Top list: Classics and poetry

This brand-new unabridged audio book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved is read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director and author, Andy Serkis.The Hobbit

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day, to whisk him away on a journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon…

The prelude to THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE HOBBIT has sold many millions of copies since its publication in 1937, establishing itself as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.

This brand-new unabridged audio book of , the first part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic adventure, , is read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director and author, Andy Serkis.The Fellowship of the RingThe Lord of the Rings

In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power – the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord Sauron’s evil dominion.

Thus begins J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic tale of adventure, which continues in and .The Two TowersThe Return of the King

An urgent cry for help brings Poirot to France…

An urgent cry for help brings Poirot to France. But he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies face downwards in a shallow grave on a golf course.

But why is the dead man wearing his son’s overcoat? And who was the impassioned love-letter in the pocket for? Before Poirot can answer these questions, the case is turned upside down by the discovery of a second, identically murdered corpse…

USING HIS FORMIDABLE SKILLS OF DECEPTION, JAMES BOND WORKS TO TAKE DOWN AN AMERICAN GANG

The Spangled Mob are no ordinary American gangsters.

They prey on the addictions of the wealthy and treat the poor as collateral. Their ruthless desire for power and fierce brotherly loyalty make them deadly and invincible.

Now James Bond must go deep undercover in his urgent new assignment: to destroy their millionaire masterminds, Jack and Seraffimo Spang.

But the Spangs’ cruel influence is everywhere, from dusty African diamond mines to the frenzied gambling dens of Las Vegas. Can Bond find his men before his cover is blown?

Set in 1930s London, Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day recounts twenty-four hours in the life of a governess who turns up for a very unexpected first day at work. Watson’s comedic, light-hearted novel is read by Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand, who plays Miss Pettigrew in the 2008 film production.

Middle-aged governess Guinevere Pettigrew visits her employment agency one morning and is mistakenly sent to the glitzy home of a nightclub singer. Miss Pettigrew meets the glamorous Miss Delysia LaFosse and embarks on a whirlwind adventure. These two very different women soon become friends, and Miss Pettigrew proves to be the perfect companion. Instead of having to look after unruly children, Miss Pettigrew spends her evening at a party. But what will happen when the day finally ends?

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1938, this edition includes a preface by author and retired academic Henrietta Twycross-Martin.

2007 Audie Award Finalist for Classics

Originally published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises is Ernest Hemingway’s first novel and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style.

A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway’s most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. In his first great literary masterpiece, Hemingway portrays an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions.

“The ideal companion for troubled times: equal parts Continental escape and serious grappling with the question of what it means to be, and feel, lost.” —The Wall Street Journal

In this 1945 novella, barnyard animals rise up against the oppressive rule of human farmers and set about to create a better world for themselves. When two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, emerge as leaders of the new collective, a schism is created with dire implications for the erstwhile utopia. George Orwell's satirical story of Revolutionary Russia and Stalinism is a classic of anti-authoritarianism protest literature.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cosmos and renowned astronomer Carl Sagan’s international bestseller about the discovery of an advanced civilization in the depths of space remains the “greatest adventure of all time” (Associated Press).

The future is here…in an adventure of cosmic dimension. When a signal is discovered that seems to come from far beyond our solar system, a multinational team of scientists decides to find the source. What follows is an eye-opening journey out to the stars to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who—or what—is out there? Why are they watching us? And what do they want with us?

One of the best science fiction novels about communication with extraterrestrial intelligent beings, Contact is a “stunning and satisfying” (Los Angeles Times) classic.

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho—Book Summary—Abbey Beathan

(Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book.)

A story about the transforming power of our dreams and the goodness of listening to our hearts.

The Alchemist is the most enchanting novel of Paulo Coelho. He has written a bunch of fine titles but this one takes the cake as the most unique and interesting book of his repertoire. The story is about a shepherd named Santiago who travels from Spain to the Egyptian desert in hopes of finding a buried treasure within the Pyramids. His rash journey starts there and during his journey, he meets several interesting characters like a gypsy woman, a man who calls himself "king" and an Alchemist. All of them are key fragments that will aid Santiago complete his journey.

(Note: This summary is wholly written and published by Abbey Beathan. It is not affiliated with the original author in any way)

"And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."—Paulo Coelho

Santiago doesn't know if he will ever find the treasure, or if he'll fail to overcome all the obstacles that lay in front of him. But it doesn't matter, to be on the hunt for this treasure was his destiny and what started out as a treasure hunt for worldly goods soon turned into a search for all the goodness within him.

Paulo Coelho gives us a fascinating novel that will make us take a deep look within us to find all of the good things we are capable of offering.

The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by Gaston Leroux.

The novel is about a charismatic (but mentally ill) man with a devilishly deformed face, but a voice like an angel. He has his secret hide-away at a lake under the opera L’Opera Garnier in Paris. At the opera he terrorizes the actors, but adores and stalks the beautiful choir singer Christine.

Eventually he kidnaps Christine and forces a young nobleman, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny to start the chase for her rescue.

The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century and an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in one of the Paris Opera's productions.

The Phantom of the Opera was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910. It was published in book form in 1910.

Nowadays, the novel is overshadowed by the success of its various stage and film adaptations. The most notable of these are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney, Sr and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.

Total Running Time (TRT): 8 hours, 33 min. Reading by Ralph Snelson.

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.

In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera. His novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is also one of the most famous locked room mysteries ever written.

Rupi Kaur performs the first-ever recording of the sun and her flowers, her second #1 New York Times bestselling collection of poetry and prose. This production was recorded in 2021 along with the brand-new audio edition of milk and honey and the debut audio recording of home body.

Divided into five chapters, this volume is a journey through the life cycle of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. It is a celebration of love in all its forms.

Megan Fox showcases her wicked humor throughout a heartbreaking and dark collection of poetry. Over the course of more than seventy poems Fox chronicles all the ways in which we fit ourselves into the shape of the ones we love, even if it means losing ourselves in the process.

“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins. My freedom lives in these pages, and I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness,” says Fox.

Pretty Boys Are Poisonous marks the powerful debut from one of the most well-known women of our time. Turn the page, bite the apple, and sink your teeth into the most deliciously compelling and addictive books you’ll read all year.

This is the novel that ensured Fyodor Dostoevsky's place as a giant of Russian literature. First published in 1866, this legendary work continues to enthrall readers around the world and earn Dostoevsky legions of fans with every printing. Timeless, and breathtaking in scope, Crime and Punishment-the story of a young Russian intellectual's decision to murder a cruel pawnbroker and his subsequent intellectual and spiritual crisis-is one of the most famous novels in all of literature. This absorbing book attacks the overly logical nihilistic ideals of reason and science and proves that only through love, self-denial and suffering comes salvation. George Guidall's fluent interpretation of the Russian names enhances this deep, multi-leveled text, and liberates Dostoevsky's eternal prose with dimensions of color and feeling lost to the printed page alone.

"Legends of Norseland" is a book intended to everyone who wants to learn more about Viking mythology:

Valkyrie

The Beginning

Ygdrasil

Odin at the Well of Wisdom

Odin and the All-wise Giant

The Stolen Wine. Part

Loke's Theft

Thor's Hammer

The Theft of the Hammer

The Finding of the Hammer

The Apples of Life

Loke's Wolf

The Fenris-wolf

Defeat of Hrungner

Thor and Skrymer

Thor and the Utgard-King

Thor and the Midgard Serpent

Valkyries' Song

The Dying Baldur

The Punishment of Loke

The Darkness that fell on Asgard

Diana Gabaldon’s magnificent historical saga, begun with Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, continues with this New York Times bestseller. Set in the intriguing Scotland of 200 years ago, the third installment in the romantic adventures of Jamie and Claire is as compelling as the first.

Now that Claire knows Jamie survived the slaughter at Culloden, she is faced with the most difficult decision of her life. She aches to travel back through time again to find the love of her life, but, in order to do that, she must leave their daughter behind. It has been 20 years since she and

Jamie were forced to separate. Can she risk everything, maybe even her life, on a gamble that their love has withstood the long, rigorous test of time?

One of the most popular novels released in the 1920s on the hedonistic Jazz Age, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was declared the great American novel by Edith Wharton. Told from the point of view of a blonde flapper named Lorelei in the form of her diary, this novel follows her adventures around the world in search of a gentleman companion who can elevate her position within society. As Lorelei cycles through multiple men, she discovers things about herself and the way that she lives her life in retrospection—while also chronicling her changing moods and petty disputes with her brunette companion, Dorothy. Hilarious and a true classic, this revered novel transcends decades and continues to be relatable in this day and age.

An immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Dalton Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of World War I brilliantly crystallized the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era.

Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems originally published in 1986, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver's American Primitive, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness, so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive, continues in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labours of the spirit, to accepting the truth about one's personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships.

When four women leave their drab lives behind to go on holiday in Italy, their lives are changed forever by the Mediterranean. Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins, while part of the same ladies' club, have never spoken. Lady Caroline Dester and the elderly Mrs. Fisher join their holiday so as to mitigate expenses. As these women come together and learn more about themselves than they ever thought possible, they reveal their true personalities and the backdrops of their lives that tend to hinder them. Inspired by the author's own month-long trip to the Italian Riviera, this novel is noted as her most widely-read work.

Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) was a novelist, short-story writer, journalist and sportsman. ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ is a short novel published in 1952, the last major work of fiction by Hemingway which was published during his lifetime. It is the story of the old fisherman Santiago who sets out before dawn on an odyssey that takes him far out to sea. He catches a gigantic marlin and suffers tremendous hardship to bring the great fish to land. In 1953, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to their awarding of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway.