Every Tuesday is a new review at Things Worth Reading. This week’s is of a contemporary collection of classic short stories, all in the public domain.
Another Treasure of Shorts
When you’re commuting, or maybe out for a run, you might like to listen to something to help take your mind off how slow traffic is, or how far you have left to go, or whatever. One collection that would fit the bill quite nicely–and at the right price–is Librivox’s Short Story Collection 003, one of the series of audio anthologies by the Librivox project, which puts out public domain (free) audiobooks of works in the public domain.
All the stories in this collection tend toward the creepy and the funny, a good mix. All the readings in the collection are very good. A few of the notable tales and readings are The Great French Duel , a very funny story written by Mark Twain and read with perfect invisibility by Brian Roberg; the always creepy story The Monkey’s Paw, written by W.W. Jacobs and read by annegram; the humorous The Loaded Dog, written by Henry Lawson and read with great enthusiasm by James Lord; The Signal-Man, a creepy ghost-type story written by Charles Dickens (who knew?) and read by Andrew Miller; The Story of an Hour, an excellent twist of a story written by Kate Chopin and smoothly read by Heather Ordover; and the familiar short story The Lady or the Tiger by Frank R. Stockton, engagingly read by Alice. The highly professional William Coon lends his voice to the collection as well, providing excellent readings of Dalyrimple Goes Wrong, a frustrating story by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Ice Palace, a chilly tale of finding one’s place, also by F. Scott Fitzgerald; God Sees the Truth, But Waits another frustrating story, this one by Leo Tolstoy; and A Psychological Shipwreck, a story by the never dull Ambrose Bierce.
I’ve written before about how amazingly good the work of the all-volunteer Librivox project is, and Librivox’s Short Story Collection 003 continues the tradition of excellence. Don’t miss it.
As a side note, it has been my intention for quite a while to contribute to the Librivox project, and I hope to make time to do that early in the next year. Perhaps you can do the same.
