Snoozecast

We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read the opening to Stephen Leacock’s 1912, "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." This humorous and affectionate account of small-town life in the fictional town of Mariposa is inspired by the author’s experience living in Ontario, Canada. The book illustrates the inner workings of life in Mariposa—from business to politics to steamboat disasters. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read the opening to the 1922 travel memoir "The White Heart of Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert" by Edna Brush Perkins. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

It recounts the adventure of Perkins and her friend Charlotte Hannahs Jordan, both independent-minded and early suffragettes; at the end of the Great War, the two friends wanted nothing more than to escape the crowded, oppressive city for wild, open space. 

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read a folk tale called "The Nodding Tiger" from the 1919 “A Chinese Wonder Book”, by Norman Hinsdale Pitman. In the story, a tiger kills an old woman’s only son. To make amends, the mother convinces the court’s judge to require the tiger to take the son’s place in her life. (Note: There is some mild "off-screen" violence in this vintage folk-tale.) To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read from Charles Darwin’s "The Voyage of the Beagle", the title most commonly given to the book published in 1839 as his "Journal and Remarks", bringing him considerable fame and respect. The book is a vivid travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology, and anthropology that demonstrates Darwin's keen powers of observation. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read "After London", a Science Fiction precursor by Richard Jefferies first published in 1885. In it’s day referred to as Fantasy or Romance, now we may describe it as eco-apocalyptic. The story tells of how London becomes a swampland after an unspecified natural disaster delivers England over to the mercy of nature. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read the next selection of the classic children’s story Heidi, published in 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri. It is a novel about the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care in the Swiss Alps. Heidi is one of the best-selling books ever written and is among the best-known works of Swiss literature. To unlock full episodes and ad-free listening of this series and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we'll read from "Luck on the Wing" by Major Elmer Haslett. This 1920 book offers a first hand account of combat in the air by an American observer or "sky spy." To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

World War I was the first conflict where combat took to the skies in machines that provided powered and maneuverable flight. This was a risky profession where brave young men flew into battle in machines made of fabric and wood. The author was regarded as one of the finest practitioners of his craft. 

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read the opening to Jane Austen’s 1811, "Sense and Sensibility". It was published anonymously; 'By A Lady' appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters as they must move with their widowed mother from the estate on which they grew up. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we’ll read a fairy tale called "Little One Eye, Two Eyes and Three Eyes" from The Green Fairy Book, published in 1892 and published by Andrew Lang, written by Jacob Grimm, according to the original book. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

Lang’s wife Nora Lang took over the editing of the many more published starting in the 1890s. There were 25 collections of stories total published between 1889 and 1913 by the couple. These collections have been immensely influential; the Langs gave many of the tales their first appearance in English. 

British fairy tale collections were rare at the time; fairy tales were seen as brutal, escapist and unrealistic and thus a bad influence for young readers. Over a generation, Lang's books worked a revolution in this public perception. 

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Tonight, we’ll read a chapter from the book, "Bird Watching" titled "Watching Blackbirds, Nightingales, Sand-martins, etc. “Bird Watching” was published in 1901 by Edmund Selous. 

The author started as a conventional naturalist, but Selous developed a hatred of the killing of animals for scientific study and was a pioneer of bird-watching as a method of scientific study. He was a strong proponent of non-destructive bird-study as opposed to the collection of skins and eggs. The shooting of birds for scientific purposes, like building museum collections, he strongly rejected. 

The author was a solitary man and was not well known in ornithological circles. He avoided both the company of ornithologists and reading their observations so as to base his conclusions entirely on his own observations. Selous continued bird-watching and writing until near the end of his life. 

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