Canterbury Tales - Volume III, The (Short Story)

Canterbury Tales - Volume III, The

The Friar's Tale
The Summoner's Tale
The Lawyer's Tale
The Seaman's Tale
The Prioress's Tale
The Manciple's Tale
The Physician's Tale

Seven more Tales presented here in unabridged modern verse - an ideal way to appreciate the genuinely funny and droll talent of England's early master storyteller. The group continues its pilgrimage to Canterbury, talking with each other, their interaction mediated (sometimes) by the affable Host - Chaucer himself. Eight leading British actors bring the medieval world into the 21st century, and at least in terms of character, not much seems to have changed!

The Canterbury Tales, written near the end of Chaucer's life and hence towards the close of the fourteenth century, Is perhaps the greatest English literary work of the Middle Ages: yet it speaks to us today with almost undimmed clarity and relevance.

Chaucer imagines a group of twenty-nine pilgrims who meet in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, intent on making the traditional journey to the martyr's shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. Harry Bailly landlord of the Tabard, proposes that the company should entertain themselves on the road with a storytelling competition. The teller of the best tale will be rewarded with a supper at the others' expense when the travellers return to London. Chaucer never completed this elaborate scheme - each pilgrim was supposed to tell four tales, but in fact we only have twenty-four altogether - yet, with the pieces of linking narrative and the prologues to each tale, the work as a whole constitutes a marvellously varied evocation of the medieval world which also goes beyond its period to penetrate (humorously, gravely tolerantly) human nature itself.

Chaucer, as a member of this company of pilgrims, presents himself with mock innocence as the admiring observer of his fellows, depicted in the General Prologue. Many of these are clearly rogues - the coarse, cheating Miller, the repulsive yet compelling Pardoner - yet in each of them Chaucer finds something human, often a sheer vitality or love of life which is irresistible: the Monk may prefer hunting to prayer, but he is after all a manly man, to be an abbot able. Perhaps only the unassuming, devoted Parson and his humbly labouring brother the Ploughman rise entirely above Chaucer's teasing irony; certainly the Parson's fellow clergy and religious officers belong to a Church riddled with gross corruption. Everyone, it seems, is on the make, in a world still recovering from the ravages of the Black Death.

Publisher: Select Music & Distribution
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Narrator: Full Cast Performance
ISBN: 9 62634 304 4
Download Price: $15.49

Lost Angel

"Lost Angel is one of the best books I have ever read."
--Amazon.com reviewer

Lost Angel is a pulp-fiction mystery in which four characters, in four short stories, have their lives interweave with one another over 2,000 miles of Interstate-40.

The trip begins in the fall of 1976 with the formative years of a serial killer whom the media later call the Freeway Slasher. This megalomaniac is the terror that hides in the listener's mind.

Fast forward to the year 2000 when a Cherokee woman named Arzula leaves San Diego on a trip to Oklahoma along I-40. Her journey brings her into contact with Mark, a gas station clerk, and Damon, a hitchhiker fresh out of the Navy. They cross paths unaware of the tragic fate that waits further down the road.

The fast paced narrative, direct sentence structure, and short word vocabulary reflect the author's journalistic style. For more about this book, and its author, go to: www.myspace.com/ashlandoregon.com

Music by Ben Abben and Tim Keller. For more information go to: www.myspace.com/surviveinpeace

Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Cyrus Emerson
Narrator: Tom Weiner, Raymond Scully, Lucia Sherman, Ryan Farmer, and Paul Michael Garcia
ISBN: 978-1-4332-0385-5
Download Price: $9.95

Essential Dylan Thomas, The
This unique combination of historical and new recordings celebrates Dylan Thomas as poet, writer and performer. Here are some of his greatest poems, stories and broadcasts: readings given by Thomas himself in the 1940s and 1950s as well as new recordings by leading Welsh actors of our own time. Under Milk Wood is Thomas's undisputed masterpiece, an unforgettable, affectionate portrait of a small Welsh town. Written for radio, its intimate blend of poetry and drama made it an instant classic; and so it remains in this unmatched recording with a perfect cast led by Richard Burton. But here, also, are two fascinating earlier radio programmes, Return Journey to Swansea and Quite Early One Morning, written and performed by Thomas, which show the past that led to Under Milk Wood.

The last two CDs contain new recordings of a selection of stories (including Memories of Christmas and A Visit to Grandpa's) and poems in which contemporary performance offers an interesting contrast to the 'authentic' voice of Thomas himself.
Publisher: Select Music & Distribution
Author: Dylan Thomas
Narrator: Full Cast Performance
ISBN: 9 62634 343 5
Download Price: $18.75

Complete Ghost Stories of M.R.James, The - Part One
A college clock strikes eleven on a winter’s evening in the historic university town of Cambridge at the end of the nineteenth century. In Dr James’s rooms a group of friends is gathered. A fire flickers in the grate while some of the guests help themselves to whisky from a decanter on the sideboard. Silently, James places a lighted candlestick by his chair, shuffles his papers a little, and begins to read...

This is how the classic ghost stories of M. R. James were presented to the world. For the first time, in this definitive, critically-acclaimed four-part recording, are collected all of James’s published tales of ‘pleasing terror’.

The 8 stories featured in Part One are: Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book; Lost Hearts; Count Magnus; Number 13; ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’; The Mezzotint; The Ash-tree; The Treasure of Abbot Thomas.
Publisher: Craftsman Audio Books
Author: M. R. JAMES
Narrator: DAVID COLLINGS
ISBN: 978-1-874703-16-7
Download Price: $23.75