Showing titles in Literary History & Criticism

A new investigation from Dr Mark Aldridge, exploring a lifetime of Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple. Winner of the 2025 H.R.F Keating Award for the best 2024 biography or critical book related to crime fiction. In Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness,‘Agathologist’ Dr Mark...

Each week we read and review some of the best Harry Potter Fanficiton

A multiple story, horror-themed audio storytelling podcast, spun-off from Chilling Tales for Dark Nights and its popular YouTube channel of the same name. The show features master storyteller Malcolm Blackwood and the work of dozens of independent and previously-published contributing authors. Find this and our other great programs at: https://www.simplyscarypodcast.com. We wanna make the podcast even better, help us learn how we can: https://bit.ly/2EcYbu4 For advertising opportunities please email PodcastPartnerships@Studio71us.com Privacy Policy: https://www.studio71.com/us/...

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—as they grow up in Civil War-era New England. Under the guidance of their loving mother, Marmee, they navigate poverty, personal dreams, and family challenges. Meg seeks domestic life, Jo aspires to be a writer, Beth is gentle and musical, and Amy is artistic and ambitious. Their bonds are tested through illness, love, loss, and societal expectations. Ultimately, the novel celebrates sisterhood, moral growth, and the pursuit of individuality while highlighting the joys and struggles of ...

Award-winning British playwright, composer and screenwriter Leo Butler looks back over 25 of writing for the stage and his extensive experience teaching and mentoring emerging playwrights. With honesty and humour, Leo Butler shares his experiences from his working-class upbringing in Sheffield, including his disastrous state education, his years on the dole, to his breakthrough into the professional theatre industry.

Alice Fraser has a special place in her heart for the sweeping silliness of romance novels. The journey to reach a believable Happily Ever After can go via an unbelievable rollercoaster of intensity, through wildly entertaining twists and unlikely turns. To celebrate the unparalleled joy this genre can bring to listeners and defy its oft maligned status, Alice has created the author, D'Ancey LaGuarde, the ineffably mysterious, outrageously prolific, undisputed regent of the art of romance.

One morning in February 1952, a journalist called Ian Fleming sat down at his desk and set about creating a fictional secret agent. James Bond was born and would go on to become one of the most successful, enduring and lucrative creations in literature. But Bond's world of glamour and romance, gadgets and cocktails, espionage and villainy wasn't entirely drawn from imagination: Fleming's background and his experiences as an intelligence officer during the Second World War were all formative parts in the creation of the world's most famous spy.

Rajiv Surendra was filming Mean Girls, playing the beloved rapping mathlete Kevin Gnapoor, when a cameraman insisted he read Yann Martel's Life of Pi. So begins his "lovely and human" (Jenny Lawson, author of Furiously Happy) tale of obsessively pursuing a dream, overcoming failure, and finding meaning in life.

Actor Dominic Gerrard hosts an exciting new series that explores the Life and Times of Charles Dickens: his extraordinary novels, who he was as a person, his career as a performer, and his activism. Guests include: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Alice Loxton, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Lucinda Hawksley, John Mullan, Pen Vogler, Andrew Davies, Rosie Holt, Bernard Cornwell .... and many more academics, writers, actors, directors and descendants of the great man himself! Along side these interviews there are special Dickens readings from across his works ...Thank you for ...

The comprehensive collection of letters spanning the adult life of one of the world’s greatest storytellers, now revised and expanded to include more than 150 previously unseen letters, with revealing new insights into The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. J.R.R. Tolkien...

During the 1930s at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams - remarkable friends, writers, and scholars - met regularly to discuss philosophy and literature and to read aloud from their own works in progress. Calling themselves the Inklings, their circle grew. It was in this company that such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first found an audience.

Short Stories in Italian for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and, most importantly, enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress as you listen. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Italian for Beginners will make learning Italian easy and enjoyable.

La Reine Margot is a novel of suspense and drama which recreates the violent world of intrigue, murder, and duplicity of the French Renaissance. Dumas fills his canvas with a gallery of unforgettable characters, unremitting action, and the engaging generosity of spirit which has made him one of the world’s greatest and best-loved storytellers.

Anne teaches in her Canadian village of Avonlea, helps create a village improvement society, gets involved in neighbors’ problems and assists Marilla (her adoptive mom) in raising young orphan twins — Dora and Davy. Anne struggles against the philosophy of corporal punishment in the classroom, and there are a few romantic subplots. One involves an American student, Paul, whose mother is deceased and father has sent him to live with his grandmother. Anne happens upon Miss Lavendar, the woman originally engaged to Paul’s father, and happily sees the couple reunited..Become a supporter of ...

Jock of the Bushveld is a beloved South African classic based on the true story of the author’s loyal dog, Jock. Together, they travel through the untamed wilderness, facing wild animals, treacherous landscapes, and the hardships of frontier life.

From modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos - in this classic collection of essays, Ursula K. Le Guin roves with her customary audacity over the intersecting arenas of literature, feminism, and social responsibility, exploding any received notions she comes across and revealing visionary possibilities in their stead.

A Dungeon Crawler Carl Read-Along Podcast Hosted by Grant Davis, John Rubio, and Martin Thomas, we are discussing the book/audiobook series Dungeon Crawler Carl

Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centers on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new stepsister enters Molly's quiet life, the loveable, but worldly and troubling, Cynthia. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood within the gossiping and watchful society of Hollingford.

A wide-ranging selection of George Orwell's essays, written in the clear-eyed, passionate and uncompromising style that has earned him a reputation as one of Britain's greatest writers.

Enjoy our collection of hundreds of Children's StoriesView our entire collection of podcasts at https://www.solgoodmedia.comAll Librivox recordings are in the public domain