Download audiobook

 

John Bull's Other Island

Author : George Bernard Shaw

Performed By : Christopher Benjamin, Patrick Duggan and cast

Publisher : Harper Collins UK

Runtime : 3 hours

Categories : Classic Literature
Classics

Our Price : $12.75

Purchase...

When Thomas Broadbent, an Englishman, visits Ireland for the first time, he is accompanied by his friend Larry Doyle, an Irishman who is returning to his homeland after being away for many years.

Through the two men's differing responses to the country and also the Irish people's reactions to their two visitors, Shaw is able to explore the misunderstandings and misconceptions that have characterised relations between England and Ireland for centuries.

According to Shaw, 'John Bull's Other Island' was written in 1904 at the request of W.B.Yeats 'as a patriotic contribution to the repertory of the Irish Literary Theatre', but when Mr Yeats read the script he rejected it, claiming that it was beyond the resources of the Abbey Theatre.

In fact, for Yeats, a play which was 'uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement' must have made uncomfortable reading, and for us today, in the light of all that has happened in the intervening years, the issues raised by the play have lost none of their urgency.

-

 

Garden Party and Other Stories, The

Author : Katherine Mansfield

Performed By : Marguerite Gavin

Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc

Runtime : 6 hours 30 minutes

Categories : Classic Literature

Our Price : $14.95

Purchase...

"With the timing and phrasing of a musician, Marguerite Gavin narrates this last-published collection of Katherine Mansfield's short stories. Gavin has a lovely singing voice that particularly enhances one of the stories about a singing teacher. She generally reads with a great deal of enthusiasm and expression."--AudioFile

"[Marguerite Gavin's] voices are marvelous; presenting British accents of every description from cockney to Queen, with clear delineation between characters male and female, is a skill especially important in these character-driven tales. Her sound effects (birdcalls, running water, etc.) are perfect, and she sings in such a lovely clear soprano that the listener wishes there were more songs in the stories....highly recommended."--Library Journal

The fifteen stories collected in this volume demonstrate the genius of a woman who, in her own short lifetime, was compared to Chekhov. The tales are sensitive revelations of human behavior in quite ordinary situations. The men, women, and especially the children whom Mansfield portrays in such delicate pastels are involved in no sensational episodes, yet they are vividly true to life. With careful, quiet observation and subtle irony, Mansfield investigates the variety of relationships that make up a life and the complex emotions of unfulfilled longings. In the title story, a young woman's garden party coincides with the death of a working-class neighbor, bringing a brush of mortality and realism into her carefully constructed plans and ideals. The Garden Party was the last of Mansfield's works to be published before her untimely death at the age of 35.