The Big Read - Audio Guides

Did you know that the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services have made a series of audio guides to some of the the biggest books of the 20th Century that were written by American Authors. They've named the series The Big Read and there are 14 titles in the series.

The audio CDs include commentary on the selected title as well as readings from the book. Look for these CDs in the Classics Section of the library.

The titles chosen by The Big Read include:

Great Gatsby By Fitzgerald, F. Scott Scribner, Charles Bruccoli, Matthew Joseph 1995/06 - Rebound by Sagebrush 9780881030709 CHECK CATALOG ...More

Farewell to Arms By Hemingway, Ernest 1995/06 - San Val 9780808519256 CHECK CATALOG By turns romantic and harshly realistic, Hemingway's story of a tragic romance set against the brutality and confusion of World War I cemented his fame as a stylist and as a writer of extraordinary literary power. A volunteer ambulance driver and a beautiful English nurse fall in love when he is wounded on the Italian front. ...More

Bendiceme Ultima = Bless Me, Ultima By Anaya, Rudolfo A. Smithers, Alicia 1994/09 - Grand Central Publishing 9780446601771 CHECK CATALOG Una obra maestra de la literatura hispánica de “uno de los artistas literarios Chicanos más importantes de la nación” (Denver Post). Esta es la absorbente historia de Antonio, un muchacho enfrentando los conflictos de su vida con la ayuda de Ultima, una curandera que cura con hierbas y magia. En cada vuelta de la vida de Tony, allí está ella para nutrir su alma. A masterpiece of Hispanic literature from "one of the nation's foremost Chicano literary artists" (Denver Post). This is the involving story of Antonio, a boy facing the conflicts in his life with the help of Ultima, a curandera who cures with herbs and magic. At each turn of Tony's life, she is there to nurture his soul. ...More

The Age of Innocence By Wharton, Edith 1996/01 - Bantam Classics 9780553214505 CHECK CATALOG Newland Archer saw little to envy in the marriages of his friends, yet he prided himself that in May Welland he had found the companion of his needs--tender and impressionable, with equal purity of mind and manners. The engagement was announced discreetly, but all of New York society was soon privy to this most perfect match, a union of families and circumstances cemented by affection. Enter Countess Olenska, a woman of quick wit sharpened by experience, not afraid to flout convention and determined to find freedom in divorce. Against his judgment, Newland is drawn to the socially ostracized Ellen Olenska, who opens his eyes and has the power to make him feel. He knows that in sweet-tempered May, he can expect stability and the steadying comfort of duty. But what new worlds could he discover with Ellen? Written with elegance and wry p ...More

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories By London, Jack Leitz, Robert C. Labor, Earle 1998/07 - Oxford University Press, USA 9780192835147 CHECK CATALOG ...More

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man By Tolstoy, Leo Slater, Ann Pasternak 2003/09 - Modern Library 9780679642930 CHECK CATALOG This new edition combines Tolstoy's most famous short tale, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich, with a less well known but equally brilliant gem, "Master and Man, both newly translated by Ann Pasternak Slater. Both stories confront death and the process of dying: In "Ivan Ilyich, a bureaucrat looks back over his life, which suddenly seems meaningless and wasteful, while in Master and Man, a landowner and servant must each confront the value of the other as they brave a devastating snowstorm. The quintessential Tolstoyan themes of mortality, spiritual redemption, and life's meaning are nowhere more movingly and deftly explored than in these two tales. This unique edition also includes a critical Introduction and extensive notes by Ann Pasternak Slater, a Fellow at St. Anne's College, Oxford. ...More

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter By McCullers, Carson 1993/05 - Modern Library 9780679424741 CHECK CATALOG When she was only twenty-three, Carson McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She was very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal. The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. "From the Paperback edition." ...More

Fahrenheit 451 By Bradbury, Ray 1993/01 - Simon & Schuster 9780671870362 CHECK CATALOG Celebrate the 40th anniversary of this timeless classic with a special edition featuring a new foreword by the author and a message that is as relevant today as when it was first published. Since the late 1940s, Ray Bradbury has been revered for his works of science fiction and fantasy. With more than 4 million copies in print, Fahrenheit 451 - originally published in 1953 - remains his most acclaimed work. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper burns. Fahrenheit 451 is a short novel set in the (perhaps near) future when "firemen" burn books forbidden by the totalitarian "brave new world" regime. The hero, according to Mr. Bradbury, is "a book burner who suddenly discovers that books are flesh and blood ideas and cry out silently when put to the torch". Today, when libraries and schools are still "burning" certain books, Fa ...More

My Antonia By Cather, Willa Sharistanian, Janet 2009/04 - Oxford University Press, USA 9780199538140 CHECK CATALOG ...More

Grapes of Wrath By Steinbeck, John 1992/10 - Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media 9780606001748 CHECK CATALOG A Great Books Discussion Selection ...More

The Joy Luck Club By Tan, Amy Andrews, Richard Baxter, Judith 1995/05 - Cambridge University Press 9780521485623 CHECK CATALOG In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and 'say' stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. ...More

The Maltese Falcon Journal By Potter Style 2008/09 - Potter Style 9780307409324 CHECK CATALOG ...More

Their Eyes Were Watching God By Hurston, Zora Neale Washington, Mary Helen Gates, Henry Louis 2003/12 - Harper Perennial 9780060931414 CHECK CATALOG Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person-- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots. ...More

To Kill a Mockingbird By Lee, Harper 1988/10 - San Val 9780881030525 CHECK CATALOG The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior-to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 15 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature. ...More