Interactive English

Once upon a time there was a village shop. The name over the window was Ginger and Pickles. The counter inside was a convenient height for rabbits. Ginger and Pickles sold red spotty pocket-handkerchiefs at a penny three farthings. They also sold sugar, and snuff and galoshes.

One morning a little rabbit sat on a bank. He pricked his ears and listened to the trit-trot, trit-trot of a pony. A gig was coming along the road; it was driven by Mr. McGregor, and beside him sat Mrs. McGregor in her best bonnet.

As soon as they had passed, little Benjamin Bunny slid down into the road, and set off - with a hop, skip, and a jump - to call upon his relations, who lived in the wood at the back of Mr. McGregor's garden.

High above the city, on a tall column, stands the statue of the Happy Prince. He is gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he has two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glows on his sword hilt. He is very much admired by the town officials, yet a lot of poor people suffer here.

A collection of short stories from one of the most famous writers of very long novels, Leo Tolstoy, including: 'Ilyas', 'Little Girls Wiser Than Men' and 'The Coffee-House of Surat'.

'For man to be able to live, he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.' Read in English, unabridged.

Set in a magical kingdom where a wealthy prince and a Russian princess meet for the first time and fall madly in love with each other. Their wedding is to be a huge celebration for the entire realm, with all sorts of entertainment, including fireworks as a grand finale. As soon as various firework elements are set in place, they start talking amongst each other, and we meet the very distinguished Remarkable Rocket, responsible for so many of Oscar Wilde's memorable epigrams.

Listen to the story about two disagreeable people called Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod. Nobody could call Mr. Tod nice. The rabbits could not bear him; they could smell him half a mile off. He was of a wandering habit, and he had foxey whiskers; they never knew where he would be next. One day he was living in a stick-house in the coppice, causing terror to the family of old Mr. Benjamin Bouncer. Next day he moved into a pollard willow near the lake, frightening the wild ducks and the water rats. Read in English, unabridged.

Natalya Bronin is lying in her bedroom, her whole being abandoned to repose. She lies, deliciously drowsy, thinking of her little daughter, who lives somewhere far away with her grandmother or aunt. The child is more precious to her than the public, bouquets, notices in the papers, and adorers, and she would be glad to think about her till morning. She is happy, at peace, and all she longs for is not to be prevented from lying undisturbed, dozing and dreaming of her little girl. Read in English, unabridged.

Once upon a time, there was a man who had fine houses in both town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, carved furniture, and coaches gilded all over. But, unhappily, this man had a blue beard, which made him so ugly and so terrible that all the women and girls ran away from him. Read in English, unabridged.

There was once a merchant who was very, very rich. He had six children, three boys and three girls, and as he was a man of good sense, he spared no expense in order that they might be well educated and gave them masters of every kind. His daughters were all beautiful, but his youngest one was especially admired, and from the time she was a small child had been known and spoken of only as Beauty. Read in English, unabridged.

Listen to the story of how mischievous Tom Kitten got himself into trouble with two very large rats that wanted to turn him into a dumpling. They smeared him with butter, and then they rolled him in dough. Read in English, unabridged.

The starways' Lone Watcher had expected some odd developments in his singular, nerve-fraught job on the asteroid. But nothing like the weird, twenty-one-day liquid test devised by the invading Steel-Blues. Unlike the usual style of audiobook, this release has a music and effects soundtrack backing the narration, giving it a radio play feel rather than a straightforward reading.

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".

Smirnov is scared of being robbed. To compensate and deter the cabman from attacking him, he blusters on in a comical way about his fighting abilities, the three revolvers he doesn't have, and how a party of armed friends will join him soon.

I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

One must never judge by appearances! Look at this book: it has long ago been read. It is warped, tattered, and lies in the dust uncared for; but open it, and it will make you weep and turn pale. My sister is like that book. Lift the cover and peep into her soul, and you will be horror-stricken. Read in English, unabridged.

Tickets, please.... A phrase familiar to every train passenger. And every now and then, there's one without a ticket, with a good excuse ready. When Podtyagin, a seasoned ticket collector on a train, decides to give up drinking and work honestly at his job, it sounds like a good resolution. And this very day he comes across an 'unreasonable' passenger who finds the very word 'tickets' cruel and absurd. Read in English, unabridged.

''I will tell you without beating about the bush. My patient...how should I say?...Well, she had fallen in love with me...or, no, it was not that she was in love...however...really, how should one say?'' (The doctor looked down and grew red.) ''No,'' he went on quickly, ''in love, indeed!''

Nikolai Ivanich has never reconciled himself to life in the city and makes plans to acquire enough money to buy a small estate where he can grow gooseberries, a symbol in his mind of happy life in the countryside. He saves every penny and spends his days dreaming of the future estate: where the main building will be located, ducks swimming in a pond, and where the gooseberry bushes will be planted. His brother sees it as an escape from reality and an unnecessary limitation. Read in English, unabridged.

Big raindrops were pattering on the dark windows. It was one of .those disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, last a long time - for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows used to it and sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of a lawyer, called Kvashin, and his wife, Nadyezhda Filippovna, dressed in waterproofs and shawls, were sitting over the dinner table in the dining room.

The party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some newly mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street came the mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a sickly sweet, faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about dogs, about women, about first love and about snipe.