I have had the pleasure of recording nearly all of the Sherlock Holmes short stories for this podcast, but one stands out among all the others, both as a recording effort and as a story by the great Conan Doyle.   That is THIS story, a BRAND NEW RE-READING of “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.”  I first recorded this in the summer of 2022, in the early stages of my recovery from my first bout with COVID-19.  You can still listen to that version, if you go back through my episodes to that one recorded in mid-2022.  My raspy voice is unmistakable, but I soldiered on and did what I always do when I record these short stories: act the parts with all the fervor and ability that I can possibly muster. And why not make the effort even as I gasped for breath?  Conan Doyle was the master mystery structuralist, and a writer without peer in melding mystery with wit.  Never has the Holmes character seemed so keen or brilliantly drawn by the author.  The clues are parceled out just well enough that the reader feels he is on the path to a solution right alongside Holmes, although of course it is all a conceit that Doyle’s character Holmes (if he was just a character) shows is impossibly pretentious.

In this NEW READING AND RECORDING, I have tried to create as sonically and theatrically perfect a rendering of the story as possible, befitting its pride of place as first in the Sherlock Homes canon. It represents my learning as an audio narrator of the past six years. If you listen to no other of my recordings, LISTEN to this one.  And, if you do, I dare you to stop listening then.  Congratulations for chancing upon this rare opportunity to listen to the nearly-perfect recording of a nearly-perfect tale.

A hoped-for interview ahead with Gabra Zackman of audio narration fame is the news in today’s show on the channel. We also look back on the perils of narrating Sherlock Holmes while “falling out” with Covid, as well as the advances in the art of audio narration thanks to the progress of time.   Something different: Sherlock Holmes, sick with Covid, this time on AudiblySpeaking!

The shocking attacks against Asian Americans in 2021 are outgrowths of a long history of bigotry against these, our fellow citizens. Besides bringing shame to America’s claim of “liberty and justice for all,” these attacks flow from the ignorance of too many Americans in this history of bigotry, especially of the worst violation of civil liberties in all of American history, the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. To defeat this legacy of bigotry and to break with this sorry past, Americans must first learn to remember.