Showing results by narrator "Mark F. Smith" in All Categories

Three years after the events that took place in "The Lost World", Professor Challenger urgently summons his fellow explorers to a meeting. Oddly, he requires each to bring an oxygen cylinder with him. What he soon informs them is that from astronomical data and just received telegraphs of strange accidents on the other side of the world, he has deduced that the Earth is starting to move through a region of space containing something poisonous to humankind.

Embark on a captivating journey to "The House of the Seven Gables" with Nathaniel Hawthorne. This Gothic novel transports listeners to a haunting world of family secrets, ancestral curses, and the enduring power of redemption. As the story unfolds within the walls of the enigmatic Pyncheon mansion, Hawthorne's masterful storytelling paints a vivid picture of the human condition, exploring themes of guilt, fate, and the interplay between past and present. Delve into this timeless tale of mystery and discover the allure of Hawthorne's richly woven narrative.

A nineteenth-century boy from a Mississippi River town recounts his adventures as he travels down the river with a runaway slave, encountering a family involved in a feud, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer's aunt who mistakes him for Tom.

"Nothing could be done. The thing was universal and beyond our human knowledge or control. It was death for young and old, for weak and strong, for rich and poor, without hope or possibility of escape." Must Professor George Challenger and friends, barricaded in a room, see Earth die? As globe passes through a belt of poisonous ether, terror sweeps mankind; cities riot; communications cease. Novella.

You have to live on twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. This timeless classic is one of the first self-help books ever written and was a best-seller in both England and America. It remains as useful today as when it was written, and offers fresh and practical advice on how to make the most of the daily miracle of life.

"The Battle of Life: A Love Story" is a novella by Charles Dickens, 1st published in 1846. It's the 4th of his five "Christmas Books", coming after "The Cricket on the Hearth", followed by "The Haunted Man & the Ghost's Bargain". The setting is an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title.

When penniless businessman Mr Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by money, and Cavor by the desire for knowledge, the two embark on the expedition.

The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history, and it has never been out of print.

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including The Red-Headed League, The Blue Carbuncle, and The Speckled Band. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed his own realism and feminism by having the great detective defeated by Irene Adler - the woman - in the very first story, A Scandal in Bohemia.

For many years, Murdock, Ashe, and other members of the Time Patrol have contended with threats to our time continuum, none more deadly than the alien Baldies, who hate other high-tech civilizations and want to destroy Earth. Evidence of time travel has been found in ruins dating to the ancient world...in the legendary realm of Atlantis. So Murdock, Ashe, Eveleen Riordan, and other Time Patrollers deck themselves out as foreign traders to discover whether something is amiss in Atlantis.

Inconvenient owners of thrones in the kingdoms of the Islands of Sunshine have a habit of attracting the attention of an Evil Magician - and then disappearing! Prince Daimur, who, fortunately, has a helpful and caring disposition, receives some special gifts from a dying fairy. So when he, too, becomes inconvenient and is "disappeared", he possesses some potent defenses against spells. On the Island of Despair, his natural curiosity and good nature wins him allies as he attempts to solve the puzzles that await him.

Criminals should not return to the scene of their crime. Sometimes, it's just too horrible to bear!

A breathtaking piece of luck, coupled with an unlikely coincidence, secured by a piercing intellect and curious nature, lead three friends to believe they might possibly uncover pirate gold! With all the insight and reasoning of a Sherlock Holmes, Poe's William Legrand plucks faint clues seemingly from mid-air and carefully arrives at a conclusion of exactly where in the world to dig.Has he reasoned - and guessed - correctly? Or, will the only gold he sees be the color of his eponymous beetle?

"Captains Courageous" is an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling that follows the adventures of fifteen year old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the arrogant and spoiled son of a railroad tycoon. The novel originally appeared as a serialization in McClure's, beginning with the November 1896 edition.

When a hardened criminal kills guards and breaks out of prison, Steve Fraser, a lieutenant in the Texas Rangers, is tasked with bringing him to justice. From the bowels of a mine, deep underground, to the stone labyrinths of the mountains of Wyoming, Steve follows his quarry. But his chase requires him to befriend people who turn out to be wanted in another killing. How can he justify his actions with his innate sense of honesty, his new friends, and the bewitching woman he meets in their midst?

"The Wind in the Willows" is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames valley. The classic story of how Rat, Mole, and the other river bankers saved Toad from his excesses.

The Communists never have a chance. They are prepared to fight with atomic weapons. The U.S. instead uses... Dolliver Wims, history's first recorded person capable of turning other people accident-prone. Wims is a walking disaster who never gets caught in the shambles he creates! With great good humor, Sabia turns his lens on what might have happened had the Cold War gone hot!

First serialized in "Outing" magazine, "White Fang" was published in 1906. The story takes place in Yukon Territory, Canada, during the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 19th century, and details a wild wolfdog's journey to domestication.

"White Fang" is a companion novel (and a thematic mirror) to London's best known work, "The Call of the Wild", which is about a kidnapped, domesticated dog embracing his wild ancestry to survive and thrive in the wild.

"Kidnapped" is a historical fiction adventure novel by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. Written as a "boys' novel" and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886, the novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Seamus Heaney. A sequel, "Catriona", was published in 1893.

The story takes place in the extreme conditions of the Yukon during the 19th century Klondike Gold Rush, where strong sled dogs were in high demand. After Buck, a domesticated dog, is snatched from a pastoral ranch in California, he is sold into a brutal life as a sled dog. The novella details Buck's struggle to adjust and survive the cruel treatment he receives from humans, other dogs, and nature. He eventually sheds the veneer of civilization altogether and instead relies on primordial instincts and the lessons he has learned to become a respected and feared leader in the wild.