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While the novel is humorous (one instance has the King sitting on top of an omnibus and speaking to it as to a horse: Forward, my beauty, my Arab, he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, fleetest of all thy bounding tribe), it is also an adventure story: Chesterton is not afraid to let blood be drawn in his battles, fought with sword and halberd in the London streets, and Wayne thinks up a few ingenious strategies; and, finally, the novel is philosophical, considering the value of one man's actions and the virtue of respect for one's enemies. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Adventure, Fantasy

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Safe in their Alabaster Chambers by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 6, 2012. Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.[3] Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Fantasy, Nature, Philosophy, Religion, Poetry

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Niels Klim's Underground Travels, originally published in Latin as Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741) is a satirical science-fiction/fantasy novel written by Ludvig Holberg, a Norwegian-Danish dramatist, historian, and essayist, born in Bergen, Norway. It was his first and only novel. It describes a utopian society from an outsider's point of view, and often pokes fun at diverse cultural and social topics such as moral, science, sexual equality, religion, governments, and philosophy....

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Fantasy, Science fiction, Satire

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volunteers bring you 19 recordings of Address to Certain Goldfishes by Hartley Coleridge. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for August 19, 2012. David Hartley Coleridge was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher. He was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Hartley Coleridge's literary reputation chiefly rests on his works of criticism, on his Prometheus, an unfinished lyric drama, and on his sonnets (a form which suited his particular skills)....

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Fantasy, Humor, Nature, Philosophy, Sea stories, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 17 recordings of Days by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 10, 2012. As a lecturer and orator, Emerson—nicknamed the Concord Sage—became the leading voice of intellectual culture in the United States. Herman Melville, who had met Emerson in 1849, originally thought he had a defect in the region of the heart and a self-conceit so intensely intellectual that at first one hesitates to call it by its right name, though he later admitted Emerson was a great man. Theodore Parker, a minister and Transcendentalist, noted Emerson's ability to influence and inspire others: the brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter nights, and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that great new start, a beauty and a mystery, which charmed for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspiration, as it led them forward along new paths, and towards new hopes. ( Summary from Wikipedia )...

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Fantasy, Philosophy, Myths/Legends, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 12 recordings of A Bird in a Gilded Cage by Arthur J. Lamb. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 2, 2011. A Bird in a Gilded Cage is a song composed by Arthur J. Lamb (lyrics) and Harry Von Tilzer (music). It was a sentimental ballad (or tear-jerker) that became one of the most popular songs of 1900,[1] reportedly selling more than two million copies in sheet music. (summary from Wiipedia)...

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Fantasy, Music, Philosophy, Romance, Poetry

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French colonists on a planet ruled by reptiles and amphibians are forced to wear living “skins” that subdue aggression and enforce vegetarianism. As children, Rastignac and his reptile friend Mapfarity force themselves to become carnivores and begin a protein fueled journey that causes Rastignac to develop a Philosophy of Violence. When a spaceship from Earth crashes in the ocean, Rastignac and company must put their philosophy to the test. - Rastignac The Devil was first published in the May 1954 issue of Fantastic Universe Magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Fantasy, Fiction, Science fiction

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Come and hear the strange tail of The Boss Hank Morgan, a modern day (at the time of publication) Connecticut Yankee who inexplicably finds himself transported to the court of the legendary King Arthur (as the title of the book implies). Hank, or simply, The Boss, as he comes to be most frequently known, quickly uses his modern day knowledge and education to pass himself off as a great magician, to get himself out of all sorts of surprising, (and frequently amusing) situations, as well as to advance the technological and cultural status of the nation in which he finds himself. In the rather un-subtle sub-text of the story, Twain uses The Boss to express a surprisingly pragmatic and frequently contradictory philosophy. The Boss explores the relative merits of Democracy, and Monarchy, he expresses his views on the “Nature v. Nurture” debate, he frequently speaks forcefully against an established Church, but just as strongly advocates for religion and a variety of churches (just not a compulsory one) and he devotes at least one afternoon to introducing his companions to the concept of inflation. In a far more subtle, yet no less forcef...

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Adventure, Fantasy, Satire