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A melodramatic folksy Christmas story, a little like Dickens – with a Tiny Tim, but also with some romance. Tarkington’s writings are very much set in his early 1900s American culture. We are meant to sympathize with the crippled child but not even notice the slights to the black servants. Still, Tarkington promotes kindness and uses a milder style of humor than many authors of his day.

Dr. Richard Alpert, a former Harvard professor and Timothy Leary cohort, was an icon of the hippie, LSD-fueled revolution of the 1960s. Thereafter, on a trip to India – like Clark Kent changing into Superman – he became the much-beloved spiritual teacher Baba Ram Das. His 1970s’ iconic book Be Here Now turned on a generation to the deep, non-sectarian spirituality within us all. Author Jagannatha Dasa became friends with Ram Das in the early ’70s and traveled across America, playing Indian drums at his speaking engagements. During that time, the two discussed the publication of some of his lectures, but nothing was ever done, and the two lost touch. Now, finally, after all these years, Jagannatha Dasa keeps his promise to his old friend, publishing this original audio history of one of our most inspired and cherished spiritual teachers.

Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published as a serial in Fraser’s Magazine in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rake and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. The novel is narrated by Lyndon himself, who functions as a quintessentially unreliable narrator. The novel was adapted by Stanley Kubrick into his 1975 film Barry Lyndon.

Barnaby Rudge is a historical novel by British novelist Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was one of two novels (the other was The Old Curiosity Shop) Dickens published in his short-lived (1840–1841) weekly serial Master Humphrey’s Clock. This book is largely set during the Gordon Riots of 1780. Barnaby Rudge was the fifth of Dickens’ novels to be published. It had initially been planned to appear as his first, but changes of publisher led to many delays, and it first appeared in serial form in the Clock from February to November 1841. This was Dickens’ first historical novel. His only other is A Tale of Two Cities (1859), also set in revolutionary times