Modern Fiction

In Daniel Defoe’s 17th century masterpiece of English literature, hero Robinson Crusoe relates his story of shipwreck, perseverance, hope, and redemption. Full of adventure, suspense, and daring heroics, this celebration of Robinson Crusoe, updated for the modern young reader, retains all of the classic elements of Defoe’s original tale of courage, insight and the power of endurance.

When 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.

Lucian: I am a Dragon Prince of the House of Smoke...and I am dying. Five hundred years is truly enough for a man like me. A monster. Yet a 10,000-year treaty will die with me, if I don't spawn a dragonling to take my place. My two brothers are no use in this task. It falls to me, the eldest by a hair's breadth, and yet, I cannot face the horror of another sealing. Another death. Another woman's blood on my hands.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Felicity Hart has one goal: completing her masters in art. Falling in love isn't part of the plan. She reluctantly agrees to attend a Halloween party with her best friend. After sneaking away from the party and falling asleep in an unoccupied room, she wakes to the sexiest pair of eyes she's ever seen. Eyes that belong to the one man who could turn her well organized world upside down. When he flashes that wicked, panty-melting smile at her, the vow to not fall in love seems impossible.

Of all of John Irving's books, this is the one that lends itself best to audio. In print, Owen Meany's dialogue is set in capital letters; for this production, Irving himself selected Joe Barrett to deliver Meany's difficult voice as intended. In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys – best friends – are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary and terrifying.

Cassie Carl believes she has it all. On the cusp of achieving her professional goals and soon to marry the man of her dreams - the handsome, kind, and loving Stefan Van Allen - it seems she's found the life every woman dreams of. When Cassie's wealthy fiancé brings Peyton in to do a renovation on their home before the big engagement party, sparks fly, leaving both Cassie and Peyton to question everything they thought they already had. What happens when the thin veil of perfection becomes riddled with holes?

1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast—as the snow falls. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living.

Frédérique Blanchet est une femme fonceuse et assumée. Photographe à ses heures, la technicienne en laboratoire rêve secrètement du jour où elle pourra vivre de sa passion. Toutefois, la peur de faire de mauvais choix la maintient malgré elle dans une réalité qui ne lui convient plus. Anthony Lemieux est un joueur de tennis professionnel qui, à la suite d’une grave blessure, a dû mettre fin à sa carrière. Depuis, il n’est plus que l’ombre de lui-même, cherchant sa place dans un monde qui ne lui apporte plus aucun plaisir.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) has influenced philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Oswald Spengler, George Grant, Emil Cioran, Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Jacques Derrida, Leo Strauss, Max Scheler, Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams. His writings on aesthetics, language, truth, morality, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, and the meaning of existence have exerted a vast influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history.

Listening to The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan can be a bit challenging. Not so with this new version that translates the original archaic language into simple, conversational English, allowing listeners of all ages to easily navigate the most popular Christian allegory of all time. The story chronicles the epic adventure of a man named Christian who leaves his home in the City of Destruction and begins a life-long quest to the Celestial City.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist, is consumed by a fanatic desire to create a living being. He fashions an eight-foot-tall creature and succeeds in animating him, but, horrified by his visage, perceives his creation to be a monster and frightens him away. The monster, wandering in search of human companionship, is spurned and repulsed by all he approaches and learns to hate and to kill.

Geeky Ella Reyes is at the bottom of the totem pole at Westwood High. Her ultra-popular stepsisters refuse to be seen with her at school, and every day she comes home to a mountain of chores. Ella's only friend (and maybe crush) lives on the other side of her phone's screen. She and Baller929 know everything about each other, except their real names. When they have a chance to meet at her school's Halloween ball, Ella must figure out a way to get there without her stepmom or stepsisters finding out.

The Story of Civilization emphasizes presenting world history as a thrilling and compelling narrative. Within each chapter, children will encounter short stories that place them directly in the shoes of historical figures, as they live through legendary battles and invasions, philosophical debates, the discovery of new inventions and sciences, and the exploration of the world. Volume III: The Making of the Modern World continues the journey where Volume II left off amidst the Renaissance, quickly diving into the history-altering events of the Reformation.

When Yao Shen, Patriarch of the Heavenly Sky Sect, ascends and regains memories of his past life on Planet Earth, he realizes that he can no longer allow himself to accept the cruel and violent ways of Eliria, the realm of cultivation. So he decides to change it. It was time to found a new sect. One based on the values of honor and equality over senseless violence and discrimination. A sect where all, from the mortal farmer’s son to a sect elder's daughter, were held accountable to the same rules.

Ian Dunross, the current tai-pan of the illustrious yet financially troubled Struan empire, is racing to undo the damage his predecessor left behind and to once again stand on stable ground. And he’ll do whatever it takes—including striking a hard-fought deal with an American millionaire. But his rival, Quillan Gornt, has other plans. Suddenly caught in a dubious plot involving Soviet spies, Hong Kong’s criminal underground, and the hostile takeover of his company, Dunross holds nothing back in the fight for the Noble House.

Columnist Anna Appleby has left her love life behind after a painful divorce. Who needs a man when she has two kids, a cat, and uncontested control of the TV remote? Besides, she’d rather be single than subject herself to the hell of online dating. But her office rival is vying for her column, and no column means no stable source of income. In a desperate attempt to keep her job, Anna finds herself pitching a unique angle: seven dates, all found offline, chosen by her children.

In the 1960s and early '70s, the most prominent, vocal cultural movement was the New Left: a movement that condemned America and everything it stood for: individualism, material wealth, science, technology, capitalism.

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Indy Zimmerman has a new stalker who won't leave her alone, no matter what she says to him. Never mind the fact that he's one of the most popular guys at school - she's positive Bryant Bailey is only trying to appease his own conscience after pretty much destroying her life. But when Bryant doesn't back down and insists on having some sort of bizarre friendship with her, his magic works, and her walls slowly start to crumble. He's not her type. She's never been into guys like Bryant, but then again, she's never really known anyone quite as stubborn, or caring.