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Tom Sawyer is a dare-devil, a schemer, a prankster, a main-chancer. His inventiveness and energy know no bounds; whenever his Aunt Polly thinks he is tucked up in bed, he is most likely creeping out into the night on deeds of daring – ‘not the Model Boy of the village,’ as the author puts it. In creating this humorous and dramatic story of childhood, Mark Twain has given us a vivid picture of life in a small town on the Mississippi in the mid-nineteenth century and created one of the most popular boy heroes in literature.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the story of a boy’s adventures growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi river over a hundred years ago. The cheerful, adventurous hero plays truant to form a pirate band and, together with his best friend, Huckleberry Finn, finds fun and excitement, and buried treasure, along the shores of the great river.

A Very Short Introduction to Classics links a haunting temple on a lonely mountainside to the glory of ancient Greece and the grandeur of Rome, and to Classics within modern culture – from Jefferson and Byron to Asterix and Ben-Hur. ‘Statues and slavery, temples and tragedies, museum, marbles and mythology’ – this provocative guide to the Classics demystifies its varied subject-matter while seducing the reader with the obvious enthusiasm and pleasure which mark its writing.

One of the greatest classic horror stories, Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel sees Dr Frankenstein manufacture life – The Monster – only to see it go beyond his control. The original novel is more sympathetic to the monster’s plight than is generally presented on film, making it an important book to be read. This abridged version with music is an ideal introduction to teenagers, making it a key release in the first year of Naxos AudioBooks’ new series ‘Young Adult Classics’. Comes with an embedded CD-ROM containing A Study Guide and both the abridged and unabridged text.

Japanese poetry is well-known for its clarity and concision, and Narrow Road to the Interior and Hōjōki are two of the best-loved, and most intensely Japanese, works of their kind; famous for their beautiful, delicate verse and subtle insight into the human condition. It has been said of Narrow Road that ‘it was as if the very soul of Japan had itself written it’. It takes the form of a travel diary, and traces the poet’s journey from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to the northern interior. Hōjōki, a much earlier work written by Chōmei, a Buddhist hermit, is essentially a meditation on the transience of the world. Read by the famous classical Japanese actor Togo Igawa, the full beauty of its ancient cadences and rhythms is drawn out. Also includes detailed notes on Narrow Road to the Interior, on CD-ROM.

A sublime new box set from Naxos featuring eight discs of music to relax to.

The perfect antidote to these troubled times, the MEDITATION box from Naxos will help you calm down and unwind after a stressful day.

With eight different discs to choose from, including Early Music, Bach and Chopin, there’s something for everybody in this specially priced box set.