Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith

Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Rosalyn Landor
6 Discs

Charles Darwin published The Origin of Specie, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859 and nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities.  That same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a great deal to consider as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates.  Charles and Emma is a thought-provoking account of the marriage behind evolutionary theory: how their personal lives affected his work and vice versa. 

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Tipperary

Tipperary  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Frank Delany
14 discs

Set in Ireland just before the War for Independence and covering the trials of the Civil War Years,  Charles O’Brien, a healer meets the graceful yet cold April Burke, the only child of a noble Irish family. In an effort to woo her, Charles convinces April to petition for ownership of the castle as her birthright. Yet this castle, languishing in disrepair and abandonment causes an outrage in the community when the English lady comes to take her claim.   April rejects Charles more than once and it all is recorded for a History teacher to discover many years later and find more than their love story in the pages of Charles’s account.

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My Name is Mary Sutter

My Name is Mary Sutter ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Kimberly Farr
12 discs

Mary Sutter is a brilliant, head strong midwife from Albany, New York, who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Determined to overcome the prejudices against women in medicine-and eager to run away from her recent heartbreak- Mary leaves home and travels to Washington, D.C. to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of William Stipp and James Blevens-two surgeons who fall unwittingly in love with Mary’s courage, will, and stubbornness in the face of suffering-and resisting her mother’s pleas to return home to help with the birth of her twin sister’s baby, Mary pursues her medical career in the desperately overwhelmed hospitals of the capital.

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A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Frank Muller
12 Discs

The French Revolution was one of history s most explosive eras and has been captures in this epic novel.  After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

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The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerdan, John Lee, Rosalyn Landor and Juliet Mills
7 discs

As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II when writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey Island. After friends are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island they come up with the book club as a spur-of-the-moment alibi. Yet the book club seems to be the answer to much of their anxiety during the war.

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Holes

Holes ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Kerry Beyer

As further evidence of his family’s bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a sense of himself.

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The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Donada Peters

Set in Kerala, India, during the late 1960s when Communism rattled the age-old caste system, the story begins with the funeral of young Sophie Mol, the cousin of the novel’s protagonists, Rahel and her fraternal twin brother, Estha.  Beneath the drama of a family tragedy lies a background of local politics, social taboos and the tide of history all of which come together in a slip of fate, after which a family is irreparably shattered, lovers  separated and childhoods damaged beyond all repair.

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Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Elaina Erika Davis
3 discs (abridged)

Chiyo Sakamoto, the daughter of a poor fisherman,  attains the pinnacle of geisha success.   Sold as a child by her financially desperate father, Chiyo is placed in a house for geisha as the personal maid to Hatsumomo, one of Kyoto’s most sought-after geisha. There she is trained in the arts of dance, singing and the tea ceremony. Hatsumomo, however, threatened by Chiyo’s beauty, treats her with unrestrained cruelty. Chiyo’s position is one of indentured servitude: she may not leave until she has repaid all of her living expenses and even her original purchase cost. After many vicissitudes, Chiyo is transformed into a celebrated geisha called Sayuri; many men offer to be her danna however she is holding out for her one true love.

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The School of Essential Ingredients

The School of Essential Ingredients ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Cassandra Campbell
5 discs

When eight students gather in Lillian’s Restaurant for cooking classes, they create more than just good food. They also create an atmosphere that allows each of them to deal with life’s challenges, both in and out of the kitchen.  Identity and loss, betrayal and acceptance are some of the lessons theses new cooks learn while they stir up pumpkin pasta and bake chocolate biscotti.  Lillian’s eatery serves comfort and even the head chef herself finds a new recipe or two at the school of essential ingredients.

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Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Michael Maloney

Antonio Corelli, an Italian captain, and Pelagia, the daughter of the local physician, Dr. Iannis fall in love during the Italian and German occupation of the island of Cephallonia.  Many types of love are found in this story of a soldier and his music including love between comrads, love for country and love between soul mates.

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