Bev J Stevens
7 libri letti per LibriVox
- A Woman of No Importance EnglishWilde lets his idle aristocrats trade epigrams for two acts, and Lord Illingworth is horribly quotable, then the play turns serious when Mrs Arbuthnot's old secret surfaces. If you want pure froth you might resist the melodrama, but the wit alone earns the evening.
- Exiles EnglishJoyce's one play, and it's all talk, three people circling the question of whether love can survive total freedom, with Richard almost daring his partner Bertha toward another man. Slow and cerebral in the Ibsen mold, but if you like watching jealousy dissected honestly, it stings.
- Heartbreak House EnglishMostly it's clever people lounging in a house shaped like a ship, talking circles around each other while old Captain Shotover mutters prophecies from the corner, and somehow that's the fun. If you like Shaw's talk more than plot, this is him at his strangest, with a jolt at the end.
- Our American Cousin EnglishHonestly, you'd read this more for the history than the laughs, but Asa Trenchard, the blunt Vermont Yankee loose among his fussy English relatives, still lands a few. If you like creaky Victorian farce and Lord Dundreary's mangled proverbs, it's a quick, odd curiosity.
- The English Constitution saggistica EnglishYou get a sharp, surprisingly readable tour of Parliament, the cabinet, and the monarchy, with Bagehot distinguishing the “dignified” parts that command loyalty from the “efficient” parts that actually govern. It’s opinionated and dated in places, but his eye for political theater still makes the machinery feel human.
- The Way of the World EnglishThe plot is a tangle (everyone agrees, don't fight it), but you read this for Mirabell and Millamant bargaining over marriage like two lawyers who happen to be in love. If you like your romance conducted entirely through wit, this is the good stuff.
- Through the Brazilian Wilderness saggistica EnglishRoosevelt cataloguing birds and piranhas is pleasant enough, but the book turns quietly harrowing once the River of Doubt starts eating canoes and he's running a fever, still writing calmly. If you like old expedition accounts with real teeth, this earns its slow stretches.