Donne wrote biting satires, lusty love poetry, gentle love verses, and demanding thoughts about faith and religion. Some of his works are dark contemplations on death, others smirk at the reaper.

For some it may be difficult to read his words because of the English of his time, but they might well find delight in hearing them spoken when they are as well read as they are in The Great Poets Series produced by Naxos. John Donne as an Audio Book is fantastically accessible as read by two fine English actors, Geoffrey Whitehead and Will Keen. Both actors are well known for their appearances on stage as well as in a long list of television series familiar on this side of the Atlantic through PBS and TVO.

For those, who believe they are unfamiliar with Donne, let me remind them of just two expressions that are frequently used to make a specific point by almost everyone, who speaks English. 'No man is an island,' is a phrase we use when we want to reminding those who think they can go it alone that we are all interdependent. And then there is the darker note of, ''ask not for whom the bell tolls,' (which is a simplification of the actual words ' . . . never send to know for whom the bell tolls . . .,' ). Both are from Donne's Meditation XVII from his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, published in 1624.

Today we also know 'No Man is an Island' as the title of a book published in 1955 by the American Trappist Monk and author, Thomas Merton, about spirituality and monastic life. For Whom the Bell Tolls is, of course, the title of Ernest Hemingway's famous novel published in 1940, which is set against a background of the Spanish Civil War.

Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, which in 2001 was adapted for television by director Mike Nichols, uses his Holy Sonnet X as a devise for the protagonist to face death. The character assesses her own life through the intricacies of the English language and the use of wit in Donne's works.

Regrettably, Donne's Meditation XVII, which to some extent has become a household compendium of phrases, is not one of the works included in the Naxos Audio Book of Donne's works. But, there are 33 others that give a full and true measure of his thoughts, and his talents with words. It definitely includes Sonnet X (Track 8), which begins:

Also included is The Flea (Track 21), which is one of his more famous poems of a sexual nature, with a touch of his sharp humor. Here are the first four lines of the second stanza of this three-stanza poem:

Donne's personal feelings and anxieties are reflected in his Holy Sonnets written prior to his official denunciation of Catholicism and the embracing of the Anglican Church in 1615. Although it can be said that he had abjured the Roman Church earlier because he fought on the English side in the war against Spain. This placed him squarely on the wrong side of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Vatican.

Later he included his 17^th Holy Sonnet to this body of work. It mourns the death of his wife, Anne More, in 1617 five days after giving birth to a stillborn child, their 12^th child. Very unusual for his time he never remarried, despite having 10 children to look after.

While there are several of the Holy Sonnets included in this Audio Book, there is also the song Go and catch a falling star (Track 11). Over the years its first line has inspired various different interpretations into modern songs, though I doubt that any have quite the contrarian thoughts and sexual innuendo that Donne but into his:

GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devils foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging, . . .