Risultati Editore "Naxos AudioBooks" in Narrativa di genere

This is a story from the In the Ravine and Other Stories collection.

This is a story from the In the Ravine and Other Stories collection.

The very liberal Kirks are throwing a party. For Howard Kirk, liberal sociology lecturer whose deluded sense of heroism has him moving seductively around the university campus, the net must be perfectly cast: ‘if you want to have something that’s genuinely unstructured, you have to plan it carefully.’ Kirk embodies the contradictions of the era’s intellectual and political climate. As he navigates complex relationships with his wife, his students and his colleagues, he pursues personal and professional agendas under the guise of progressive thought.

A gripping tale of espionage that influenced Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham and John le Carré, Under Western Eyes follows the story of Kyrilo Sidorovitch Razumov, an apolitical student who becomes a Czarist spy. Following a political assassination, he returns to his room to discover the culprit, Victor Haldin, who asks for help in making his escape.

In our own time, when the dark threat of a dystopian world is not an alien or avoidable concept, The Last Man (1826) is revealed as a trailblazing novel. With a truly global view, Mary Shelley’s futuristic romain à clef–containing portraits of her husband Percy (Adrian), Lord Byron (Raymond) and several others–spearheaded the apocalyptic genre for an intimidated 19th-century readership that rejected her ‘diseased imagination’ and ‘polluted taste’.

The Roman poet Juvenal was the greatest satirist of Imperial Rome. His 16 satires encompass attacks on the immorality, abuses and hypocrisy of the Romans of his day. The last of the great Roman poets, he wrote between CE 110 and 130, his approach to satire coming close to modern expectations of the genre.

Following a harrowing séance, the main character, Maskull, embarks on an extraordinary adventure to the planet Tormance. As he journeys northwards, encountering blood-stained landscapes that embody various philosophies and lifestyles, Maskull pursues the divine essence of the world. At the end of his arduous and increasingly mystical quest he finds a dark secret and an unforgettable revelation.

The Caravaners, a comic novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, describes an Edwardian caravan holiday in the English county of Kent from the viewpoint of the pompous and self-important Baron Otto von Ottringel, a major in the German army.

Romance blossoms when Catherine, a 47-year-old widow, and the 25-year-old Christopher meet at repeated performances of a poorly attended play. However, 1920s London society is shocked by such a match, its disapproval shared by Catherine’s daughter and son-in-law, the curate Stephen. As events unfold, can their relationship survive the opprobrium of those around them as well as the disparity in their ages?

Overcome with grief at her husband’s death, Lady Franklin, an eligible young widow, unburdens herself to Leadbitter–a gallant, hard-bitten ex-soldier who has invested his savings in the car he drives for hire–as he takes her on a series of journeys. He in turn beguiles her with stories of his non-existent wife and children, drawing her out of her self-absorption and weaving a dream-life with Lady Franklin at its heart.

Richard Mardick is an elderly man with a secret that he has kept since his youth. He recounts his memories to his young protégé and secretary so that his story can be preserved. Faced with illness, the teenage Richard was sent to live with different relatives while being trained as a farmer. Lonely and stifled by family life, he then met a girl and his life changed… with shattering significance for his future.

Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther is a novella written by Elizabeth von Arnim, a British-German author known for her witty and insightful novels. Published in 1907, the story revolves around the correspondence between two main characters, Fräulein Rose-Marie Schmidt, a spinster in her late 30s, and Mr. Henry Anstruther, a kind and sympathetic stranger, as they navigate their lives and explore their feelings for each other.

Rose Macaulay was a fascinating and influential British writer, known for her wit and intellect. First published in 1920, Potterism is a powerful satire about the Potter newspaper empire, and the ways in which journalists struggled during the First World War and the 1920s to balance the truth and what would sell. While Jane and Johnny Potter are at Oxford they learn to despise their father’s popular newspapers, though they still end up working for the family business. But Jane is greedy and wants more than society will let her have.

The satirical novel What Not was published in 1918. Foreshadowing Orwell’s 1984, it is set in a futuristic England where a government agency, known as the Ministry of Brains, is responsible for regulating and controlling relationships and marriages based on intelligence and eugenics.

Published in 1896, A Child of the Jago is a gritty and realistic portrayal of life in the slums of London’s East End during the late 19th century. The novel is set in an area known as the Old Jago (based on a real-life slum called the Old Nichol) and vividly describes the poverty, crime and squalor that characterised the impoverished neighbourhood.

Heyst’s aim to live a solitary existence is cut short when he meets an enchanting English violinist named Lena and brings her back to his island, rescuing her from her predatory patron Schomberg. Together they create a haven and Lena reawakens Heyst’s passion for life, but the world soon breaks in on them as Schomberg exacts his revenge.

Hester (1883) is a dramatic story of female power and family tensions within Victorian society. Using her own money, Catherine Vernon manages to save the family bank from collapse after her cousin John absconds with some of its money. As the matriarch of Redborough, Catherine is used to commanding authority, but this is challenged with the arrival of John’s strong and capable teenage daughter, Hester. Ignorant of her father’s conduct, Hester takes against Catherine and a mutual antipathy soon sets in. A masterpiece of domestic realism, the novel is one of Mrs Oliphant’s most admired works.

The first of Kafka’s three great novels, The Man Who Disappeared (America) follows the picaresque adventures of Karl Rossman, who is banished to America following a family scandal. Upon his arrival, Karl immediately happens upon his uncle, and from there follows a pattern of wandering, adoption and expulsion as Karl marches inexorably on towards the interior of the continent. With its blitheness and comical moments, The Man Who Disappeared is perhaps the most charming of Kafka’s works.

Banned by the Nazis, the haunting novel At the Edge of the Night (Am Rande der Nacht), by the German writer Friedo Lampe, is a work of magic realism. This poignant book, beautifully translated by Simon Beattie, was, in Lampe’s own words, ‘born into a regime where it could not breathe’; he hoped that one day it might rise again. It evokes the sensations and impressions of a sultry September evening on the waterfront of Bremen, with its charm and tenderness, squalor and lust.

Elizabeth von Arnim, who is best known for her later novel The Enchanted April, married a Prussian aristocrat and, with their five children, lived in Nassenheide, Pomerania. Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a semi-autobiographical novel about the joy that the protagonist finds in the delights of her Pomeranian garden, which provides relief from the stifling environment of her household. The novel was originally published anonymously because von Arnim feared that her husband, whom she satirised in the book, would disapprove.