Classics Collection

The best way to experience this classic of the American South is by joining five-time Academy Award nominee and Best Actress winner Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking, Thelma & Louise) as she guides the listener on a journey through the anguish of adolescence and isolation.

Joseph Conrad was born on 3rd December 1857 in Berdychiv in the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His birthplace had been part of Poland which its neighbours dismembered into their own Empires. Conrad brought to English Literature both narrative mastery, compelling prose and fully formed characters as well as a deeper examination of the human psyche in a wealth of work. He wrote many novels, short stories, nonfiction, and memoirs which are rightly regarded today as some of the finest in English literature.

The short story is considered to be one of the most challenging genres because of the need for compact plotlines and the ability to conjure up atmosphere and character in a few sentences and to engage the reader instantly. This collection presents 66 of the greatest examples of the genre - many of them well known, some hidden literary treasures, all of them exquisite examples of the short story at its finest.

Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Born to Be Bad and experience the compelling world of erotica.

And at one point we decided it might be fun to do a novel together. Not by thinking it out and talking through it and, you know, collaborating in a serious artistic manner. Our method was simpler. One of us would write a chapter, and then the other would write a chapter to come after it, and back and forth, like that, until we had a book. It worked, and by God it was fun. The first of our efforts was A Girl Called Honey, and it started when I wrote a chapter and sent it to Don. And so on, and we stopped when we had a book and sent it to Henry Morrison.

Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), known by her pen name George Eliot, was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels are known for their realism and psychological insight. Four of them are included in this volume: Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, The Mill on the Floss, and The Lifted Veil.

Four Jack Tales from the Appalachian oral tradition, recorded by a nationally accalimed storyteller. In this collection, Jack has a little trouble adjusting to the workaday world and to personal financial management. Eventually he works hard enough, but his fortunes do not seem to parallel his productivity. Jack finally has to go a bit out of his way to prove himself, meanwhile dealing with a prospective father-in-law who plays hard to get.

The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers, from Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, and the seductive Sirens, to the love of Calypso on her all-too-comfortable isle.

Meditations, The Art of War, and Self Reliance are three famous books that will help you achieve mastery in life. Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise written by strategist Sun Tzu. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics. Self Reliance is an essay written in 1841 by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the British Empire, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story. This collection includes "The Man Who Would Be King", "The Mark of the Beast", "Rikki Tikki Tavi", and "Just So Stories".

The Hellenica is Xenophon’s continuation of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, literally resuming from where the previous author’s history was abruptly left unfinished and narrating the events of the final seven years of the conflict and the war’s aftermath. Some historians consider the Hellenica to be a personal work, written by Xenophon in retirement on his Spartan estate, and intended primarily for circulation among his friends, who would have known the main protagonists and events, having most likely participated in them.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia. His family life was difficult; his father was strict and overbearing, but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’. Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories which included many, many classics including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’. His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26.

Step into the rich history and culture of Mother Russia with this classic collection by esteemed writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. With his penchant for gripping prose and powerful themes that unmasked the social struggles and intellectual clashes of his day, this audiobook collection brings his work to life for the contemporary listener.

These four plays, translated into blank verse by C. A. Wheelwright, present to us the wide range of this ancient playwright's fertile imagination. From war and peace to politics and society to the relationships between mena nd women, no topic is off-limits.

This collection contains Book One: Our National Parks, Book Two: Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, and Book Three: Walden.

Young Harvey Cheyne is rich, spoiled, prejudiced, and totally lacking in the real experiences of life. When the fifteen-year-old is accidentally washed overboard a great ocean liner headed for Europe, he is picked up by a fisherman and brought aboard the fishing schooner We're Here. Harvey's stories of privilege and wealth mean nothing aboard this hard-working vessel, and the boy receives many lessons in self-reliance, values, and hard-bitten reality—"things every man must know, blind, drunk, or asleep."

The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings are two of the most iconic works of literature ever written, regardless of genre. The perceptiveness with which Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Musashi analyzed human behavior and tendencies apply to strategy in virtually any context, from warfare to business and beyond. In The Master of Strategy Collection, AOG brings you both of these timeless works in full and unabridged, along with extensive supplemental study and discussion materials.

Argonautika is the story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. This epic story of gods and goddesses, mythical beasts, thrilling adventures, and narrow escapes may be the oldest surviving Greek myth, which Homer referred to as something "familiar to all." Listen to this masterpiece of classical literature in an all-new translation that captures the timeless magic and quiet humor of this ancient legend.

Author, poet, screenwriter, and outstanding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker was known for her quick wit, keen observations, and remarkable insight into the human condition. Regarded as brilliant, but known to be an alcoholic and often depressed, Parker’s work pushes all buttons at once: humor, anger, love, pity, and everything in between...she pulled no punches, writing with pure, unadulterated passion; her work is timeless and as pertinent to today’s society as it was to that of the time she wrote.