検索キーワード： 選集・短編小説

The misguided governor of Washington Territory is trying to force the Indians onto poor land. William Wyatt tries to help.

Taras Bulba describes the life of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. The sons study at the Kiev Academy and then return home, whereupon the three men set out on a journey to Zaporizhian Sich located in Southern Ukraine, where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

"Taras Bul'ba" - povest' Nikolaya Vasil'evicha Gogolya, vhodit v tsikl "Mirgorod". Sobytiya knigi proiskhodyat v srede zaporozhskih kazakov, v pervoy polovine XVII veka. Istoriya kazatskogo vosstaniya 1637-1638 godov, podavlennogo getmanom N. Pototskim, legla v osnovu povesti N. V. Gogolya "Taras Bul'ba" i dala konkretnye primery dramaticheskih sudeb geroev. Ispolnyaet Afanasiy Kochetkov.

The man who aged backwards!

This story, a whimsical "fantasy" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1921, became (in December 2008) a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. This audiobook is not associated with the Hollywood movie, however; it is entirely faithful to Fitzgerald's original short story.

The story starts with the hotel owner trolling for guests at the train station and finding three: the Swede, the Cowboy, and the Easterner. As with many stories the personalities are known by their titles not their names; the two known by their names are the hotel keeper, Scully, and his son Johnny. The first major event is in a play for fun (no money) card game in which the Swede accuses Johnny of cheating. Johnny skillfully defends himself by saying he won't put up with the accusation, while side stepping the truth of the matter.

Ambrose Bierce brings to life the heart rendering stories of divided loyalties, splitting families, states, countries, and individuals. He writes of the glory in beginning and savagery in the doing. Here is a moving anti-war series of stories if ever there was one. A must read by all students of American History and Literature, though perhaps best understood by older adults.

Here is the classic story of Benjamin Button, who is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man and ages backwards through his life. Recently adapted for the film starring Brad Pitt.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was an English playwright and novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932. A Long-Ago Affair is a poignant story of requited love and betrayal. A 16-year-old boy with a torrid crush on an older married woman finds himself unwittingly facilitating her secret love affair with another man.

D.H. Lawrence's famous short story, set against the background of the First World War, and examining the quintessence of Englishness, relationships and paternity in an idyllic rural setting. Egbert and Winifred are deeply in love when they first marry and settle in the picturesque thatched cottage which Winifred's father has given her on his estate. But as their relationships develops and alters, and as they have children and become increasingly dependent financially on Winifred's father, the cracks in their relationship become ever deeper.

Hunted Down is a detective story by Charles Dickens. The astute Sampson suspects that a certain Mr. Julius Slinkton who turns up in his office one morning is not all that he seems. As Slinkton crops up more and more frequently in Sampson's life, he realises that a monstrous crime is about to be committed. But a counter plot is hatched and the hunter quickly becomes the hunted. Dickens excels again in his masterful portrayal of character and insightful description the society of his day.

The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, was first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf Coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism with themes that are still relevant today.

In this final book of Pulitzer Prize-winner Edna Ferber's series featuring the indomitable Emma McChesney, Emma's newly married son Jock has relocated to Chicago, leaving Emma an empty-nester. Her secret romance and pending nuptials stall when their company is thrown into an uproar at the height of the selling season. To defeat her long-time nemesis and take the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company international, the always-competitive Emma sails off on a whirlwind tour of South America.

What if Eve, the mother of all humankind, had blogged? What if she had shared her discoveries of the newly formed world, her experiments as the first scientist, and her travels as the first explorer? What if she shared the secrets of assisting the first man without damaging the first fragile male ego? What if we could enjoy with her the first falling in love? Perhaps she did. Perhaps we can. Perhaps somehow Mark Twain plucked that first "blog" out of the cosmic ether....

We have all experienced it. A scene, a smell, a sound, or a song will carry us back to another time, another place, and to memories pleasant or unpleasant. For Private Grayrock of the Federal Army in the fall of 1861, the trigger is a mockingbird.

"Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him." This line was written by Ambrose Bierce in his short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Death by execution has historically been ritualized, perhaps to absolve those accomplishing the execution from guilt or blame.

Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is one of the most popular tales of personal redemption in world literature, and has been adapted many times for presentation on film and on stage.

"A Simple Soul" is the perfect Gustave Flaubert short story: a tale told in spare, straightforward language full of richly observed details. The "soul" is Felicite, the exemplary servant of the austere Madame Aubin. Orphaned and illiterate, Felicite devotes her life to her mistress and Madame's two children. Her kindheartedness extends to her nephew and a local beggar, but it is seldom reciprocated.

Elizabeth Gaskell, famed author of Cranford, is cherished for her incise social observations and portrayals of the changing nature of English life through the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era. In Cousin Phillis, Paul Manning has only recently left home to work on the railway line for the dashing Mr Holdsworth. Lodging with an Independent Minister on the outskirts of London, he becomes acquainted with his distant cousins, where he is delighted to meet his genial relations, and not least his cousin Phyllis

Florence Delay nous entraîne dans une délicieuse promenade au château de Fontainebleau, au temps de la cour de France de François 1er à celle d'Henri IV, pour donner vie et parole aux déesses, Diane chasseresses, nymphes et dames qui l'habitent, peintes et sculptées par les artistes italiens Rosso et Primatice. Empruntant l'art et la manière de Marguerite de Navarre, dont elle a lu et relu "L'Heptaméron", Florence Delay nous fait revivre, de tableau en tableau, toute la beauté de la Renaissance.

Gerald Dickens, great, great grandson of Charles Dickens, reads this traditional Christmas tale, in which Ebenezer Scrooge is taught the true meaning of Christmas by a series of ghostly visitors. Published in 1843, A Christmas Carol has become as much a part of Christmas as trees and stockings, plum pudding and mistletoe, enjoyed by children and adults alike. This audiobook includes a special feature, as family member Gerald Dickens recounts his understanding of this classic story.