Just Reads

Episode One: Introduction The Time Machine is an 1895 dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The ter...

The spirit of Baelbrow was a inoffensive and unintrusive ghost. But something changed. And not for the better. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

The Juniper Tree " (also " The Almond Tree "; Low German: Von dem Machandelboom ) is a German fairy tale published in Low German by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812 (KHM 47).The story contains themes of child abuse, murder, cannibalism and biblical symbolism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales. The tale is of Aarne–Thompson type 720 ("The Juniper...

James Thurber is one of the funniest writers of his age, or most other age. I recommend him highly. His works are touching, nostaligic, well observed and above all, funny. He wrote the Secret Life of Walter Mitty His memorial is in trouble; The Thurber House is a non-profit which introduces people to his life and work. They need to raise $200,000 to keep going for another 40 years. Any revenue gen...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes...

"Snow White" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, numbered as Tale 53. The original title was Sneewittchen, which is a partial translation from Low German. The modern spelling is Schneewittchen. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which...

"The Haunted Doll's House" is a 1923 short story by M. R. James, collected by him in A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories. It was commissioned by Queen Mary, wife of George V, as a miniature book for her famous Dolls' House, which can still be seen in Windsor Castle. It is in many ways a typical James story, thematically linked to other works of his, especially "The Mezzotint" Become a...

Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing. He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster comp...

The hero is the youngest of three brothers, given the nickname "Dummling" (Simpleton). His eldest brother is sent into the forest to chop wood (the Task), fortified with a rich cake and a bottle of wine. He meets a little gray man (the Disguised Helper) who begs a morsel to eat and a drop to drink but is rebuffed. The eldest brother meets an accident and is taken home. The second brother meets a s...

Drawing from his extensive experience in assisting with cases of demonic oppression and possession, in The Exorcism Files, Adam Blai presents listeners with enlightening true stories and traces their causation. Whether people provided a gateway through Ouija boards or tarot cards, Blai reports from firsthand observation how they were lured into the occult. Blai also recounts shocking cases of part...

During the cholera outbreak in New York, a man visited his relative's cottage on the banks of the Hudson River. They spent their days engaging in various activities, but the news of death and disease from the city constantly haunted them.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

History resting on a hair's breadth … a man dies rather than lives, an election is lost rather than won, one minister is appointed, another dismissed, a coalition is joined, or not. Enter a world of political counterfactuals, twenty-two examinations of things that never happened - but could have. In this book a collection of distinguished commentators, including journalists, academics, former MPs...

"The Robber Bridegroom" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 40. Joseph Jacobs included a variant, Mr Fox, in English Fairy Tales but the original provenance is much older; Shakespeare (circa 1599) alludes to the Mr. Fox variant in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1: Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support...

Throughout his career, Barry Cryer has collaborated with all the greats, from Max Miller to Tony Hancock, Bob Hope, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, John Cleese, Kenny Everett, Tommy Cooper, Spike Milligan, Morecambe and Wise ... in fact pretty well all the best comedians and comic writers since the mid-1950s. He has also collaboratively penned series like 'Hello Cheeky!', toured with Willie Rushton i...

" The Seven Ravens " (German: Die sieben Raben ) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 25). It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), commonly found throughout Europe. Other variants of the Aarne–Thompson type include The Six Swans , The Twelve Wild Ducks , Udea and her Seven Brothers , The Wild Swans , and The Twelve Brothers . The 1937 animated...

Once again I have not had the time to go through and find a decent book to recommend, so here is a reading of the Grimm Brothers classic tale, Hansel and Gretel. Enjoy. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

Told in Garry Shandling's inimitable style which weaves together fact and fiction so that it makes it impossible to determine the difference between Sanders and Shandling. This is a close-up inspection of what makes Larry Sanders tick: his loves, his addictions, his friends and his enemies. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Plea...

as I haven't read anything this week, and therefore would have to resort to providing a review of my bank statement, a pizza flyer or a note telling me there's a parcel left for me while I had the timerity to be out, or read something quite good instead, I thought I would give you this It's H.G. Wells 'The Truth About Pyecraft'. Enjoy. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/p...

The Dead Sea Scrolls is a comprehensive guide to the meaning and significance of one of the most fascinating and controversial archaeological discoveries of the last century. - Provides an overview of the contents of the scrolls - Explores why the scrolls were written and when: are they from the time of Christ or are they copies of much older texts? - Explores the links between the ideas contained...

From Windsor to Weymouth, the shadow of scandal was never too far from the walls of the House of Hanover. Did a fearsome duke really commit murder or a royal mistress sell commissions to the highest bidders, and what was the truth behind George III's supposed secret marriage to a pretty Quaker? With everything from illegitimate children to illegal marriages, dead valets and equerries sneaking abou...

An aged compendium of events in history published in 1981 with even older jokes. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff.

On which day was history's shortest war waged and won (in roughly 40 minutes)? How was Napoleon bested by a group of rabbits in 1807? Why did a dispute about beer in an Oxford pub lead to over 100 deaths and 470 years of penance? Why in 1752 did Britain go to bed on 2nd September and wake up on the 14th? How did a women's march in 1917 set off the Russian Revolution? On This Day in History brings...

"The Signal-Man" is a horror mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round. The story is told from a fictional first-person perspective. The railway signal-man of the title tells the narrator of an apparition that has been haunting him. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podca...

New York-born John Kendrick Bangs was associate editor and then editor of Life and Harper magazines, eventually finding his way into the Humour department. Here he began to write his own satire and humour. Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others is a delightfully humourous collection of short tales relating encounters with ghosts. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just...

"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. First published in The Pall Mall Gazette in December 1884, its characters were based on criminals in the employ of the surgeon Robert Knox around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders in 1828. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click...