Showing results by narrator "Gary MacFadden" in Literature & Fiction

The collection contains eight of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. Each exhibits the vigour, humour, and optimism of the young master before he turned to the gloom and bitterness of the great tragedies.

Long considered one of America’s greatest novels, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has remained the quintessential look at the “Roaring Twenties.” This new audio edition includes a nearly 2-hour study guide to The Great Gatsby, including a chapter-by-chapter analysis, descriptions of the key characters, and an overview of the important themes and symbols in the book. The novel unfolds as a memoir in the voice of Nick Carraway, a young man from the Midwest who travels to New York. By chance, Nick rents a house next door to the millionaire Jay Gatsby.

Duke Vincentino, the ruler of Vienna, fears that under his mild sovereignty, the people may have become lazy and lax. He decides to “go over cover” in the disguise of a monk and appoint his deputy, Angelo, who is a reputed paragon of virtue, as temporary ruler. On assuming power, Angelo inaugurates draconian provisions regarding sexual propriety. One of the first victims of this new regime is young Claudio, who has impregnated his lover Juliet, and is accordingly sentenced to death.

Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written about 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the somber tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is a creation by Shakespeare and the second appears to have been drawn from an Italian source, either by Bandello or Ariosto. The action takes place in Messina. Eponymous lovers Hero and Claudio seem to be ideally matched and nearly everyone is looking forward to their impending marriage.

Antonio, a wealthy and popular merchant, is in financial difficulty. He approaches a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who agrees to provide 3000 ducats, with a very curious bond – a pound of the merchant’s flesh, to be levied if Antonio fails to make a timely repayment. Feeling confident that his argosies will arrive in time to cover the debt, Antonio agrees to this bizarre transaction.

Together with The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most magical plays. One night, two parties creep from Athens into the surrounding forest. One includes sweethearts Lysander and Hermia, fleeing from Athenian law and the disapproval of Hermia’s father to get married. In pursuit is Demetrius, the suitor of Hermia favored by her father, and the doleful Helena, formerly affianced to Demetrius.

Writing was the central passion of Emerson's life. While his thoughts on the craft are well developed in "The Poet", "The American Scholar", Nature, "Goethe", and "Persian Poetry", less well known are the many pages in his private journals devoted to the relationship between writing and reading. Here, for the first time, is the Concord Sage's energetic, exuberant, and unconventional advice on the idea of writing, focused and distilled by the preeminent Emerson biographer at work today.

Five people are killed when a heavily traveled rope bridge in Peru collapses. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar, witnesses this event and this sets him on a quest: Who were each of these individuals? Why do unfortunate events happen to innocent or undeserving people? What led to these people being on the bridge at the fateful moment? While many view this novel as a serious reflection on life, death, and love, this narration highlights Wilder’s tongue-in-cheek stance, suggesting the author used humor, irony, and even sarcasm to examine faith, fate, and chance.

A merchant of Syracuse has twin sons and buys twin servants for them. His wife, with one twin and one servant, is soon separated from him by a shipwreck, and comes to live in Ephesus. When grown, the other son and his slave start out to find their brothers, and the father, some years later, starts out in turn to find them. Once in Ephesus, an amusing series of errors begins.

US Deputy Marshal Matt Bannister is troubled by the cruel and unnatural death of miner Leroy Haywood. There are no witnesses or clues of any kind, just a very slow and horrible murder…unlike any Matt had seen before. He suspects Wu-Pen – the President of the Chinese Benevolent Association and a powerful man in the Chinese community – but has no way of proving it. When Leroy’s friend Roger is murdered, Matt again suspects Wu-Pen, but there is no evidence.

US Marshal Matt Bannister’s bitter side comes out when his father, Floyd Bannister, comes to town unexpectedly. He wants nothing to do with his father and makes his thoughts known. Floyd, though heartbroken, agrees to leave Matt alone. Matt is dealing with the murder of two Chinese immigrants and the brutal scourging of a third. When he finds the men responsible and makes an arrest, he is faced with a turning tide as those who dislike him twist the truth and turn the mining community against him with destructive consequences.

US Marshal Matt Bannister and his Cousin William Fasana are headed to the distant unknown town of Prairieville to solve a murder that no one else can. Railroad tycoon Louis Eckman and his wife are robbed on their way to Branson in the Blue Mountains outside of Prairieville. Shortly after, Louis and the driver are murdered and the local sheriff is coming up short. While in town, Matt meets 14-year-old Tiffany Foster, who is mourning her father’s death. As this relationship grows, Matt learns everything is not as it seems and Tiffany might have the answers.

Welcome to Branson, Oregon, where not everything is as it seems. US Marshal Matt Bannister has returned to identify two dead bodies burned in a cabin as Catherine Eckman and her husband, Nathan Webster. However, Pick Lawson does not trust Matt and is on a mission to prove he is lying for his own personal gain...

Nathan Peirce is hiding from an unjust bounty in Loveland, a small logging community in the treacherous Wallowa Mountains of Oregon. When the bank is robbed, Nathan is asked to join the local posse being led by their incompetent sheriff and a brooding stranger forced by the sheriff to help track the robbers. Adam Bannister is elk hunting in the Southern Wallowas when he sees the largest wolf he’s ever seen. Determined to hunt the wolf, he follows it over Windsor Ridge and into the direct path of the bank robbers and what’s left of the doomed posse.

Welcome to Bella’s Dance Hall, where Christine Knapp found a career dancing and singing after her husband and child died along the Oregon trail. Three years after this devastating loss, Christine is ready to find love again and is drawn to Matt Bannister at first sight. After being heartbroken by Travis, Christine meets Kyle Lenning, Matt Bannister’s brother-in-law. During a group date, tragedy struck, and Kyle is killed.

Carl Lavin was a high school senior when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The Canton, Ohio, native enlisted when he turned 18, a decision that would take him with the US Army from training across the United States and Britain to combat with the 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge. Home Front to Battlefront is the tale of a foot soldier who finds himself thrust into a world where he and his unit grapple with the horrors of combat, the idiocies of bureaucracy, and the oddities of life back home - all in the same day.

A cluster of old buildings sits isolated on a quiet, desolate plain. Overhead, the sky is a smear of reds and purples, a shell enclosing the world. Here, strangers who have banded together for survival must strike out into the alien wilderness in search of a way home.

Carl Felman is a young man who, at the start of the story, is returning to his parents’ home following an extended absence. He stole money from his parents before leaving home, did a stint in the army, and spent some time traveling America as a hobo. Carl fancies himself a poet, but has had no training in writing. During the story he finds his poetic voice, but also uncovers a personality that is at odds with the world he tries to describe.

Three Stories and Ten Poems is a collection of short stories and poems by Ernest Hemingway. It was privately published in 1923 in a run of only 300 copies. While not as well known as Hemingway’s later works (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, etc.) the three stories show the early development of Hemingway’s writing techniques.

This audiobook is a collection of stories by Jack London featuring the fictional characters of Christopher "Smoke" Bellew and his partner Shorty as they share adventures in the Yukon during the gold rush of the late 1880s. Jack London published this collection in 1912. London's main character, Smoke, is widely considered to be somewhat autobiographical in nature, perhaps an idealized version of how Jack London envisioned his own real-life exploits when he traveled to the Yukon at the height of the gold rush in 1897.