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Books on CD - February 2007

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Classics

Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
(CD CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL PT. I & PT. II)
A world classic, Don Quixote has been called the first and greatest of all modern novels. First published in 1605, this adventure tale brings to life two of literature’s most beloved characters, Don Quixote, an eccentric Spanish country gentleman and errant knight from the region of La Mancha in central Spain, and his faithful sidekick and squire, Sancho Panza. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideas touted in books he has read, Don Quixote decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked.

Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad (CD CONRAD, JOSEPH)
A masterpiece of 20th-century writing, Heart of Darkness exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Conrad’s crowning achievement recounts Marlow’s physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the mysterious trader Kurtz.

Nicholas Nickleby
by Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby is Dickens’s gripping story about a boy’s struggle to survive and find happiness in a hostile and unfeeling world. As Nicholas attempts to build a new and unconventional family, he is helped and hindered by a host of colorful characters, from his ruthless uncle to the hilarious and theatrical Crummles family and the cruel-hearted Wackford Squeers.

Dead Souls
by Nikolai Vasil’evich Gogol (CD GOGOL, NIKOLAI)
Gogol’s great 1842 classic is a comic masterpiece and one of the major works of Russian literature. When Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov takes up a new residence, he is set to carry out his bizarre plan to purchase the souls of dead peasants that once inhabited the town. Dead Souls takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata, especially the devious complexities in the country with its landowners and serfs.

Washington Square
by Henry James
Inspired by a story Henry James heard at a dinner party, Washington Square tells how the rakish but idle Morris Townsend tries to win the heart of heiress Catherine Sloper against the objections of her father. Precise and understated, the book endures as a matchless social study of New York in the mid-19th century.

The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair (CD SINCLAIR, UPTON)
This dramatic expose of the Chicago meat-packing industry prompted an investigation by Theodore Roosevelt, which culminated in the pure-food legislation of 1906.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde (CD WILDE, OSCAR)
“If it were I,” exclaims Dorian, “who were always to be young and that picture that was to grow old… I would give my soul for that.” With that spoken, the tale of this young hero of amazing beauty begins. His pact with evil allows his portrait to take on his many sins and degradations while his physical appearance remains youthful. Over the years as he becomes cruel and vicious, Dorian’s young and perfect body is no longer enough to salvage his deteriorating mind and morality. Will justice and good prevail?

Mysteries

A Certain Justice
by P.D. James
It begins, dramatically enough, with a trial for murder. The distinguished criminal lawyer Vanetia Aldridge is defending Garry Ashe on charges of having brutally killed his aunt. For Aldridge the trial is mainly a test of her courtroom skills--one more opportunity to succeed… and she does. But now murder is in the air. The next victim will be Aldridge herself, stabbed to death at her desk, with a bloodstained wig on her head.