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, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" by Laurence Sterne and published in 1759. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

As its title suggests, the book is about Tristram's narration of his life story. But one of the central jokes of the novel is that he cannot explain anything simply; he must make diversions to add interest to his tale, to the extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until far into the book. Its style is marked by digression,double entendre, and graphic devices. 

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, by Patreon supporter request, we’ll read pt. 2 to, "The Yellow Dwarf" from "The Blue Fairy Book" edited by Andrew Lang in 1889. To unlock full episodes and ad-free listening of this series and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

"The Yellow Dwarf" story originated from the Countess d'Aulnoy, a 17th century French writer known for her fairy tales. In part I, Bellissima is a beautiful princess who has a spell put on her by the yellow dwarf that her and him should marry. 

Bellissima moves forward with her life in hopes that the spell isn’t true, and plans to marry one of the many kings who want to betroth her. 

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, by listener request, we’ll read the fourth installment to 1877’s, "Black Beauty" by Anna Sewall. "Black Beauty" is one of the best-selling books of all time. To unlock full episodes and ad-free listening of this series and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

When we left off, we learned Ginger’s story. Ginger is a mean-spirited horse- or so she seems, until you hear her experience and mistreatment. Even the well behaved pony named Merrylegs sometimes has trouble with human behavior, but Merrylegs is wiser in how he responds. 

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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 second part to "The Secret Garden",a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in 1911. Set in England, it is now one of Burnett's most popular novels and seen as a classic of English children's literature. To unlock full episodes and ad-free listening of this series and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

In the first episode, we learn of the unloved and unloving Mary. When cholera breaks out, she is left all alone in the world. She is then sent from India to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven. 

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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 some selected Himalayan Folk Tales from a 1906 book called "Simla Village Tales", written by Alice Elizabeth Dracott. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

From the author in her preface: "Himalayan folk-lore, with its beauty, wit, and mysticism, is a most fascinating study, and makes one grieve to think that the day is fast approaching when the honest rugged hill-folk of Northern India will lose their fireside tales under the influence of modern civilisation....From their cradle under the shade of ancient deodars, beside the rocks, forests and streams of the mighty Himalayan mountains, have I sought these tales to place them upon the great Bookshelf of the World.” 

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Tonight, we’ll read about the basics of bread making, from Volume 1 of 1925’s "Woman’s Institute Library of Cookery", written by The Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences. 

This institute was founded by Mary Brooks Picken in Scranton, PA. An expert on fashion, Picken also wrote the first dictionary to be published by a woman in the English language. 

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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 "Moonfleet", a 1898 novel written by English writer J. Meade Falkner. The plot is an adventure tale of smuggling, treasure, and shipwreck set in 18th century England. Falkner is best known for writing this book. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

A feature of the narrative is a continuing reference to the board game of backgammon which is played by the patrons of the "Why Not? Inn" on an antique board which bears a Latin inscription that translates to: “As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws.” 

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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 "Princess Belle Etoile", written by the 17th century French writer and mother of modern western fairy tales, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, AKA the Madame Countess d'Aulnoy. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

She originated the term that is now generally used for the genre. "Princess Belle Etoile" was itself inspired by an Italian fairy tale, which may have originally spun from an Arabic tale. 

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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 another excerpt from, “In New England Fields and Woods”, written by Rowland Evans Robinson in 1896. Robinson was, in his time, one of Vermont’s best known writers. To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

This collection of short essays follows New England's changing seasons and moods in all its natural beauty. This particular selection covers the month of April, along with woodchucks, chipmunks and garter snakes. 

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We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers. Tonight, we shall read the fourth installment to Peter Pan, the 1911 novel by J.M. Barrie. To unlock full episodes and ad-free listening of this series and more, please go to snoozecast.com/plus.

In the last part, chapter 3, Peter promises Wendy to teach her to fly if she will come to Neverland and tell stories to him and “the lost boys”. Nanna the dog nanny does her best to alert the parents, but it is too late. 

All the children, along with Peter and Tinkerbell, had just flown out the window into the night. 

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