Showing results by author "Dream Audio Books" in All Categories

Persuasion by Jane Austen follows Anne Elliot, a gentlewoman persuaded years earlier to break off an engagement with Frederick Wentworth, a naval officer of modest means. Eight years later, Wentworth returns as a wealthy captain, stirring unresolved feelings. Anne, overlooked by her vain family, grows in self-awareness as she witnesses the contrasting fates of others who follow their hearts. Through misunderstandings and quiet longing, Anne and Wentworth reconcile, rediscover love, and prove that steadfast affection can triumph over societal pressures and past mistakes. Summary by Dream ...

Fisher’s treatment of the history of Finland, in the context of its relations with Russia, was released in 1899—at the start of the first attempted wave of Russification. At this time, it seems, many Finns regarded it as a misunderstanding. A mistake. Not a contrivance of Nicholas II, but a villainy emanating instead, fen-sucked, from the sinister Russian state machinery—the fief of a myopic and obdurate cadre of supremacists and absolutists. Men like the rabid anti-semite Konstantin Pobedonostsev who, by the camera's harsh testimony, seems to have died long before he stopped coming in ...

Cleopatra by Georg Ebers is a historical novel that delves into the life of Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt. Ebers paints a vivid portrait of Cleopatra as a complex and charismatic leader, torn between her duties as a ruler and her personal desires. The novel explores her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, highlighting her political acumen and romantic entanglements. Ebers captures the grandeur and turmoil of Cleopatra's reign, leading to her ultimate downfall and the fall of Egypt to Rome. The book combines historical detail with rich character development, offering a ...

An elderly woman tells her grandchildren an old family story on Christmas Eve. - Summary by Rachel Tevis

British author Richard Hughes is perhaps most well-known for his sea-faring adventure novel A High Wind in Jamaica, but a dive into his short fiction reveals a much more multi-faceted author, fusing the gothic literature of the 19th century with modern touches, often with a twist in the tale. This collection showcases his ability to blend the dark and spooky with romance, tragedy and humor into an altogether enjoyable concoction of smart and literary stew. (Summary by Ben Tucker)

Thomas Traherne's best known work is a collection of paragraphs, divided into what he called "Centuries", meditating in a particularly intense and visionary manner on God, nature and His relationship with the life of man. - Summary by Nicole Lee

Carl Bender [1869-1935] was a German-born American missionary in Cameroon. During his years in Africa, he collected folktales which he later published in this book. Bender indicates the cultural tradition of each storyteller, with most of the stories coming from the Kwe people of southwest Cameroon. Many of the stories are animal fables, including several stories about the trickster turtle. - Summary by Laura Gibbs

James Allen instructs us on how to improve our life and spiritual well-being through the power of positive thinking. He teaches us to live in the present and appreciate the moment. Allen asserts that the power of each person to form his own character and create his own happiness is within. "Life is full of beginnings. They are presented every day and every hour to every person. Most beginnings are small, and appear trivial and insignificant, but in reality they are the most important things in life." --James Allen - Summary by Andrea Fiore

When Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s he found a thriving democracy of a kind he had not seen anywhere else. Many of his insightful observations American society and political system, found in the two volume book he published after his visit, still remain surprisingly relevant today. (Summary by the Bookworm)

Democracy in America was published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840. It is a classic work on the United States in the 1830s and its strengths and weaknesses as seen from a European point of view. It is also regarded as a pioneering work of sociology. (Summary based on Wikipedia)

Beautiful Joe by Marshall SaundersBeautiful Joe is a real dog, and "Beautiful Joe" is his real name. He belonged during the first part of his life to a cruel master, who mutilated him in the manner described in the story. He was rescued from him, and is now living in a happy home with pleasant surroundings, and enjoys a wide local celebrity.The character of Laura is drawn from life, and to the smallest detail is truthfully depicted. The Morris family has its counterparts in real life, and nearly all of the incidents of the story are founded on fact. (Summary by Marshall Saunders)

This book follows Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar chronologically. The action is set during World War I. While away from his plantation home in East Africa, invading German troops destroy it and kill his wife Jane and the Waziri warrior Wasimbu who is left crucified. Tarzan's search for vengeance is filled with much danger, many fierce fights and tons of action as he becomes active in the war on the British side. This is really just the start of the exciting adventures portrayed in this book.

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the Western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed (metamorphosed) into a large, monstrous insect-like creature. The cause of Samsa's transformation is never revealed, and Kafka never did give an explanation. The rest of Kafka's novella deals with Gregor's ...

This is a little volume of poetry by Canadian poet Virna Sheard. Published in 1917, its subject is the then ongoing first World War. - Summary by Carolin

Joseph Addison is known mostly for his periodical, "The Spectator", written with his friend Richard Steele. But he found time to write a few plays - with and without Steele (Cato is without) - before being elevated to Secretary of State and putting drama aside. This play was supposedly staged by George Washington after the winter of 1778 at Valley Forge as an inspiration to his officers on self-sacrificing republican virtues. Many quotes of American revolution leaders - Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or Give me death" and Nathan Hale's "I only regret I have but one life to lose for my ...

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford.The book was intended initially to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history of places along the route, but the humorous elements eventually took over, to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages now seem like an unnecessary distraction to the essentially comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers. The jokes seem ...

Fred Jane, who later went on to publish his famous "Jane's Fighting Ships", doubtless was noting the success of other books that forecast a British defeat in the event of war in the late 19th century when he wrote this fictional account of "The Man Who Saved England." Jane tells of a possible war against both France and Russia with plenty of verve and derring-do amid naval battles, both small and large. - Summary by Mark

Die Bhagavadgita ist eine der zentralen Schriften des Hinduismus. Sie hat die Form eines spirituellen Gedichts. Der vermutlich zwischen dem fünften und dem zweiten vorchristlichen Jahrhundert entstandene Text ist eine Zusammenführung mehrerer verschiedener Denkschulen des damaligen Indien auf Grundlage der Veden, der Upanishaden, des orthodoxen Brahmanismus, des Yoga u.a. (Zusammenfassung nach Wikipedia)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s semi-autobiographical first novel. It traces the early life of Stephen Dedalus and his inner struggle with the oppression of Irish society and the Catholic church, ending with his awakening as a poet and writer and self-imposed exile from Ireland.“Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”(Description by T. Hynes, with quote from the book)

The poem begins with the beloved god Balder, thought to be invulnerable, dead at the hands of the inoffensive blind god Hoder, in a game. Loki, whose deceit brought about this catastrophe, is promptly punished with exile, and Odin, Balder's father, sponsors a heroic quest to rescue his son from the land of the dead. This desperate venture unexpectedly meets with partial success, a conditional agreement to release Balder if everyone in the land of the living mourns his death. And even though over every hope hangs the threat of the ultimate end of the reign of the Norse gods, the mother of the ...