The Book Reader

The Story of a Whim by Grace Livingston Hill audiobook. Genre: romance When Hazel Winship feels a sudden tug of compassion, she acts on a whim that will change far more than her own quiet, well-ordered life. After Hazel and a circle of friends notice a shipment addressed to someone named Christie Bailey in Florida, they imagine a lonely young woman in need and begin sending small gifts and bright, encouraging letters. Hazel takes the lead, pouring warmth and sincerity into a friendship with a person she has never met. But the name Christie Bailey hides a startling truth: the recipient is not a young woman at all, but a struggling bachelor trying to hold on to an orange grove and a future that keeps slipping through his fingers. As the correspondence deepens, Hazel finds herself tangled in questions of honesty, duty, and the difference between doing good and doing it wisely. When plans are made to meet face-to-face, the distance between northern comfort and Florida hardship closes fast, and Hazel must decide what she truly believes about love, faith, and the God who can redeem even mistaken beginnings. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:12:15) Chapter 02 (00:29:08) Chapter 03 (00:40:07) Chapter 04 (00:57:27) Chapter 05 (01:19:00) Chapter 06 (01:34:48) Chapter 07 (01:50:50) Chapter 08 (02:07:19) Chapter 09 (02:24:16) Chapter 10 (02:40:21) Chapter 11 (02:52:30) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The City of Fire by Grace Livingston Hill audiobook. Genre: religion When Lynn Severn comes home to her quiet valley town after college, she expects familiar faces and steady certainties - especially the friendship she has always shared with Mark Carter. Instead, she finds a troubling distance between them: Mark is drifting from the faith that once anchored him, drawn toward a faster crowd and a harder kind of pride. Lynn, the minister's daughter, refuses to give up on him, but her compassion is tested as whispers of scandal begin to circle. Meanwhile Billy Gaston, a sharp, high-spirited fourteen-year-old from Lynn's Sunday School world, stumbles into trouble of his own - a reckless prank and a dangerous misunderstanding that spiral into kidnapping, deception, and a web of lies no one seems brave enough to untangle. As suspicion threatens to ruin Mark's future, Billy realizes he may be the only one who can tell the truth - yet telling it could cost him everything, including the trust of the people he wants to protect. Set against the contrast of small-town respectability and moral hazard, The City of Fire is a tense, tender story of loyalty, redemption, and the courage it takes to choose the light. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:18:23) Chapter 02 (00:38:10) Chapter 03 (01:01:01) Chapter 04 (01:20:50) Chapter 05 (01:36:27) Chapter 06 (02:01:31) Chapter 07 (02:21:10) Chapter 08 (02:42:04) Chapter 09 (03:06:56) Chapter 10 (03:29:13) Chapter 11 (03:52:48) Chapter 12 (04:11:04) Chapter 13 (04:28:25) Chapter 14 (04:40:30) Chapter 15 (04:55:31) Chapter 16 (05:01:17) Chapter 17 (05:18:57) Chapter 18 (05:41:56) Chapter 19 (05:59:26) Chapter 20 (06:17:52) Chapter 21 (06:41:31) Chapter 22 (06:56:57) Chapter 23 (07:08:45) Chapter 24 (07:26:33) Chapter 25 (07:44:03) Chapter 26 (08:10:19) Chapter 27 (08:23:53) Chapter 28 (08:41:28) Chapter 29 (09:00:30) Chapter 30 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Book of Giants by Henry Wysham Lanier audiobook. Genre: folklore What do the Titans of Greece, the frost giants of the North, the giants of scripture, and the oversized brutes of medieval romance have in common? In A Book of Giants, Henry Wysham Lanier gathers twenty-five larger-than-life tales that trace humanity's long fascination with beings who tower over ordinary people - and with the courage, cleverness, or faith it takes to face them. Moving from Mount Olympus to Jotunheim, from ancient battlefields to Arthurian roads, these retellings introduce a parade of memorable figures: Zeus in his struggle against primeval powers, Odysseus pitting wits against Polyphemus, Thor venturing into the giants' country, and knights like Sir Launcelot encountering monstrous foes. Lanier also ranges beyond Europe, drawing in giant legends from Irish, Norse, Serbian, Japanese, Korean, and Native American traditions. The collection closes by stepping out of storybook wonder and into reality, exploring reports of unusually tall men and asking what medicine and science can say about 'giants' in the real world. Part myth anthology, part cultural tour, this book invites listeners to compare how different civilizations imagined size, strength, and the limits of human daring. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:08:37) Chapter 01 (00:30:51) Chapter 02 (01:19:02) Chapter 03 (02:02:25) Chapter 04 (02:32:08) Chapter 05 (02:39:42) Chapter 06 (02:50:13) Chapter 07 (03:02:19) Chapter 08 (03:17:52) Chapter 09 (03:35:03) Chapter 10 (04:05:23) Chapter 11 (04:25:56) Chapter 12 (05:20:04) Chapter 13 (05:34:59) Chapter 14 (05:55:20) Chapter 15 (06:27:32) Chapter 16 (06:39:55) Chapter 17 (06:54:19) Chapter 18 (07:11:54) Chapter 19 (07:27:23) Chapter 20 (07:47:45) Chapter 21 (07:55:41) Chapter 22 (08:01:15) Chapter 23 (08:06:18) Chapter 24 (08:25:38) Chapter 25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lo, Michael! by Grace Livingston Hill audiobook. Genre: romance When a gunshot cracks across a Madison Avenue doorway, a scrappy New York newsboy named Michael (called Mikky) reacts faster than anyone expects. In a single, reckless act of courage, he shields three-year-old heiress Starr Endicott and changes both their lives forever. The Endicotts' gratitude pulls Michael out of the streets and into a world of schooling, discipline, and opportunity, but the memories of hunger, crime, and forgotten children never leave him. Years later, educated and determined to live by a higher standard, Michael returns to the city that made him, intent on offering hope to the very people he once ran with. Meanwhile Starr grows up surrounded by wealth and expectation, unaware of how fragile safety can be behind polished doors. When Michael learns that Starr is drifting toward a dangerous future, old promises and buried feelings collide with hard questions about duty, love, and faith. Set against the stark contrast of tenement alleys and drawing-room privilege, Lo, Michael! is an uplifting story of sacrifice, redemption, and the cost of choosing the right path when the past refuses to stay quiet. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:27:18) Chapter 02 (00:49:22) Chapter 03 (01:14:49) Chapter 04 (01:36:48) Chapter 05 (02:09:27) Chapter 06 (02:27:42) Chapter 07 (02:47:08) Chapter 08 (03:08:57) Chapter 09 (03:36:20) Chapter 10 (03:58:14) Chapter 11 (04:21:34) Chapter 12 (04:38:42) Chapter 13 (05:00:42) Chapter 14 (05:18:43) Chapter 15 (05:38:31) Chapter 16 (05:49:53) Chapter 17 (06:07:28) Chapter 18 (06:29:14) Chapter 19 (07:03:32) Chapter 20 (07:27:43) Chapter 21 (07:47:57) Chapter 22 (08:11:01) Chapter 23 (08:29:01) Chapter 24 (08:45:23) Chapter 25 (09:13:05) Chapter 26 (09:40:26) Chapter 27 (10:05:56) Chapter 28 (10:19:37) Chapter 29 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Castlecourt Diamond Mystery by Geraldine Bonner audiobook. Genre: mystery When the legendary Castlecourt diamonds vanish during London season, scandal threatens to swallow an aristocratic household whole. Staying at Burridge's Hotel instead of their own townhouse, Lady Castlecourt and her husband find themselves surrounded by servants, guests, and hangers-on, any of whom might have seen something, or might be hiding it. The mystery is told as a sequence of statements from the people closest to the case, beginning with Sophy Jeffers, the Marchioness' maid, who recounts the tense routines of service and the moment the jewels are discovered missing. One account leads to another, including the fascinating testimony of Lilly Bingham, better known by a trail of names on both sides of the Atlantic and to the police as Laura the Lady. With an official detective and a private investigator circling the same glittering prize, suspicion shifts from staff to society, from chance opportunity to deliberate design. As each voice adds new details, the reader must weigh gossip against evidence, kindness against calculation, and appearances against motive in a clever, manners-soaked puzzle of theft, identity, and social theater. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:27:45) Chapter 02 (01:07:41) Chapter 03 (01:26:26) Chapter 04 (01:46:09) Chapter 05 (02:12:07) Chapter 06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blake of the Rattlesnake by Frederick Thomas Jane audiobook. Genre: scifi In the tense, near-future waters of the 1890s, Britain faces the nightmare its newspapers only half dare to imagine: a sudden war at sea against France and Russia, fought with fast torpedo craft, new tactics, and unforgiving modern weapons. Into the chaos steps Lieutenant Edward Blake of the torpedo-boat Rattlesnake, a hard-driving officer whose faith in naval skill and disciplined daring clashes with political hesitation, public complacency, and the fragile systems that keep an island nation supplied. As coastal alarms spread and fleet actions erupt, Blake is thrown from desperate skirmishes to high-stakes convoy work, forced to make ruthless choices about risk, responsibility, and the price of command. Along the way, a personal attachment complicates his sense of duty, while the Admiralty and the nation argue over what must be done to survive. Packed with diagrams, shipboard detail, and breathless engagements drawn from the author’s deep naval knowledge, this is both an action tale and a warning: in a war decided by seconds and steel, England’s fate may hinge on one commander’s nerve. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:04:50) Chapter 01 (00:30:42) Chapter 02 (01:07:52) Chapter 03 (01:34:57) Chapter 04 (01:46:43) Chapter 05 (02:05:53) Chapter 06 (02:21:59) Chapter 07 (02:45:18) Chapter 08 (02:58:32) Chapter 09 (03:17:27) Chapter 10 (03:28:38) Chapter 11 (03:46:53) Chapter 12 (04:04:38) Chapter 13 (04:28:28) Chapter 14 (04:42:29) Chapter 15 (04:54:05) Chapter 16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bagpipers by George Sand audiobook. Genre: romance Told as a remembered tale shared during long winter work nights in the French countryside, The Bagpipers follows Etienne Depardieu, nicknamed Tiennet, as he looks back on the restless years of his youth in Berry. From the first days of catechism and village festivals, Tiennet is bound to two people who will shape his life: his sharp-minded cousin Brulette, and Joseph Picot, the withdrawn boy raised under the same roof who seems slow to everyone except those who notice how fiercely he listens to music. As the three grow older, the harmless rivalries of adolescence harden into something more dangerous. Joseph is drawn toward the secretive world of master bagpipers and wandering musicians across the border in Bourbonnais, where tradition is guarded like a craft and jealousy can turn violent. Tiennet, torn between loyalty and envy, follows the pull of friendship and love into a landscape of forests, fairs, and roadside inns, where every meeting is measured by honor, reputation, and song. Rich with folk customs and the sound of pipes in the night, Sand's novel explores how passion - for music, for belonging, for a person - can test even the oldest bonds. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:04:50) Chapter 01 (00:33:06) Chapter 02 (00:55:18) Chapter 03 (01:05:02) Chapter 04 (01:27:03) Chapter 05 (01:44:01) Chapter 06 (02:04:30) Chapter 07 (02:25:55) Chapter 08 (02:33:24) Chapter 09 (02:42:58) Chapter 10 (03:02:32) Chapter 11 (03:23:13) Chapter 12 (03:41:43) Chapter 13 (04:02:23) Chapter 14 (04:25:08) Chapter 15 (04:45:31) Chapter 16 (05:07:32) Chapter 17 (05:29:23) Chapter 18 (05:49:01) Chapter 19 (06:06:54) Chapter 20 (06:24:40) Chapter 21 (06:42:18) Chapter 22 (07:02:05) Chapter 23 (07:22:24) Chapter 24 (07:43:51) Chapter 25 (07:54:34) Chapter 26 (08:18:49) Chapter 27 (08:30:16) Chapter 28 (08:51:12) Chapter 29 (09:12:12) Chapter 30 (09:33:27) Chapter 31 (09:55:07) Chapter 32 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Antonia by George Sand audiobook. Genre: romance Paris, April 1785: spring lilacs press against the studio window of Julien Thierry, a gifted young painter of flowers whose talent cannot erase a brutal inheritance of debt. Still grieving his celebrated artist father, Julien works side by side with his devoted mother, Madame Thierry, clinging to dignity as money troubles tighten and the world of taste shifts away from his family's once-fashionable art. Just beyond their modest pavilion stands the hotel d'Estrelle, where Julie, Comtesse d'Estrelle, lives in uneasy half-mourning. Barely twenty and already widowed, she discovers that the fortune she was promised is tangled in obligations, and the proud d'Estrelle family offers her little more than cold protection for their name. As solicitors bargain, friends advise, and reputation becomes currency, Julie confronts the cost of the choices forced on women of her rank, while Julien faces the perilous distance between an artist's heart and aristocratic society. When Julien and the countess are drawn into one another's orbit, Sand weaves a tense, intimate tale of love tested by class, honor, and the looming pressure of ruin, in a city glittering on the eve of upheaval. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:17:59) Chapter 02 (00:32:37) Chapter 03 (00:46:20) Chapter 04 (00:59:14) Chapter 05 (01:12:10) Chapter 06 (01:28:53) Chapter 07 (01:42:55) Chapter 08 (01:57:30) Chapter 09 (02:14:41) Chapter 10 (02:30:10) Chapter 11 (02:43:03) Chapter 12 (02:55:55) Chapter 13 (03:09:44) Chapter 14 (03:26:13) Chapter 15 (03:37:39) Chapter 16 (03:52:41) Chapter 17 (04:13:41) Chapter 18 (04:27:45) Chapter 19 (04:38:19) Chapter 20 (04:52:21) Chapter 21 (05:10:37) Chapter 22 (05:24:18) Chapter 23 (05:39:54) Chapter 24 (05:53:00) Chapter 25 (06:08:23) Chapter 26 (06:25:09) Chapter 27 (06:45:11) Chapter 28 (07:05:58) Chapter 29 (07:25:01) Chapter 30 (07:41:07) Chapter 31 (07:54:58) Chapter 32 (08:07:24) Chapter 33 (08:25:26) Chapter 34 (08:42:05) Chapter 35 (08:59:23) Chapter 36 (09:17:54) Chapter 37 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald audiobook. Genre: philosophy A Dish of Orts gathers George MacDonald's most searching short pieces - part literary criticism, part spiritual meditation, and part manifesto for the imagination. Rather than offering a single plot, the book invites listeners into an ongoing conversation with a Victorian storyteller who believed that art and faith meet in the deepest places of the human heart. Across essays on poetry, fairy tales, and the moral work of storytelling, MacDonald argues that imagination is not escapism but a disciplined way of seeing: a means of approaching truth, goodness, and God with humility. He challenges shallow moralizing, defends the importance of wonder, and asks what it means to read, write, and live attentively. The central tension is between a reduced, merely practical view of life and MacDonald's insistence that beauty, mystery, and childlike receptivity are essential to spiritual growth. With a voice at once gentle and uncompromising, he addresses artists, teachers, and ordinary readers alike, urging them to cultivate inner honesty and compassion. This is a book for anyone drawn to reflective nonfiction that treats creativity as a serious moral vocation. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:01:59) Chapter 01 (00:50:43) Chapter 02 (01:22:52) Chapter 03 (02:27:46) Chapter 04 (03:05:08) Chapter 05 (03:47:36) Chapter 06 (04:31:18) Chapter 07 (05:29:08) Chapter 08 (05:51:15) Chapter 09 (06:12:25) Chapter 10 (06:48:12) Chapter 11 (07:22:42) Chapter 12 (07:37:48) Chapter 13 (08:17:17) Chapter 14 (08:58:08) Chapter 15 (09:25:28) Chapter 16 (09:52:05) Chapter 17 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Angel of the Revolution by George Griffith audiobook. Genre: scifi The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror (1893) is a science fiction novel by English writer George Griffith. It was his first published novel and remains his most famous work. It was first published in Pearson's Weekly and was prompted by the success of The Great War of 1892 in Black and White magazine, which was itself inspired by The Battle of Dorking. A lurid mix of Jules Verne's futuristic air warfare fantasies, the utopian visions of News from Nowhere and the future war invasion literature of Chesney and his imitators, it tells the tale of a group of terrorists who conquer the world through airship warfare. Led by a crippled, brilliant Russian Jew and his daughter, the 'angel' Natasha, 'The Brotherhood of Freedom' establish a 'pax aeronautica' over the earth after a young inventor masters the technology of flight in 1903. The hero falls in love with Natasha and joins in her war against society in general and the Russian Czar in particular. It correctly forecasts the coming of a great war, but in pretty well all other respects widely misses the mark of the real events that followed. Nevertheless, it is a gripping and exciting story of intrigue and plot interwoven with love and romance played over a background of world war For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:15:08) Chapter 2 (00:31:20) Chapter 3 (00:45:00) Chapter 4 (00:59:23) Chapter 5 (01:16:25) Chapter 6 (01:36:43) Chapter 7 (01:53:45) Chapter 8 (02:13:19) Chapter 9 (02:30:41) Chapter 10 (02:47:50) Chapter 11 (03:02:18) Chapter 12 (03:14:33) Chapter 13 (03:28:38) Chapter 14 (03:38:45) Chapter 15 (03:52:46) Chapter 16 (04:13:28) Chapter 17 (04:29:22) Chapter 18 (04:47:09) Chapter 19 (05:00:45) Chapter 20 (05:28:37) Chapter 21 (05:47:31) Chapter 22 (06:02:03) Chapter 23 (06:24:00) Chapter 24 (06:43:08) Chapter 25 (06:54:46) Chapter 26 (07:11:45) Chapter 27 (07:26:15) Chapter 28 (07:41:30) Chapter 29 (08:00:55) Chapter 30 (08:18:09) Chapter 31 (08:33:39) Chapter 32 (08:45:27) Chapter 33 (08:54:44) Chapter 34 (09:10:02) Chapter 35 (09:28:00) Chapter 36 (09:47:05) Chapter 37 (10:16:17) Chapter 38 (10:29:26) Chapter 39 (10:42:36) Chapter 40 (10:56:48) Chapter 41 (11:10:53) Chapter 42 (11:26:54) Chapter 43 (11:42:21) Chapter 44 (11:58:34) Chapter 45 (12:15:23) Chapter 46 (12:31:36) Chapter 47 (12:55:11) Chapter 48 (13:16:03) Chapter 49 (13:41:36) Chapter 50 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices