Showing results for "William Murray" in Literature & Fiction

They say the Messiah is alive. He is living in New York. Sleeping with men. Impregnating women. Euthanasing the dying, healing the sick. Defying the government and condemning the holy. If you met him.... and he changed your life... would you believe?

It was strange because it wasn't so long ago that he was convinced the only way out of the depression that had crippled him since he was a child was death. But now, he is on a high-speed train, travelling from Rome to Modena, a failed novelist on the tail of a famous physicist whose memoir he is ghostwriting. The more of another man's life he writes, the more his debt to his publisher is paid off. But nothing would be possible had he not experienced the life-altering, life-saving treatment for the darkness which had been hovering since the chemical spill in West Virginia.

Duke Vincentino, the ruler of Vienna, fears that under his mild sovereignty, the people may have become lazy and lax. He decides to “go over cover” in the disguise of a monk and appoint his deputy, Angelo, who is a reputed paragon of virtue, as temporary ruler. On assuming power, Angelo inaugurates draconian provisions regarding sexual propriety. One of the first victims of this new regime is young Claudio, who has impregnated his lover Juliet, and is accordingly sentenced to death.

Murray (1840-1904) was a sometime clergyman, journalist, and purveyor of the outdoor life. His books did much to popularize the virtues of outdoor experience, especially in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Here are stories, some humorous some serious, of the out-of-doors, of love between man and woman, man and horse, man and dog, teacher and acolyte, of wisdom and foolishness. This recording is a selection of his short stories from "The Busted Ex-Texan And Other Stories" (1889), "How Deacon Tubman And Parson Whitney Kept New Years And Other Stories" (1888) and "A Ride With A Mad ...

A merchant of Syracuse has twin sons and buys twin servants for them. His wife, with one twin and one servant, is soon separated from him by a shipwreck, and comes to live in Ephesus. When grown, the other son and his slave start out to find their brothers, and the father, some years later, starts out in turn to find them. Once in Ephesus, an amusing series of errors begins.

In summer 1939, war was brewing. Eileen Alexander was a bright young graduate just leaving Cambridge and newly smitten with Gershon Ellenbogen, a fellow student who had inadvertently involved her in a car crash. Her first letter to him, written from the hospital, sparked a correspondence that would last the length of the war and define the love of their lifetimes. Love in the Blitz is a remarkable portrait of one woman’s coming-of-age. Her previously undiscovered letters are vivid, intimate and crackling with intelligence.

As the generating force of its plot, Twelfth Night uses a device which has since become a staple in comedy: gender confusion. Viola and her twin brother Sebastian, are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, a country ruled by the melancholy Duke Orsino. The twins are separated and Viola is led to believe that her brother has perished. She disguises herself as a male under the name of Cesario and makes her way to the ducal court, where Orsino employs her as a messenger, to communicate his love to the reclusive lady, Olivia—who is not willing to return his affection.

Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written about 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the somber tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is a creation by Shakespeare and the second appears to have been drawn from an Italian source, either by Bandello or Ariosto. The action takes place in Messina. Eponymous lovers Hero and Claudio seem to be ideally matched and nearly everyone is looking forward to their impending marriage.

Together with The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most magical plays. One night, two parties creep from Athens into the surrounding forest. One includes sweethearts Lysander and Hermia, fleeing from Athenian law and the disapproval of Hermia’s father to get married. In pursuit is Demetrius, the suitor of Hermia favored by her father, and the doleful Helena, formerly affianced to Demetrius.

Comedian Al Murray plays his great-great-great-grandfather William Makepeace Thackeray as the unreliable narrator in this radical makeover of his ancestor’s celebrated satire on class, sex, money, hypocrisy and snobbery in 19th-century England. As the curtain rises on our ‘story without a hero’, moneyless Becky Sharp leaves school with her upper-class best friend Amelia Sedley. Clever, cunning and ambitious, Becky is determined to make her way in Regency society - and she’ll trample on anyone who gets in her way.

In the Texas Panhandle town of Amarillo, New York attorney Max Friedman is assigned to represent a nightmare client. Joe Wagner is a violent man, dangerous both to family and friends. As Max builds his defense case for murder, he reveals a reason for Joe's violence. But is it a justification?

Treasure, tons of shiny gold and silver, and precious jewels. Greed, ravenous, and depraved. Deceit, dishonesty, and treachery. And of course, a beautiful woman. Cuba, Key West, and Mexico. There were a million places that treasure could be hidden. We're only here for a brief time. We want our time to last forever but know that’s just not going to happen. So, work for whatever treasure you seek. Dance while you still can. Excuses come later...You don’t like where you are, move. A lot of people start over in key west. I know because I'm one of them.

In As You Like It, a wicked Duke expels his virtuous brother, the lawful ruler, from his domains. The banished Duke takes refuge with his followers in the Forest of Arden, where they live as free a life as did Robin Hood and his merry men.

This collection is narrated by distinguished Broadway performers Brian Murray and Suzanne Toren. It contains all 45 poems from two famous works, revealing a child's unspoiled view of human nature and the corruption and disillusionment awaiting the innocent. Included are such favorites as "The Lamb", "The Tyger", and "The Sick Rose".

This play is a dramatization of Boccaccio’s story of Gillette of Narbonne. Only the comic parts were of Shakespeare’s invention; he added the characters of the pusillanimous Parolles, the lofty courtier Lafew, the Clown Lavatch, and the long suffering Countess. He gave new depth and vitality to the leading characters, who are mere outlines in Boccaccio’s tale.

In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.