Books with title The Mysterious Rider - MP3 CD Audiobook in CD jacket

The Waste Land is a long poem by T. S. Eliot is considered one of the most important poems of the 20th century. First published in 1922, The Waste Land is Eliot’s best known work and marked a significant turning point for modern poetry. On the macro level, the poem conveys a sense of a disjointed, unreal world devastated by the Great War and populated by damaged people numbed by violence, heartbreak and trauma. The poem loosely follows the legends of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King, interwoven with vignettes of modern society. The five sections treat the overarching themes of disillusionment, despair and death from a variety of perspectives that are populated with allusions, quotations, and references to a vast range of eastern and western cultures, languages and literature. It is deliberately obtuse and difficult to follow. Frequent and abrupt shifts in time, place, character and tone add to the sense of discomfort and dissonance that underscore the themes. Eliot had experienced a breakdown in 1921 and was treated for what we would now call depression. He was advised to take three months off from work and first went to the seaside resort of Margate, where he began the poem, and then to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he undertook therapies to help rewire his thinking. These practices corresponded with the tenets of Buddhism and Hindu philosophy he had studied at Harvard that eventually found their way into the poem, especially the last section, which Eliot said he wrote “in a trance”.

The Awakening is one of the first American novels that focused on women’s issues and is now seen as a landmark feminist work. Originally titled A Solitary Soul and set in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast at the end of the 19th century, it is the story of Edna Pontelier, wife of a New Orleans businessman and mother of two sons who struggles to manage her family duties with her desire to be true to her emotions. The conflict becomes evident at the outset when, while vacationing, she falls in love with Robert, the son of the owner of the Grand Isle resort. He flees to escape the impossible situation, and Edna returns home to retreat from both her family and New Orleans social life. Left alone for a time, she dallies with a rakish acquaintance, becomes friends with Mme Reisz, an eccentric musician, and pines for Robert, who returns, only to run away again in shame. The story does not have a happy ending. The Awakening met with a mixed response due to its ruthlessly honest treatment of issues usually swept under the rug. The psychological insight, social commentary and realistic narrative mark it as an important link the development of American modernism. Critics rank the book alongside her contemporaries Edith Wharton and Henry James and among the first of the works in the Southern tradition of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connnor, and Tennessee Williams.

Dostoevsky knew his subject all too well when he wrote The Gambler, as he had a serious addiction to roulette. In 1866, he made a deal with a ruthless publisher to pay off his considerable gambling debts: he would deliver a novel within 30 days or forfeit his publishing income for nine years. He wrote quickly, dictating to a stenographer, and delivered the finished product with only hours to spare. Alexei, the gambler and narrator of the story, is an impoverished young nobleman serving as a tutor to the family of an imperious Russian general living beyond his means in an Alpine resort noted for its casino and international clientele of high rollers. Alexei falls for Polina, the general's stepdaughter, who is pretty, seductive and manipulative. She treats him like a dog and sets off his obsession with gambling by asking him to place a bet for her, which he wins, and which culminates in a spree in which he wins big but fails to win her affection. Alexei is not the only gambler, however. We come see that each of the characters is betting that they can manipulate circumstances to their advantage. The General hopes to inherit a fortune from his rich aunt; the alluring Frenchwoman wants to marry the General for his money; the pompous Frenchman wants to foreclose on the General’s properties; the rich aunt visits and drops a bundle at the tables and stiffs the General. After the Frenchwoman seduces Alexei and persuades him to spend his winnings on her, she ditches him to marry the General. And the winner is?

Published in 1921, The Mysterious Rider was the 26th novel by Zane Grey and became a classic in the Western genre. The story centers on the character of Columbine, a young woman raised from infancy by rancher Bill Bellounds on his White Slides Ranch in Colorado. Only at age 19 did Bellounds tell her that he was not her real father. He had raised her as a foster child and expected her to marry his jackass son Jack, a drunkard, gambler, coward, and thief, who is “away” at the time doing some time. Problem is, she is in love with Wilson Moore, a young ranch hand who loves her back. Enter the Mysterious Rider, Bent Wade, a kindly middle-aged jack of all trades with a past who happens to be a world class gunfighter known as Hell-Bent Wade. When Jack returns, he gets crazy jealous when he sees Wilson with Columbine and goes after him with a knife. Bent Wade rescues Wilson, but all does not end well. The conflict is followed by revelations and reconciliation. The book goes beyond the conventions and elements of the Western, which are nevertheless rendered in fine form, to produce a story that wrestles with good and evil, love and duty, and selfishness and self-sacrifice.

Published in 1921, The Mysterious Rider was the 26th novel by Zane Grey and became a classic in the Western genre. The story centers on the character of Columbine, a young woman raised from infancy by rancher Bill Bellounds on his White Slides Ranch in Colorado. Only at age 19 did Bellounds tell her that he was not her real father. He had raised her as a foster child and expected her to marry his jackass son Jack, a drunkard, gambler, coward, and thief, who is “away” at the time doing some time. Problem is, she is in love with Wilson Moore, a young ranch hand who loves her back. Enter the Mysterious Rider, Bent Wade, a kindly middle-aged jack of all trades with a past who happens to be a world class gunfighter known as Hell-Bent Wade. When Jack returns, he gets crazy jealous when he sees Wilson with Columbine and goes after him with a knife. Bent Wade rescues Wilson, but all does not end well. The conflict is followed by revelations and reconciliation. The book goes beyond the conventions and elements of the Western, which are nevertheless rendered in fine form, to produce a story that wrestles with good and evil, love and duty, and selfishness and self-sacrifice.

The Prophet is a highly original book of 26 fables written in prose poetry by Lebanese-American author and poet Kahlil Gibran. The prophet is Al Mustafa, who is about to board a ship to return home after a 12-year stay in the city of Orphalese when he is stopped by a group of people. They begin to discuss life and the human condition. The prophet is questioned by members of his audience on specific topics of general interest, and each prompts a discourse in which Al Mustafa delivers his thoughts in a mixture of vivid imagery, moving allegories, and philosophical insight. By the time they have finished they have covered just about every topic of importance in a deeply moving narrative that reveals mankind’s deepest longings, fears and motivations. The Prophet is one of the first examples in the genre of inspirational literature and has been immensely popular since publication, selling over nine million copies and being translated into over 100 languages.

Niccolo Machiavelli broke the mold when he wrote The Prince, an ostensibly traditional work in the style of books written for princes. Written in the Italian vernacular for all to read, it speaks truth to power about power: the truth about how “things really work” in the sphere of power, politics, leadership and governance. Most advances in man’s progress occur when the thinkers of their time look at the world as it is and not as they might want it to be. It’s the difference between the declarative and the subjunctive modes – the difference between “this is this” and “the would, could, shoulds” of a fantasy land. Princes obtain and retain power over their subjects using tactics with little or no consideration for ethics or the strictures of the then dominant faith. And those who argue to the contrary will be the ones without power. In saying so The Prince was and remains groundbreaking and subversive. And required reading for anyone active or interested in public life. (Summary by Michael Hogan)

Sometimes the tart nature of motivational stories can be more easily received and internalized if the message is cloaked in the sweetness of animals, anthropomorphic characters, who, sentient and capable, experience the vagaries of the world's ways and then draw and express some moral from the experience. Rudyard Kipling, the Englishman who keenly felt the burden of his privilege, wrote The Jungle Book, a series of short stories that were first published in several magazines in 1893 and 1894. There is some very recent evidence (2010) found in a poignant handwritten note, discovered in a rare first edition of the book, that Kipling wrote these beautiful and wholly entertaining stories for his daughter, Josephine, who died at the age of six in 1899. Published in book form in 1894, the stories that comprise The Jungle Book enjoy great popularity due to Disney's 1967 animated film version that was followed by a second Disney adaptation in 2003. Several other film and stage adaptations have also contributed to the work's popularity. The stories contain nearly everything Kipling knew and had learned about the Indian Jungle during his childhood in India. The best known of the stories are the three that concern the man-cub "Mowglii," who is raised by wolves. The stories and their accompanying verses offer helpful safety tips for persons, families and communities. Many have looked deeper into these stories, and, as with Orwell, have interpreted the work as being a sophisticated commentary on the politics and society of the time.