Showing results by narrator "John Stanbridge" in All Categories

"The People of the Abyss" (1903) is a work by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account after living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. The conditions he experienced and wrote about, were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor.

"Sadhana, The Realisation of Life" (1913) is a book of meditation by Rabindranath Tagore. Excerpt from the work: "Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of the papers published in this book has not been philosophically treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of view.

"Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" (1931) is the title of M. R. James' first collection of ghost stories. He wrote many of his ghost stories to be read aloud in the long tradition of spooky Christmas Eve tales. By contrast to the gothic tales of his predecessors, James' stories often use rural settings, with a quiet, scholarly protagonist getting caught up in the activities of supernatural forces. The details of horror are almost never explicit, the stories relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasize the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions.

"The Song of Hiawatha" (1855) is an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that features Native American characters. The epic relates the adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his love for Minnehaha. Events in the story are set in the Pictured Rocks area on the south shore of Lake Superior. Longfellow's poem, though based on native oral traditions surrounding the figure of Manabozho, represents not a work of transmission but an original work of American Romantic literature.

In "The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry" (1902) M. M. Pattison Muir reveals the history of Chemistry from the old Greek thinkers until his own age, the end of the 19th century. Excerpt: "'The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry' is very interesting in itself. It is also a pregnant example of the contrast between the scientific and the emotional methods of regarding nature; and it admirably illustrates the differences between well-grounded, suggestive, hypotheses, and baseless speculations."

"Three Men on the Bummel" (1900) is a comical travelogue by Jerome K. Jerome. The three companions are on a bicycle tour through the German Black Forest. What does Bummel mean? D. C. Browning writes: "The title must be puzzling to many readers, for 'bummel' will not be found in English dictionaries." You can learn its meaning at the last chapter of the book, which is a series of humorous vignettes, each of which builds slowly, through accumulation of layer on layer of detail, through several pages.

"Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories" (1913) is a collection of short horror stories by Ambrose Bierce. This edition includes 19 stories in three categories: "The Ways of Ghosts", "Soldier Folk", and "Some Haunted Houses". Suggestion for listening to this recording: sit alone in the semidarkness of your room, late at night. Do you hear the wind blowing, dogs barking, and the creepy scratching somewhere close? Do you like that inner chill which goes up and down your spine?

"Crime: Its Cause and Treatment" (1922) contains Clarence Darrow’s thoughts on the subject. "This book comes from the reflections and experience of more than forty years spent in court. Aside from the practice of my profession, the topics I have treated are such as have always held my interest and inspired a taste for books that discuss the human machine with its manifestations and the causes of its varied activity.

"The Five Jars" (1922) is a novel by M. R. James. The story is about a man who can get superpowers using the special material found in the jars. Our hero has enemies from the other world, they try to get his jars. Speaking cats and attacking bats are all making the brilliant plot more captivating.

"The Ghosts of Piccadilly" (1907) is a "gossip book" about the famous inhabitants of Piccadilly, by G. S. Street. "If any part of any city deserves a book to itself, it is Piccadilly. We shall stand before some house in the hours when the traffic is stilled, and I shall tell of its history, of the men and women who dwelt there, and talked and loved and gambled and lived and died.