Travel Classics

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. In Lilliput he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the people and their city, he is able to view their society from the viewpoint of a god. However, in Brobdingnag, a land of giants, tiny Gulliver himself comes under observation, exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs.

Gulliver enjoys traveling, although it is this love of travel that is his downfall. His adventure sets off in Lilliput, when after a shipwreck, he wakes up, finding himself a prisoner of a race of people one twelfth the size of normal human beings. However, his adventure among the small people does not last long, when he has to escape the city as he is charged with treason.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and monsters. I was leveled up - five times now - turning me from a slightly overweight gamer into a ripped god responsible for protecting three uber-hot goddesses and a retinue of alien women warriors. At this point in the yarn, we've recovered two of the three goddesses' hearts, but still have one to go. Oh yeah, and we're about to be attacked by the largest demon horde in the history of the universe. All in a day's work.

Alec Guinness delivers beautifully a selection of passages from Gulliver's Travels.

Space travel has been abandoned in the 22nd century. It is deemed too dangerous, expensive, and inconvenient - and now the all-powerful Fishhook company holds the monopoly on interstellar exploration for commercial gain. Their secret is the use of "parries", human beings with the remarkable telepathic ability to expand their minds throughout the universe.

Jonathon Swift changed the way that prose was written forever, now for the first time ever you can listen to three of his best works collected in one bundle! Writing both fiction and satire, Jonathon Swift was noted for his poignant and often times cutting views of the society he lived in. He is still regarded as the most important prose satirist in the English language and is required reading in many schools.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and monsters. I was leveled up - four times now - turning me from a slightly overweight gamer into a man-beast demigod charged with the unfortunate tasks of kicking demon ass and getting busy with gorgeous goddesses and exotic alien women. At this point in the tale, we’re about to be attacked by a massive army of shadow monsters conjured from the depths of the underworld (yeah, that part sucks), but don’t worry, there’s hope. Because we’re awesome.

In honor of Madeleine L'Engle's 100th Birthday, fans are invited to enjoy this archival audiobook, originally recorded in 1996 and newly restored! Listen to the voice of the author as Madeleine L'Engle reads A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume Three is the third instalment of our wide-ranging classic collections. Volume Three features 10 essential works that reach further back into early Greek and Italian stories from Dante, Machiavelli, and Homer, as-well as comparatively modern works from Daniel Defoe, Henry David Thoreau, and others. Read by a cast of incredible narrators including David Rintoul; Daniel Weyman; Rachel Atkins; and more, this is a chance to expand your listening by going back to some of the earliest pieces of classic literature.

An Excursion to Canada is a remarkable work by Thoreau, very different from his other works. Here he becomes an American traveler who shows far greater respect for America than Canada, while explaining the details of the chasm between the Church (Black) and the soldiers (Red) in Quebec that Stendhal pointed out in The Red and the Black in France. Something like DeTocqueville's Democracy in America, but here Canada is the country under the microscope.

In the heart of the Swiss Alps stand the three majestic peaks of the Bernese Oberland, Europe's most famous mountain range. The highest, at 13,638 feet, is the Jungfrau. Next is the Mönch at 13,465 feet. But it is the smallest, the Eiger, rising 13,038 feet above sea level, that is by far the deadliest.

The god Apollo, living (by his own choice) a human life as Pythias in the city, his true identity known to only a few, is now married and the father of several children. But a tragic loss causes him to become consumed with the desire for revenge. Being Apollo, he goes about handling it in a seemingly rational and systematic way, but it's evident - particularly to his precocious daughter, Arete - that he is unhinged with grief.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and monsters. I was leveled up - thrice now - turning me from a slightly overweight gamer into a chiseled fighter with spidey senses who gets more play with the goddesses than an Xbox. At this point I've already faced two of the massive demons known as the Morgoss, those who are responsible for the overthrow of the Three goddesses and the theft of their powerful hearts.

"Gulliver's Travels" (1726, amended 1735), officially "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World", is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is widely considered Swift's magnum opus and is his most celebrated work, as well as one of the indisputable classics of English literature.

'When you come to the house, you will hear strange tales. They will tell you in the village that it is haunted, but you must not be afraid. When the time comes ... you will know what to do.' Mr Blunden's words echoed through Lucy's ears as she explored the house. It was such an old house that it seemed to Lucy as if all the past was gathered up inside it as if in a great box; as though it had a life of its own that continued to exist just beyond the reach of her eyes and ears.

More than 65 years ago, Pallas Athena founded the Just City on an island in the Eastern Mediterranean, placing it centuries before the Trojan War, populating it with teachers and children from throughout human history and committing it to building a society based on the principles of Plato's Republic. Among the city's children was Pytheas, secretly the god Apollo in human form.

The hunt for his killer leads a dead professor of supernatural phenomena into the perilous intrigues of aliens, fairy folk, and time travelers in this classic of science fiction. Until the day he was murdered, Professor Peter Maxwell was a respected faculty member of the College of Supernatural Phenomena. Imagine his chagrin when he turns up at a Wisconsin matter transmission station several weeks later and discovers he's not only dead but unemployed.

Through the eyes of Lemuel Gulliver, Swift’s unforgettable satire takes listeners into worlds formerly unimagined. Visit four strange and remarkable lands: Lilliput, where Gulliver seems a giant among a race of tiny people; Brobdingnag, the opposite, where the natives are giants and Gulliver puny; the ruined yet magical country of Laputa; and the home of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses far superior to the ugly humanoid Yahoos who share their universe.

Three classics in one! The sly humor of Rip Van Winkle, Gulliver’s adventures among the tiny Lilliputians, and the wisdom of a Jewish folk tale.