens & Max Deacon

Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Rilke's powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet, now available in a beautiful hardcover Penguin editionAt the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. These profound and lyrical letters have... Read more

The Mockingbird Next Door

By: Marja Mills

Narrated by: Amy Lynn Stewart

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of the best loved novels of the twentieth century. But for the last fifty years, the novel’s celebrated author, Harper Lee, has said almost nothing on the record. Journalists have trekked to her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee, known to her friends as Nelle, has lived with her sister,... 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

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

Bombs Away

By: John Steinbeck

Narrated by: Scott Aiello

Length: 4 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

A magnificent volume of short novels and an essential World War II report from one of America's great twentieth-century writers

A Penguin Classic

On the heels of the enormous success of his masterwork The Grapes of Wrath and at the height of the American war effort John Steinbeck, one of the most prolific and influential literary figures of his... Read more

The Art of Language Invention

By: David J. Peterson

Narrated by: David J. Peterson

Length: 10 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

An insider’s tour through the construction of invented languages from the bestselling author and creator of languages for Legendary's Dune, the HBO series Game of Thrones and the Syfy series Defiance

From master language creator David J. Peterson comes a creative guide to language construction for sci-fi and fantasy fans, writers, game creators,... Read more

Changing My Mind

By: Zadie Smith

Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat

Length: 12 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

"[These essays] reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite, and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its view of life, literature, and a great deal in between." —Los Angeles Times

Split into five sections--Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering--Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both... Read more

A Jane Austen Education

By: William Deresiewicz

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

An eloquent memoir of a young man's life transformed by literature.

In A Jane Austen Education, Austen scholar William Deresiewicz turns to the author's novels to reveal the remarkable life lessons hidden within. With humor and candor, Deresiewicz employs his own experiences to demonstrate the enduring power of Austen's teachings. Progressing... Read more

Why Read Moby-Dick?

By: Nathaniel Philbrick

Narrated by: Nathaniel Philbrick

Length: 2 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

A “brilliant and provocative” (The New Yorker) celebration of Melville’s masterpiece—from the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane's Eye

One of the greatest American novels finds its perfect contemporary champion in Why Read Moby-Dick?, Nathaniel Philbrick’s enlightening and entertaining tour... Read more

The Most Dangerous Book

By: Kevin Birmingham

Narrated by: John Keating

Length: 14 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

"A great story--how modernism brought down the regime of censorship--told as a great story. Kevin Birmingham's imaginative scholarship brings Joyce and his world to life. There is a fresh detail on nearly every page."--Louis Menand, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Metaphysical Club

For more than a decade, the book that literary critics now... Read more