Milne's first published book of prose. It was released after his poetry collection, 'When we were very young', and prior to 'Winnie the Pooh'. With his characteristic blend of nonsense, wit and warmth, Milne offers twelve short stories of childish endeavour and mishap. They will delight and amuse listeners both young and not-so-young.
It's a Family Affair, the first play by Alexander Ostrovsky was written in 1849, but 10 years elapsed before permission was given for it to be staged.
As with many of Ostrovsky's plays, the target of the author's satire is the merchant class and the inevitable corruption associated with mercantile endeavors. In Ostrovsky's bitterly realistic world, all personal encounters end in transactions, some humourous and some tragic.
Cast
Samson Silych Bolshov - John Burlinson
Agrafena Kondratyevna - Kristina Rothe
Olimpiada Samsonovna (Lipochka) - Joan DuKore
Lazar Elizarych Podkhalyuzin - Marty Krz
Tiska - Joan DuKore
Ustinya Naumovna - Amy Soakes
Sysoy Psoich Rispolozhensky - Denis Daly
Fominishna - Lee Ann Howlett
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the recording, head to Audible here.
"Updated with dramatic developments and new murder charges, filed in the coldest of cold cases, to keep a serial baby-killer behind bars. This tale is every parent's worst nightmare: the horrifying account of a Texas nurse who killed children under her care, and the hospital that covered it up.
It's 1980, and Genene Jones is working in the pediatric ICU at San Antonio's charity hospital, on what soon came to be known as "the Death Shift". From 3-11 PM, infants under her care begin experiencing unexpected emergencies - and dying - in alarming numbers, prompting rumors that there is a murderer among the staff. This chilling epidemic continued unabated for more than a year, before Jones was quietly sent off - with a good recommendation - to a small-town pediatric clinic. There, eight children under her care mysteriously stopped breathing in a single month - and a 15-month-old baby girl died.
In May 1983, Jones was finally arrested, leading to trials that revealed her strange attraction to medical emergencies and a desire to "play God" with the lives of the children under her care. More shocking still, as The Death Shift reveals, the hospital had volunteered nothing to law-enforcement authorities about Jones' horrific deeds, allowing her spree to continue and prompting grieving parents to ask: Why? Elkind chronicles Jones chilling rampage, while also turning his piercing gaze onto those responsible for its cover-up.
This updated edition is a tale with fresh relevance, revealing how prosecutors raced to keep Jones behind bars, despite her scheduled mandatory release from a Texas prison in early 2018, after one-third of a 99-year murder sentence; Jones' cryptic secret prison confessions - followed by giddy exultations to a band of evangelical allies about her expected release; and how prosecutors finally won a guilty plea from Jones on the eve of a new murder trial."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"As the curtain falls on the March family's tale, we revisit the Plumfield clan 10 years later, all grown up and finding their way through life's adventures and misadventures.
Simmering romances blossom for some while the bravery and strength of others are tested. Through it all, Jo and Professor Bhaer desperately hope they have done their duty in raising up good citizens of the world with dreams, passions, empathy, and intelligence.
Alcott shines once again with her ability to write human emotion through real-world scenarios that are still relevant today."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
Out now on Audible -- a full-cast production of the children's classic Heidi by Johanna Spyri. I love performing in these productions as a member of Voices of Today.
"Presented by Voices of Today.
First published in 1881, the subtitle of the book reads "It was written
as a book "for children and those who love children." Heidi as a 5 year
old orphan has been handed off by her young aunt, Dete, to live with her
grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The story follows her life as she falls
in love with grandfather and he with her and the life of goat-herding
that they share. Grandfather refuses to allow her to attend school in
the small village below and quarrels ensue. Her young aunt returns to
remove her from grandfather to live as a hired lady's companion to
wealthy Clara, a wheelchair bound child, in Frankfurt. She is loved by
Clara, but not by the other's within Clara's home where she is
considered ill-mannered. Heidi becomes severely homesick and the wealthy
family's doctor recommends her return to the mountains. Clara misses
Heidi and comes to visit."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"From the author of First Degree Rage: The True Story of "The Assassin", an Obsession, and Murder comes the ongoing and chilling true crime saga of L. C. Underwood, the obsessively jealous police officer from North Carolina who shocked an entire city with his unsuspected reign of terror in the lives of his ex-fiancĂ© Kay Weden, a woman he refused to let go, her son Jason whom he despised, and her mother Catherine Miller who got in his way. Underwood arrogantly evades justice for his heinous crimes until Detective Paula May and her investigative team uncovers who he really is, and he is found guilty of the First Degree Kidnapping and Murder of Viktor Gunnarsson, Kay’s new boyfriend. But is Underwood also responsible for the brutal murder of Catherine Miller that occurred mere days after Gunnarsson’s demise?
Sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years, Underwood has no intention of staying in prison, and vows not to stop until he exacts revenge on those he blames for his current predicament. His thirst for revenge will not be quenched until more blood is shed. Underwood rages on, plotting his next move, enlisting others to perform the evil deeds he imagines. Wreaking havoc in the lives of Kay, Jason, Detective May, and others, he sends them all on an emotional roller coaster ride that never seems to end. Will they ever find peace? Will Catherine Miller’s murderer ever be brought to justice? Will Underwood’s reign of terror ever come to an end?"
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
Pull up a chair, snuggle under your favorite blanket, gather the kids, and enjoy the charming stories you know and love. This multicast production brings to life all your favorites!
This collection includes 19 stories: The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tailor of Gloucester, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The Tale of Two Bad Mice, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggly-Winkle, The Pie and Patty-Pan, The Tale of Jeremy Fisher, The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit, The Story of Miss Moppet, The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, The Roly-Poly Pudding, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes, The Tale of Mr. Tod, The Tale of Pigling Bland, and Ginger and Pickles.
Cast:
"Held at New York, on 27th October 1924
In a public debate held at the Manhattan Opera House, Clarence Darrow argued that not one of the 19 men under sentence of death at Sing Sing Prison would have been convicted if they could have afforded good attorneys. He was opposed by Judge Alfred J. Talley of General Sessions, who argued for the retention of the death penalty for murder. The debate commenced with an address by Lewis Lawes, who was the warden at Sing Sing.
Cast
Narrator: Lee Ann Howlett
Benjamin Javits - Announcer - Marty Krz
Lewis Lawes - Temporary Chairman - John Burlinson
Louis Marshall - Chairman - Marty Krz
Judge Alfred J. Talley - Debater (affirmative) - Ben Stevens
Clarence Darrow - Debater (negative) - Ron Altman
A Voice/chorus - Lee Ann Howlett"
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"In this warm, deeply-personal, and often humorous book, Nancy McCabe re-examines and gains new understanding of her early life and her ill-advised marriage. Borrowing from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”, how-to essays and before-and-after weight loss ads, a curriculum guide, Bible study notes, an obsession with Tom Swiftie jokes, and women’s magazine columns and quizzes that oversimplified women’s lives and choices, McCabe examines the many influences that led to her youthful marriage - and out of it, into finally taking control of her life."
To listen to a sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"Investigators and Central Florida residents were horrified when 16-year-old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning a cult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's 15-year-old daughter was missing, they feared she was a victim, too.
Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood-drinking occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families, and spiritual warfare. Then, when police officers captured the teens, they discovered that the murdered couple's daughter was among them. But was she a victim or a participant?
Ferrell faced the death penalty, sparking Constitutional battles over the ultimate punishment, juveniles in the court system, free press versus a defendant's right to a fair trial, and psychologists who worked to save him and prosecutors who wanted him dead.
More than 20 years later, the battles continue with new court rulings. Is he a changed man deserving freedom? Or is he still gaming the system, as prosecutors and his victims' family members believe?
Decide for yourself after listening to Cold Blooded by veteran newspaper reporter Frank Stanfield, who has covered the case from the beginning in November 1996 and sheds new light on one of the darkest killers in modern history."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
Held at New York, on 14th December, 1924
Under the auspices of the League for Political Discussion, in a meeting held at the Manhattan Opera House, Rev. John Haynes Holmes of the Community Church, taking the positive, and Clarence Darrow, taking the negative, debated the following proposition: "A Resolution that the United States should continue the policy of prohibition as defined in the 18th Amendment." The meeting was chaired by Senator Royal S. Copeland and introduced by Benjamin Javits.
Cast
Narrator: Lee Ann Howlett
Benjamin Javits - Temporary Chairman - Marty Krz
Royal S. Copeland - Chairman - John Burlinson
Rev. John Haynes Holmes - Debater (affirmative) - Ben Stevens
Clarence Darrow - Debater (negative) - Ron Altman
You can listen to the sample and/or purchase the book from Audible here.
"Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was one of the first writers of detective fiction and a major precursor of more celebrated female crime writers like Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
She composed more than 30 major crime novels, her prime detective characters being policemen Ebenezer Gryce and Caleb Sweetwater and amateur sleuths Amelia Butterworth and Violet Strange.
The Amelia Butterworth Mysteries is a series of three novels featuring Amelia Butterworth teaming up with Ebenezer Gryce. Miss Butterworth is a nosy high-society lady whose wealth and lack of family give her plenty of free time in which to solve several Victorian-era crimes.
That Affair Next Door - narrated by Cate Barratt.
Lost Man's Lane - narrated by Terah Tucker.
The Circular Study - narrated by Lee Ann Howlett."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"In Possessed, Rebecca R. Falkoff asks how hoarding - once a paradigm of economic rationality - came to be defined as a mental illness. Hoarding is unique among the disorders included in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 because its diagnosis requires the existence of a material entity: the hoard. Possessed therefore considers the hoard as an aesthetic object produced by clashing perspectives about the meaning or value of objects.
The 2000s have seen a surge of cultural interest in hoarding and those whose possessions overwhelm their living spaces. Analyzing themes and structures of hoarding across a range of literary and visual texts, Falkoff traces the fraught materialities of the present to cluttered spaces of modernity: bibliomaniacs' libraries, flea markets, crime scenes, dust heaps, and digital archives. Possessed shows how the figure of the hoarder has come to personify the economic, epistemological, and ecological conditions of modernity."
To listen to a sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"In Kidney to Share, Martha Gershun tells the story of her decision to donate a kidney to a stranger. She takes listeners through the complex process by which such donors are vetted to ensure that they are physically and psychologically fit to take the risk of a major operation. John D. Lantos, a physician and bioethicist, places Gershun's story in the larger context of the history of kidney transplantation and the ethical controversies that surround living donors. Together, they help listeners understand the discoveries that made transplantation relatively safe and effective as well as the legal, ethical, and economic policies that make it feasible.
Gershun and Lantos explore the steps involved in recovering and allocating organs. They analyze the differences that arise depending on whether the organ comes from a living donor or one who has died. They observe the expertise and the shortcomings of doctors, nurses, and other professionals and describe the burdens that we place on people who are willing to donate. In this raw and vivid book, Gershun and Lantos ask us to consider just how far society should go in using one person's healthy body parts in order to save another person."
It was an honor to tell Martha's story. To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
Casey’s in trouble again. It’s bad when you have a bad tenant renting one side of a duplex and dying in a suspicious fire. When her twin sister shows up, and the police start investigating your motives, you've got double duplicity.
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
Next in the queue are a couple of nonfiction books and a part in a play from Voices of Today.
I have a new cozy mystery now available on Audible. This is the first in a new series, The Realtor Mystery Series, from Kathleen Walls and is called The Tenant from Hell. This was a lot of fun to narrate.
"It's usually just routine for Casey Clark, property manager at Peller Realty. When a tenant refuses to pay rent, just evict and move on. Not so with the tenant from Hell. He draws Casey into murder, drug rings, ghosts, Indians, and a hectic trip to Hell in Georgia.
Her worst problem of having to deal with her psychic cat Dixie not getting along with Casey's pirate boyfriend's parrot changes into scrambling to stay alive.
Excerpt:
You might think a property manager at a large real estate firm might have a dull job. Let me tell you, it's not. Tenants can be some weird characters and owners not much better. I had a feeling today would not be like any other. I had just gotten off the phone with a slightly hysterical lady who wanted Peller to manage her property.
"Right now," she insisted. "You need to get over here quick before Mike kills him."
The “kills him” part warned me I should not touch this one. The business side screamed, “Go get it before she calls Sunny Side Realty or one of your other rivals.”
Naturally, I wanted that 20 percent commission. Actually I only get half of it; my broker, Lisa Lee Loren, claims the other half between her and the company owner, J. M. Peller.
Among us agents, we thought the J. M. stood for “Jesus” and “Mary” as he played the religious card to the hilt. He was a deacon in his church in Jacksonville, and wanted to give the impression he would never do anything evil.
He didn’t. He had a hatchet man, Dwight Kickum, who did the dirty work."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
My latest solo recording went on sale recently on Audible. A terrific biography by Victoria Amador: Olivia de Havilland: Lady Triumphant was produced via University Press Audiobooks.
"Legendary actress and two-time Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland is best known for her role as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939). She often inhabited characters who were delicate, elegant, and refined. At the same time, she was a survivor with a fierce desire to direct her own destiny on and off the screen. She fought and won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over a contract dispute that changed the studio contract system forever. She is also noted for her long feud with her fellow actress and sister Joan Fontaine, a feud that lasted from 1975 until Fontaine's death in 2013.
Victoria Amador utilizes extensive interviews and 40 years of personal correspondence with de Havilland to present an in-depth look at the life and career of this celebrated actress. Amador begins with de Havilland's early life; she was born in Japan in 1916 to affluent British parents who had aspirations of success and fortune in faraway countries, and her theatrical ambitions began at a young age. The book then follows her career as she skyrocketed to star status, becoming one of the most well-known starlets in Tinseltown. Listeners are given an inside look at her love affairs with iconic cinema figures such as James Stewart and John Huston and her onscreen partnership with Errol Flynn. de Havilland became the first woman to serve as the president of the Cannes Film Festival in 1965 and remained active but selective in film and television until 1988."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"Blood Guilt: Orestes on Trial freely adapted by Bob Gonzalez from The Oresteia by Aeschylus
Performed by The Online Stage
A modern adaptation of The Oresteia of Aeschylus, the only surviving ancient Athenian trilogy. Across three plays, Greece's first major playwright tells the story of the cursed House of Atreus, where the bloody sins of the family's ancestors are visited upon four succeeding generations. After a series of horrific past crimes by his ancestors, Orestes is driven to matricide and for that is relentlessly pursued by the Furies, underworld demons intent on revenging the spirit of his mother. He flees Argos for sanctuary at Athens, where the city's patron goddess, Athena, decides to establish the first tribunal - a human jury. Apollo, the god of Truth, defends Orestes against the vengeful Furies. Faithful to the spirit of the original, this two-act version offers a contemporary perspective on the dilemma of conflicted loyalties."
To listen to the sample or purchase this one, head to Audible here.
"A collection of one-acts by the Pulitzer-winning playwright, including Close the Book, Suppressed Desires, Tickless Time, Woman's Honor, The People, and Trifles.
Featuring the voices of Leanne Yau, Michelle Marie, Maureen Boutilier, Jennifer Fournier, Lee Ann Howlett, Ted Wenskus, Ken Foster, Amanda Friday, Larry Wilson, Alexa Sheppard, Marty Krz, Joseph Tabler, Ron Altman, Jeff Moon, Chris Marcellus, Mark Crowle-Groves, John Burlinson, Andy Harrington, and Denis Daly."
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
"Set in early 20th century New York, Edith Wharton's classic novel follows the changing fortunes of the beautiful Lily Bart, an impoverished socialite who relies on the kindness of rich friends to move in glamorous society. Lily and all her friends know that she must make a rich marriage to achieve financial security, but she is drawn to kindred spirit Lawrence Selden, a charming but decidedly middle-class lawyer. Will Lily survive in a world of predatory financiers and their ruthless wives?"
To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.
