Literary Criticism audiobooks

I Think You're Totally Wrong

By: David Shields & Caleb Powell

Narrated by: Luis Moreno & Jonathan Todd Ross

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

Lore of the Stars

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 4 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Kenyon College's most honored professors, Timothy B. Shutt is widely renowned as a gifted polymath and lecturer. The night sky was the ancient world's cinema, and storytellers have used this panorama to weave fascinating tales since the earliest days of mankind. This captivating series of lectures explores the mythological sagas found in... Read more

The Philosophical Dictionary

By: Voltaire

Narrated by: Donal Donnelly

Length: 4 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

-A collection of Voltaire's ideas and thoughts that were too short for pamphlets but worth saving for later development-wise and witty entries on subjects as diverse as atheism and kissing. Read more

Rediscovering Shakespeare

By: Matthew Wagner

Narrated by: Hailey R. Carter

Length: 4 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

A greater emphasis on situations than characters (this numbs the audience's connection to the characters, so that when characters experience misfortune, the audience still finds it laughable) A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders Separation and re-unification Deception among characters (especially mistaken... Read more

The Fellowship

By: Philip Zaleski & Carol Zaleski

Narrated by: John Curless

Length: 26 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

A stirring group biography of the Inklings, the Oxford writing club featuring J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis C.S. Lewis is the twentieth century's most widely read Christian writer and J.R.R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades, they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in... Read more

The Norsemen

By: Michael Drout

Narrated by: Michael Drout

Length: 5 hours

Abridged: No

Professor Michael D.C. Drout of Wheaton College immerses listeners in the extraordinary legacy of Viking civilization that developed in what is now Scandinavia during the early Middle Ages. During the course of these lectures, Professor Drout explores how these peoples conquered all of Northern Europe, traveled as far as Byzantium in the East... Read more

The Modern Novel

By: Katherine Elkins

Narrated by: Katherine Elkins

Length: 4 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

A recipient of the Whiting Foundation Teaching Fellowship, Katherine Elkins is also the co-director of the Integrated Program in the Humane Studies at Kenyon College. In this lecture series, Elkins examines the development of the modern novel by investigating four great modernist authors: James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, and Virginia... Read more

Celts and Germans

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the Modern Scholar's most popular lecturers, Professor Timothy B. Shutt of Kenyon College examines the contributions of the peoples of northern Europe through their vibrant literary legacy. As Professor Shutt's textual analysis reveals, Celtic and Germanic values shine through these works, exhibiting such characteristics as courage,... Read more

Dickens and Twain

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 4 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Western Curriculum Course #1212100 Title: Dickens and Twain: Capturing 19th-Century Britain and America Author: Timothy B. Shutt, Kenyon College Program Description: Few writers are more often read, and better loved, than Charles Dickens and Samuel Langhorne Clemens---Mark Twain. Many of the characters populating their novels have become... Read more

The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 4 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the Modern Scholar's most popular professors, Timothy B. Shutt, brings his literary acumen and trademark enthusiasm to the study of the epic poems that sit at the very wellspring of Western culture. The earliest surviving works of Greek literature, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey exert a continuing influence on modern culture, even today... Read more

Giants of the British Novel, Part I

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 4 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

It can reasonably be argued that the British invented the novel. And to understand the way in which the novel, as a literary form, developed in Britain is key to understanding the literary form itself. In this first of a two-part series, beloved Modern Scholar professor Timothy B. Shutt takes listeners on a panoramic journey across the colorful... Read more

The Novel that Invented Modernity

By: Ilan Stavans

Narrated by: IIan Stavans

Length: 4 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Distinguished man of letters Ilan Stavans believes Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote de la Mancha invented modern consciousness. In these lectures, Stavans explores the works impact within Renaissance Spain and discusses Cervantes career as a soldier, tax collector, and failed playwright. Stavans also focuses on the baroque style and the way Spain... 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

Get Talking German in Ten Days Beginner Audio Course

By: Paul Coggle & Heiner Schenke

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

If so then you need to Get Talking. Through 10 common scenarios plus culture and travel advice, you?ll learn the skills for understanding and the confidence to speak German in just 10 days.Practice the most frequent words and expressions for:- getting a taxi- checking into a hotel- introducing yourself at a reception- ordering drinks- ordering a... Read more

Archaeology in Fiction

By: Scott C. Viguié

Narrated by: Scott C. Viguié & Austin Downey

Length: 4 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Popular fiction is filled with images of archaeologists as daring adventurers who constantly risk life and limb in the pursuit of fabulous antiquities of immense historical and monetary value. There are evil villains, great romances, and unknown perils lurking around every corner.That’s the view many people have of archaeology. But what is the... Read more

Browsings

By: Michael Dirda

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 6 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

From Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life—the perfect companion for any lover of books.Michael Dirda has been hailed as “the best-read person in America” by the Paris Review and “the best book critic in America” by the New York Observer. In addition to... Read more

Man in Profile

By: Thomas Kunkel

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

This fascinating biography reveals the untold story of the legendary New Yorker profile writer—author of Joe Gould’s Secret and Up in the Old Hotel—and unravels the mystery behind one of literary history’s greatest disappearing acts.Born and raised in North Carolina, Joseph Mitchell was Southern to the core. But from the 1930s to the 1960s, he... Read more

The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

By: William Anderson & Laura Ingalls Wilder

Narrated by: John Morgan & Tish Hicks

Length: 12 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Available for the first time and collected in one volume, the letters of one of America’s most beloved authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder—a treasure trove that offers new and unexpected understanding of her life and work.The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a vibrant, deeply personal portrait of this revered American author, illuminating... Read more

Sex with Shakespeare

By: Jillian Keenan

Narrated by: Jillian Keenan

Length: 9 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

A provocative, moving, kinky, and often absurdly funny memoir about Shakespeare, love, obsession, and spankingWhen it came to understanding love, a teenage Jillian Keenan had nothing to guide her—until a production of The Tempest sent Shakespeare’s language flowing through her blood for the first time. In Sex with Shakespeare, she tells the... Read more

George MacDonald

By: Michael Phillips

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 14 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Scotland's beloved storyteller
George MacDonald, nineteenth-century Scottish novelist and poet, was reintroduced to twentieth century Christians by C.S. Lewis, whose reading of MacDonald’s Phantastes triggered his own spiritual awakening and conversion. Other renowned writers have voiced similar acknowledgements. G.K. Chesterton said of... Read more

Lit Up

By: David Denby

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 10 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

A bestselling author and distinguished critic goes back to high school to find out whether books can shape lives

It's no secret that millions of American teenagers, caught up in social media, television, movies, and games, don't read seriously-they associate sustained reading with duty or work, not with pleasure. This indifference has become a... Read more

Cast of Characters

By: Thomas Vinciguerra

Narrated by: Tony Pasqualini

Length: 13 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

The professional and personal lives of the pioneers of an enduring magazine, the New YorkerFrom its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, the New Yorker slowly but surely took hold as the country’s most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In Cast of Characters, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait... Read more

The Maximum Security Book Club

By: Mikita Brottman

Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

A riveting account of the two years literary scholar Mikita Brottman spent reading literature with criminals in a maximum-security men’s prison outside Baltimore, and what she learned from them—Orange Is the New Black meets Reading Lolita in Tehran.On sabbatical from teaching literature to undergraduates, and wanting to educate a different kind... Read more

And Yet...

By: Christopher Hitchens

Narrated by: Steve West

Length: 11 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

The seminal, uncollected essays—lauded as “dazzling” (The New York Times Book Review)—by the late Christopher Hitchens, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller God Is Not Great, showcase the notorious contrarian’s genius for rhetoric and his sharp rebukes to tyrants and the ill-informed everywhere.

For more than forty years, Christopher... Read more