Letters Literature

For many Christians reading the Old Testament, trying to understand Israel's prophets is like listening to just one side of a phone conversation—you only get half the idea of it. You hear the answer, but how do you know what question the prophet is answering? In The Lost Letters to the Twelve Prophets, John Goldingay uncovers the questions behind the prophets' answers that make their meaning and relevance intelligible to us.

Growing up in Singapore, Simran always knew what was expected of her: to learn how to be a good mother and wife. The only problem? Simran has no interest in any of this. After a close escape (almost at the altar!), Simran earns a reprieve to attend the University of Calgary in Canada. Letters exchanged back home to her mother, sister, and friends reveal that no matter which path women take, traditional or independent, life is fraught with conflict, hilarity, and peril.

Elizabeth Holloway's sparkling world comes crashing down around her when her boyfriend of seven years drops the bomb that he’s leaving her—at Christmas. In an attempt to piece her life back together, she suddenly finds herself 700 miles from her New York City home, trudging through the snow, back at her childhood farm in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Burning up with hot love fever? This over-the-counter collection of erotica is the only prescription you need. If you fantasize about the very personal bedside manner of that sexy surgeon, the beautiful patient who's getting drilled in the dentist's chair, or the sweet taste of the nubile candy striper, these masters and mistresses of the healing arts have the Rxxx ready. They guarantee to raise your temperature, make sure that swelling never goes down, and keep the physical therapy so intense you'll be feeling it night after delirious night. Let the healing begin.

"Le nouveau monde ne sera pas construit par ceux qui restent à l'écart les bras croisés, mais par ceux qui sont dans l'arène, les vêtements réduits en haillons par la tempête et le corps mutilé par les événements." Arrêté en 1962 par le gouvernement d'apartheid d'Afrique du Sud, Nelson Mandela a passé vingt-sept ans en prison - du 7 novembre 1962 au 11 février 1990. Au cours de ces 10 052 jours de détention, il fut un épistolier prolifique, écrivant des centaines de lettres aux autorités inflexibles, à ses compagnons de lutte, aux gouvernements officiels, mais aussi à sa femme Winnie, à ses cinq enfants et, plus tard, à ses petits-enfants.

Lt. Mellie Blake is looking forward to beginning her training as a flight nurse. She is not looking forward to writing a letter to a man she’s never met - even if it is anonymous and part of a morale-building program. Lt. Tom MacGilliver, an officer stationed in North Africa, welcomes the idea of an anonymous correspondence - he’s been trying to escape his infamous name for years. As their letters crisscross the Atlantic, Tom and Mellie develop a unique friendship despite not knowing the other’s true identity. When both are transferred to Algeria, the two are poised to meet face-to-face for the first time.

Reggie and Nigel Heath are relatively close in age but worlds apart in personality. The older of the two brothers, Reggie is a successful attorney with charisma to spare. Nigel has always struggled to step out of his shadow. When Reggie leases space in an office building on London's Baker Street, he finds that the paperwork comes with an odd stipulation: his firm must receive and respond with a standard reply to letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, who had occupied the same famous address.

Viscount Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), known as ‘The Hero’ during his own lifetime was both an inspiring commander and an innovative tactician, becoming a rear admiral after defeating the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. He was also responsible for the great victories of the Nile (1798) and Copenhagen (1801). Revered by his officers and men, he was renowned for both his arrogance and his scandalous love affair with the beautiful Emma Hamilton.

These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great writer’s life and work, his friendships, rivalries, anxieties, and all the questions about identity, art, and the American soul that bedeviled and inspired him until his death. They include early notes to his mother, written as an impoverished college student; lively exchanges with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden to Saul Bellow; and letters to friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City.

Ne crois pas, ne crois pas, Alfred, que je puisse être heureuse avec la pensée d'avoir perdu ton cœur. Que j'aie été ta maîtresse ou ta mère, peu importe. Que je t'aie inspiré de l'amour ou de l'amitié ; que j'aie été heureuse ou malheureuse avec toi, tout cela ne change rien à l'état de mon âme à présent. Je sais que je t'aime et c'est tout. Veiller sur toi, te préserver de tout mal, de toute contrariété, t'entourer de distractions et de plaisirs, voilà tout le besoin et le regret que je sens depuis que je t'ai perdu. George Sand à Alfred de Musset, Venise, le 15 avril 1834

When faced with an unwanted marriage, Alice Rosemeyer accepts an invitation to the estate of Larkhall. Determined to earn her future security without a husband, she begins operating as the anonymous Ace of Hearts, writing letters and offering advice on behalf of the men eager to secure a match at the close of the London season. If she can manage to keep her identity secret, her reputation intact, and avoid the arrogant house guest, Mr. Thomas Herring, she might just call herself successful.

Ivy Yoder hasn't heard from John King in over a year. She knows it's time to let go of the idea that they will one day marry, but she's humiliated to be one of the oldest single women in her Amish community of Birch Creek. When quirky Cevilla Schlabach asks her to help clean out an attic, Ivy is grateful for the distraction.

Lewis Carroll's most famous novels, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, are brought to sparkling new life in this unabridged recording by AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator Alison Larkin. An internationally acclaimed comedienne well known for her many voices, Alison Larkin is the perfect vessel to bring Lewis Carroll's classic novels to a new audience.

Paul Celan (1920-70) is one of the best-known German poets of the Holocaust; many of his poems, admired for their spare, precise diction, deal directly with its stark themes. Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of post-World War II German literature’s most important novelists, poets, and playwrights.

It is the dead of night. Sixteen-year-old Tiuri must spend hours locked in a chapel in silent contemplation if he is to be knighted the next day. But, as he waits by the light of a flickering candle, he hears a knock at the door and a voice desperately asking for help. A secret letter must be delivered to King Unauwen across the Great Mountains - a letter upon which the fate of the entire kingdom depends. Tiuri has a vital role to play, one that might cost him his knighthood.

The extant letters of Pliny, written between AD 97 and 112, give us a unique insight into Imperial Rome under the early Antonine emperors. Organised into 10 books, the letters reflect a wide range of topics, mirroring Pliny’s own public and private interests. Among many other subjects, the letters also include an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, with the final book containing the exchange of letters between the writer (whose career culminated as Governor of Bithynia) and the emperor Trajan.

Dear Listener,
Have you ever gotten a letter that changed your life completely? It happened to me once. I still can feel the urgency that overtook me as I opened the envelope and the hunger I felt for whatever that letter would say. It seemed as if my entire life hung in the balance as I read.

After nearly two decades, Noel Post, an editor for a major New York publishing house, returns to her childhood home in Salt Lake City to see her estranged, dying father. What she believed would be a brief visit turns into something more as she inherits the bookstore her father fought to keep alive. Reeling from loneliness, a recent divorce, and unanticipated upheavals in her world, Noel begins receiving letters from an anonymous source, each one containing thoughts and lessons about her life and her future.

1828, the London countryside. For years, Marietta Stone has harbored a secret infatuation for the handsome Frederick Finch and has poured out her deepest feelings in a series of passionate love letters that she keeps in a locked drawer. But when Marietta’s private letters are accidentally delivered to Frederick’s house, she must retrieve them immediately before they fall into the wrong hands. If the letters were read by anyone else, the resulting scandal could jeopardize her reputation.

A story of love, loss, betrayal, and forgiveness about a boy named Frog and a girl named Scorpion - for anyone who has ever had broken heart.