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Audiobooks Narrated by Patrick Barker
Browse audiobooks narrated by Patrick Barker, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
"Yvette, daughter of the Anglican rector of an East Midlands village, is awakened to the possibilities of life and love by an encounter with a dark, handsome gypsy. Published shortly after Lawrence’s death in 1930, this short novel was written in 1926 and was a precursor to Lady Chatterley’s Lover."
"Vita Sackville-West’s book length poem celebrates the landscapes and produce of the Weald of Kent. Divided into four parts—Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn—it paints a vivid picture of the Kentish countryside across the year and the farming practices of the Kentish folk eking out a living on its unpredictable clayey soils. Published in 1926, the poem was a great success, winning the Hawthornden Prize for Literature and going through six print runs in three years."
"The Escaped Cock is Lawrence’s take on resurrection, the life-force, and sexuality. The man who has been crucified wakes up in the garden wounded and weakened. Disillusioned with his old companions and inspired by the zest for life of the escaped cock of the title, he decides to live anew. Journeying to the sea, he stumbles on a temple of Isis, where its priestess, who mistakes him for the lost Egyptian god Osiris, introduces him to the pleasures of the flesh. Published in 1929, The Escaped Cock (also published as The Man Who Died) was Lawrence’s last major work of fiction before his untimely death in 1930."
"D. H. Lawrence’s homage to his travels in Mexico and the American southwest. The first four essays are products of a short visit to Oaxaca in Mexico. The following three, which include Lawrence’s classic account of the Hopi snake dance, are set in New Mexico. In the last essay, Lawrence remembers Saint Catherine’s Day at the ranch in Taos from the vantage point of his new residence in Italy. All are written in an inimitable style which combines acute observation and sardonic humour with Lawrence’s often eccentric views on culture and philosophy."
"The Trespasser
By D. H. Lawrence
Narrated by Patrick Barker
Siegmund deserts his family in the London suburbs for a five day holiday on the Isle of Wight with his lover and violin pupil Helena. Despairing of both his marriage and his future with Helena, Siegmund returns home and takes his own life. Made of stronger stuff, Helena and Beatrice, his wife, move on. In his second published novel, based on the journal of his friend Helen Corke, Lawrence skilfully interweaves romantic melodrama, domestic realism and imaginative symbolism as he begins to explore the sexual and philosophical themes of his later novels.
Production copyright 2021 Voices of Today"
"Joyous Miseries of Three Travellers in Scandinavia
By Jules Verne
Translated with an introduction, notes and
appendices by William Butcher
Read by Patrick Barker
In 1861 a struggling playwright from Nantes travelled to the wildest parts of Norway with two friends. The experience transformed him, opening his eyes to exotic adventures – and to a new mode of writing. The sole surviving chapter of his autobiographical work, completed at about the same time as he met his lifelong publisher and surely his most personal piece, brilliantly recounts his reasons for travelling and his preparations in a henceforth “suffocating” Paris. None of his subsequent masterpieces, but especially Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Captain Hatteras, would have been possible without Verne’s “Joyous Miseries”.
Production copyright 2022 Voices of Today"
"The White Peacock
By D. H. Lawrence
Narrated by Patrick Barker
Lawrence’s first novel tells the tale of a love triangle between Lettie Beardsall and her neighbours, George Saxton, son of a farmer, and Leslie Tempest, the local mine owners’ son. Lettie will marry Leslie, but remain sexually attracted George. George also marries but falls victim to alcohol. Inspired by Maurice Greiffenhagen’s painting ‘An Idyll’, ‘The White Peacock’ is both a romance and a novel about class and the industrialisation of the English countryside that draws on Lawrence’s youth. Though it bears traces of his apprenticeship as a novelist, ‘The White Peacock’ is a mature work that anticipates the psychological themes of ‘Sons and Lovers’ and the gamekeeper character of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’.
Production copyright 2021 Voices of Today"
"The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
By Jules Verne
Translated by William Butcher
Narrated by Patrick Barker
First Mate Shandon receives a mysterious letter asking him to construct a reinforced steamship in Liverpool. As he heads out for Melville Bay and the Arctic labyrinth, a crewman reveals himself to be John Hatteras, and his obsession, the North Pole. The captain is later abandoned by his crew and remains without resources at the coldest spot on earth. How can he find food and navigate the Polar Sea? And what will he find at the top of the world?
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1865), greatly admired by Ray Bradbury, is one of Verne’s most personal novels, with hypnotic descriptions of the icy wastes and gripping authenticity. The volcanic Pole, where the meridians and oceans meet, is a magical spot for a writer obsessed with physical space, allowing him to give unbridled rein to his creative imagination.
This is the first ever audio recording of one of Verne’s greatest masterpieces, translated by father of Verne Studies William Butcher and skilfully read by Patrick Barker, who vividly captures the characters’ social differences. A cutting-edge introduction and appendix are also included, containing the duel with the rival explorer and the final tragedy, cut by the original publisher.
Production copyright 2021 Voices of Today"
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