Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates Audiobook

""Tom Robbins has a grasp on things that dazzles the brain and he's also a world-class storyteller." --Thomas Pynchon In Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, his seventh and biggest novel, the wise, witty, always gutsy Tom Robbins brings onstage the most complex and compelling character he has ever created. Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy, a cyberwhiz who hates computers, a robust bon vivant who can be as squeamish as any fop, a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior). Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn't merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol. And as we dog Switters's strangely elevated heels across four continents, in and out of love and danger, Robbins explores, challenges, mocks, and celebrates virtually every major aspect of our mercurial era. As many readers well know, to describe a Tom Robbins plot does not begin to describe a Tom Robbins novel. Moreover, the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author, with his love of language, nuance, and surprise, is as opposed to story summations as J.D. Salinger. It is revealing, however, to learn what things Robbins lists as having influenced the writing of Fierce Invalids: "This book was inspired by an entry from Bruce Chatwin's journal, by a CIA agent I met in Southeast Asia, by the mystery surrounding the lost prophecy of the Virgin of Fatima, by the increasing evidence that the interplay of opposites is the engine that runs the universe, and by embroidered memories of old Terry and the Pirates comic books." Robbins also has said that throughout the writing of Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates he was guided by the advice of Julia Child: "Learn to handle hot things. Keep your knives sharp. Above all, have a good time." Perhaps that is why he has managed to write a provocative, rascally novel that takes no prisoners--and yet is upbeat, romantic, meaningful, adventurous, edifying, and fun."

Tom Robbins (Author), Keith Szarabajka (Narrator)

Audiobook

Golf in the Kingdom

"The perennially bestselling golf title, Golf in the Kingdom, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as the "masterpiece on the mysticism of golf," is a wonderfully told romp through the Scottish links, the most beautiful and challenging golf courses in the world where, truly, anything is possible. This audio discusses the essential deep truths about the game of golf and also expands on some new and extremely unique approaches to golf instruction. John Hannah, an accomplished stage actor, has appeared on television and in the films Madagascar Skin, The Final Cut and Four Weddings and a Funeral. He has performed the audio production of Michael Murphy's The Kingdom of Shivas Irons, also available from BDD Audio."

Michael Murphy (Author), John Hannah (Narrator)

Audiobook

Black Sunday

"When the game begins in New Orleans this Super Bowl Sunday . . . 80,000 people had better get ready to die. The Super Bowl--where thousands have gathered for an all-American tradition. Suddenly it's the most terrifying place on earth . . . Michael Lander is the most dangerous man in America. He pilots a television blimp over packed football stadiums every weekend. He is fascinated with explosives. And he happens to be very, very crazy. That's why a beautiful PLO operative has seduced him. That's why--on Super Bowl Sunday--the world will witness the bloody assassination of the U. S. president and the worst mass murder in history. Unless someone discovers what Michael Lander plans . . . and can kill him first."

Thomas Harris (Author), Ron Mclarty (Narrator)

Audiobook

This Year It Will Be Different: And Other Stories

"From the New York Times bestselling author of Circle of Friends and The Glass Lake comes This Year It Will Be Different, a stunning new work that brings us the magic and spirit of Christmas in fifteen stories filled with Maeve Binchy's trademark wit, charm, and sheer storytelling genius. Instead of nostalgia, Binchy evokes contemporary life; instead of Christmas homilies, she offers truth; and instead of sugarplums, she brings us the nourishment of holidays that precipitate change, growth, and new beginnings. In "A Typical Irish Christmas," a grieving New York widower heads for a holiday in Ireland and finds an unexpected destination not just for himself, but for a father and daughter at odds. The title story "This Year It Will Be Different" also delves into the emotions of a person at mid-life--a woman with a complacent husband and grown children who are entering a season that can forever alter her life, and theirs. In "Pulling Together," a teacher not yet out of her twenties sees her affair with a married man at a turning point as Christmas Eve approaches--and she may be off on a new direction with some unusual friends. And in the delightful tale "The Hard Core," the four most recalcitrant residents of a nursing home are left alone at Christmas with the owner's daughter in charge: the result is sure to be disaster--or the kind of life-affirming renewal that only the spirit of the season can bring. The stories in This Year It Will Be Different powerfully evoke many lives--step-families grappling with ex's, long-married couples faced with in-law problems, a wandering husband choosing between "the other woman" and his wife, a child caught in grown-up tugs-of-war--during the one holiday when feelings cannot be easily hidden. The time of year may be magical, imbued with meaning. But the situations are universal. And Maeve Binchy makes us care about them all. As the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, "Maeve Binchy's people come to life fully. They make you laugh and cry and disturb your sleep." They do precisely that in this extraordinary collection, on the night before Christmas when we are snug in our beds, or anywhere, any time of the year."

Maeve Binchy (Author), Fionnula Flanagan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker

"New York City is not only The New Yorker magazine's place of origin and its sensibility's lifeblood, it is the heart of American literary culture. Wonderful Town, an anthology of superb short fiction by many of the magazine's most accomplished contributors, celebrates the seventy-five-year marriage between a preeminent publication and its preeminent context with this collection of forty-four of its best stories from (so to speak) home. East Side? Philip Roth's chronically tormented alter ego Nathan Zuckerman has just moved there, in 'Smart Money.' West Side? Isaac Bashevis Singer's narrator mingles with the customers in 'The Cafeteria' (who debate politics and culture in four or five different languages) and becomes embroiled in an obsessional romance. And downtown, John Updike's Maples have begun their courtship of marital disaster, in 'Snowing in Greenwich Village.' Wonderful Town touches on some of the city's famous places and stops at some of its more obscure corners, but the real guidebook in and between its lines is to the hearts and the minds of those who populate the metropolis built by its pages. Like all good fiction, these stories take particular places, particular people, and particular events and turn them into dramas of universal enlightenment and emotional impact. Each life in it, and each life in Wonderful Town, is the life of us all. Including these stories from the magazine's most iconic writers: "The Five-Fourty-Eight" by John Cheever "Distant Music" by Ann Beattle "Sailor off the Bremen" by Irwin Shaw "Physics" by Tama Janowitz "The Whore of Mensa" by Woody Allen "What it was Like, Seeing Chris" by Deborah Eisenberg "Drawing Room B" by John O'Hara "A Sentimental Journey" by Peter Taylor "The Balloon" by Donald Barthelme "Another Marvellous Thing" by Laurie Colwin "The Failure" by Jonathan Franzen "Apartment Hotel" by Sally Benson "Midair" by Frank Conroy "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber "I See You, Bianca" by Maeve Brennan "You're Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore "Signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov "Poor Visitor" by Jamaica Kincaid "In Greenwich, There Are Many Gravelled Walks" by Hortense Calisher "Some Nights When Nothing Happens Are the Best Nights in this Place" by John McNulty "Slight Rebellion Off Madison" by J. D. Salinger "Brownstone" by Renata Adler "Partners" by Veronica Geng "The Evolution of Knowledge" by Niccolo Tucci "The Way We Live Now" by Susan Sontag "Do the Windows Open?" by Julie Hecht "The Mentocrats" by Edward Newhouse "The Treatment" by Daniel Menaker "Arrangement in Black and White" by Dorothy Parker "Carlyle Tries Polygamy" by William Melvin Kelley "Children Are Bored on Sunday" by Jean Stafford "Notes from a Bottle" by James Stevenson "Man in the Middle of the Ocean" by Daniel Fuchs "Me Spoulets of the Splendide" by Ludwig Bemelmans "Over by the River" by William Maxwell "Baster" by Jeffrey Eugenides "The Second Tree from the Corner" by E. B. White "Rembrandt's Hat" by Bernard Malamud "Shot: A New York Story" by Elizabeth Hardwick "A Father-To-Be" by Saul Bellow "Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer" by S. J. Perelman "Water Child" by Edwidge Danticat "The Smoker" by David Schickler"

David Remnicki (Author), Joe Morton, Maria Tucci, Tim Jerome, Tyne Daly (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain (Author), Norman Dietz (Narrator)

Audiobook

Heart of Darkness

"The story of the enigmatic Kurtz and his outpost in deepest Congo as told by Marlow is an adventure story that examines the intent and effects of colonization. It remains one of the most controversial and profound writings of world literature. Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, on December 3, 1857, in Russian occupied Poland. His father, who was fighting for Polish independence, wrote a poem asking his son to remain 'without land or love' as long as Poland was enslaved. Conrad went to sea at sixteen and and served fifteen years aboard English ships. He became the captain of his own ships, sailing to Asia and Africa. He took up writing at the age of thirty two. It did not come easy: English was his fourth language after Polish, Russian and French, but he wrote with depth and beauty seldom matched. He was offered knighthood, but declined. He died August 3, 1924."

Joseph Conrad (Author), Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

Audiobook

Common Sense

"'When my country, into which I had just set foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir,' wrote Paine. This pamphlet, which he had published in 1776, put into print the word every man was thinking but no man dared say: Independence! It captured the imagination of the colonists as no other document had."

Thomas Paine (Author), Adrian Cronauer (Narrator)

Audiobook

True At First Light: A Fictional Memoir Of His Last African Safari

"Both a revealing self-portrait and dramatic fictional chronicle of his final African safari, Ernest Hemingway's last unpublished work was written when he returned from Kenya in 1953. Edited by his son Patrick, who accompanied his father on the safari, True at First Light offers rare insights into the legendary American writer. A blend of autobiography and fiction, the book opens on the day his close friend Pop, a celebrated hunter, leaves Ernest in charge of the safari camp and news arrives of a potential attack from a hostile tribe. Drama continues to build as his wife, Mary, pursues the great black-maned lion that has become her obsession, and Ernest becomes involved with a young African girl whom he supposedly plans to take as a second bride. Increasingly enchanted by the local African community, he struggles between the attraction of these two women and the wildly different cultures they represent. Spicing his depictions of human longings with sharp humor, Hemingway captures the excitement of big-game hunting and the unparalleled beauty of the landscape. Rich in laughter, beauty, and profound insight. True at First Light is an extraordinary publishing event—a breathtaking final work from one of our most beloved and important writers."

Ernest Hemingway (Author), Brian Dennehy (Narrator)

Audiobook

Duane's Depressed

"Surrounded by his children, who all seem to be going through life crises, and his wife, who is wrestling with her own demons, small-town Texas local Duane Moore can't seem to make sense of his life anymore. To the perplexity of his family and friends, he ditches his pickup, starts walking everywhere, and moves to a crude shack six miles out of town. But his attempts to go off the grid are far from successful, and he struggles with increasing depression."

Larry McMurtry (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Rum Diary: The Long Lost Novel

"**National Bestseller **New York Times Notable Book "Nobody tells you that reading Hunter S. Thompson novels as a young adult male while serving in the military is a potentially very bad idea. Some things you simply must absorb and learn on your own." —Sturgill Simpson Made into a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary—a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book—is Hunter S. Thompson's brilliant love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent lust in the Caribbean. Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule, and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson's Fear and Loathing books."

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Campbell Scott (Narrator)

Audiobook

On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon

"Like America in the mid-nineteenth century, Emma Garnet Tate is a woman at war with herself. Born to privilege on a James River plantation, she grows up increasingly aware that her family's prosperity is inextricably linked to the institution of slavery. As she tells her story in 1900, she is still prey to her childhood, to the memories of a life that was made bearable in the main by the indomitable family servant Clarice. She secedes from the control of her overbearing father to marry Quincy Lowell, a member of the distinguished Boston family. Living in Raleigh on the eve of the Civil War, Emma Garnet and Quincy, with Clarice's constant help, create the ideal happy home. When war destroys the rhythm of their days, Emma Garnet works alongside Quincy, an accomplished surgeon. As she assists him in the treatment of wounded soldiers, she comes to see the war as a 'conflict perpetrated by rich men and fought by poor boys against hungry women and babies.' After Appomattox, Emma Garnet sets out to take the exhausted Quincy home to Boston, where she begins the journey of her own reconstruction. As in her five previous novels, Kaye Gibbons demonstrates her subtle mastery of detail and her unmistakable voice. Told in graceful cadences, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoonis a shimmering meditation on the divisions of the human heart."

Kaye Gibbons (Author), Polly Holliday (Narrator)

Audiobook

Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature