Snoozecast

Tonight, we shall read the next part to “Pride and Prejudice”, written by Jane Austen.

Our Friday rotation is capped at four series now, so that each episode will only be one month out from the next of a particular story. If you’d like to listen to this series or some of our others in order, please go to snoozecast.com/series.

In the last episode, younger sisters Lydia and Kitty share some capital news about Wickham- that he is still an eligible bachelor. When they arrive home, Mr. Bennet is glad to see Elizabeth and Jane, Mrs. Bennet wants to hear about the latest fashions, and Kitty and Lydia want to walk to Meryton to see the officers. To avoid seeing Wickham, Elizabeth chooses not to accompany them.

Later, Elizabeth tells Jane how Darcy proposed to her and also shares the part of Darcy's letter about Wickham. Elizabeth and Jane agree not to publicize Wickham’s misdeeds, for the sake of Darcy and his sister. They agree, Wickham will soon leave along with the regiment with no harm done.

— read by V —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight we’ll read an Australian fairy tale called “The Magic Well” written by Hume Cook and published in 1925.

The author wrote this preface:

“The Stories in this little book have been set down almost in the same words in which they were told. How the telling of them came about is a very simple matter. Having three children, each of whom loved a Fairy Tale, it somehow became the fashion, on Sunday evenings, to tell them a story.

On one occasion, when the youngest member was just about to be taken to bed, his sister said; “None of the books about Fairies ever say a word about Australia! Are there any Australian Fairies, Father?”

Somewhat hastily, perhaps, I answered: “Why, yes, of course! Whole tribes of them!”

Instantly the order went forth: “Then you will please tell us about them the very next time you tell us a story!” 

— read by V —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, as part of this month’s spooky sleep story series, we’ll read from “Mysterious Psychic Forces” written by Camille Flammarion and published in 1907.

Nicolas Camille Flammarion was a French astronomer, mystic and prolific author, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and works on psychical research. He has been described as being obsessed by life after death, and also with life other worlds, like that on Mars, and he seemed to see no distinction between the two.

— read by N —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, we’ll read the next part to “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.

In the last episode, Captain Nemo gives Dr. Aronnax a tour of the Nautilus after a seafood lunch. First they visit the ship's library, an incredible vault of books comparable in size to anything similar on land. The captain offers Dr. Aronnax a cigar made of materials from the sea, which he thoroughly enjoys. They move on to the salon. It contains a remarkable collection of reproductions of classic artwork and sculptures, and sheet music of the world's best composers.

— read by N —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, we’ll read another story from our King Arthur series. This one, “Arthur Drives the Saxons from His Realm” comes from a book edited by Rupert S. Holland and published in 1919.

The Saxons were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large former country in what is now Germany. In the late Roman Empire, the name was used to refer to Germanic coastal raiders, and as a name similar to the later "Viking".

In contrast, the British "Saxons", today referred to in English as Anglo-Saxons, became a single nation bringing together migrant Germanic peoples and assimilated Celtic Britons populations. The term "Anglo-Saxon", combining the names of the Angles and the Saxons, came into use by the eighth century to distinguish the Germanic inhabitants of Britain from continental Saxons.

— read by V —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, as part of our fourth annual spooky sleep story series, we’ll read the opening to “Carmilla”, an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu. Our series will run every Monday of October.

This is one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by 26 years

Le Fanu presents the story as part of the casebook of Dr. Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult detective in literature.

Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural, fantasy and/or horror fiction. The occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, demons and other supernatural elements, and the detectives are sometimes portrayed as having psychic or other magical powers.

If you enjoy this episode, be sure to listen to “The Hound of the Baskervilles” episode from last October, which would also be considered occult detective fiction, if only Sherlock was not so good at solving mysteries at the end. Also, you can find our reading of “Dracula” from October 2020.

— read by V —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, we’ll read the next part to “The Secret Garden”, a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett published in 1911. 

In the last episode, the children are confronted by the cantankerous gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, who is angry to find them in the garden he has kept shut up for so long. He had never seen Colin in person, but had only heard fanciful tales about the boy. They have a reckoning, and Ben is commanded to keep their secret as well. 

— read by V —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, we’ll read about cooking alternatives to wheat, from the 1918 pamphlet “Foods That Will Win the War”.

Although the United States did not have food rationing in World War I as it did in World War II, it did rely heavily on propaganda campaigns at the time to persuade people to curb their food consumption.

Through slogans such as "Food Will Win the War", "Meatless Meals", and "Wheatless Wednesdays", the United States Food Administration under Herbert Hoover reduced national consumption by 15%.

— read by N —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, to kick off our fourth annual Spooky Sleep Stories series, we’ll read the opening to the novella “The Willows” written by Algernon Blackwood and first published in 1907. This year’s series of classic horror stories will air every Monday this October.

In this story, two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the River Danube. The natural environment, for example the river, sun and wind— is personified with powerful and ultimately threatening characteristics. Most ominous are the masses of dense willows along the river banks, which "moved of their own will as though alive."

This is one of Blackwood's best known works and has been influential on a number of later writers. Horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.

— read by 'V' —

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tonight, we’ll read the next part to “Winnie-the-Pooh” a children’s story written by A.A. Milne and published in 1926. This collection of short stories features an anthropomorphic teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, along with his friends Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, and Roo.

In the previous episode, we read chapters two and three, in which Pooh west visited and got into a tight place. And also where he and Piglet went hunting, and nearly caught a Woozle.

As Pooh says about Woozles, "It is either Two Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two, as it might be, Wizzles and one, if so it is, Woozle. Let us continue to follow them."

— read by V —

Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.