For Reading Out Loud

William Somerset Maugham's psychological thriller, "Lord Mountdrago

A posh apartment just off Knightsbridge in London, going for only 80 pounds a year? A curious riddle for Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot in "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat."

A woman who has armored herself against all emotion finds her defenses crumbling after a famous singer spends a month rehearsing in her garden lodge. Willa Cather's "The Garden Lodge."

Arguably the founder of fantasy fiction, Lord Dunsany offers a perspective that renders the reader's familiar surroundings somehow exotic and amazing. See where he takes us in "A Tale of London."

Herman Melville's gimlet-eyed take on passes for charity among complacent donors.

Drawing on his time in Texas, O. Henry narrates "A Blackjack Bargainer," a tale of loss and redemption.

A bored young man's life is transformed by a mysterious woman in "Scarlet Stockings," a story by Louisa May Alcott.

A murder mystery and much more: "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell

An adolescent's memorable encounter with a brilliant fiction detective

Two short and intriguing stories: Kate Chopin, Dr. Chevalier's Lie, and Leo Tolstoy, The Three 'Questions