Showing results by narrator "JIm Killavey" in All Categories

At Christmas, Laura Fleming lived her fantasy adventure. Paid to house-sit for the fabulously wealthy financier, C.W. Banley, while he traveled, she eagerly headed for New York City. As mistress of his elegant townhouse, she baked cookies and dressed the old gent’s richly-furnished residence for the holidays. As December rolled around, the lonely, lovely writer eagerly anticipated soaking up the Christmas atmosphere in the grand city. With only the cat for company, she’d turn Banley’s elegant home into a wonderland of sparkling lights, fragrant garland, and shiny tinsel.

Like a sweet box of assorted Holiday candy, this set has something to appeal to all tastes from the littlest listeners to grown-ups and those in between. Enjoy these tales as a family on car trips to Auntie's house or over the river and through the woods to Grandma's. The stories will add to the spirit of the season whether you are feeling like Santa or Scrooge.

Fresh out of the hospital and low on funds, a young doctor decides to take a long sea voyage to restore his health. He signs on as a steward on board a millionaire's yacht. Then, one hot and humid summer night, the voyage starts to become a nightmare.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 science fiction novel. As a satire, Flatland offered pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture. However, the book's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions. In a foreword to one of the many publications of the book, noted science fiction author Isaac Asimov described Flatland as “The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions.”

James Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers of the early 20th century. Although best known for Ulysses and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, he also wrote a number of shorter works. Chief among them is "The Dead," which was published as part of a collection in 1914.

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist. He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom. "A Free Man's Worship" is probably his most famous, and certainly the most widely printed of his many essays.

James Allen wrote this little book eight years after the phenomenal success of As a Man Thinketh. His forward gives an apt description of the book "We cannot alter external things, nor shape other people to our liking, nor mould the world to our wishes but we can alter internal things - our desires, passions, thoughts,- we can shape our liking to other people, and we can mould the inner world of our own mind in accordance with wisdom, and so reconcile it to the outer world of men and things.

During a trip to Europe, Christopher Newman, a wealthy American businessman, asks the charming Claire de Cintre to be his wife. To his dismay, he receives an icy reception from the heads of her family, who find Newman to be a vulgar example of the American privileged class. Brilliantly combining elements of comedy, tragedy, romance and melodrama, this tale of thwarted desire vividly contrasts nineteenth-century American and European manners.

After a 10 year absence, John Carter returns to Mars and seeks to be reunited with his wife, the princess Dejah Thoris. Along the way, he both befriends, and often combats, a fantastic array of alien creatures and humanoids, while discovering the true nature of the Martian religions.

Still wildly popular today, this collection of ghost stories was first published in 1919. A few of the stories reflect the prejudices and language of the era and would not be considered "politically correct" now but are nonetheless excellent stories. Arthur B. Reeves, an American writer who also wrote screenplays compiled this anthology. His introduction is considered by many to be the definitive explanation of the popularity and diversity of this genre. Turn off the lights and prepare to be thrilled and chilled by this unique assemblage of spooky tales.

Politics is the second half of a single treatise by Aristotle (384 B.C.E - 322 B.C.E.), Ethics being the first. Both deal with one and the same subject: what Aristotle calls the philosophy of human affairs. He also refers to it as political science and social science. Aristotle collected and studied the constitutions of over 150 city states before writing his Politics.

Carlo Collodi, whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini,was a Florentine children's writer most famous for this world-renowned fairytale novel. The name "Pinocchio" is a Tuscan word meaning "pine nut." The story concerns a puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy. The book has appeared in many adaptations including the famous 1940 Disney movie.

In 1899 Freud wrote a revolutionary work in the new field of Psychoanalysis called, The Interpretation of Dreams. The book was so full of technical details and involved case studies, however, that ordinary people had great difficulty understanding it. Twenty-one years later, he published this shorter version.

Robert Louis Stevenson, know mostly for his tales of adventure and horror, also had a humorous side. This black comedy of errors deals with a coffin that keeps disappearing, and then showing up again in very strange places.

The story traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions he has been brought up in. He finally leaves for Paris to pursue his calling as an artist. The work pioneers some of Joyce's modernist techniques that would later come to fruition in Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.

Wallace D. Wattles was an American author and a pioneer in the New Thought Movement. His most famous book is The Science of Getting Rich, which continues to be immensely popular today. The Science of Being Well is a follow-up to that book. Wattles approach to health is basically the same is his approach to prosperity. He suggests that the reader think and act in a "Certain Way," which he explains, and that thinking and acting in that way, along with a positive approach will "make it so." Wallace explains his fairly simple keys to getting well and suggests that with faith and discipline one can stay well once health has been achieved. To quote the author, this book is, “For those who want health, and who want a practical guide and handbook, not a philosophical treatise. It is an instructor in the use of the universal Principle of Life, and my effort has been to explain the way in so plain and simple a fashion that the reader, though he may have given no previous study to New Thought or metaphysics, may readily follow it to perfect health.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some amazing short stories - everything from romances to mind-boggling fantasies. This collection includes five of his most famous andmost imaginative stories. The are: "The Offshore Pirate""The Diamond as Big as the Ritz""The Curious Case of Benjamin Button""Bernice Bobs Her Hair""Head and Shoulders"

This mystery is part of the famous "Had-I-But-Known School" of mysteries founded by Mary Roberts Rinehart with the 1908 publication of her first work, The Circular Staircase. The story deals with civic corruption, a popular theme of early American mysteries. Stories like this anticipate the hard-boiled school to come. So does Rinehart's realistic style, which does not gloss over life's problems.

A main-stay of British children's literature through the 1920's, The Water Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby was written by Rev. Charles Kinglsey as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine in 1862-63.

Although some of the author's opinions seem dated now, the journey of a little chimney-sweep water-baby through rivers and storms, under sea and over icebergs, is still a wonderful adventure tale for children. The book was adapted into an animated film in 1978 and produced as a play at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2003.

When a volcano suddenly seems to erupt and threaten a mountain town of North Carolina, Inspector Strock is sent to determine the danger. When an automobile race in Wisconsin is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of a vehicle traveling at many times the top speed of the entrants, Strock is again consulted. And when an odd-shaped boat is sighted moving at impossible speeds off the New England coast, Stock and his boss begin to wonder if the incidents are related.