Press ESC to close

History

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage Audiobook: A Masterclass in Survival Narratives – Free Download

This is a new reading of the thrilling account of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded.

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October, 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.

Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean in the world and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains. The book recounts a harrowing adventure, but ultimately it is the nobility of these men and their indefatigable will that shines through.

Fiction & Literature

Picture of Dorian Gray Audiobook: A Haunting Masterpiece Reimagined – Free Download

Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged-petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral-while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying and enchanting readers for more than 100 years.

Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence, The Picture of Dorian Gray is not simply a melodrama about moral corruption. Laced with bon mots and vivid depictions of upper-class refinement, it is also a fascinating look at the milieu of Wilde’s fin-de-siècle world and a manifesto of the creed ‘Art for Art’s Sake.’

The ever-quotable Wilde, who once delighted London with his scintillating plays, scandalized readers with this, his only novel. Upon publication, Dorian was condemned as dangerous, poisonous, stupid, vulgar, and immoral, and Wilde as a ‘driveling pedant.’ The novel, in fact, was used against Wilde at his much-publicized trials for ‘gross indecency,’ which led to his imprisonment and exile on the European continent. Even so, The Picture of Dorian Gray firmly established Wilde as one of the great voices of the Aesthetic movement and endures as a classic that is as timeless as its hero.

Health & Wellness

As a Man Thinketh and from Poverty to Power Audiobook: Victorian Wisdom for Modern Minds – Free Download

James Allen’s From Poverty to Power (1901) and As a Man Thinketh (1902) stand as seminal texts in the self-help genre that have served as sources of inspiration since their publication at the beginning of the twentieth century. Loosely based in its principles around the Biblical proverb ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ As a Man Thinketh asserts the powerful idea that belief is central to bringing about positive events in one’s life. From Poverty to Power, Allen’s first book, relies on a similar philosophy but addresses themes of adversity and suffering more directly and offers his simple wisdom as a means of overcoming difficulty. Allen’s writings are powerful and relevant today as they were over a century ago, and this collection brings their solace and inspiration to modern listeners.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

1984 Audiobook: Why It Redefines Dystopian Classics – Free Download

Blackstone Publishing presents a new recording of this immensely popular book.

One of the most celebrated classics of the twentieth century, Orwell’s cautionary tale of a man trapped under the gaze of an authoritarian state feels more relevant now than ever before.

George Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world dominated by Big Brother and its vast network of agents, including the Thought Police, a world in which news is manufactured according to the authorities’ will and people live tepid lives by rote.

Winston Smith, the hero with no heroic qualities, longs only for truth and decency. But living in a social system in which privacy does not exist and where those with unorthodox ideas are brainwashed or put to death, he knows there is no hope for him. He knows even as he continues to pursue his forbidden love affair that eventually he will come to destruction.

The year 1984 has come and gone, yet George Orwell’s nightmare vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is still the great modern classic of negative Utopia. It is a prophetic and haunting tale that exposes the worst crimes imaginable: the destruction of freedom and truth.

Page 1 of 1