Classic Women's Short Stories (Classic Literature with Classical Music) [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Katherine Mansfield (Author), Virginia Woolf (Author), Kate Chopin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2001 | Series: Classic Literature with Classical Music

Five stories from influential women writers from the close of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. It features "The Garden Party" and "Daughters of the Late Colonel" by Mansfield, "Lilacs" and "Ma'ame Pelagie" by Kate Chopin and "A Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This fine collection of classic tales by women is complemented by appropriate, unobtrusive classical music from the Naxos music catalogue, along with a booklet with biographies of the authors and readers. All of the narrators are exemplary, but Teresa Gallagher's performance of Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" stands out. In this unusual stream-of-consciousness story, a woman sitting idly in her home notices a tiny speck on the wall, and as she wonders what it is (a hole from a nail? Dirt? An insect?) her thoughts wander to the people who owned the house previously, to history, to philosophy, to her own life and always back to the mark on the wall. Gallagher sounds completely spontaneous: listeners can easily believe that she truly is daydreaming and thinking aloud. In Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party," Carole Boyd's insightful performance accurately portrays British class distinctions post-WWI. Laura, an elite young girl, frets that her family should cancel their long-anticipated party out of respect when a workman is killed in front of their house, but her elders hush her, believing that "people like that" wouldn't expect them to spoil their fun. Boyd deftly creates character voices for Laura, her family, the home and garden workers, and for the poverty-stricken family that she later visits. Her reading conveys Laura's conflict between her former comfortable ignorance and her new social awareness.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 & Up--Five short stories by three women, each from a different English speaking culture and each recognized as both a short story writer and early feminist, are read here by three accomplished narrators. Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party" and "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" explore issues of class identity and family relations as their protagonists show off the limits and flexibility of their own self-awareness. Kate Chopin's "Ma'ame Pelagie" offers an atypical, but credible viewpoint on once-landed women experiencing the South's defeat in the American Civil War. In her "Lilacs," the scene is differently exotic: a convent in France. Finally, Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" gives listeners a taste of the author's cerebral approach to matters of the individual's interior psychology. The first three of these stories are accessible to readers and listeners who expect the genre to offer movement from beginning to middle to end, but the last two demand more sophistication. Carole Boyd, Liza Ross, and Teresa Gallagher are well-chosen for the stories each of them reads, melding their tones both to the characters and to the writer's narrative style. None of the individual stories is abridged, although each appears in print within different collections. The publisher's typical musical interludes are chosen well to offset the period moods of both the parts and the whole.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Naxos; Unabridged edition (December 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9626342382
• ISBN-13: 978-9626342381
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,188,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( W ) > Woolf, Virginia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring, boring boring, November 2, 2008

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Pam (Monterey CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic Women's Short Stories (Classic Literature with Classical Music) (Audio CD)

I am very sorry I bought this.The stories were painfully executed and boring. I am not so sure what is classic about these stories either.