Interactive English

The Winter's Tale follows two childhood friends: Leontes, King of Sicilia, and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia. Polixenes is visiting the kingdom of Sicilia and is enjoying catching up with his old friend. However, after nine months, Polixenes yearns to return to his own kingdom to tend to affairs and see his son. This edition is an adaptation of Shakespeare's eponymous comedy, narrated in plain modern English, capturing the very essence and key elements of the original Shakespeare's drama. Read in English, unabridged.

Enter the world of mystery with this timeless audiobook adaptation of Leskov's classic ghost story uncovering mysteries of a haunted castle with a reputation going back several centuries. Featuring ghost action and audio effects, it includes a story that takes you through events unfolding in St. Petersburg in 1859 or 1860. This release also includes another story of mysterious disappearance. A 19th-century nobleman goes missing in Turgenev's "Hunting Sketches".

Where does love come from? How are questions of personal happiness of consequence in love? This audiobook collection of stories by Anton Chekhov is united by the theme of love, featuring: 'About Love', 'The Helpmate' and 'Polinka'. Read in English, unabridged, and accompanied by orchestral music based on original Antonin Dvorak compositions.

Every individual owes it to himself to find the right work and the right mate, because these are fundamental needs of every human being. Lacking them, life is a failure; possessing but one of them, life is half a failure. To obtain and apply the very fullest knowledge toward the attainment of these two great requisites should be the aim of every person. Only those men and women whose natures automatically encourage each other in the doing of the things each likes to do, in the way each likes to do them, can be happy together.

Every individual should find a vocation furnishing one of the three kinds of work for which he has the greatest ability. Then he should go into the particular branch of that vocation which is best adapted to his personality, training, education, environment and experience. To be a success, you must produce something out of the ordinary for the world. To know what this is, classify the kinds of activities you take to naturally. You can be a star in some line that calls for those activities.

'I never saw a book without wanting to read it,' said a cerebral friend to us the other day. This expresses the interest every person of this type has in the printed page. 'I never see a library without wishing I had time to go there and stay till I had read everything in it'. The most essential thing in the world to any individual is to understand himself. The next is to understand the other fellow. From this course you are going to learn which of the five types you are and how to get the best out of it.

Long ago, in the merry days of good King Arthur, there lived a ploughman and his wife. They were very poor but would have been content and happy if only they could have had a little child. One day, having heard of the great fame of the magician Merlin, who was living at the court of King Arthur, the wife persuaded her husband to go and tell him of their trouble.

There was once a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called the Simpleton. He was laughed at and despised and neglected on all occasions. Now it happened one day that the eldest son wanted to go into the forest to hew wood, and his mother gave him a beautiful cake to take with him, so he might not suffer from hunger.... Read in English, unabridged.

Once upon a time, there were three bears who lived together in a house of their own in a wood. One of them was a little, small, wee bear; and one was a middle-sized bear, and the other was a great, huge bear. They had each a pot for their porridge - a little pot for the little, small, wee bear; a middle-sized pot for the middle bear; and a great pot for the great, huge bear.

This traditional Christmas carol is also know by its ancient name, 'Greensleeves', dating from England around the time of Henry VIII, and some say that it was even written by the king himself. This recording offers reading of the English-language lyrics followed by magical harp music based on original Christmas carol melody.

The First Noel, the angels did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep, on a cold winter's night that was so deep. This recording offers reading of the English-language lyrics followed by magical harp music based on original Christmas carol melody composition.

This traditional Christmas carol is often referred to as 'The Huron Carol' or 'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime'. A Jesuit missionary in Canada adapted an old 16th-century French tune into a Christmas carol, adding words in the local Huron language, which he taught to the Indians where he was based. This recording offers a reading of the English-language text followed by magical harp music based on the original composition.

On a hot summer day two carpenters, Gerasim and Lyubim, sit in a pond, floundering about in the water under a willow tree, beside the unfinished bathing shed they were supposed to be working on. Blue from cold and wrangling, they struggle to drag a large eelpout by the gills, from under the root....

Yegor the huntsman, walking down a country road, accidentally meets his estranged wife, Pelageya, whom he's been married to for 12 years but visited just several times, and even then, drunk and violent. She weeps and, fawning before him, implores him to visit her more often. He tries to explain why he, the best sportsman around, 'a pampered man', enjoying good tea and 'refined conversation', could not bear to live in a village.

A boy of two years and eight months makes his first foray into the outside world in a company of his somewhat wayward nanny and is quite overwhelmed, having got even his first taste of alcohol. In the evening he cannot get to sleep. The soldiers with the brooms, the big cats, the horses, the bit of glass, the tray of oranges, the bright buttons, all gathered together, weigh on his brain. He tosses from side to side, babbles, and, at last, unable to endure his excitement, begins crying.

Honored sir, father and benefactor, a petty clerk called Nevyrazimov sitting in his office on the Easter Eve in the company of a cockroach scurrying the table, muses upon what he might do to make it in the world. Read in English, unabridged.

Ivan Chervyakov, a petty government official, while in the theatre, sneezes right upon the head of a man sitting in front of him, who happens to be a high-ranking government official. He spends the evening and the next day fawning before his sneeze victim trying to extract forgiveness, but what he succeeds instead is only bringing out a fit of rage in him. Shocked, Chervyakov returns home to lie there and die, due to the sheer stress of having endured such horror. Read in English, unabridged.

The cabman Iona's son recently died. He desperately and unsuccessfully tries to have a talk with the people he meets and tell them of how shattered he is. He ends up talking to his horse. Read in English, unabridged.

Would you go into voluntary solitary confinement for 15 years in order to get rich? And more importantly, what would happen to you in the end? Our protagonist, the banker, agrees to pay millions to a young lawyer who believes he can stay locked up for 15 years in exchange for a multimillion reward. The bet does go ahead, but what it leads to both surprises and frightens the banker. Read in English, unabridged.

A selection of stories about very naughty cats and their adventures. Cats confess in their conversations what it is like to live with humans of different ranks and professions. Some of the very dark secrets are also revealed here. Cats aren't always friendly with each other, apparently. And of course these delightful tales told through the eyes of the animal are full of wit and humour which only cats know how to express best. Read in English, unabridged.