This discussion between best-selling authors Deborah Tannen (You Just Don't Understand) and Robert Bly (Iron John) is presented as a sort of continuing education program. It is utterly delightful. The authors are both funny and serious. They care a great deal about the topic of women and men's conversational styles. The production is so well done that even questions from the audience are picked up by the microphones. 

Robert Bly - one of the most compelling mythologists and storytellers of our time - captures the imagination in two live recordings. In The Human Shadow, Bly takes us on a thought provoking and entertaining journey exploring our "shadow" through poetry, music, and storytelling. What Stories Do We Need? reminds us that the mythology we have inherited is often defective. Just as the church refused to accept the reality Galileo saw in his telescope, literalists have removed the dark soul images that nourished our ancestors from mythology.

In this national best-seller, Robert Bly explores the idea of the missing father in contemporary society. He draws upon a cornucopia of legend and literature - as varied as the poetry of William Blake, Jungian psychology, and Sioux initiation rituals - to encourage men in their pursuit of the “inner warrior.”

"As a man is, so he sees." These words of mystical poet and artist William Blake are just as relevant now as they were when they were written in 1802 - perhaps more so. Throughout his life, Blake undertook a voyage beyond rationality and materialism to an interior, visionary realm where "all things appear as they are - infinite." Yet all human beings, he believed, are capable of opening their eyes to a fuller experience of life.

Robert Bly looks beyond the individual psyche to the problems of our public life, explaining why we as a culture are so adrift. What he finds is an infantilized society in which the battle between youth and age has been won by youth. Bly argues that in the collapse of the old patriarchal worldview, we are becoming a world of "siblings" who do not look up to heroes, leaders, or God, but only sideways at an army of siblings like ourselves. Through the psychological lessons embedded in ancient folk tales, Bly challenges us to move beyond our own adolescent envy and fantasy. 

In ordinary life, a mentor can guide a young man through various disciplines, helping to bring him out of boyhood into manhood; and that in turn is associated not with bodybuilding, but with building an emotional body capable of containing more than one sort of ecstasy. 

A poet, translator, and social theorist, Bly has published more than 30 collections of poetry, including The Light Around the Body (1967), which won a National Book Award, and most recently Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected Poems (2013). His honors include fellowships from Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America. 

Where have all the grown-ups gone? In answering that question with the same freewheeling erudition and intuitive brilliance that made Iron John a national best seller, poet, storyteller, and translator Robert Bly tells us that we live in a "sibling society" in which adults have regressed into adolescence and adolescents refuse to grow up. We are proud to present a previously unreleased lecture featuring both Marion Woodman and Robert Bly on the subject of the sibling society!

Bly describes the three necessary and sequential life phases symbolized by three colors - the "red, white and black," in the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale "Iron John." He casts a penetrating light on these male life stages, describing complications that arise, for example, when a boy skips the red and goes directly to the white. He also discusses how these stages, when fulfilled, affect men's relationships with women.

 A Course in Miracles says that this world and every aspect of it got started when the Son of God remembered not to laugh. What we failed to laugh at is the joke that is ourselves. Now, however, you can have a true experience of metaphysical mirth - you might even, yourself, achieve "full realization". 

An extraordinary visit with one of America's leading poets provides a unique exploration of the mystery of maleness. Bly uses fairy tales to illuminate the dark recesses of the psyche, and the result is a powerful intimation of the male experience and potential. From the soft, feminine male persona to the deeply buried wildman, Bly takes us on a journey through unmapped territory of the masculine. For men and women this is a conversation not to be missed.

Jalaluddin Rumi is unquestionably one of the greatest spiritual poets of the world. This audio features Robert Bly and Coleman Barks each reading his own versons of Rumi. Brilliant musical accompaniment provides playfulness and ground to great spiritual expression.

In this discussion, Bly talks of four sources of shame, including shame inherited from parents, grandparents, and ancestors, and shame over our bodily and creative instincts. It opens with a Russian fairy story on the Frog Princess and the shame we feel over our interior "Frog Bride." Bly and host Michael Toms discuss the new work in America on shame, most of it done during the last ten years.

Characterized by petty rivalries, self-indulgence and lack of responsibility, our actions fail to fulfill what Robert Bly describes as our true soul longing. With characteristic irreverence and storytelling from various cultures, Bly tells us what we should be doing about green-haired adolescents and idle elders, not to mention televisions and computers. His insightful focus illuminates the truths and possibilities of a culture caught in an adolescent phase of development.

James Hillman was a past master of alchemical psychology. This field uses metaphors derived from ancient alchemy to elucidate deep structures in the creative imagination. Creative processes are not random. By studying alchemical psychology we come to understand ourselves and other humans in surprising ways that frequently diverge sharply from the habitual understandings we have unconsciously absorbed from the cultures in which we were raised.

When a woman or a father attacks a naive male, he immediately opens himself up and takes the attack right into himself. "Oh, yes, that is true. I am really bad!" It does not occur to him that the attack may be something quite different. Maybe the woman or father is angry at something else and is displacing or projecting the anger onto the man. The naive male takes in the attack, feels the wound, and then bends over, psychologically.  

Robert Bly - one of the most compelling mythologists and storytellers of our time - captures the imagination in two live recordings. In The Human Shadow, Bly takes us on a thought provoking and entertaining journey exploring our "shadow" through poetry, music, and storytelling. What Stories Do We Need? reminds us that the mythology we have inherited is often defective. Just as the church refused to accept the reality Galileo saw in his telescope, literalists have removed the dark soul images that nourished our ancestors from mythology.

Naxos AudioBooks continues its new series of Great Poets, represented by collections of their most popular poems in one program. W. B. Yeats was one of the most beloved poets of the 20th century. He left a large legacy of outstanding poems, and the finest are collected here: "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Lake Isle of Inisfree," "The Secret Rose," and "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". They are read by a strong cast, led by Olivier award-winner Jim Norton.

William Butler Yeats remains one of the most popular poets of the 20th century.

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Secret Rose": these are just a few of the poems that made William Butler Yeats an international figure. Born in Dublin in 1865, Yeats drew strength from the Irish tradition, as can be seen in this special audiobook, which presents the most important poems in the context of his life and ambitions.

A wonderful selection of Yeats' finest work, read by the author himself along with Siobhan McKenna and others.

You think you know the truth about the people you love. But one discovery can change everything.... Eight-year-old Billy goes missing one day, out flying his kite with his sister Rose. Two days later he is found dead. Sixteen years on, Rose still blames herself for Billy's death. How could she have failed to protect her little brother? Rose has never fully recovered from the trauma, and one of the few people she trusts is her neighbour Ronnie, who she has known all her life.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

A Signature Performance: Tim Curry rescues Charles Dickens from the jaws of Disney with his one-of-a-kind performance of the treasured classic. Our listeners loved this version so much that it inspired our whole line of Signature Classics.

Fingerprints of the Gods is the revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of listeners throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the history behind modern society. An intellectual detective story, this unique history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.

First published in 1843, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean and unpleasant man who dislikes people generally and Christmas especially. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and given a glimpse of the many homes and lives which Scrooge has touched in his wretched life to date. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. 

When 10-year-old cousins Maddy and Brianna are arrested for a terrible crime, Maddy’s mother, Juliet, cannot believe it. How could her bright, joyful daughter be capable of such a thing? As the small village community recoils in horror, the pressure of the tragedy blows Juliet and her sister’s lives apart. And things get even worse when their daughters retreat into a self-imposed silence. Can anyone reach Maddy and discover the truth before her fate is sealed? Juliet is crushed. Nothing will ever be the same for her darling girl.