Contents

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain ................................................................................. 1

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer- Mark Twain......................................................................................... 2
The Prince and the Pauper- Mark Twain ................................................................................................ 2
A Dogs Tale- Mark Twain ....................................................................................................................... 3
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen ........................................................................................................... 3
Emma- Jane Austen................................................................................................................................. 4
Gullivers Travels- Jonathan Swift ........................................................................................................... 4
The Prince- Niccolo Machiavelli .............................................................................................................. 4
Alices Adventures in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll ................................................................................... 5
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ................................................................ 5
Grimms Fairy Tales- Grimm Brothers..................................................................................................... 6
The Kama Sutra- Vatsyayana .................................................................................................................. 6

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates an entertaining
adventure of Middle America in the 1800's - afloat on a raft on the
Mississippi River. Huck escapes his civilized life when he arranges his own
"murder" and turns back into the backwoods, downriver yokel he started as,
and in the process springing a slave, Jim, from bondage.
Huck and Jim experience life as a series of tableaus as the river sweeps
them through small towns on their way South. At each stop, Huck engages
his talent for mixing fact with bald-faced lies to endlessly get himself out of
situations... and of course, putting him into others!
Much has been written about the statement Twain is making about slavery
in this book, but it's really secondary to the story. The facts of how black
people were treated in this period give Huck and Jim their license for life on

the run. Modern listeners will be intrigued by the unencumbered life of the
pair; they make do with coffee, fish from the river, and little else (but of
course, when they do need something extra, they don't mind helping
themselves to it without recourse to money!)
Huck and Jim have run-ins with desperados and family feuds and even
manage to get run down by a steamboat. The adventures ratchet up when
they are joined on the raft by a self-proclaimed "duke" and a "king" shysters both, who spend their time in figuring how to fleece the public in
the little river towns. And when Jim is captured and threatened with being
sent back into slavery, Huck enlists his old buddy Tom Sawyer in a frenzied,
desperate, and terribly funny rescue.

Run Time: 11hrs 33mins

Reader: Mark Smith
Category: Adventure

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer- Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (published 1876) is a very well-known and popular story
concerning American youth. Mark Twain's lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is
set in St. Petersburg, Missouri, where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the
kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class, impressing girls,
especially Becky Thatcher, with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and
playing pirates on the Mississippi River.

Run Time: 6hrs 46mins

Reader: John Greenman
Category: Adventure

The Prince and the Pauper- Mark Twain

The Prince and the Pauper (1882) represents Mark Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. The
book, set in 1547, tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty,
a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court, London, and Prince Edward son of
Henry VIII of England. Due to a series of circumstances, the boys accidentally replace each
other, and much of the humor in the book originates in the two boys' inability to function in the
world that is so familiar to the other (although Tom soon displays considerable wisdom in his
decisions). In many ways, the book is a social satire, particularly compelling in its condemnation

of the inequality that existed between the classes in Tudor England. In that sense, Twain
abandoned the wry Midwestern style for which he was best known and adopts a style
reminiscent of Charles Dickens.

Run Time: 6hrs 55mins

Reader: John Greenman
Category: Adventure

A Dogs Tale- Mark Twain

This short novel of Twains, from 1903, is told from the point of view of a loyal and beloved family
pet. Themes of heroics, valor and heart-wrenching tenderness fill this work. The story is also
filled with happy events as well as sad ones and is ultimately about what dogs are to us best
friends. A Dogs Tale is quintessentially Twain.

Run Time: 0hrs 29mins

Reader: Aaron Elliot
Category: Adventure

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austens novels, and its opening is one of the
most famous lines in English literature - It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man
in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Its manuscript was first written
between 1796 and 1797, and was initially called First Impressions, but was never published
under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813 by the same Mr.
Egerton of the Military Library, Whitehall, who had brought out Sense and Sensibility. Like both
its predecessor and Northanger Abbey, it was written at Steventon Rectory.

Run Time: 10hrs 23mins

Reader: Karen Savage
Category: Drama, Romance

Emma- Jane Austen

Jane Austen famously described Emma Woodhouse, the title character of her 1815 novel, as "a
heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." Yet generations of readers have loved Emma,
as much for her blunders as for her wit and vivacity. Emma, "handsome, clever, and rich," has
nothing else to do but try to pair off her friends, and she consistently mis-reads the relationships
and situations around her as much as she mis-reads her own heart. The novel features a
wonderful cast of characters, including Emma's hypochondriac father, the odiously prideful Mrs.
Elton, the mysterious and reserved Jane Fairfax, and Miss Bates, who never stops talking.

Run Time: 14hrs 53mins

Reader: Karen Savage
Category: Drama, Romance

Gullivers Travels- Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several
Remote Nations of the World, is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a
satire on human nature and a parody of the "travelers' tales" literary subgenre. It is widely considered Swift's magnum opus and is his most
celebrated work, as well as one of the indisputable classics of English
literature.
Run Time: 11hrs 10mins
Reader: Lizzie Driver
Category: Adventure

The Prince- Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political
theorist Niccol Machiavelli. The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of
accepting that ends of princes, such as glory, and indeed survival, can justify the use of immoral
means to achieve those ends.

Run Time: 5hrs 48mins

Reader: Paul Adams
Category: Drama

Alices Adventures in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit
hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays
with logic in ways that have given the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. It is
considered to be one of the most characteristic examples of the "literary nonsense" genre, and
its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential, especially in the fantasy
genre.

Run Time: 2hrs 47mins

Reader: Kara Shallenberg
Category: Adventure

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A collection of twelve short stories featuring Conan Doyle's legendary detective, originally
published as single stories in Strand Magazine and subsequently collected into a single volume.
There is not always a crime committed nor a culprit to find, and when there is, Holmes does not
invariably get his man. However, his extraordinary powers of deduction generally solve the
mystery, often to the discomfiture of the official police force. Holmes is a man of many facets,
and I do not share the common perception of Holmes as cold and humourless: his sense of fun
can be sparkling, and there are moments of rare pathos.

Run Time: 13hrs 29mins

Reader: Ruth Golding
Category: Adventure

Grimms Fairy Tales- Grimm Brothers

A classic collection of oral German folklore, brought together for posterity by the scholarly
brothers Grimm in the 1800s, this epitome of fairy tales includes many of the worlds best known
stories. In these dark foreboding woods, you will find: Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel,
Rumpelstiltskin, Lily and the Lion (better known as Beauty and the Beast), and Snow White and
Rose Red, among other timeless works. These tales were later heavily revised and sanitised, but
here are presented closer to their grim and beloved originals.

Run Time: 10hrs 32mins

Reader: Various
Category: Adventure

The Kama Sutra- Vatsyayana

The Kama Sutra, or Aphorisms on Love, has survived at least 1400 years as a dominant text on
sexual relations between men and women. Vatsyayana claimed to have written the Kama Sutra
while a religious student, in contemplation of the Deity - but references to older works, shrewd
disputations by Vatsyayana of those authors' recommendations, and careful cataloging of
practices in various of the Indian states indicate much more emphasis on kama, or sensual
gratification. Part of the book discusses the 64 arts of love employed by masters of coitus.
Learning each of these and when and how to practice them, Vatsyayana affirms, not only leads
to the best gratification, but makes the artist a person of great desirability. Once the means of
sexual congress are discussed, the many types of male-female relationships and their proper
prosecution are covered. Some of these have small relevance to the modern world, such as how
to sneak into the King's harem, but are interesting nonetheless. Others, such as how to get
money from a lover, will probably remain useful as long as there are humans in the world. The
translator's concluding remarks call the book primitive; so might also modern women who are
told that if their name ends in l or r they should not be married, because they are worthless.
But in tackling the subject of human sexuality, Vatsyayana nevertheless will always attract
readers (or, in this case, listeners!).

Run Time: 6hrs 15mins

Reader: Mark Smith
Category: Romance