Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

Told through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles, Dracula is one of the best examples of an epistolary novel, using the “found” nature of its entries to immerse the listener in a dark and thrilling tale. Whether you are returning to an old standard or listening to this brilliant novel for the first time, Dracula is a spectacular and riveting experience.

King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.

Max and Alissa have a fairy tale life - newlywed, madly in love and enviously rich. Then Max is brutally stabbed to death at their home and Alissa, miraculously, escapes with her life. But why was she spared? The hunt for the killer begins, uncovering a number of leads - was Max's incredible wealth the motive? Had his shady business practices finally caught up with him? Or was it a stalker with a dangerous obsession?

Anthony Trollope's classic novel centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity whose charitable income far exceeds the purpose for which it was intended. On discovering this, young John Bold turns his reforming zeal toward exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, despite the fact that he is in love with Mr. Harding's daughter, Eleanor.

Gen's secret is out. The caravan is in shambles. The Chalaine is wed to the Ha'Ulrich and pregnant with the Holy Child. Dangers abound, the Uyumaak threatening to overtake and destroy the Chalaine and her companions as they desperately try to escape the Shroud Lake Shard. Split from Gen, the Chalaine must find a way to work with her husband before their mutual animosity tears the prophecy apart. Meanwhile Mirelle battles Padra Athan behind the scenes to free the man she loves more than anyone.

Drawing on 40 years of research and a treasure trove of new information, Tesla: Wizard at War provides a comprehensive view of Tesla's discoveries, which continue to influence today's military technology and diplomatic strategies. One of the world's leading Tesla experts, Marc J. Seifer, offers new insight into the brilliant scientist's particle beam weapon (aka the "Death Ray") and explores his military negotiations with pivotal historical figures - including his links to Joseph Stalin, Vannevar Bush, General Andrew McNaughton, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. Novelists and playwrights blossomed and political ideas were swapped in coffee houses.

As Jon prepares for the inevitable battle with Rohaer, strategies must evolve in response to the enemy’s overwhelming advantage. But Rohaer is not Jon’s only concern. Political players among his allies may plan to use the upcoming strife as an opportunity to grab power for themselves. Jon must protect their king from an internal betrayal at the same time that they’re defending their land from an unrelenting force bent on conquest.

Kenny Gabriel is three years away from turning sixty, has forty-three quid in the bank and is occasionally employed to find people who would rather not be found. Broke, clientless and depressed, he knows things can't get much worse. Then he's summoned to the office of London media magnate Frank Parr, whose daughter, Harry, is missing - and there's ten grand on the table to get her back. But he and Frank have a history he'd rather not revisit.

The battle lines have been drawn. The An’Dari and his allies have embarked upon their quest for one of the missing Stones of Aer. The lost artifact of legend may hold the key to saving those trapped in the Grey. Pursued by the enemy, the survival of an entire ancient race is in their hands. With the summer months fast approaching, defiant mercenary companies continue to clash with the forces of the new Protectorate Empire. The prince’s army, now camped at the Dwarven fortress of Celig Helme, hones its skills in preparation for all-out war.

Mark Robarts, a young vicar, is newly arrived in the village of Framley. With ambitions to further his career, he seeks connections in the county's high society. He is soon preyed upon by a local member of parliament to guarantee a substantial loan, which Mark, in a moment of weakness, agrees to, even though he knows the man is a notorious debtor; it brings Mark to the brink of ruin.

The enthralling and often harrowing history of the adventurers who searched for the Northwest Passage, the holy grail of nineteenth-century British exploration. After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying...

Throughout Proust's life, nine of his short stories remained unseen - the writer never spoke of them. Why did he choose not to publish them along with the others? One possible answer is that he was developing his themes in preparation for his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time; another is that the stories were too audacious - too near to life - for the censorious society of the time. In these stories, published here for the first time, we find an intimate picture of a young author full of darkness and melancholy, longing to reveal his true self to the world.

Lady Wetherby had a big, soft heart, and she hated hurting her fellows. As a rule, when she had bad news to impart to any one, she administered the blow so gradually and with such mystery as to the actual facts that the victim, having passed through the various stages of imagined horrors, was genuinely relieved, when she actually came to the point, to find that all that had happened was that he had lost all his money.

This last novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series involves Mr. Crawley, the impoverished curate of Hogglestock, who is accused of theft when he uses a large check to pay off his debts. The scandal fiercely divides the citizens of Barsetshire and threatens to tear apart Mr. Crawley's family.

The passionate Andre-Louis Moreau makes an unexpected entrance into the French Revolution when he vows to avenge his best friend's death. His target: Monsieur de La Tour d'Azyr, the aristocratic villain who killed his friend. Andre-Louis rallies the underclass to join him in his mission against the supreme power of the nobility. Soon the rebel leader must go underground, disguising himself as "Scaramouche" in a traveling group of actors. In the midst of his swashbuckling adventures and his country's revolution, he discovers the secret of his own identity.

The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in 19th-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccentrics in Dickens's pantheon.

What made Sherlock Holmes a household name and cultural icon? This very first collection of stories featuring the astute sleuth and his loyal assistant, Dr. Watson. In these twelve ingenious mysteries, Holmes is embroiled in betrayal, abduction, thievery, deception, and murder. Relying on logic, driven by instinct, and employing his uncanny powers of observation, Holmes cracks the cases that elude Scotland Yard. This Baker Street dozen by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is all the evidence listeners will need to understand why Sherlock Holmes is an enduring legend in detective fiction.

Set against the backdrop of peaceful southwest England, where Thomas Hardy spent much of his youth, The Mayor of Casterbridge captures the author's unique genius for depicting the absurdity underlying much of the sorrow and humor in our lives. Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife, Susan, and baby daughter.

A groundbreaking masterpiece of early European modernism, originally published in 1910, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge unspools the vivid reflections of the titular young poet and nobleman. From his Paris garret, Brigge records his encounters with the city and its people, muses on his family history, and lays bare an alternately exquisite and grotesque atmosphere of death. With a poet’s attention to language, Rainer Maria Rilke forges a dazzlingly visual coming-of-age narrative, kaleidoscopic in its approach to time and its portraits of Parisian life.