Classic Audiobook Collection

Latest Episodes:

Gloves Past and Present by Willard M. Smith ~ Full Audiobook [history] Aug 24, 2023

Show notes

Gloves Past and Present by Willard M. Smith audiobook.

Genre: history

In Gloves Past and Present, Willard M. Smith turns an everyday accessory into a surprising lens on power, faith, fashion, and work. Drawing on decades in the glove trade, Smith sets out to explain why gloves once carried the weight of ceremony and status: as emblems of royal authority, symbols in religious ritual, and tokens used to seal pledges, issue challenges, or confer honor. Moving across centuries, he traces how hand coverings evolved from practical protection into coded social signals that shaped etiquette and public life. The book then shifts from legend to craft, opening the workshop door on how gloves are designed, cut, sewn, fitted, and finished, and how changing tastes and technologies transformed the modern industry. Along the way, Smith highlights the people behind the product - artisans, merchants, and designers - and the economic networks that made gloves a global business. Part cultural history and part insider's guide, this is a spirited invitation to look closely at what you wear and discover the long human story stitched into it.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:01:47) Chapter 01

(00:15:10) Chapter 02

(00:32:38) Chapter 03

(00:55:08) Chapter 04

(01:14:59) Chapter 05

(01:33:46) Chapter 06

(02:02:21) Chapter 07

(02:23:49) Chapter 08

(02:43:16) Chapter 09

(03:18:01) Chapter 10

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Hans of Iceland by Victor Hugo ~ Full Audiobook [tragedy] Aug 24, 2023

Show notes

Hans of Iceland by Victor Hugo audiobook.

Genre: tragedy

Hans of Iceland was written in 1821 and is the very first novel written by young Victor, years before he became the great Hugo. It has all the ingredients of a gothic novel: dreadful murders by the hand of a human monster, a young hero in love with the destitute heroine, royal court-intrigues and rebellious uprising, all set in dungeons, dark towers and the untamed nature of Norway.

This audio-book has been recorded as Dramatic Reading with all the voices performed by one single reader, including laughs, sobs, groans, occasional screams and a lot of growls. I hope you will enjoy listening to this adventurous journey just as much as I enjoyed recording it

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:05:10) Chapter 02

(00:08:04) Chapter 03

(00:21:05) Chapter 04

(00:39:58) Chapter 05

(00:43:39) Chapter 06

(00:53:08) Chapter 07

(00:57:26) Chapter 08

(01:25:58) Chapter 09

(01:40:54) Chapter 10

(02:00:27) Chapter 11

(02:15:30) Chapter 12

(02:44:02) Chapter 13

(02:55:41) Chapter 14

(03:07:08) Chapter 15

(04:02:50) Chapter 16

(04:16:16) Chapter 17

(04:29:16) Chapter 18

(04:37:42) Chapter 19

(04:55:07) Chapter 20

(04:58:24) Chapter 21

(05:08:50) Chapter 22

(05:25:45) Chapter 23

(05:31:34) Chapter 24

(05:37:32) Chapter 25

(06:08:42) Chapter 26

(06:13:49) Chapter 27

(06:39:39) Chapter 28

(07:19:31) Chapter 29

(07:22:30) Chapter 30

(07:26:24) Chapter 31

(07:51:39) Chapter 32

(08:11:19) Chapter 33

(08:23:28) Chapter 34

(08:42:00) Chapter 35

(08:43:34) Chapter 36

(08:51:21) Chapter 37

(08:57:38) Chapter 38

(09:03:10) Chapter 39

(09:17:25) Chapter 40

(09:35:04) Chapter 41

(09:40:49) Chapter 42

(10:00:26) Chapter 43

(10:19:38) Chapter 44

(10:29:36) Chapter 45

(10:38:07) Chapter 46

(11:20:26) Chapter 47

(11:42:06) Chapter 48

(12:00:30) Chapter 49

(12:05:52) Chapter 50

(12:10:02) Chapter 51

(12:28:03) Chapter 52

(12:40:30) Chapter 53

(13:02:11) Chapter 54

(13:05:23) Chapter 55

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The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver by Thornton W. Burgess ~ Full Audiobook [adventure] Aug 23, 2023

Show notes

The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver by Thornton W. Burgess audiobook.

Genre: adventure

In The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver, Thornton W. Burgess returns to the Green Forest and Smiling Pool to follow one of its most determined builders. When Paddy arrives with his big teeth, clever paws, and a plan to make a home of his own, the woods quickly learn that a beaver does not do anything halfway. As Paddy gathers branches, gnaws down trees, and shapes the water to suit his needs, his work changes the neighborhood in ways that amaze some and worry others. Familiar friends and busybodies - from curious birds to wary pond dwellers - watch closely, trade rumors, and argue about what Paddy is up to and whether his ambitious projects will help or harm the life around the water. But the forest is never without danger, and Paddy must use patience, skill, and plain hard work to protect himself and his home from threats that cannot be solved with wood and mud alone. Warm, playful, and full of nature lore, this classic tale celebrates ingenuity, perseverance, and the complicated ripples one animal can make in a shared world.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:04:22) Chapter 02

(00:08:54) Chapter 03

(00:13:05) Chapter 04

(00:18:09) Chapter 05

(00:23:57) Chapter 06

(00:28:43) Chapter 07

(00:33:52) Chapter 08

(00:38:52) Chapter 09

(00:43:27) Chapter 10

(00:47:55) Chapter 11

(00:51:56) Chapter 12

(00:57:09) Chapter 13

(01:01:58) Chapter 14

(01:06:21) Chapter 15

(01:10:44) Chapter 16

(01:15:43) Chapter 17

(01:20:21) Chapter 18

(01:25:04) Chapter 19

(01:29:14) Chapter 20

(01:33:29) Chapter 21

(01:37:38) Chapter 22

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Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne ~ Full Audiobook [religion] Aug 23, 2023

Show notes

Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne audiobook.

Genre: religion

Centuries of Meditations gathers the luminous spiritual reflections of Thomas Traherne, a 17th-century Anglican priest and metaphysical writer whose voice feels both intimate and expansive. Written as a sequence of brief, numbered meditations arranged in groups of one hundred, these prose passages move like sparks: each one turns an ordinary fact of life into a doorway toward wonder. Traherne returns again and again to a central struggle of the soul - how to recover a clear, childlike vision of the world in the face of habit, distraction, pride, and spiritual dullness. With a poet's eye and a theologian's tenderness, he explores joy, gratitude, innocence, desire, eternity, and the divine love he believes saturates creation. Rather than offering a rigid system, Traherne invites the listener into a practice of attention: to see blessings where we have stopped looking, to re-learn amazement, and to let worship arise from daily experience. The result is a devotional classic that feels like a companion for prayer and contemplation, speaking to anyone hungry for a life enlarged by praise.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:33:38) Chapter 01

(01:01:06) Chapter 02

(01:28:53) Chapter 03

(01:58:04) Chapter 04

(02:21:16) Chapter 05

(02:47:04) Chapter 06

(03:09:34) Chapter 07

(03:31:07) Chapter 08

(04:01:02) Chapter 09

(04:29:31) Chapter 10

(04:54:40) Chapter 11

(05:23:52) Chapter 12

(05:48:32) Chapter 13

(06:14:28) Chapter 14

(06:38:53) Chapter 15

(07:12:27) Chapter 16

(07:42:19) Chapter 17

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Bashan And I by Thomas Mann ~ Full Audiobook [biography] Aug 23, 2023

Show notes

Bashan And I by Thomas Mann audiobook.

Genre: biography

Written in the shadow of World War I, Bashan and I is Thomas Mann's intimate, clear-eyed portrait of life with his dog, a spirited German shorthaired pointer named Bashan. In a Munich landscape of gardens, paths, and wild edges, the narrator builds his days around small rituals: the moment he steps outside, the eager arrival of his companion, and the long walks that turn ordinary mornings into excursions of discovery. Mann watches Bashan with the precision of a novelist and the tenderness of a devoted owner, tracing the dog's instincts for scent and chase, his pride and mischief, his sudden raptures in nature, and his unwavering readiness to follow. As their companionship deepens, the book becomes more than a charming animal tale. Mann uses Bashan's presence to reflect on freedom and discipline, loyalty and independence, and the baffling gap between human thought and an animal's private world. Warm, humorous, and quietly philosophical, this short narrative offers refuge from a troubled era while asking what it really means to know, and to love, another living being.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:02:52) Chapter 01

(00:25:12) Chapter 02

(00:42:46) Chapter 03

(01:08:02) Chapter 04

(01:36:05) Chapter 05

(02:10:32) Chapter 06

(02:40:19) Chapter 07

(03:11:08) Chapter 08

(03:43:02) Chapter 09

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Eleven years a drunkard by Thomas Doner ~ Full Audiobook [biography] Aug 22, 2023

Show notes

Eleven years a drunkard by Thomas Doner audiobook.

Genre: biography

He tells of the shame, misery and pain which alcohol brought on him, and will bring to anyone whosoever be tempted by the pleasant feeling it produces at the time of drinking. It doesn't bring one home to shelter but drives them away. It leads one to forget the evil it brings and tempts one to pursue more for the pleasant feeling it produces. This 'pleasant feeling' produces many murderers in our land. It doesn't push the sufferer to ask for help but to lie about the drinking. Once Satan has a foothold he wants an even tighter grasp.

He exhorts - you boys, to learn this lesson, 'If you do not take the first drink, you will not be tempted to take the second.' And if you take the first drink do not take the second or the monster will have done its work and will surely lead you to a third and a fourth and to associate with the inmates of taverns until you are committed to prison, executed in the gallows, a cripple (like Doner) or to a drunkard's grave.

Filth, drunkenness, crime and blasphemy, Doner writes, are the rewards for stepping in this Snare of the Devil.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 0

(00:01:02) Chapter 1

(00:08:46) Chapter 2

(00:43:36) Chapter 3

(01:07:13) Chapter 4

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The Crook in the Lot by Thomas Boston ~ Full Audiobook [religion] Aug 22, 2023

Show notes

The Crook in the Lot by Thomas Boston audiobook.

Genre: religion

In The Crook in the Lot, Scottish Presbyterian pastor Thomas Boston turns a single piercing question from Ecclesiastes 7:13 into a steady guide for anyone living with burdens they cannot simply fix: if God has made something crooked in your life, who can make it straight? Boston calls the unchosen trials of daily life the 'crook' and the overall shape of a person's circumstances the 'lot.' With the directness of a preacher and the tenderness of a counselor, he argues that afflictions are not random intrusions but belong to God's wise providence, and that peace begins when the sufferer learns to see the crook as the work of God rather than a mistake to be fought at all costs. Drawing from Scripture and lived pastoral experience, Boston explores why certain troubles strike the most sensitive places in our hearts, how impatience and pride harden the soul, and what it looks like to respond with humility, repentance, prayer, and persevering faith. The book reads like a series of sermons meant to steady trembling hands and reframe suffering as a severe mercy that can shape holiness.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:08:29) Chapter 02

(00:40:22) Chapter 03

(01:24:19) Chapter 04

(01:44:05) Chapter 05

(02:20:42) Chapter 06

(02:40:03) Chapter 07

(03:14:39) Chapter 08

(03:49:04) Chapter 09

(04:07:39) Chapter 10

(04:52:23) Chapter 11

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Elizabethan Demonology by Thomas Alfred Spalding ~ Full Audiobook [history] Aug 22, 2023

Show notes

Elizabethan Demonology by Thomas Alfred Spalding audiobook.

Genre: history

Written as a scholarly essay, Elizabethan Demonology investigates what educated and ordinary people in England believed about devils, witches, possession, and unseen spiritual forces during the Reformation and the decades that followed. Thomas Alfred Spalding argues that to read Elizabethan drama clearly, especially the plays of William Shakespeare, modern readers must recover the religious assumptions and folk ideas that shaped daily life and public imagination. Moving between theology, popular superstition, and literary evidence, Spalding traces how older pagan or foreign gods were reinterpreted as lesser spirits, how fear of diabolic agency found support in sermons and pamphlets, and how these convictions surfaced on the stage in vivid scenes of temptation, prophecy, and haunting. Along the way he pays particular attention to Shakespeare's handling of the supernatural, using close readings to show how an audience that took demons seriously would have heard certain words, symbols, and moral stakes differently than we do today. Expanded from papers first delivered to the New Shakespeare Society, this compact work is both a window into early modern belief and a guide for readers who want to understand why the devil felt so real in Elizabethan literature. citeturn0search1turn0search7turn0search0

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:19:09) Chapter 02

(00:42:53) Chapter 03

(01:01:28) Chapter 04

(01:26:45) Chapter 05

(01:53:36) Chapter 06

(02:18:31) Chapter 07

(02:44:28) Chapter 08

(02:59:38) Chapter 09

(03:25:28) Chapter 10

(03:48:14) Chapter 11

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The Characters Of Theophrastus by Theophrastus ~ Full Audiobook [philosophy] Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

The Characters Of Theophrastus by Theophrastus audiobook.

Genre: philosophy

Written in the lively streets and marketplaces of classical Athens, The Characters offers a gallery of sharply observed human types that still feel familiar today. Attributed to Theophrastus, successor to Aristotle, this compact classic presents a sequence of brief sketches, each one isolating a single vice, folly, or social habit and then showing how it plays out in daily life. You will meet the Flatterer who lives by borrowed praise, the Gossip who cannot keep a confidence, the Superstitious Man who reads omens into every coincidence, the Boor who misses every cue, and many more. Rather than telling a continuous story, the book builds its power through accumulation: scene by scene, it invites listeners to recognize patterns of behavior in neighbors, leaders, friends, and themselves. At once ethical inquiry and social satire, these portraits ask what makes a person trustworthy, civic minded, and self controlled, and what happens when small failings harden into a way of life. The result is a witty, unsettling mirror held up to human nature across time.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:34:18) Chapter 01

(00:53:06) Chapter 02

(01:11:42) Chapter 03

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The Brothers by Terence ~ Full Audiobook [comedy] Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

The Brothers by Terence audiobook.

Genre: comedy

In The Brothers (Adelphoe), Terence sets a sharply observed domestic comedy in Athens where two very different men try to raise the next generation. Demea is severe, hardworking, and convinced that discipline is the only path to virtue. His brother Micio is relaxed, affluent, and proud of the trust-based freedom he gives his adopted son, Aeschinus. When a scandal erupts in the city and Aeschinus is blamed for behavior that looks reckless and cruel, the brothers' philosophies collide in public and in private. As rumors spread and tempers flare, Demea becomes certain that leniency has bred corruption, while Micio insists that harshness only teaches young men to lie. Meanwhile, the quieter Ctesipho, Demea's natural son raised under strict rules, is pulled into the same tangle of desire, loyalty, and fear of exposure. Through quick dialogue, clever servants, and anxious lovers, Terence turns family conflict into a debate about love, authority, and what it means to truly know your children.

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Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 1

(00:14:33) Chapter 2

(00:33:00) Chapter 3

(00:55:33) Chapter 4

(01:21:47) Chapter 5

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