Technology Fiction

The plot of Poor Liza – the seduction by a young nobleman of a girl of lower social origins – was among the most conventional in European sentimentalism. What is characteristic of Karamzin's treatment of it is the subordination of the element of social conflict to the ethical problem and the avoidance of a completely negative character in the young man, Erast.

Pushkin began writing his first major work, Ruslan and Ludmila (1820), a kind of fairy story in verse, in 1817. It was based on Russian folktales told by his old nurse Arina Rodionovna. "On seashore far a green oak towers/ And to it with a gold chain bound/ A learned cat whiles away the hours/ By walking slowly round and round. To right he walks, and sings a ditty; To left he walks, and tells a tale...." Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The Tinderbox is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a soldier who acquires a magic tinderbox capable of summoning three powerful dogs to do his bidding. When the soldier has one of the dogs transport a sleeping princess to his room, he is sentenced to death but cunningly summons the dogs to save his life. The tinderbox - a box to kindle a flame - is the equivalent of the wonderful lamp, the witch is the evil magician, and the dogs with swirling eyes take the place of the two genies of the lamps.

Ocherk Moj Pushkin - ne literaturovedcheskaya rabota. Eto skoree psihologicheskij etyud, popytka voskresit i vosproizvesti detskoe vospriyatie pushkinskogo tvorchestva, kotoroe - pri vsej naivnosti etogo vospriyatiya - okazyvalos' pervoj, na vsyu zhizn' neizgladimoj shkoloj ne tol'ko poticheskih vpechatlenij, no i nravstvennyh ponyatij.

The Queen of Spades stands at the peak of Pushkin's achievement in prose writing. The story was popular with the general reading public at the time, particularly for its striking plot. The story opens with a number of young officers conversing after a card game. One of them, Narumov, wonders why his grandmother, who possesses the secret of winning at the game of faro, never plays. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The novel opens with a picture of morals and manners of the French society of the first quarter of the 18th century; with the Negro's life in Paris, his success in French society, and his love affair with a French countess. But "summoned both by Peter and by his own vague sense of duty" Ibrahim returns to Russia. The following chapters, full of historical color and antiquarianism, sketch the different strata of the Russian society. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

Leskov's story is a dramatic portrayal of the amoral, ambiguous, elemental force of sexual passion, as intense in its heat as in its coldness. In stylistic directness and narrative concentration, it is unique among his works. He wrote it while visiting relatives in Kiev, where he was given space in the university's punishment room. He later described how his hair stood on end as he worked on it alone in that unlikely place and swore he would never describe such horrors again.

Masquerade is a verse play written in 1835 by the Russian Romantic writer Mikhail Lermontov. The four-act play, set in 1830's St. Petersburg aristocratic society, highlights the rebellious spirit and noble mind of the protagonist, Yevgeny Arbenin. It is often compared with Shakespeare's Othello in its essential story line.

Dubrovsky is a young nobleman whose land is confiscated by a greedy and powerful aristocrat, Kirila Petrovitch Troekurov. Determined to get justice one way or another, Dubrovsky gathers a band of serfs and goes on the rampage, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Along the way, Dubrovsky falls in love with Masha, Troekurov's daughter, and lets his guard down, with tragic results. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

The "Viy" is a monstrous creation of popular fancy. It is the name which the inhabitants of Little Russia give to the king of the gnomes, whose eyelashes reach to the ground. The following story is a specimen of such folklore. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

A level two reader audiobook that describes Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, one of the first inventors of the microscope. The audiobook provides biographical information and also discusses his findings.

Take a voyage to the red planet! This book presents cutting-edge information about travelling to Mars and dives into related STEM topics will thrill readers interested in Earth's most famous planetary neighbor!

Little brown bats do us a big favor. They eat huge numbers of insects! That helps limit the spread of diseases and the damage that insects do to farm crops. But in recent years, large populations of little brown bats have been dying off each winter. Is a virus killing them? Could climate change or pesticides be the cause? Or is it something else? Follow a team of dedicated scientists working to save the little brown bats in this real-life science mystery.

Late in 2013, snowy owls started showing up in places no one expected to find them - including Florida. What had caused so many of these majestic birds to leave their Arctic home and fly to southern Canada and the United States? Scientists quickly began working to find out. Author Sandra Markle brings together firsthand reports from the scientists involved along with stunning photographs of the owls to explain this rare event, known as an irruption.

African lions are powerful hunters. Newborn cubs are born with their eyes tightly closed. Their eyes open at about a week old. Lion cubs grow up in a group called a pride. Cubs learn how to hunt by watching the adults. How do baby lions grow and change? Listen to this book to find out!

Short-nosed sea snakes and blue iguanas are two examples of endangered reptiles. Few of them exist in the wild. Other reptiles have already gone extinct. What hurts these animals? What can you do to help? Listen to this audiobook to find out!

Using technology to bully others is a serious problem many kids face. Learn about cyberbullying, including the effects it has, as well as how to identify and prevent it. Digital Safety Smarts: Preventing Cyberbullying, from the trusted Searchlight Books brand, teaches listeners about the dangers of online interaction and what to do when inappropriate contact happens. It also teaches young people how to use the internet responsibly. The book helps students become good digital citizens in our increasingly digital world.

Energy Fun Land. It is a new, simple and fun way to learn about energy. It is an introductory series to energy concepts. This audiobook has been written and designed to stimulate the aforementioned age groups to start questioning (what’s energy) by providing introductory environment of types of energy. However; this audiobook will not indulge in depth into these terms.

Katherine knew it was wrong that African Americans didn't have the same rights as others - as wrong as 5+5=12. She knew it was wrong that people thought women could only be teachers or nurses - as wrong as 10-5=3. And she proved everyone wrong by zooming ahead of her classmates, starting college at 15, and eventually joining NASA, where her calculations helped pioneer America's first manned flight into space, its first manned orbit of Earth, and the world's first trip to the moon!

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s, Katherine worked analyzing data at the NACA (later NASA) Langley laboratory.