The Listening Room

Sitting by the fire on a winter's night
or in the quiet of a summer rain
it is a good thing to be still, screenless,
and to listen.

Here are some favorites.

Literature and Poetry

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature
Self-Reliance
These are works of such enduring freshness and insight by one of America's greatest writers.

Henry David Thoreau  Walden 

Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass

Mary Oliver reads her poem I Happen to be Standing


Classics

Homer  The Odyssey   The Iliad (Scroll down to Book I)

Virgil  The Aeneid

Dante  The Divine Comedy

Shakespeare The Orson Welles Shakespeare Collection Beginning in 1937, Orson Welles created a radio series in which he adapted Shakespeare's work for radio presentation. In some cases these are excerpts and sometimes nearly complete. They include "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet," Twelfth Night, and "King Lear."

John Bunyan  Pilgrim's Progress

Rudyard Kipling  Just-So Stories  Scroll down to sound bar

H.G. Wells  The War of the Worlds  Scroll down to 1st chapter

Classic Tales  An excellent collection of tales including The Velveteen Rabbit and Sinbad the Sailor, along with lesser known tales. Start at the bottom, at 3 minutes on the first.

Lew Wallace  Ben-Hur

Novels

Stephen Crane  The Red Badge of Courage

Edith Wharton  Ethan Frome

Jane Austen  Pride and Prejudice

Herman Melville  Moby Dick

Arthur Conan Doyle  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Mark Twain The Mysterious Stranger This is a little-known work by Twain. Intriguing and a favorite of mine.

Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo From the archives of the Mercury Theater productions by Orson Welles, 1938.

Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers Orson Welles Mercury Theater adaptation from 1938.

Charles Dickens  A Tales of Two Cities Orson Welles Mercury Theater adaptation from 1938. You can enjoy the complete book here.

The Immortal Sherlock Holmes  Orson Welles Mercury Theater adaptation from 1938

Jane Austen  Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility

Charlotte Bronte  Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte  Wuthering Heights

Leo Tolstoy  Anna Karenina

James Joyce  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Herman Melville  Moby Dick  Scroll to bottom to start
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