For Reading Out Loud

A generous-spirited as well as ingenious Sherlock Holmes tale, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.” The game’s afoot in more ways than one.

Expanding the story of the Three Wise Men, Henry van Dyke introduces us to the other wise man, whose name was Artaban, and whose quest and story have much to teach us.

Two Christmas tales this evening: “Our Lady’s Juggler” by Anatole France, and “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry.

Tonight’s story features the legendary prankster Hershel of Ostropol. The Hanukkah goblins are making the villagers’ life a misery. But will the goblins be a match for Hershel’s courage, purity of heart, and sly wit? Thanks to author Eric A. Kimmel for permission to share this story with you.

Arthur Schnitzler was one of the writers of “Young-Vienna” at the turn of the twentieth century. His stories are still read, his plays still performed. Stanley Kubrick based his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, on a Schnitzler Novelle. Tonight’s story is one of atmosphere and tension, a compelling read, but it is the conclusion that reveals what a remarkable observer and writer he was.

Maugham, Daisy 2 by For Reading Out Loud

Written in the late Victorian Age, tonight’s story begins like a Victorian morality story, but Somerset Maugham will present his own view of his characters and their destinies.

The language is Victorian, the ambiguity of the story is strikingly modern. This writer is a real discovery.

Stowe, The Sullivan Looking-Glass by For Reading Out Loud

A story tonight by the great Anatole France. I discovered it in 1960. It’s been one of my favorites ever since.

For Halloween, two of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short stories: The Telltale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado.

My childhood favorite from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” is the heroic adventure of a valiant young Indian gray mongoose. He more than returns the kindness of the family that rescues him.

Edgar Allan Poe’s ghastly story first appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1842. It embraced the traditions of the Gothic tale and has remained popular ever since, appearing in numerous collections and anthologies. Curiously ambiguous, it remains open to many interpretations.

Two authors tonight, one well known, one known to only a few. Both knew at the age of thirteen that they wanted to become famous authors.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s story “The Ghost in the Mill” is not only a cracking good ghost story; it is also a celebration of the fine old tradition of stories skillfully told around the fire when we were very young.

A yarn from O. Henry’s 1907 collection The Gentle Grafter. A tale of two charming flimflammers, with nicely plotted action, highfalutin dialogue, and, surprisingly, reflections on the ethics of their trade.

A midsummer outing on the lake. Tonight’s author is the beloved Canadian writer Stephen Leacock, and the story is taken from his book Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. I hope you will enjoy this story, with Leacock’s characteristic gentle irony and wry amusement.

A confirmed bachelor falls under the spell of a young woman on first sight. A story by Guy de Maupassant, one of the supreme short story authors.

When tonight’s author, Kate Chopin (1850-1904), was fifteen years old and living in St. Louis, Missouri, she snatched from the family’s front porch a flag put up by the victorious Union Army. She was promptly arrested and earned herself the affectionate label of the “Littlest Rebel in St. Louis.” When she was married, she and her husband moved to Louisiana, where she began her career as a writer....

Tonight’s author is H. H. Munro. Christopher Morley observed that the glass we raise for him is the fragile, hollow-stemmed goblet meant for the driest champagne; it is of finest crystal. Occasionally at his table we are aware that he was also a still wine of elect vintage; but for the most part he preferred to sparkle and fume with incessant bubbles of wit.

Bertie Wooster finds himself on a losing streak and lands himself at the mercy of his Aunt Agatha, a humorless Member of Parliament, and an angry swan. Only Jeeves, the perfect gentleman’s personal gentleman, is capable of extricating him from disaster.

Sometimes early situations and relationships place us under such stress that we develop survival mechanisms and patterns of behavior that help us cope. Having survived and dealt with traumatic stress, we may discover that the special behavior that once served us has become an enduring pattern of how we deal with the world. Is it to our benefit or harm? Caroline Noble, Willa Cather’s central charac...

Join me to listen to a Sherlock Holmes story that was one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's own personal favorites. Great fun, and one of his cleverest plots. Of the world that Doyle created, Vincent Starrett wrote, with great affection, a poem entitled 221B: Here dwell together still two men of note Who never lived and so can never die: How very near they seem, yet how remote That age before the world...

by Elizabeth von Arnim (b. 1866) read by Richard Figge

by Jerome K Jerome (b. 1859) read by Richard Figge Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog, published in 1889, is a humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide with accounts of local history along the route, but the humoro...