Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death
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Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
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Narrated by:
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Edoardo Ballerini
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By:
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Harold Bloom
About this listen
The last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetry.
This dazzling celebration of the power of poetry to sublimate death - completed weeks before Harold Bloom died - shows how literature renews life amid what Milton called a universe of death. Bloom reads as a way of taking arms against the sea of life's troubles, taking listeners on a grand tour of the poetic voices that have haunted him through a lifetime of reading. High literature, he writes, is a saving lie against time, loss of individuality, premature death. In passages of breathtaking intimacy, we see him awake late at night, reciting lines from Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Montaigne, Blake, Wordsworth, Hart Crane, Jay Wright, and many others. He feels himself edged by nothingness, uncomprehending, but still sustained by reading. Generous and clear-eyed, this is among Harold Bloom's most ambitious and most moving books.
©2020 Harold Bloom (P)2020 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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Paradise: From The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Heathcote Williams
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Led by his guide, Beatrice, Dante leaves the Earth behind and soars through the heavenly spheres of Paradise. In this third and final part of The Divine Comedy, he encounters the just rulers and holy saints of the Church. The horrors of Inferno and the trials of Purgatory are left far behind. Ultimately, in Paradise, Dante is granted a vision of God’s Heavenly court: the angels, the Blessed Virgin, and God Himself.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Outstanding
- By Brad on 09-05-11
By: Dante Alighieri
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - translator
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 586
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 446
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 447
Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not for listening.
- By Larry on 03-13-11
By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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The Greek Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 315
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 250
Based on a thorough study of Greek life and civilization, of Greek literature, philosophy, and art, The Greek Way interprets their meaning and brings a realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. Miss Hamilton's book must take its place with the few interpretative volumes which are permanently rooted and profoundly alive in our literature.
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3 out of 5 stars
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...Not as Good as The Echo of Greece
- By The Masked Reviewer on 11-04-16
By: Edith Hamilton
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Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is a poem, translated by Bayard Taylor, which tells the beautiful and emotional story of a man who has seen and done it all. However, despite all of his learning and education, his life still feels empty and unaccomplished. He believes wholeheartedly that there is something else out there. Faust, having exhausted all other fields of study, turns to magic for fulfillment. He summons the devil and makes a pact - that if the devil can show him something rewarding and fulfilling, he will give the devil his soul.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Misleading
- By Grant Pajak on 03-29-17
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Leaves of Grass
- 1855 Edition
- By: Walt Whitman
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
In 1855, Walt Whitman published, at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a visionary volume of 12 poems. Showing the influence of a uniquely American form of mysticism known as Transcendentalism, the writing is distinguished by an explosively innovative free-verse style and previously unmentionable subject matter. Exalting nature, celebrating the human body, and praising the senses and sexual love, this monumental work, now a classic of American poetry, was condemned as immoral upon publication.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
password “primaeval”
- By Chas Carner on 05-28-20
By: Walt Whitman
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The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: John Little
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,261
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 974
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 962
Best-selling historian and philosopher Will Durant devoted his entire life to studying the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. Here is a summation of Durant's work, as he presents the best of world history. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events in simple and exciting terms, it is a concise liberal arts education.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Puzzled
- By James on 04-06-04
By: Will Durant
![The Scarlet Plague [Classic Tales Edition] Audiobook By Jack London cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61FhtSpkE8L._SL320_.jpg)
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The Scarlet Plague [Classic Tales Edition]
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 700
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 607
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 604
Twelve billionaires rule the United States, while those called freemen are forced to serve the rich. But that was 60 years ago, before the Scarlet Plague. In this post-apocalyptic novella, a ragged and tattered old man tells his progeny of what life was like before The Scarlet Plague appeared - and wiped out civilization as they knew it.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
wonderful listen very relevant today!
- By Johnny on 12-02-17
By: Jack London
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Nature
- By: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Narrated by: Phil Paonessa
- Length: 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: commodity, beauty, language and discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another, and their understanding of the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful Classic, rushed reading
- By Chris C. on 01-07-21
-
The Last Man
- By: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Narrated by: Matt Bates, Anna Bentinck
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 82
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 66
The Last Man is Mary Shelley's apocalyptic fantasy of the end of human civilisation. Set in the late 21st century, the novel unfolds a sombre and pessimistic vision of mankind confronting inevitable destruction. Interwoven with her futuristic theme, Mary Shelley incorporates idealised portraits of Shelley and Byron, yet rejects Romanticism and its faith in art and nature.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A great book, with a great story.
- By Stephen P. Suelzle on 10-01-16
-
Sappho
- A New Rendering
- By: Sappho, Henry de Vere Stacpoole - translator
- Narrated by: Leanne Yau
- Length: 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Sappho was a female poet who was well known in ancient Greece and Rome for her lyrical poetry. She was most famous for her poems involving women who loved women, and it is from her name that sapphic, a term referring to sexual relations between women, originated. This is a compendium of her surviving work, a collection of 54 fragments translated by Henry de Vere Stacpoole.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
This book is essentially all poetry.
- By AudioBookRomance on 08-09-17
By: Sappho, and others
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 29
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
Leaves of Grass
- By: Walt Whitman
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 209
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 151
One of the great innovators in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves of Grass is his masterpiece, written in a pure, uninhibited style, combining sensual and mystical sensibilities. Its bold, joyous voice, its expansive optimism, and its transcendental vision made it uniquely American.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
No chapters! Can't skip to a particular poem :(
- By April Antoniou on 02-08-13
By: Walt Whitman
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How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 154
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
"Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Like a review of my graduate English degree
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The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
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Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 233
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 136
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story5 out of 5 stars 29
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 154
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
"Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
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The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 233
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 136
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
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Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story5 out of 5 stars 29
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him. Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Ruin the Sacred Truths
- Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Mort Crim
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Not one of Bloom's best
- By Benjamin Myers on 03-31-17
By: Harold Bloom
-
Iago
- The Strategies of Evil
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime.
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
- By: Professor Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Professor Harold Bloom
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 94
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Lowest WPM Ever
- By Ronald on 11-16-11
-
Saving Italy
- By: Robert Edsel
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 278
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 247
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 248
When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. On the eve of the Allied invasion, General Dwight Eisenhower empowered a new kind of soldier to protect these historic riches. In May 1944 two unlikely American heroes—artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt—embarked from Naples on the treasure hunt of a lifetime, tracking billions of dollars of missing art, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
More Personalities than Art Chasing
- By Craig on 01-17-15
By: Robert Edsel
-
Figures in a Landscape
- People and Places
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 9
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 9
Drawing together a fascinating body of writing from over 14 years of work, Figures in a Landscape ranges from profiles of cultural icons (Oliver Sacks, Elizabeth Taylor, Robin Williams) to intimate personal remembrances, from thrilling adventures in Africa to literary writings from Theroux's rich and expansive personal reading. Collectively these pieces offer a fascinating portrait of the author himself, his extraordinary life and his restless and ever-curious mind.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
GOOD AS USUAL
- By JK on 08-23-24
By: Paul Theroux
-
A Time for Everything
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 20 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 54
Beginning in the Garden of Eden and soaring through to the present, A Time for Everything reimagines pivotal encounters between humans and angels: the glow of the cherubim watching over Eden; the profound love between Cain and Abel despite their differences; Lot's shame in Sodom; Noah's isolation before the flood; Ezekiel tied to his bed, prophesying ferociously; the death of Christ; and the emergence of sensual, mischievous cherubs in the 17th century.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Measuring Our Distance from God
- By Darwin8u on 10-16-16
-
My Struggle, Book 1
- By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Don Bartlett - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 913
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 798
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 798
My Struggle: Book One introduces American listeners to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Anatomy of the Disease of the Self
- By Joe Kraus on 05-06-16
By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, and others
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 372
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 308
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 303
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
The Book of All Books
- By: Roberto Calasso, Tim Parks - translator
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 7
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 7
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 7
Roberto Calasso's The Book of All Books is a narration that moves through the Bible as if through a forest, where every branch—every verse—may offer some revelation.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Good book... glad I found it...
- By Alednam A Uonopk on 12-19-22
By: Roberto Calasso, and others
-
Trickster Makes This World
- Mischief, Myth, and Art
- By: Lewis Hyde, Michael Chabon - foreword
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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WOAH!!
- By C. Gardner on 07-08-22
By: Lewis Hyde, and others
What listeners say about Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jesse
- 12-24-20
Culmination of Bloom’s Wisdom
An excellent selection interwoven with insightful and wise commentary. Easy to navigate with the chapter headings. Narration is well done.
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4 people found this helpful