Showing results by narrator "The Icon Players" in All Categories

Assata Olugbala Shakur is a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who was convicted of being an accomplice in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur was also the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) directed against Black Power movement groups and activists.

The 9/11 Commission Report is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement, however, dispute the mainstream account of the September 11 attacks of 2001. The group disputes the commonly accepted account Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners, crashed them into the Pentagon and New York's Twin Towers, where the crashes led to their collapse.

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to multiple presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community and of the contemporary Black elite. This is his story. Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over 30 internationally best-selling biographies, including the London Sunday Times best seller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison.

Here is perhaps Charles Dickens’ most beloved story, Philip Pirrip, known as “Pip”, narrates his own incredible journey, from the hindsight of 50 years. Pip grows up with his older sister after losing his parents as a boy. His sister, a tough woman, rules Pip and her husband Joe with an iron fist. While playing in the marshes, Pip is accosted by an escaped criminal whom he decides to help by stealing food from his own home. Miss Havisham, an eccentric recluse, sends for Pip to come to her house to play with Estella, a haughty girl about his age.

Uncle Wiggily Longears is the main character and beloved icon of a series of children's stories by American author Howard R. Garis. He began writing the stories for the Newark News in 1910. Garis penned an Uncle Wiggily take every day for more than 52 years, and published some 79 books in his lifetime. Along the road on his many joyous and exciting episodic adventures Uncle Wiggily has run into several very questionable characters including: the Woozy Wolf, Bushy Bear, Skillery Skallery Alligator and the fierce Bobcat.

Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is based on his ingenious and profound poems, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in poetry. Poe was also the principal forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in 19th century literature. He demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe’s poetry greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature.

Esther Summerson, a young woman raised in a tough and unloving atmosphere, is unexpectedly requested to be a companion to two teenage orphans, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, for whom the court has appointed as guardian, John Jarndyce. They take up residence at Mr. Jarndyce’s home, Bleak House. The story of their lives and fortunes is the main thrust of the novel, and is related at times through the eyes of Esther, whose gentle point of view gives the listener a different and more intimate perspective.

In 30 Years a Slave Hughes provides vivid descriptions and explicit accounts of how the McGee plantation in Mississippi, and the McGee mansion in Tennessee functioned - accounts of the lives of the many slaves that lived, suffered and sometimes died under the cruel and unusual punishments meted out by Boss and his monstrously unstable and vindictive wife. He described the profane manner in which this peculiar institution dehumanized, on a daily basis, not only the black man but even more so the white man.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, both appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. Irving made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle.

Don Juan in Hell is an excerpt (Act 3, Scene 2) from George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. It is often performed as a standalone play. In it, three characters from Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Don Juan, Dona Ana, and the statue of the Commendatore, Dona Ana’s father) meet in Hell and, joined by the Devil, have a philosophical debate on a variety of subjects, including Heaven and Hell, men, women and marriage. In the end, they all decide where they will spend eternity.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. Carefully reproduced from the original artifact, this inspirational audiobook remains true to the original ancient Viking era texts.

First published anonymously in January 1776, Paine's pamphlet Common Sense became a colonial best seller. In a would-be nation of 4 million, some 150,000 copies were sold.

That's the equivalent of selling 12 million copies in today's United States. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it remains the all-time best-selling American title and is still in print today.

The Baskerville family curse tells of how a terrifying, supernatural hound roams the moors around Baskerville Hall and preys on members of the family in revenge for a terrible crime committed by one of their ancestors. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead in his grounds, with a large animal footprint near his lifeless body, the locals are convinced that the hound is back. It is up to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to uncover the truth and keep the new heir to Baskerville Hall safe from danger.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the original title of a novel written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll and the misanthropic Edward Hyde.

Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw that takes place in 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina Petkoff is engaged to the gallant Sergius Saranoff, hero of the recent Bulgarian victory over the Serbs. But she is distracted by the abrupt arrival of Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary who fought for the Serbian army. He takes refuge in her bedroom after the battle and although he is initially threatening, reveals that he carries chocolate creams instead of bullets. Will Raina marry the posturing Sergius or the chocolate cream soldier?

Britain won the moon race! Decades before Neal Armstrong took his "giant leap for mankind", two intrepid adventurers from Lympne, England, journeyed there using not a rocket, but an antigravity coating. Mr. Bedford, who narrates the tale, tells of how he fell in with eccentric inventor Mr. Cavor, grew to believe in his researches, helped him build a sphere for traveling in space, and then partnered with him in an expedition to the moon. What they found was fantastic!

Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character of the late 19th and early 20th century created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a brilliant London-based "consulting detective" famous for his intellectual prowess and renowned for his enormous scope of observation, his astute logical reasoning and forensic science skills in solving difficult crimes.

Sense and Sensibility is a classic novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne as they come of age. They have an older half-brother, John, and a younger sister, Margaret.

The Dead is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. The other stories in the collection are shorter, whereas at 15,952 words, The Dead is almost long enough to be described as a novella. Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over 30 internationally best-selling biographies, including the London Sunday Times best seller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison.

Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an industrialist.