The Classic Tales Podcasts and Audiobooks

B.J. Harrison and The Classic Tales continue the Halloween Fright Extravaganza this week with a Bram Stoker 's short story called "The Squaw."  B.J. found this story when he picked up a book of short stories on a recent trip to the Shakespearean Festival with his wife.  I wonder if they slept that night. It is a story of a couple in the midst of their honeymoon who join forces with a colorful American cowboy in their tour of Germany. Jokes turn into accidents, and accidents engender thoughts of hate and revenge in the mind of a black cat. By the time the party tours the medieval torture chamber, tensions run very high, indeed. You know Bram Stoker best as the author of Dracula , the vampire who wanted to move from Transylvania to England.  But if you are a fellow avid listener of The Classic Tales, you also know him as from his short tale,  Dracula's Gues t . Dracula's Guest was originally slated to appear in the novel, but was cut and later released a...

This week, we embark on a five week journey with Buck, a St. Bernard Scotch-Collie who begins life as a happy pet and through bad luck and careless men, ends up as an Alaskan sled dog.  This is one of  Jack London's most beloved books, The Call of the Wild .  London got his inspiration from a hard year he spent living in the Yukon, where he gathered material for many of his books. This book has always been popular.  It was immediately well received by critics and earned London a place in the canon of the great American novel.  You probably read it as a kid when you were in school.  If you have a kid, s/he's probably brought it home (or will soon).  And I'm sure you loved it, and so does your kid. It is my theory that the reason that book has been in the school syllabus for the past 50 years or so, is that it is such a wild ride, such a great read.  It helps teachers to instil a love of literature in youngsters who are also dealing with harder ...

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...