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“What Rama says once he carries out; there is no looking back.” Rama to Kaikeyi “Only the timid and the weak leave things to destiny but the strong never bank on destiny or luck.” Lakshmana to Rama The epic poem, by Maharishi Valmiki Muni, narrates the life of Lord Rama, a legendary prince of Ayodhya city in the kingdom of Kosala. The epic follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest urged by his father King Dasharatha, on the request of Rama’s stepmother Kaikeyi. He traveled across forests in the Indian subcontinent with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. Rama endured the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana – the demon king of Lanka, which resulted in a great war; and Rama’s eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king amidst jubilation and celebration. The Ramayana is one of the ancient epics in world literature consisting of nearly 24,000 verses. It is considered to be the Adi-kavya (first poem) depicting the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, ideal servant, ideal brother, ideal husband and ideal king. The Ramayana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Vedic life and culture.

Charles Dickens created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. After the success of A Christmas Carol in 1843 Dickens continued the series throughout the 1840s, maintaining what he called “the Carol philosophy” to “strike a sledgehammer blow” for the poor, uneducated, and repressed. In typical fashion he drove his message home with a mixture of humor and good cheer. Although subsequent Christmas books sold well at the time of their initial release, they have not enjoyed the staying power of A Christmas Carol. The Christmas books, particularly The Chimes, the Cricket, and the Carol, were the centerpiece of Dickens’ public reading tours in the 1850s and 60s with A Christmas Carol far and away the most popular with audiences. Dickens discontinued the Christmas books after The Haunted Man, devoting his time to the publication of weekly magazines, Household Words (1850-1858) and All the Year Round (1859-1867), in which he included annual Christmas stories. Henceforth Dickens was forever linked with the celebration of Christmas. We present them here as a special Icon classic five audiobook collection. 

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his law practice but became vexed by the opening of additional lands to slavery as a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He reentered politics in 1854, becoming a leader in the new Republican Party, and he reached a national audience in the 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas. Lincoln ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North in victory. Pro-slavery elements in the South equated his success with the North’s rejection of their right to practice slavery, and southern states began seceding from the Union. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States fired on Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in the South, and Lincoln called up forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union.

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818. He was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at university. He married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the reading room of the British Museum. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). His political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history, and his name has been used as an adjective, a noun and a school of social theory. 

This exclusive audio program is the fruit of Geoffrey Giuliano’s (Jagannatha Dasa) long search for spiritual meaning, having studied with many masters of the 20th century including Meher Baba, Maharishi, Ram Das, Bhaktivedanta Swami, Neem Keroli Baba, Swami Satchitananda, and Yogananda, among others. Giuliano resided in the most sacred places of India over the past 30 years collecting stories, editing fables, and otherwise making this ancient wisdom accessible with special emphasis on the moral, ethical, and spiritual education of children. 

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly referred to as The Chimes, is a novella written by Charles Dickens first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of “Christmas books,” five novellas with strong social and moral messages he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, the Christmas books include The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848).

The Children’s Book of Christmas Stories brings together some of the most beloved stories of all time. With 35 wonderful stories from greats like Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Elizabeth Harrison and Theodore Goodridge Roberts this book will be cherished by the whole family for years to come. A Christmas Star by Katherine Pyle The First Christmas Tree by Lucy Wheelock The First New England Christmas by G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett Why the Chimes Rang by Raymond McAlden A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and many more beloved stories. Here is a delightful classic tail sure to delight children of all ages. A fast moving fun story with lots of surprises guaranteed to elicit a lot of wide-eyed Wonder from the little ones we all love. A true family audio treasure! Sharing wonderful stories between the generations is one of the surest ways to bring a family closer together and keep them that way. Here is an audiobook beautifully crafted in the grandest tradition of fine young people’s literature. I must have for every family!

Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly fifty books, both novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. Huxley spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.

Includes a rare treasury of ultra-rare previously unheard conversations with the esteemed intellectual.