Classic Audiobook Collection

Latest Episodes:

An American Robinson Crusoe by Samuel B. Allison ~ Full Audiobook [adventure] Aug 16, 2023

Show notes

An American Robinson Crusoe by Samuel B. Allison audiobook.

Genre: adventure

Samuel B. Allison's An American Robinson Crusoe is a brisk, child-friendly retelling of Daniel Defoe's classic survival story, reshaped for American classrooms and young readers. It begins in New York City, where a restless boy named Robinson Crusoe would rather roam the streets and watch the ships on the Hudson than study for the future his parents imagine for him. Drawn by tales of distant coasts and strange creatures, he chases adventure at sea, only to be swept into disaster when the voyage turns deadly. Cast onto a deserted island with little more than his wits, Robinson must learn to make shelter, find food, protect himself from the elements, and turn loneliness into routine. Each hard-won solution becomes a lesson in ingenuity and perseverance, tracing, step by step, how a careless, rebellious youth can be remade by responsibility and work. Part adventure, part quiet study of self-reliance, this adaptation emphasizes practical problem-solving, the gradual building of tools and habits, and the long fight to remain hopeful when the world has gone silent.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:14:12) Chapter 02

(00:30:12) Chapter 03

(00:49:06) Chapter 04

(01:06:39) Chapter 05

(01:26:40) Chapter 06

(01:46:31) Chapter 07

(02:10:17) Chapter 08

(02:43:09) Chapter 09

(03:04:47) Chapter 10

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Benson Murder Case - A Philo Vance Story by S. S. Van Dine ~ Full Audiobook [mystery] Aug 15, 2023

Show notes

The Benson Murder Case - A Philo Vance Story by S. S. Van Dine audiobook.

Genre: mystery

When a powerful New York financier is found shot to death in his own mansion, the crime looks at first like a straightforward killing in a house full of money, secrets, and resentments. But the clues do not line up, the motives overlap, and every witness seems to be hiding something. Called in to assist the investigation is Philo Vance, an urbane aesthete with an unsettling gift for seeing what others overlook. Working alongside District Attorney Markham and the dogged Sergeant Heath, Vance studies the crime scene with a connoisseur's eye and a psychologist's patience, weighing everything from a missing object to a stray remark at a dinner table. As suspects multiply among family members, servants, business associates, and social rivals, the case becomes a tense contest between appearances and truth. The Benson Murder Case is a classic puzzle mystery that blends high-society manners with relentless deduction, drawing listeners into a world where privilege protects lies, and a single overlooked detail can change the entire shape of the hunt.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:28:03) Chapter 02

(00:56:31) Chapter 03

(01:20:46) Chapter 04

(01:45:03) Chapter 05

(02:07:39) Chapter 06

(02:33:51) Chapter 07

(03:05:50) Chapter 08

(03:34:42) Chapter 09

(03:56:00) Chapter 10

(04:17:22) Chapter 11

(04:43:32) Chapter 12

(05:01:51) Chapter 13

(05:21:28) Chapter 14

(05:38:31) Chapter 15

(06:04:11) Chapter 16

(06:32:41) Chapter 17

(06:56:19) Chapter 18

(07:17:50) Chapter 19

(07:46:11) Chapter 20

(08:09:54) Chapter 21

(08:36:14) Chapter 22

(09:09:02) Chapter 23

(09:40:09) Chapter 24

(10:10:39) Chapter 25

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Actions And Reactions by Rudyard Kipling ~ Full Audiobook [adventure] Aug 15, 2023

Show notes

Actions And Reactions by Rudyard Kipling audiobook.

Genre: adventure

Rudyard Kipling's Actions And Reactions is a wide-ranging collection of stories in which private choices collide with public forces - empire, technology, class, and the stubborn pull of the past. From English countryside homes shadowed by old histories to far-flung outposts where duty and survival test the limits of loyalty, Kipling follows soldiers, engineers, travelers, and ordinary men and women caught in moments when a single decision sets larger consequences in motion. The collection moves between grounded realism and imaginative speculation, pairing intimate dramas of marriage, inheritance, and belonging with tales that look forward to new machines and new kinds of conflict. Across these different settings, Kipling returns to recurring questions: what do people owe to tradition, to family, and to the systems that employ them? How do communities respond when change arrives - slowly through custom, or suddenly through disaster? Written with sharp observation, brisk narrative energy, and a keen ear for professional life and social ritual, these stories invite listeners to watch cause and effect unfold, sometimes quietly and sometimes with explosive force.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(01:12:36) Chapter 02

(01:14:00) Chapter 03

(01:49:38) Chapter 04

(01:51:26) Chapter 05

(02:29:59) Chapter 06

(02:32:26) Chapter 07

(03:49:08) Chapter 08

(03:53:32) Chapter 09

(04:27:07) Chapter 10

(04:28:43) Chapter 11

(04:56:23) Chapter 12

(04:58:13) Chapter 13

(05:43:14) Chapter 14

(05:46:34) Chapter 15

(06:36:00) Chapter 16

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalists Account of China's Great Northwest by Roy Chapman Andrews ~ Full Audiobook [adventure] Aug 15, 2023

Show notes

Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalists Account of China's Great Northwest by Roy Chapman Andrews audiobook.

Genre: adventure

In Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalists Account of Chinas Great Northwest, famed explorer and naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews invites listeners into the vast, wind-scoured spaces beyond the Great Wall, where grasslands fade into desert and the horizon seems to run forever. Traveling by cart, horseback, and camel caravan, Andrews chronicles the daily realities of field science in the early 20th century: securing supplies, negotiating routes, enduring punishing weather, and pushing onward when water, fuel, and luck run thin. Along the way, he sketches a vivid portrait of Mongolian life and the borderlands of northern China, from remote encampments and trading posts to the rituals of the steppe and the hard-earned expertise of local guides. With a naturalists eye, he watches wildlife, reads the land for signs of change, and reflects on how geography and climate shape the people who live there. Part travelogue, part expedition journal, this classic account captures the tension between curiosity and risk, and the stubborn determination required to study nature at the edge of the map.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:07:52) Chapter 01

(00:27:30) Chapter 02

(00:48:19) Chapter 03

(01:04:36) Chapter 04

(01:21:56) Chapter 05

(01:43:48) Chapter 06

(02:32:38) Chapter 07

(03:05:16) Chapter 08

(03:42:46) Chapter 09

(04:10:14) Chapter 10

(04:25:56) Chapter 11

(04:52:33) Chapter 12

(05:14:37) Chapter 13

(05:29:16) Chapter 14

(06:03:07) Chapter 15

(06:26:31) Chapter 16

(06:44:09) Chapter 17

(07:01:50) Chapter 18

(07:28:37) Chapter 19

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Maker of Moons, and Other Short Stories by Robert W. Chambers ~ Full Audiobook [horror] Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

The Maker of Moons, and Other Short Stories by Robert W. Chambers audiobook.

Genre: horror

In this eerie early collection from Robert W. Chambers, the everyday world keeps cracking open to reveal hidden rooms of dread, enchantment, and obsession. The stories range from shadowed city streets to lonely country houses, from moonlit gardens to back rooms where forbidden crafts are practiced, and they share a single question: what happens when curiosity draws ordinary people too close to the impossible? Artists, amateurs, and hardheaded witnesses find their assumptions tested by strange rites, uncanny artifacts, and figures who seem to step out of legend but leave very real consequences behind. Chambers writes with a painter's eye for atmosphere, layering sumptuous detail with sudden, unsettling turns, so that beauty and menace arrive hand in hand. Some tales lean toward dreamlike fantasy, others toward supernatural suspense, but all explore the same fragile boundary between what can be explained and what can only be endured. The result is a set of short fictions that invites you to wander, cautiously, into worlds where the moon might be made, remade, or taken away.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:13:28) Chapter 02

(00:24:01) Chapter 03

(00:35:29) Chapter 04

(00:46:11) Chapter 05

(01:03:08) Chapter 06

(01:21:50) Chapter 07

(01:31:07) Chapter 08

(02:03:50) Chapter 09

(02:16:30) Chapter 10

(02:28:46) Chapter 11

(02:37:16) Chapter 12

(02:46:15) Chapter 13

(02:47:40) Chapter 14

(02:54:49) Chapter 15

(03:02:17) Chapter 16

(03:20:13) Chapter 17

(03:28:08) Chapter 18

(03:47:01) Chapter 19

(04:08:26) Chapter 20

(04:24:55) Chapter 21

(04:36:06) Chapter 22

(04:51:56) Chapter 23

(04:59:43) Chapter 24

(05:07:13) Chapter 25

(05:14:53) Chapter 26

(05:29:50) Chapter 27

(05:41:22) Chapter 28

(05:53:30) Chapter 29

(06:03:24) Chapter 30

(06:19:39) Chapter 31

(06:33:59) Chapter 32

(06:55:21) Chapter 33

(07:09:52) Chapter 34

(07:22:16) Chapter 35

(07:34:54) Chapter 36

(07:49:42) Chapter 37

(08:03:31) Chapter 38

(08:30:41) Chapter 39

(08:53:01) Chapter 40

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dog Crusoe and His Master by Robert Ballantyne ~ Full Audiobook [adventure] Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

The Dog Crusoe and His Master by Robert Ballantyne audiobook.

Genre: adventure

In The Dog Crusoe and His Master, Robert Michael Ballantyne spins a brisk, sea-salted tale of hardship, loyalty, and hard-won hope. Set against the vast, unforgiving Atlantic and the rugged coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, the story follows a young sailor and fisherman who is swept into a chain of misfortunes that strips him of comfort and certainty. Beside him stands his most steadfast companion: Crusoe, a tough, intelligent dog whose courage and devotion become the difference between despair and survival. As storms, hunger, and isolation test them, master and dog must learn to read the moods of wind and water, to labor for every scrap of safety, and to trust each other when no one else is near. Along the way, Ballantyne folds in vivid details of seafaring life, the perilous work of coastal communities, and the moral question of what it means to endure without losing your humanity. At its heart, this is a survival story powered by friendship, resilience, and the fierce will to keep going when the world turns cruel.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:17:18) Chapter 02

(00:37:27) Chapter 03

(00:56:44) Chapter 04

(01:09:09) Chapter 05

(01:33:34) Chapter 06

(01:51:17) Chapter 07

(02:24:03) Chapter 08

(02:49:29) Chapter 09

(03:09:10) Chapter 10

(03:35:05) Chapter 11

(03:58:39) Chapter 12

(04:11:28) Chapter 13

(04:27:24) Chapter 14

(04:39:31) Chapter 15

(05:07:59) Chapter 16

(05:28:05) Chapter 17

(05:42:33) Chapter 18

(06:04:15) Chapter 19

(06:23:51) Chapter 20

(07:00:57) Chapter 21

(07:25:27) Chapter 22

(07:36:42) Chapter 23

(08:02:58) Chapter 24

(08:24:05) Chapter 25

(08:40:03) Chapter 26

(08:53:52) Chapter 27

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My Doggie and I by Robert Ballantyne ~ Full Audiobook [family] Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

My Doggie and I by Robert Ballantyne audiobook.

Genre: family

In Victorian London, young medical student John Mellon prides himself on being practical, but his life is quietly transformed the moment he takes home a small, shaggy dog with a comically unglamorous look and an outsized spirit. John names him Dumps (also called Pompey), and the pair become inseparable as John makes his rounds in the struggling streets around Whitechapel, where illness, poverty, and loneliness press in on every doorstep. What begins as a light, affectionate portrait of a man and his dog soon widens into a chain of encounters: a fiercely independent street waif with a sharp tongue, an elderly woman who needs more than medicine, and a handful of ordinary people trying to do right in a hard city. Through mishaps, narrow escapes, and small acts of courage, Dumps proves to be more than a pet. He becomes the living thread that draws wounded lives together and tests what John believes about duty, kindness, and faith in action. Warm, humorous, and earnest, this classic tale celebrates companionship and the surprising ways compassion can travel on four muddy paws.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:19:19) Chapter 02

(00:38:38) Chapter 03

(00:57:31) Chapter 04

(01:15:04) Chapter 05

(01:36:04) Chapter 06

(01:52:55) Chapter 07

(02:11:21) Chapter 08

(02:28:59) Chapter 09

(02:49:00) Chapter 10

(03:09:28) Chapter 11

(03:28:57) Chapter 12

(03:46:28) Chapter 13

(04:05:41) Chapter 14

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall by Plunkitt ~ Full Audiobook [history] Aug 12, 2023

Show notes

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall by Plunkitt audiobook.

Genre: history

Part memoir, part political primer, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall captures the voice of George Washington Plunkitt, a colorful, plainspoken power broker from New York City's Tammany Hall machine. In a series of candid conversations and speeches, Plunkitt lays out how ward politics really works - from turning out votes and settling neighborhood disputes to rewarding loyalty with jobs and favors. He proudly explains his famous idea of 'honest graft,' arguing that there is a practical difference between profiting from inside knowledge and outright theft, and he dares the reader to decide where the line should be drawn. As reformers, reporters, and rival factions circle, Plunkitt defends the machine as a force that feeds families, keeps order, and gives immigrants a foothold in American life, even as its methods raise urgent questions about corruption and democracy. Witty, blunt, and unexpectedly shrewd, this short classic offers an unvarnished look at patronage, persuasion, and the everyday bargaining that shaped urban politics at the turn of the twentieth century.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 00

(00:05:28) Chapter 01

(00:12:58) Chapter 02

(00:21:16) Chapter 03

(00:32:22) Chapter 04

(00:39:49) Chapter 05

(00:47:10) Chapter 06

(00:55:06) Chapter 07

(01:02:56) Chapter 08

(01:11:17) Chapter 09

(01:18:13) Chapter 10

(01:25:26) Chapter 11

(01:34:22) Chapter 12

(01:41:02) Chapter 13

(01:46:47) Chapter 14

(01:54:28) Chapter 15

(02:02:04) Chapter 16

(02:07:50) Chapter 17

(02:15:12) Chapter 18

(02:22:57) Chapter 19

(02:29:32) Chapter 20

(02:35:04) Chapter 21

(02:41:57) Chapter 22

(02:45:41) Chapter 23

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Many-Sided Franklin by Paul Leicester Ford ~ Full Audiobook [biography] Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

The Many-Sided Franklin by Paul Leicester Ford audiobook.

Genre: biography

A fast-paced, somewhat racey look into the life, accomplishments and idiosyncrasies of Benjamin Franklin. Acclaimed biographer Paul L. Ford uses Franklin’s letters, papers and journals to step us through Franklin's many adventures, to reveal intimate details of his personal life - relations with siblings, wife, children, friends, business partners; his physique, health, illnesses, schooling, personal habits and goals; his opinions on education, philosophy, religion, friendship, industry; his library; his career as printer and publisher, writer and journalist, politician and diplomat, scientist, humorist, jack of all trades; and his relations at home and abroad with the “fairer sex“. Goes beyond the official Autobiography. A must read for Franklin devotees.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:25:24) Chapter 02

(00:53:10) Chapter 03

(01:12:06) Chapter 04

(01:35:52) Chapter 05

(01:58:56) Chapter 06

(02:26:14) Chapter 07

(02:56:16) Chapter 08

(03:16:28) Chapter 09

(03:38:52) Chapter 10

(03:59:51) Chapter 11

(04:29:18) Chapter 12

(05:00:46) Chapter 13

(05:25:22) Chapter 14

(05:52:32) Chapter 15

(06:10:35) Chapter 16

(06:34:00) Chapter 17

(06:55:45) Chapter 18

(07:20:35) Chapter 19

(07:41:34) Chapter 20

(07:57:22) Chapter 21

(08:21:20) Chapter 22

(08:45:47) Chapter 23

(09:10:50) Chapter 24

(09:36:53) Chapter 25

(09:58:14) Chapter 26

(10:19:28) Chapter 27

(10:42:42) Chapter 28

(11:06:22) Chapter 29

(11:28:08) Chapter 30

(11:50:29) Chapter 31

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Patanjali ~ Full Audiobook [philosophy] Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Patanjali audiobook.

Genre: philosophy

A foundational text of classical yoga, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali distills the path of inner mastery into brief, potent aphorisms meant to be contemplated, practiced, and lived. Attributed to the sage Patanjali, this compact work maps the workings of the mind and the sources of human suffering, then offers a disciplined method for steadiness, clarity, and liberation. Through its four sections, listeners encounter the central problem of restless thought, the ethical and practical commitments that support change, and a systematic framework for meditation that includes attention, breath, posture, and the deepening stages of concentration. Patanjali also explores the obstacles that disrupt practice, the habits that keep us entangled, and the kinds of insight that arise when awareness becomes unwavering. Rather than presenting yoga as exercise, the sutras present it as a rigorous philosophy and psychology of transformation: a guide for anyone seeking to quiet inner turbulence, cultivate compassion and self-control, and experience reality with greater freedom. Whether approached as a spiritual manual, a meditative roadmap, or a philosophical study, this audiobook invites repeated listening and reflection, turning concise lines into a lifelong practice.

For ad-free listening try our premium subscription

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:40:51) Chapter 02

(01:35:12) Chapter 03

(02:45:19) Chapter 04

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices