Modern Classics

Der Geschmack einer Madeleine, das Licht einer Laterna Magica, der Duft der Weißdornhecke: Schlüsselerlebnisse, die im Kopf des Erzählers Marcel unwillkürlich Erinnerungen hervorrufen. Kunstfertig und detailgetreu entsteht das Panorama des alten Combray und der Stadt Paris mit ihren Salons und Bällen. Kurz: einer Zeit, die verloren und doch gegenwärtig scheint.

Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its 12 chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and mysterious explosions. The delicate prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time afterwards.

Cerca de la ratonera una gran roca ha surgido de la nada. «¿Cómo ha podido llegar hasta allí?», se pregunta el ratón curioso. Pero las cosas no son lo que parecen y nuestro pequeño amigo podrá conocer al animal que más admira. En esta fábula en verso moderno, los niños revisitarán el clásico relato de El león y el ratón y aprenderán a no subestimar a nadie por su tamaño, pues más vale maña que fuerza.

Josef Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee and language teacher living in France, is enjoying his first break for years in a small hotel on the Riviera. But when he takes his holiday photographs to be developed at a local chemists, he suddenly finds himself mistaken for a Gestapo agent, and a charge of espionage is levelled at him. To prove himself innocent to the French police, he must discover which one of his fellow guests at his pension is the real spy. As he desperately tries to uncover the true culprit's identity, Vadassy must risk his job, his safety and everything he holds dear.

It's Saturday, past midnight, and thick fog rolls in from the river like smoke. Link Williams is standing on the dock when he hears quick footsteps approaching and the gasp of a woman too terrified to scream. After chasing off her pursuer, he takes the woman to a nearby bar to calm her nerves, and as they enter, it's as if the oxygen has left the room: they, and the other patrons, see in the dim light that he's Black and she's white.

After Mary Shelley died, Adam Frankenstein left her League of Supernatural Hunters. But when asked to work under contract, he was happy to take their money. Someone was experimenting on New Orleans’ homeless, and Adam’s mission was to find them. An easy job until he discovered the League’s star scientist, Dr. Laura Wells’ hidden lab and inhumane experiments. When Wells escaped, Adam tracked her to Houston. Undercover as a U.S. Marshal he would capture the elusive doctor and recover the stolen works of Dr. Moreau. Hellhounds and werewolves weren’t something Adam feared. There was ...

The nuns who enter a medieval Norfolk convent are told to renounce the world, but the world still finds ways to trouble them, whether it is through fire, floods, pestilence, a collapsing spire, jealous rivalries, a priest with a secret or a plague of caterpillars. As we follow their daily lives over three centuries, this masterpiece of historical fiction recreates a world run by women.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Last Witnesses, by Svetlana Alexievich, read by Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson and Allen Lewis Rickman. What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War? In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich started interviewing people who had experienced war as children, the generation that survived and had to live with the trauma that would forever change the course of the Russian nation.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales II: Modern Verse Translation collection.

This is a modern adaptation of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. The story and characters remain the same; the text has been completely rewritten in modern language.

When Tom Sawyer and his best friend, Huck Finn, witness a murder in a cemetery, they become the key to an innocent man’s freedom. Sworn to a blood oath, Tom is forced to choose between friendship and justice at the risk of endangering the lives of his buddy, himself, and his adopted family.

This audiobook dives deep into the true meaning of Original Sin as presented in the Bible and Christian theology. Explore how concupiscence stems from Adam and Eve’s disobedience, leaving humanity powerless to overcome this inherited flaw without divine intervention. Discover why no human effort alone can restore us to original holiness and how Christ’s sacrifice provides the only path to overcome our fallen nature.

It is the final years of the 18th century, but a world which few would recognise. The people of Europe shelter in small islands of safety, havens from the enchanted wilderness - the strange boundless forests people call the Tumble. It is across this demon-haunted landscape that the low-born officer Taliesin must lead his men, caught up in the deadliest of intrigues while fighting wars for a noble class which despises him. With vicious murderers from the worst gutters in the Realm marching behind him, and the forces of the most powerful nations of the mainland arrayed against him, the odds ...

It is 1940 and Mr Graham, a quietly spoken engineer and arms expert, has just finished high-level talks with the Turkish government. And now somebody wants him dead. The previous night three shots were fired at him as he stepped into his hotel room, so, terrified, he escapes in secret on a passenger steamer from Istanbul. As he journeys home, he enters a nightmarish world where friend and foe are indistinguishable. Graham can try to run, but he may not be able to hide for much longer.

In this hilarious, inspiring and provocative series of essays, Kingsley Amis introduces every listener to the wonders and value of science fiction writing. From the extraordinary ideas, but sexless science, of Jules Verne to the power of H. G. Wells's terrifying storytelling; from the brilliance of bad science fiction writing to the potency of their important ideas; from a portrait of the average SF listener to Amis's sad prediction that this genre will never make it in film or television, New Maps of Hell is a warm and witty exploration of a world many may be yet to discover.

The First World War shook loose the foundations not only of political structures, but also artistic conventions. New styles of poetry emerged which challenged not just the traditional presentation of poetry, but even the structure and function of language itself. This volume pays tribute to the pioneers who redefined the poetic landscape in this challenging period.

A moving, never-before-published portrait of the landscape that shaped the life of Laurie Lee, the beloved author of Cider with Rosie. 'Before I left the valley I thought everywhere was like this. Then I went away for 40 years and when I came back I realised that nowhere was like this.' Laurie Lee walked out of his childhood village one summer morning to travel the world, but he was always drawn back to his beloved Slad Valley, eventually returning to make it his home.

Let yourself be swept away by these classic tales of hope and courage!!

- Classic tales (short stories and poems) of hope and courage from the 19th and 20th centuries

Annotated for modern listeners

The third entry in the Classic Tales series, joining "Classic Tales of Horror" and "Classic Tales of Christmas"

For adventure fans of all ages, these stories are guaranteed to intrigue, delight, and sometimes take you by surprise!

As the result of Victor Frankenstein's creation of a monster out of the remains of human corpses, a series of horrifying events occur. But who is responsible: the creature or his creator?

An excellent collection of creepy ghost stories from some of the most notable names of early horror fiction, including: “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood, “The Shadows On The Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “The Messenger” by Robert W.Chambers, “Lazarus” by Leonid Andreyev, “The Beast With Five Fingers” by W.F. Harvey, “The Mass Of Shadows” by Anatole France, “What Was It” by Fitz-James O’brien, “The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot” by Ambrose Bierce, “The Shell Of Sense” by Olivia Howard Dunbar, and more!