Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Brought to you by Altrusian Grace Media (altrusiangrace.com) and human-narrated by Matthew Schmitz. Sanai's book, The Enclosed Garden of the Truth, a treatise on God and the seekers journey to Him, forms one part of three highly influential early Sufi works. The others being Attar's Conference of the Birds and Rumi's Masnavi. Sanai's work is considered to be the first to use poetry to express religious, spiritual and mystical ideas. Rumi acknowledges both Sanai and Attar as having a major influence on his own poetry and stated 'Attar is the soul and Sanai the two eyes'.

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Victorian era, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Science, religion and sexuality are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period.

Homer's Iliad can justly be called the world's greatest war epic. The terrible and long-drawn-out siege of Troy remains one of the classic campaigns, the heroism and treachery of its combatants unmatched in song and story. Driven by fierce passions and loyalties, men and gods battle to a devastating conclusion.

Traditional fairytales are full of cliché and gender stereotypes. The silent Rapunzel, the beautiful sweet princesses, ugly, jealous and bitter women, girls that need rescuing, men who take the glory and their new brides being forever grateful and subservient. Good mothers, obliging lovers and pretty objects. Nikita Gill's new prose and poetry collection rewrites the fairytale classics and reworks their old-fashioned tropes into new empowering and inspirational stories.

It is clear that the author is madly in love, not only with her partner for whom she writes both idiosyncratic and sultry poems, but in love with language, in love with queerness, in love with the therapeutic process of bankrupting the politics of shame. These poems tackle gun violence, toxic masculinity, LGBTQ* struggles, suicidality, and the oppression of women’s bodies, while maintaining a vivid wildness that the tongue aches to speak aloud.

One of the finest German medieval epic poems, The Lay of the Nibelungs is perhaps best known now as one of the principal sources for Wagner’s four-part music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. It is easy to see how Wagner was enthralled by the story and the poetry for the power of the tale drives the narrative: intense love, loyalty, jealousy, murder, duty, honour and massacre are all interwoven into a classic. 

The illustrated edition of this audiobook features 14 beautiful pieces of artwork in an attached PDF, and a link to a comprehensive set of behind-the-scenes videos documenting the illustration and narration processes. The ultimate way to experience this classic tale! What happens after Homer's Iliad? Not only is the larger conflict unresolved by the end of that story, but several of the most famous events of the Trojan War are absent from its pages. It's hard not to want another complete epic to pick up where Achilles, Agamemnon, and Priam left off.

Robert Pinsky's new verse translation of the Inferno makes it clear to the contemporary listener, as no other in English has done, why Dante is universally considered a poet of great power, intensity, and strength. This critically acclaimed translation was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book...

Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair is a collection of romantic poems by 1971 Noble laureate of literature, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, first published in 1924 by Editorial Nascimiento. Neruda was 19 at the time the book was published, and this was Neruda's second published work after Crepusculario, but Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair is regarded as the work who made him a name as a poet.

The origins, history and authorship of Beowulf are shrouded in uncertainty. This heroic epic probably began, as most do, with a wandering troubadour strumming a stringed instrument, sitting before a hearth-fire, and singing the verses to a spellbound audience arrayed before him. Beowulf is a rousing adventure story, filled with intrepid heroes, monsters and fire-breathing dragons, which can be listened to for the sheer enjoyment of the tale.

Including 'The Hill We Climb', the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, this collection of the same name reveals an energising and unforgettable new voice in poetry.

Brought to you by Penguin. A treasure trove of inspiration and an invitation for personal renewal from the acclaimed author of bone and The Terrible We still dream though, don't we? We are gifted with a way into ourselves, night after night after night. Yrsa Daley-Ward's words have resonated...

Selected Poems gathers together a lifetime's work by beloved, prize-winning poet and musician, Roger Robinson, reflecting on the joys and pains of life 'His poems are deep, mature, moving and inventive' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'Robinson is one of the most important poetic voices in the UK right now'...

A vibrant selection of poems by the great Persian mystic with groundbreaking translations by Haleh Liza Gafori, an American poet of Persian descent. Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as well as aesthetic delight.

The Odyssey is the greatest adventure story ever written, and one of the great epic masterpieces of Western literature For almost 3,000 years, it has been a storehouse of ancient Greek folklore and myth. It is also our very first novel, if we think of it in terms of romantic plot development, realistic characterizations, frequent change of scene, and heroic dramatic devices.

Sensual, macabre, joyous and liberating, The Flowers of Evil, or Les Fleurs du Mal, is a beautifully debauched reflection on dreams, sin, life, and death. With subjects ranging from travel to drugs, sex to faith, sleep to contemplation, Baudelaire finds new beauty in the most sinister and corrupt of situations. His morbid and nightmarish Romanticism was completely unique: cynical and bleak, but also inspiring. The book was highly controversial upon its release and Napoleon III’s government prosecuted Baudelaire for "an insult to public decency".

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of bone written and read by Yrsa Daley-Ward, with a foreword read by Kiese Laymon. OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 'You will come away bruised. You will come away bruised but this will give you poetry.' Raw and stark, the poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward's...

Edward Lear's much-loved comic poem, featuring the most elegant fowl in literature and his beautiful feline friend, read by Jenny Agutter.

Rainer Maria Rilke has been called the most significant and compelling poet of spiritual experience of the 20th century. His exploration of the struggle between life and art and the supremacy of divine love over personal love has touched the hearts of men and women everywhere. The poems in this reading are from the selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell.

'I want to live, not merely survive' This collection of words from Havva Ramadan will resonate with her rapidly growing online community. With a million followers, Havva's words have struck a chord with people all around the world, including celebrities such as Annie Lennox, Khloe Kardashian and...