Classic Audiobook Collection

• The Fat and the Thin, Book Three of Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Emile Zola ~ Full Audiobook [family]

  The Fat and the Thin, Book Three of Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Emile Zola audiobook. Genre: family Part of Emile Zola’s monumental Rougon-Macquart cycle, The Fat and the Thin plunges the listener into the heady, pungent world of mid‑19th‑century Paris, where appetite and ambition shape the fate of families and the fortunes of a city. With hallucinatory sensory detail and uncompromising social observation, Zola paints the great market and its surrounding quarters as a living organism — overflowing with abundance for some, barely subsisting for others — and sets intimate human dramas against the grinding machinery of power and class. This audiobook invites you to wander through the stalls, overhear whispered betrayals, and feel the pressure of hunger and desire that drive characters to tenderness, cruelty, or desperate revolt. At once a vivid portrait of daily life and a searing satire of greed and complacency, The Fat and the Thin is storytelling that rewards attentive listening: the cadence of Zola’s sentences and the richness of his scene‑setting come alive in a performance that turns smell and sound into narrative force. Ideal for lovers of literary realism and historical social drama, this installment of the Rougon‑Macquart series reveals how personal appetites mirror wider political appetites — and how the fortunes of a family are folded into the fortunes of an era. Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:26:42) Chapter 01 (01:20:04) Chapter 02 (02:16:04) Chapter 03 (03:17:57) Chapter 04 (04:09:20) Chapter 05 (05:07:11) Chapter 06 (06:06:11) Chapter 07 (07:08:24) Chapter 08 (08:21:02) Chapter 09 (09:30:53) Chapter 10 (10:29:31) Chapter 11 (11:29:18) Chapter 12 (12:26:28) Chapter 13 (13:27:41) Chapter 14 (14:00:51) Chapter 15 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  14:57:19

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  14:57:19
• The Rush for the Spoil, Book Two of Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Emile Zola ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

  The Rush for the Spoil, Book Two of Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Emile Zola audiobook. Genre: drama Set against the roaring transformation of Second Empire Paris, The Rush for the Spoil is Émile Zola’s vivid, uncompromising portrait of money, desire, and moral collapse. As vast boulevards rise from the old neighborhoods and fortunes are made overnight by ruthless speculation, Aristide Saccard pursues a dazzling empire of real estate while his young wife Renée drifts into a gilded prison of luxury and forbidden passion. Zola’s narrator leads listeners through glittering salons, subterranean deals and decadent bedrooms with an unflinching ear for the social forces that drive people to ruin: ambition, vanity, greed and the intoxicating promise of quick wealth. Lushly atmospheric and sharply observed, this audiobook offers the grandeur of Haussmann’s Paris, the fever of a society remade by capitalism, and the tragic human cost beneath the surface glamour — a dramatic, immersive experience that makes the past feel urgent and disturbingly modern. Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:15:00) Chapter 01 (01:09:21) Chapter 02 (02:07:59) Chapter 03 (03:17:18) Chapter 04 (04:20:03) Chapter 05 (05:02:37) Chapter 06 (06:05:54) Chapter 07 (07:07:45) Chapter 08 (08:22:11) Chapter 09 (09:12:58) Chapter 10 (09:59:20) Chapter 11 (10:37:10) Chapter 12 (11:34:38) Chapter 13 (12:37:00) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  13:46:49

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  13:46:49
• The Fortune of the Rougons, Book One of Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Emile Zola ~ Full Audiobook [family]

  The Fortune of the Rougons, Book One of Rougon-Macquart Cycle by Emile Zola audiobook. Genre: family In The Fortune of the Rougons, Émile Zola opens his monumental Rougon-Macquart cycle with a vivid, unflinching portrait of a provincial French town and the birth of a family whose fortunes will come to define an era. Set against the turmoil of the 1851 coup and the rise of the Second Empire, the novel follows the descendants of Adélaïde Fouque—known as Tante Dide—as ambition, heredity, and circumstance split her brood into two distinct branches: the calculating, opportunistic Rougons and the ragged, rebellious Macquarts. Zola renders Plassans with surgical precision and rich, sensory detail: the whispering salons, the pulsing political meetings, the slow decay of old loyalties and the greedy mechanics of social advancement. Through sharp scenes of intrigue, persuasion, and small betrayals, The Fortune of the Rougons explores how power is seized and justified, how private motives become public consequence, and how a single family can mirror the larger forces shaping a nation. For listeners, this audiobook offers not only a gripping story of ambition and conflict but also the theater of Zola’s naturalist vision — vivid characters, moral complexity, and a historical atmosphere that crackles with unrest. It’s the compelling opening act of a vast saga: immersive, intellectually compelling, and impossible to forget. Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:13:52) Chapter 01 (00:17:44) Chapter 02 (00:55:48) Chapter 03 (01:40:56) Chapter 04 (02:20:16) Chapter 05 (03:26:07) Chapter 06 (04:10:50) Chapter 07 (05:19:24) Chapter 08 (06:25:43) Chapter 09 (07:28:42) Chapter 10 (08:29:22) Chapter 11 (09:29:56) Chapter 12 (10:07:35) Chapter 13 (11:10:13) Chapter 14 (12:17:39) Chapter 15 (13:20:32) Chapter 16 (13:35:52) Chapter 17 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  14:51:05

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  14:51:05
• The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

  The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim audiobook. Genre: comedy Step into the sunlit, wryly observant world of Elizabeth von Arnim with The Caravaners, a delightful voyage of wit, weather and wandering hearts that makes for a supremely charming audiobook. As travelers set off in creaking caravans across variegated landscapes, von Arnim’s keen eye and gentle satire transform everyday moments — a misplaced hat, a quarrel over directions, a chance encounter in a village inn — into luminous, laugh-out-loud vignettes about friendship, freedom and the small absurdities of social life. Listeners will be carried along by the novel’s episodic pace, where travel itself becomes a mirror for the characters’ inner journeys: escapes from stifling routines, discoveries of unexpected camaraderie, and the slow, sly unravelling of pretensions. Perfectly suited to the audio format, the book’s dialogue sparkles and its pastoral details — the rattle of wheels, the hush of country lanes, the clink of teacups at roadside stops — come alive through a warm narration, making it easy to imagine sun on your face as the road unfolds. Funny, tender and quietly subversive, The Caravaners offers a restorative listen for anyone who loves comic social observation, early 20th-century charm, and stories about the liberating unpredictability of travel. Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:24:23) Chapter 02 (00:54:01) Chapter 03 (01:24:34) Chapter 04 (01:56:42) Chapter 05 (02:18:57) Chapter 06 (02:38:40) Chapter 07 (02:58:39) Chapter 08 (03:19:14) Chapter 09 (03:44:07) Chapter 10 (04:08:52) Chapter 11 (04:34:40) Chapter 12 (05:03:20) Chapter 13 (05:35:29) Chapter 14 (06:04:07) Chapter 15 (06:27:02) Chapter 16 (06:47:56) Chapter 17 (07:11:59) Chapter 18 (07:44:12) Chapter 19 (08:22:26) Chapter 20 (08:48:26) Chapter 21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  9:11:27

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  9:11:27
• Our Little Mexican Cousin by Edward Crompton Butler ~ Full Audiobook [family]

  Our Little Mexican Cousin by Edward Crompton Butler audiobook. Genre: family Edward Crompton Butler’s Our Little Mexican Cousin is a warm, old-fashioned portrait of childhood abroad that invites listeners into the daily life, festivals and family circle of a young Mexican child. Told with affectionate detail and a gentle, observant voice, the book follows simple scenes — sunlit kitchens, bustling mercados, schoolroom chatter, neighborhood games and the bright pageantry of local celebrations — that together create a vivid, human picture of a different culture. Butler’s vignettes highlight the smells, sounds and small adventures of growing up: the taste of homestyle food, the rattle of street vendors, the music and color of fiestas, and the steady bonds of kin and community that shape a child’s world. Educational without ever feeling preachy, this classic offers listeners both curiosity and comfort, making distant customs accessible through one child’s point of view. Perfect for family listening, classroom enrichment, or anyone who delights in gentle cultural travel, the audiobook brings these charming scenes to life and encourages empathy, wonder and a love of discovery. Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:02:56) Chapter 01 (00:17:55) Chapter 02 (00:28:24) Chapter 03 (00:41:19) Chapter 04 (00:55:34) Chapter 05 (01:13:37) Chapter 06 (01:23:51) Chapter 07 (01:32:40) Chapter 08 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  1:49:54

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