Classic Audiobook Collection

Against The Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans audiobook.
Genre: drama
In Against the Grain, Joris-Karl Huysmans follows Jean des Esseintes, the last, sickly heir of an old French aristocratic line, as he abandons Parisian society and retreats to a secluded house outside the city. Determined to live entirely on his own terms, Des Esseintes sets out to construct a private universe ruled by taste: rare books and Latin stylists, paintings and religious art, jeweled curios, exotic perfumes, and carefully engineered sensations meant to replace ordinary life. But the more meticulously he arranges his refuge, the more his mind turns inward, and the pleasures he pursues begin to blur into obsession, anxiety, and spiritual unease. Haunted by memories, repelled by the banality of the modern world, and driven by a hunger for experiences that feel absolutely pure, he tests the limits of artifice itself. Part novel, part interior diary of a decadent sensibility, Against the Grain becomes a tense struggle between intellect and body, desire and disgust, and the longing to escape reality versus the inescapable pressure of conscience, illness, and time.
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Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 01
(00:22:56) Chapter 02
(00:43:17) Chapter 03
(01:05:56) Chapter 04
(01:43:33) Chapter 05
(02:11:51) Chapter 06
(02:53:47) Chapter 07
(03:27:52) Chapter 08
(04:01:34) Chapter 09
(04:26:50) Chapter 10
(05:00:54) Chapter 11
(05:41:44) Chapter 12
(06:11:02) Chapter 13
(06:46:20) Chapter 14
(07:18:29) Chapter 15
(07:50:27) Chapter 16
(08:23:25) Chapter 17
(08:52:27) Chapter 18
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Samson Agonistes by John Milton audiobook.
Genre: tragedy
John Milton's Samson Agonistes reimagines the final days of the biblical strongman as an intense, inward tragedy of defeat, endurance, and faith. Once Israel's champion, Samson now sits blind and captive in Gaza, mocked by the Philistines and tormented by the memory of his own choices. As he wrestles with shame and the silence of God, visitors arrive who force him to confront the life that brought him to this ruin: his father Manoa, who pleads to ransom him; the Chorus of Danites, who mirror the community's grief and doubt; and Dalila, whose arrival opens old wounds and hard questions about love, betrayal, and responsibility. Meanwhile, Philistine leaders celebrate their power and prepare a public spectacle meant to humiliate their fallen enemy. Confined, powerless, and unsure of his calling, Samson faces the central conflict of the poem: whether a broken man can still possess moral agency, and what redemption might look like when strength, certainty, and sight are gone. With austere language and mounting tension, Milton explores suffering, conscience, national identity, and the paradox of strength born from weakness.
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Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 00
(00:10:40) Chapter 01
(00:26:03) Chapter 02
(00:37:35) Chapter 03
(00:52:12) Chapter 04
(01:10:50) Chapter 05
(01:18:30) Chapter 06
(01:33:40) Chapter 07
(01:46:04) Chapter 08
(01:57:06) Chapter 09
(02:11:01) Chapter 10
(02:24:25) Chapter 11
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Underground London by John Hollingshead audiobook.
Genre: history
Published in 1862, John Hollingshead's Underground London invites you beneath the clamorous streets of early-to-mid Victorian London, where the citys true lifelines run in darkness. With the brisk curiosity of a reporter and the wit of an essayist, Hollingshead becomes your guide through buried rivers, old channels and forgotten passages, and into the practical, messy machinery that keeps a metropolis alive: sewers, drains, waterworks and the expanding web of gas pipes that turns night into day. Moving between lively street-level observation and below-ground investigation, he introduces the engineers, laborers and officials wrestling with a problem that touches every home and every neighborhood: how to supply a swelling population with clean water and light while carrying away its waste. Along the way, he gathers local legends and eerie stories, compares competing schemes, and builds toward the heated public debates of his moment, including bold proposals for a railway that would run underground. By turns informative, sardonic and surprisingly atmospheric, this is a portrait of a city confronting modernity from the foundations up.
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Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 01
(00:36:14) Chapter 02
(00:56:03) Chapter 03
(01:15:58) Chapter 04
(01:41:51) Chapter 05
(02:09:03) Chapter 06
(02:26:16) Chapter 07
(02:55:10) Chapter 08
(03:25:39) Chapter 09
(03:44:54) Chapter 10
(04:33:36) Chapter 11
(04:42:14) Chapter 12
(04:56:00) Chapter 13
(05:04:36) Chapter 14
(05:22:55) Chapter 15
(05:36:52) Chapter 16
(05:59:02) Chapter 17
(06:17:14) Chapter 18
(06:24:51) Chapter 19
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A Problem in Modern Ethics by John Addington Symonds audiobook.
Genre: philosophy
Privately printed in the late 19th century for a tiny circle of readers, John Addington Symonds' A Problem in Modern Ethics is a bold, carefully argued inquiry into what his era called 'sexual inversion' - same-sex desire and relationships - addressed to the people who shaped public opinion and policy: doctors, psychologists, clergy, and jurists. Writing as a humane scholar steeped in history and literature, Symonds surveys how societies across time have understood and regulated same-sex love, then turns to the competing medical explanations of his day, challenging easy assumptions that treat homosexuality as a vice, a contagion, or a simple acquired habit. He weighs the ethical stakes for individuals forced into secrecy, the damage done by stigma and blackmail, and the contradictions of laws that punish consenting adults while claiming to defend morality. Along the way, he brings a literary critic's eye to cultural evidence, including discussion of major writers whose work was implicated in contemporary debates. Part historical study, part ethical brief, and part early rights argument, the essay captures a pivotal moment when modern sexology and modern civil-liberties thinking were beginning to collide.
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Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 00
(00:10:37) Chapter 01
(00:18:30) Chapter 02
(00:30:45) Chapter 03
(00:39:01) Chapter 04
(00:55:14) Chapter 05
(01:08:34) Chapter 06
(01:18:45) Chapter 07
(01:29:17) Chapter 08
(01:48:43) Chapter 09
(02:04:35) Chapter 10
(02:20:23) Chapter 11
(02:36:37) Chapter 12
(02:54:34) Chapter 13
(03:13:53) Chapter 14
(03:26:40) Chapter 15
(03:37:15) Chapter 16
(03:53:15) Chapter 17
(04:06:22) Chapter 18
(04:17:36) Chapter 19
(04:31:00) Chapter 20
(04:41:26) Chapter 21
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Little Miss Grasshopper by Johanna Spyri audiobook.
Genre: family
Rita Feland has earned her nickname, Little Miss Grasshopper, the moment she starts bouncing with excitement. From their comfortable home in Dresden, the Feland family sets out for a long-awaited summer holiday in Switzerland, climbing toward the high country of the Gemmi Pass where sharp peaks, deep valleys, and clear air promise freedom and discovery. In a quiet mountain cottage, new acquaintances appear and the days fill with walks, stories, and the thrilling sense that the world is larger than Rita ever imagined. But Rita's bright curiosity and impulsive courage can carry her farther than anyone expects. When an innocent adventure turns suddenly frightening, the peaceful trip becomes a test of nerve and devotion as family members and strangers alike are drawn into a tense search through rugged terrain and an approaching night. Tender, suspenseful, and grounded in the beauty of the Alps, Johanna Spyri's tale explores the bonds between parents and children, the limits of youthful independence, and the steadying power of love and faith when fear closes in.
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Chapters (Approximate)
(00:00:00) Chapter 01
(00:05:50) Chapter 02
(00:13:23) Chapter 03
(00:22:54) Chapter 04
(00:32:50) Chapter 05
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