Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

"In this explosive and timely novel, T. C. Boyle explores an issue at the forefront of the political arena. He confronts the controversy over illegal immigration head-on, illuminating through a poignant, gripping story the people on both sides of the issue: the haves and the have-nots. In Southern California’s Topanga Canyon, two couples live in close proximity and yet are worlds apart. High atop a hill overlooking the canyon, nature writer Delaney Mossbacher and his wife, real estate agent Kyra Menaker-Mossbacher, reside in an exclusive, secluded housing development with their son, Jordan. The Mossbachers are agnostic liberals with a passion for recycling and fitness. Camped out in a ravine at the bottom of the canyon are Cándido and América Rincón, a Mexican couple who have crossed the border illegally. On the edge of starvation, they search desperately for work in the hope of moving into an apartment before their baby is born. They cling to their vision of the American dream, which, no matter how hard they try to achieve it, manages to elude their grasp at every turn. A chance, violent encounter brings together Delaney and Cándido, instigating a chain of events that eventually culminates in a harrowing confrontation. The novel shifts back and forth between the two couples, giving voice to each of the four main characters as their lives become inextricably intertwined and their worlds collide. The Rincóns’s search for the American dream and the Mossbachers’ attempts to protect it comprise the heart of the story. In scenes that are alternately comic, frightening, and satirical, but always all “too real,” Boyle confronts not only immigration but social consciousness, environmental awareness, crime, and unemployment in a tale that raises the curtain on the dark side of the American dream."

T.C. Boyle (Author), T.C. Boyle (Narrator)

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Lady Susan

"Jane Austen's earliest known serious work, Lady Susan is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction. Lady Susan, a clever and ruthless widow, determines that her daughter is going to marry a man whom both detest. She sets her own sights on her sister-in-law's brother, all the while keeping an old affair simmering on the back burner. But people refuse to play the roles assigned them. In the end, her daughter gets the sister-in-law's brother, the old affair runs out of steam, and all that is left for Lady Susan is the man intended for her daughter, whom neither can abide. Told through a series of letters between the characters, the work concludes abruptly with the comment: "this correspondence…could not, to the great detriment of the Post Office revenue, be continued any longer.""

Jane Austen (Author), A Full Cast (Narrator)

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Phineas Finn: The Irish Member

"Phineas Finn is an Irish MPA who is climbing the political ladder, largely through the assistance of his string of lovers. The questions he is forced to ask himself about honesty, independence, and parliamentary democracy are questions still asked today. Phineas Finn is the second of Anthony Trollope's six Palliser novels, which together comprise a large, coherent composition that captures the fashions, manners, and politics of two decades of society in the high Victorian period. Trollope's unrivaled understanding of the institutions of mid–Victorian England and his sympathetic vision of human fallibility are informed by an unobtrusive irony that shines in these stories."

Anthony Trollope (Author), Simon Vance (Narrator)

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Queen of the Underworld: A Novel

"Here at last is the eagerly awaited new novel from New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin. Queen of the Underworld is sweeping and sultry literary fiction, featuring a memorable young heroine and engaging characters whose intimate dramas interconnect with hers. In the summer of 1959, as Castro clamps down on Cuba and its first wave of exiles flees to the States to wait out what they hope to be his short-lived reign, Emma Gant, fresh out of college, begins her career as a reporter. Her fierce ambition and belief in herself are set against the stories swirling around her, both at the newspaper office and in her downtown Miami hotel, which is filling up with refugees. Emma’s avid curiosity about life thrives amid the tropical charms and intrigues of Miami. While toiling at the news desk, she plans the fictional stories she will write in her spare time. She spends her nights getting to know the Cuban families in her hotel–and rendezvousing with her married lover, Paul Nightingale, owner of a private Miami Beach club. As Emma experiences the historical events enveloping the city, she trains her perceptive eye on the people surrounding her: a newfound Cuban friend who joins the covert anti-Castro training brigade, a gambling racketeer who poses a grave threat to Paul, and a former madam, still in her twenties, who becomes both Emma’s obsession and her alter ego. Emma’s life, like a complicated dance that keeps sweeping her off her balance, is suddenly filled with divided loyalties, shady dealings, romantic and professional setbacks, and, throughout, her adamant determination to avoid “usurpation” by others and remain the protagonist of her own quest."

Gail Godwin (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

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Crazy Ladies

"A lively multigenerational tale of six charming, unforgettable Southern women--a story of love and laughter, pain and redemption. Though she was born in Tennessee, Miss Gussie is no country fool. A woman who can handle any situation, she has her hands full with her two headstrong daughters who happen to be complete opposites -- dour Dorothy and sweet Clancy Jane. Hoping money will heal childhood wounds, Dorothy marries the owner of a five-and-dime, while Clancy Jane gets into a mess of trouble, running off with a randy tomcat who pumps gas at the Esso stand. And then there are Gussie's granddaughters, the smart but plain Violet and fancy-talking Bitsy -- a new generation whose lives will reflect a nation's tumultuous times. From Tennessee to New Orleans, from psychedelic San Francisco to a remote Southwestern desert ranch, this funny, poignant novel spans more than four decades as it vividly recounts the universal loves, sorrows, and joys of women's lives."

Michael Lee West (Author), Michael Lee West (Narrator)

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Cabbages and Kings

"O. Henry wove several stories together into this highly episodic narrative, taking his title and inspiration from Lewis Carroll's poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" in Alice in Wonderland. The stories are set in the fictional country of Anchuria in Central America, a banana republic where larceny is rampant and revolution is lurking in every impoverished back alley. O. Henry offers a cutting satire of contemporary politics and prejudices. Nevertheless, an essential middle-class morality prevails, in which lovers are reunited, poverty obliterated, character rewarded, and sentiment satisfied."

O. Henry (Author), Sean Pratt (Narrator)

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Aegypt

"Is there more than one history of the world? In the 1970s, historian Pierce Moffett, newly jilted and jobless, gets off a bus in the Faraway Hills and steps unawares into a story that has been awaiting him there. He has moved to the New England countryside to write a book, driven by an idea he dare not believe—that the physical laws of the universe once changed, and may change again; that before science defined the modern age, other powers, wondrous and magical, governed the universe, their lore perfected within a lost capital of hieroglyphs, wizard-kings, and fabulous monuments. Not in Egypt—but Aegypt. The notion is not his alone. Something waits at the locked estate of historical romance author Fellowes Kraft, something for which Pierce and those near him have long sought without knowing it—a key, perhaps, to Aegypt. His search will bring him into contact with Rosie Rasmussen, another seeker marked by loss, and it will lead them both on a path toward the longed-for country of our oldest dreams and most unanswerable desires, toward a magnificent discovery."

John Crowley (Author), John Crowley (Narrator)

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Daniel Deronda

"One of the masterpieces of English literature, Daniel Deronda tells the intertwined stories of two different characters as they each come to discover of the truth of their natures. Gwendolen Harleth is the high-spirited beauty of an impoverished upper-class family. In order to restore their fortunes, she unwittingly traps herself in an oppressive marriage. She turns for solace and guidance to the high-minded young Daniel Deronda, the adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman, who is searching for his own path in life. But when Deronda rescues a poor Jewish girl from drowning, he discovers a world of Jewish culture previously unknown to him. When he finally uncovers the long-hidden secret of his own parentage, he must confront his true identity and destiny."

George Eliot (Author), Wanda Mccaddon (Narrator)

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Bleak House

"Bleak House opens in a London shrouded by fog—a fog that swirls most densely about the Court of Chancery, where the obscure case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce lies lost in endless litigation, slowly devouring an inheritance in legal costs. Against this ominous background, Charles Dickens’ rich tapestry of a novel weaves together the fortunes and desires of several characters whose fates are tied to the case: Ada and Richard, two young orphans who stand to inherit and wish to marry when they do; the worthy John Jarndyce, their voluntary guardian while the case is pending; and Esther Summerson, Jarndyce’s protégée, whose romance is complicated by torn loyalties and whose heritage is shrouded in mystery and scandal. This darkly comic portrait of London society is often regarded as Dickens’ best."

Charles Dickens (Author), Simon Vance (Narrator)

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The Castle of Otranto

"On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed under mysterious circumstances. His calculating father, Manfred, fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself-despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying supernatural omens soon threaten this unlawful union, as the curse placed on Manfred's ancestor, who usurped the lawful prince of Otranto, begins to unfold. First published pseudonymously in 1765, The Castle of Otranto purported to be an ancient Italian text from the time of the crusades and is a founding work of gothic fiction. With its compelling blend of sinister portents, tempestuous passions, and ghostly visitations, it spawned an entire literary tradition and influenced such writers as Ann Radcliffe and Bram Stoker."

Horace Walpole (Author), Tony Jay (Narrator)

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The Awakening

"First published in 1899, this revolutionary novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. Rooted in the romantic tradition of Melville and Dickinson, it is the story of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier, a surprisingly modern woman trapped in a dehumanizing marriage and in search of self-discovery. Turning away from convention and society toward her primal instincts for passion and freedom, Edna abandons her family to realize herself as an individual. But her quest leads to her destruction by a society that grants no place for those unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood. Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast, The Awakeningis one of the most important novels written by an American woman in the nineteenth century and a landmark work of early feminism."

Kate Chopin (Author), Grace Conlin (Narrator)

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La Vagabonde

"Largely autobiographical, La Vagabonde recalls the author's own years as a dance-hall performer in turn-of-the-century Paris. Colette takes the listener backstage and into the demimonde of Renée Néré, an aging dancer, mime, and failed writer. In a sultry, passionate, and intelligent voice, Renée narrates the story of her romance with an admirer named Maxime. Her struggle is that of a woman who must choose between freedom and love."

Colette Avital (Author), Johanna Ward (Narrator)

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Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature