The Book Reader

Eighty Seven by Pansy audiobook. Genre: religion In Eighty Seven, Isabella M. Alden (writing as Pansy) tells a quietly gripping story about childhood hardship, stubborn hope, and the life-changing power of mercy. Twelve-year-old Winter Kelland, an orphan, has been indentured to a cold, demanding farming couple where every day is measured in chores, hunger, and hard words. His one bright spot is Vine, an eight-year-old neighbor girl whose friendship and fierce confidence in him make him believe that education and a better future might still be possible. When Winter finally runs away, he expects freedom, but instead discovers how quickly the world can grind down a boy with no money, no home, and no one to claim him. At his lowest point, an unlikely adult enters his path: a prickly, set-in-her-ways woman who is forced to confront what faith requires when real need stands at her door. As Winter struggles to keep his dignity and find a way forward, Vine holds fast to a promise tied to 'Eighty Seven' - a future year and a longed-for celebration that symbolizes growing up, belonging, and new beginnings. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:03:01) Chapter 01 (00:20:12) Chapter 02 (00:36:10) Chapter 03 (00:53:54) Chapter 04 (01:11:22) Chapter 05 (01:28:52) Chapter 06 (01:45:45) Chapter 07 (02:02:52) Chapter 08 (02:19:45) Chapter 09 (02:37:38) Chapter 10 (02:54:47) Chapter 11 (03:11:42) Chapter 12 (03:28:21) Chapter 13 (03:44:46) Chapter 14 (04:02:32) Chapter 15 (04:19:45) Chapter 16 (04:36:24) Chapter 17 (04:54:24) Chapter 18 (05:12:50) Chapter 19 (05:32:13) Chapter 20 (05:51:03) Chapter 21 (06:09:57) Chapter 22 (06:27:13) Chapter 23 (06:44:40) Chapter 24 (07:03:11) Chapter 25 (07:20:57) Chapter 26 (07:39:20) Chapter 27 (07:58:58) Chapter 28 (08:16:12) Chapter 29 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde audiobook. Genre: philosophy In The Soul of Man, Oscar Wilde delivers a provocative and elegantly argued essay on what it means to live freely, create boldly, and resist the quiet pressures of conformity. Writing with his trademark wit and moral seriousness, Wilde questions a society that measures worth by work, respectability, and obedience, and he challenges the ways charity, punishment, and public opinion can end up preserving the very injustices they claim to cure. At the heart of his vision is the individual: the artist, the outsider, the dreamer, and anyone who feels the strain between inner truth and social expectation. Wilde explores how economic arrangements shape character, how institutions can train people to accept limits as virtues, and why genuine progress depends on allowing people the space to be fully themselves. By turns lyrical, incisive, and rebellious, this short work is both a defense of imagination and a critique of systems that reduce human life to utility. The Soul of Man invites listeners into a timeless debate about freedom, creativity, and the courage to live differently. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:20:55) Chapter 2 (00:40:17) Chapter 3 (00:52:56) Chapter 4 (01:16:14) Chapter 5 (01:37:51) Chapter 6 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Divers Women by Pansy audiobook. Genre: religion In Divers Women, beloved Christian novelist Isabella 'Pansy' Alden, joined by Mrs. C. M. Livingston, gathers a rich set of late-19th-century stories that follow women whose everyday choices become spiritual turning points. In 'Sunday Fractures,' a polished, prosperous congregation discovers how easily pride, gossip, and social ambition can wound a church and its weary pastor's family. At home, tensions flare in kitchens and parlors: spirited Margaret faces a sharp-tongued, overstrained mother in 'New Nerves,' while newly married Ruey Thorne learns that love can be tested by something as small as a plate of buckwheat cakes. Elsewhere, the young mother Faith Vincent refuses to accept a summer of separation and quietly attempts a daring plan to build a healthier home for her baby and husband. The fashionable Mrs. Williams, certain she has no time for 'foreign missions,' is confronted by unsettling questions about comfort, duty, and compassion. And when gentle Mrs. Kensett is left vulnerable after her husband's death, family loyalties reveal their true weight. By turns satirical, tender, and warmly instructive, these intertwined portraits explore faith lived out in family life, community expectations, and the hard work of becoming more charitable and courageous. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:17:34) Chapter 02 (00:31:43) Chapter 03 (00:44:52) Chapter 04 (00:59:31) Chapter 05 (01:32:49) Chapter 06 (02:03:33) Chapter 07 (02:29:45) Chapter 08 (02:57:43) Chapter 09 (03:18:12) Chapter 10 (03:33:54) Chapter 11 (03:55:59) Chapter 12 (04:30:12) Chapter 13 (05:02:15) Chapter 14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Ransoms Watch by Pansy audiobook. Genre: religion In Pansy's warm, faith-shaped novel, David Ransom is a steady young farmer who has built a hard-won life on a struggling homestead and is counting the days until he can finally marry. Then his restless younger brother, Ben, leaves home in anger and takes more than his share: the family's savings and their father's old silver watch, a keepsake David cannot replace. Years later, that watch still ticks like an accusation, tying together a chain of choices, missed chances, and quiet sacrifices that ripple far beyond one family. As Ben chases excitement and status in town, he becomes entangled with flirtation, pride, and the temptation to live on borrowed time. Nearby, capable Miss Hannah Sterns watches the drama with a clear eye and a guarded heart, while a lonely boy in her care hints at the hidden costs of other people's mistakes. When David travels to the city to settle the matter of the watch, a startling encounter forces him into an unexpected responsibility and confronts him with what real manhood, mercy, and forgiveness demand. Tender, humorous, and morally alert, David Ransom's Watch asks how ordinary decisions can wound or heal a lifetime, and whether grace can redeem what seems already lost. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:18:51) Chapter 02 (00:35:33) Chapter 03 (00:53:42) Chapter 04 (01:11:39) Chapter 05 (01:30:18) Chapter 06 (01:48:03) Chapter 07 (02:05:40) Chapter 08 (02:25:25) Chapter 09 (02:45:00) Chapter 10 (03:04:05) Chapter 11 (03:23:56) Chapter 12 (03:40:57) Chapter 13 (03:58:58) Chapter 14 (04:17:04) Chapter 15 (04:35:40) Chapter 16 (04:52:59) Chapter 17 (05:11:07) Chapter 18 (05:28:43) Chapter 19 (05:45:37) Chapter 20 (06:05:25) Chapter 21 (06:23:02) Chapter 22 (06:40:58) Chapter 23 (07:00:33) Chapter 24 (07:17:32) Chapter 25 (07:35:45) Chapter 26 (07:53:02) Chapter 27 (08:09:05) Chapter 28 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cunning Workmen by Pansy audiobook. Genre: religion In a quiet New England town, Cora Parkhurst wears the title of Sunday school teacher like a pretty accessory - charming, busy, and forever certain she will do better next week. But her class of young women is drifting, and Cora has never learned the patient craft of guiding souls because she has not yet faced the demands of sincere faith in her own life. Across the aisle is Robert Hammond, a steady, prayerful teacher of young men who believes the work of the church should be done with skill, preparation, and courage. When he invites Cora to the weekly teachers' meeting, he expects to encourage a fellow worker. Instead, he discovers a heart that needs awakening and a life shaped by careless habits and shallow promises. Complicating everything is Cora's engagement to George Tracy, a man who resents any religious duty that competes with his plans and quickly turns his jealousy toward Hammond. As lessons are prepared, motives tested, and reputations weighed, Cora must decide whether she will remain a pleasant spectator - or become a true workman in a work that costs. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:17:12) Chapter 02 (00:35:44) Chapter 03 (00:53:09) Chapter 04 (01:11:43) Chapter 05 (01:29:19) Chapter 06 (01:47:20) Chapter 07 (02:05:36) Chapter 08 (02:24:53) Chapter 09 (02:46:37) Chapter 10 (03:06:11) Chapter 11 (03:18:41) Chapter 12 (03:36:11) Chapter 13 (03:51:57) Chapter 14 (04:07:11) Chapter 15 (04:22:30) Chapter 16 (04:36:44) Chapter 17 (04:53:50) Chapter 18 (05:08:16) Chapter 19 (05:26:29) Chapter 20 (05:47:41) Chapter 21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chrissys Endeavor by Pansy audiobook. Genre: religion When spirited young Chrissy Hollister visits a neighboring city, a simple mistake leads her into a meeting of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor and she is startled by what she finds: ordinary young people, openly pledging themselves to practical Christian service, and actually doing it. The experience follows her home, and Chrissy, all energy and sincerity, decides her own town needs the same kind of society. Gathering friends, recruiting unlikely allies, and facing quiet resistance from those who prefer religion to stay private and comfortable, she launches a new chapter with a straightforward pledge and high hopes. At first the results seem undeniable, as respected members of the community sign on and the calendar fills with committees, programs, and rehearsals. But success brings a new fear: has the work shifted from serving Christ to merely pleasing the members? As Chrissy wrestles with pride, discouragement, and the pressure to keep everyone happy, a troubling situation closer to home sharpens the stakes and tests whether her influence can reach beyond meetings into real change. Pansy's classic novel traces one young woman's determination to turn enthusiasm into lasting, Christ-centered purpose. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:19:47) Chapter 02 (00:36:13) Chapter 03 (00:56:19) Chapter 04 (01:17:44) Chapter 05 (01:37:40) Chapter 06 (01:59:39) Chapter 07 (02:21:28) Chapter 08 (02:37:54) Chapter 09 (02:52:02) Chapter 10 (03:06:21) Chapter 11 (03:20:05) Chapter 12 (03:34:44) Chapter 13 (03:52:09) Chapter 14 (04:09:56) Chapter 15 (04:26:35) Chapter 16 (04:45:09) Chapter 17 (05:03:05) Chapter 18 (05:21:38) Chapter 19 (05:41:12) Chapter 20 (05:59:19) Chapter 21 (06:16:47) Chapter 22 (06:35:47) Chapter 23 (06:53:02) Chapter 24 (07:11:46) Chapter 25 (07:29:19) Chapter 26 (07:46:21) Chapter 27 (08:04:51) Chapter 28 (08:24:07) Chapter 29 (08:43:58) Chapter 30 (09:03:15) Chapter 31 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Inspector-General by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol audiobook. Genre: comedy In a remote provincial Russian town, the news everyone fears finally arrives: an inspector-general is rumored to be traveling incognito, sent from the capital to investigate corruption and misconduct. The mayor, Anton Antonovich, and a parade of anxious officials scramble to hide bribes, missing funds, and petty abuses of power that have long been treated as ordinary business. When a penniless young civil servant named Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov is mistakenly identified as the dreaded visitor, panic turns into frantic hospitality. Lodging, meals, money, and flattering attention are poured on the bewildered stranger, while each official tries to secure favor and avert punishment. Khlestakov, urged on by his shrewd servant Osip and his own appetite for admiration, slips into the role the town has written for him, and the lies begin to multiply. Gogol's razor-sharp satire exposes how fear, vanity, and greed can make a community complicit in its own deception, building a comic crescendo of misunderstandings, moral blindness, and self-inflicted chaos. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:34:39) Chapter 2 (01:06:00) Chapter 3 (01:42:44) Chapter 4 (02:31:36) Chapter 5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol audiobook. Genre: comedy In provincial Russia, a smooth-tongued stranger named Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov arrives with polished manners, vague credentials, and an oddly specific business proposition. Traveling from estate to estate, he courts landowners, charms officials, and studies the petty rivalries that rule local society. His goal is as baffling as it is audacious: to purchase the legal rights to peasants who have died since the last census - the so-called 'dead souls' who still exist on paper and still count toward a landlord's taxes and status. As rumors swirl and doors open and slam shut, Chichikov's visits become a darkly comic tour of greed, vanity, fear, and self-deception, revealing a nation where appearances matter more than truth and paperwork can outweigh human life. With exuberant storytelling and razor-sharp observation, Gogol builds a gallery of unforgettable characters while probing what a 'soul' is worth in a world obsessed with rank and profit. Dead Souls is a grand satire of ambition and moral emptiness, propelled by mystery, misdirection, and the uneasy laughter of recognition. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:25:39) Chapter 01 (01:02:39) Chapter 02 (01:27:46) Chapter 03 (02:05:57) Chapter 04 (02:35:35) Chapter 05 (03:03:55) Chapter 06 (03:33:00) Chapter 07 (04:12:52) Chapter 08 (04:36:41) Chapter 09 (05:15:14) Chapter 10 (05:50:08) Chapter 11 (06:07:46) Chapter 12 (06:38:05) Chapter 13 (07:21:00) Chapter 14 (07:47:13) Chapter 15 (08:16:36) Chapter 16 (09:01:05) Chapter 17 (09:41:09) Chapter 18 (10:19:21) Chapter 19 (10:52:27) Chapter 20 (11:06:24) Chapter 21 (11:58:34) Chapter 22 (12:41:58) Chapter 23 (13:23:30) Chapter 24 (13:57:06) Chapter 25 (14:19:34) Chapter 26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Pirates of Ersatz by Murray Leinster audiobook. Genre: scifi Bron Hoddan was born on Zan, a backwater world notorious for the one profession its people secretly practice: space piracy. Bron wants out. Armed with a self-taught genius for electronics and a fierce determination to become respectable, he runs to Walden, the most polished planet in the region, dreaming of a steady career, real wealth, and a future with the sweet, sensible Nedda. But Walden's comfort hides a deadly fear of change, and when Bron proves his brilliance with an invention that could upend the planet's tidy economy, the reaction is panic, cover-ups, and an accusation far worse than theft: that he has created a weapon no one can be allowed to possess. Forced into flight, Bron falls among hard edged feudal warriors, prickly nobles like the Lady Fani, and chieftains who understand power in ways Walden has forgotten. To survive, he does the one thing he swore he would never do again: he becomes a pirate - not for bloodlust, but as a calculated tool. As rumors spread of pirate fleets and impossible technology, Bron must balance engineering, bluff, and moral compromise while deciding what kind of man he will be when the whole galaxy insists on labeling him a menace. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:33:08) Chapter 02 (01:09:24) Chapter 03 (01:48:32) Chapter 04 (02:27:55) Chapter 05 (02:58:46) Chapter 06 (03:28:43) Chapter 07 (04:04:40) Chapter 08 (04:31:01) Chapter 09 (04:59:09) Chapter 10 (05:26:27) Chapter 11 (05:46:46) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Volume Two by M. R. James audiobook. Genre: horror In Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Volume Two, M. R. James returns to the world he made famous: quiet English libraries, country houses, cathedral precincts, and forgotten footpaths where scholarship and curiosity can become dangerous. James writes with the genial authority of a learned antiquary, letting his narrators chase small puzzles - a marginal note, a peculiar will, an odd local tradition, a document tucked into the wrong folio - until the ordinary textures of academic life begin to fray. The central tension in each tale is not whether the supernatural exists, but how easily a sensible person can invite it in through carelessness, pride, or simple fascination with the past. With a masterful slow build, James turns dust, parchment, and architecture into instruments of dread, blending dry humor, precise period detail, and sudden, visceral shocks. Volume Two gathers more of his classic hauntings and curses, each story different in setting and method, yet linked by a shared warning: some knowledge is better left unhandled, and some doors, once opened, do not close quietly. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:18:51) Chapter 2 (00:47:41) Chapter 3 (01:30:47) Chapter 4 (02:24:40) Chapter 5 (03:04:52) Chapter 6 (03:53:58) Chapter 7 (04:23:26) Chapter 8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices