The Classic Tales Podcasts and Audiobooks

Last Friday, marked the 6th anniversary of B.J. Harrison's The Classic Tales Podcast .  This gives me the perfect opportunity to write about some of my favorite stories he has produced during the many years I've listened to the Podcast. I am trying to remember what the first story I listened to was, I think it was Arthur Conan Doyle's " The Speckled Band ."  Although I had read that story a bunch of times, B.J. really made it come alive to me.  Ever since then, each time I read a Sherlock Holmes story, it is his version of the sleuth I hear in my head. Also, if you haven't heard B.J.'s  Jeeves and Wooster you are so missing out.  But don't worry, he has bundled all of the books and stories he's recorded by P.G. Wodehouse for you.  You will love every minute of it and be in constant stitches! But getting to listen to some of my favorite stories is only part of what makes me love this podcast.  There are so many wonderful books and short stori...

Purchase the Podcast Release of Moby Dick here! I've realized that this is a book I've had to do for some years now, since it is one of the books that pops into people's heads when you hear the word "Classic" in its relation to fiction. It's one of those novels that everybody's heard of, and nobody ever reads. It's definitely no featherweight. When I first read Moby Dick, (I should say here that this is the first time I have actually "read" the book i.e. decoding the words mentally. I have listened to the audiobook twice before producing it.), I was struck by the fact that it felt like two books: a textbook and an adventure novel. Only now that I have had the opportunity of being deluged in the text has it hit me how inextricably connected is the plot with the expository information of whaling. Since we are now historically so distant from whaling, (or are we? The main ingredient of WD-40 is Fish Oil), the novel could almost be d...

The Phantom Unmasked - Lon Chaney, Sr as the Phantom The Phantom of the Opera , by Gaston Leroux is now available for purchase at www.thebestaudiobooks.com . It is a premium podcast, and two - hour long episodes are released every week. The voices are coming along splendidly. I hope you like it. In the English-speaking world, Gaston Leroux is best known for creating The Phantom of the Opera . However, he is most noted in his own country for his splendid contribution to detective fiction. He is held as the French version of Arthur Conan Doyle. The most widely known of his detective novels is The Mystery of the Yellow Room , in which his protagonist, Joseph Rouletabille, solves one of the first "sealed room" mysteries. Here a crime is committed without anyone apparently able to do it. It really is quite a wonderful novel, and I'm planning on adding it to the Classic Tales Library in 2013. Another novel that I'm particularly fond of from Leroux i...

The latest production of The Classic Tales Podcast is an episodic presentation of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare – a miniseries in 5 episodes. Hamlet has been my favorite play for many, many years and if I had to point to one work of literature that has turned my casual pursuit of books into a passion for the classics, this is it. When I was a teenager, and a junior in high school, I wanted to take it easy. So, instead of enrolling in Honors English 2, as I could have, I thought I’d take the year off , essentially, and enrolled in the “lower grade” English class. This was a profound misstep. While my friends were reading Great Expectations , I was reading Cold, Sassy Tree . When they studied Shakespeare, I read Mrs. Mike . I have no one to blame but myself, I’m afraid. For my elective reading, I chose Hamlet, and it literally changed my life. I memorized the soliloquies and performed them in drama class. I watched the film productions of Derek Jacobi, Kenneth ...

 Click Here to Purchase the P.G. Wodehouse Collection Like so many of the authors that are now a Classic Tales staple, P.G. Wodehouse was introduced to me by one of my listeners. After reading "Leave It To Jeeves", I was sold. I then went to my library and borrowed all of the Wodehouse audiobooks I could get my hands on. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was one prolific author! His career spanned over 70 years, and included novels, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed a great deal of success during his lifetime, something I love to hear about authors in general. Here is a comprehensive list of all the titles in the P.G. Wodehouse collection, including a brief description about each title: ·          Leave it to Jeeves- When one of Bertie Wooster’s American chums needs help in getting his hard-nosed uncle to approve of his intended, Jeeves demonstrates his colossal mind power with the equanimity of a true...