Showing results by narrator "MIke Vendetti" in All Categories

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love", known for its first line, "Come live with me and be my love," is a poem written by the English poet Christopher Marlowe and published in 1599 (six years after the poet's death). In addition to being one of the best-known love poems in the English language, it is considered one of the earliest examples of the pastoral style of British poetry in the late Renaissance period. The poem was the subject of a well-known "reply" by Walter Raleigh, called "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd".

As well as writing Treasure Island and Jekyll and Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson also wrote the perennially popular A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), a collection of poems for younger readers. Many of Stevenson's greatest poems were included in that volume. Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti recites six of these favorites including "Looking-Glass River", "My Shadow", and "Sing Me a Song of a Lad that is Gone".

His power came from some great reservoirof spiritual life, else it could not have been so universal and so potent....

The Practice of the Presence of God is a book of collected teachings of Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite friar, compiled by Father Joseph de Beaufort. The compilation includes letters, as well as records of his conversations kept by Brother Lawrence's interlocutors.

Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison, part of which he spent in Reading Gaol. About five months after Wilde arrived at Reading Gaol, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, was brought to Reading to await his trial for murdering his common-law wife (and promptly presenting himself and confessing to a policeman) on 29 March 1896; on 17 June, Wooldridge was sentenced to death and returned to Reading for his execution, which took place on Tuesday, 7 July 1896 - the first hanging at Reading in 18 years. The poem is dedicated to him.

Temptation looms large in love poetry and religious poetry, but over the centuries, poets have described and explored the topic of temptation from a variety of different perspectives, choosing some very unusual metaphors to illustrate the dangers - or the delights - of temptation. Here are six all-time favorites.

The Christmas Banquet mentioned in the title is an annual feast, funded by an old misanthrope, in which the 10 most miserable people who can be found are gathered together for the holiday. Each year the guests chosen are different, but Gervaise Hastings, a man unafflicted by any obvious misfortune, is included year after year.

Thought by many to be the greatest Christmas story ever written. Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti takes us to a shabby apartment where love rules. This is a Christmas story but worth a listen any time of the year.

Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti reads Edgar Alan Poe's classic The Pit and the Pendulum, taking us back to the Spanish Inquisition. Vendetti's performance takes us into the dungeon where we can all but feel the sharp edge of the deadly pendulum brushing across our body, hear the ravenous rats scurrying about the cell, and worst of all, the final terror. The panic of Poe's narrator becomes palpable as you listen to this classic tale so well-narrated.

Eric Branson is still weeks from reaching his daughter in Colorado, but an opportunity to get there a whole lot faster has him participating in business he wanted no part of when he returned to the homeland. Just like in the old days, things change and go downhill fast when the action begins, and the mission he's agreed to will test even a war-hardened SEAL and private contractor.

Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti reads Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, a tale of unspeakable devilry - of blatant, bacchanalian Satanism - that probes and prods the soul of America, whispering, "What is truth?" through the demonic cacophony of a Witch's Sabbath.

Deception, trickery, and ambush threaten to derail Eric Branson's plans shortly after his arrival in South Louisiana. Eric soon learns that the sheriff's department Keith works for has been decimated by riots and terror attacks. The infrastructure here has also been severely crippled by the same hurricane that devastated South Florida, leaving the survivors hungry and desperate in a world where law and order is impossible to enforce. For Eric, reaching Louisiana is just another step in a difficult quest that will take him overland to the Colorado Rockies in search of his daughter.

Written in 1729 as a satirical piece, selling the babies of the poor to the rich to be braised, baked, broiled, or boiled to rid Ireland of a perceived problem was probably less repulsive than it is today, but are the children of the poor still viewed as a throwaway segment of our population? Interestingly, the practice is also viewed as a solution to the "abortion" problem.

The "meat" of The Mueller Report is contained in his summaries of the report. Did the Russians interfere in our 2016 election? Did the Trump campaign collude with the Russians? Did Trump attempt to obstruct the investigation? Mueller presents the evidence but does not make judgments.

Fighting for survival amid lawlessness and chaos. Danger lurks at every turn in a nation ravaged by violent insurrection and economic collapse. Eric Branson's mission when he returned to Florida from overseas was to find his daughter and get her out. But the former Navy SEAL and private contractor learns from his ex-wife that Megan is nearly 2000 miles away in Colorado. To get there, he must first sail across the Gulf to Louisiana, where his brother Keith is a deputy sheriff...will he find Keith still alive and patrolling his Atchafalaya River jurisdiction?

Taken from Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Pigeons book, "How Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where the Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion" takes us into the nonsense world Sandburg created for his daughters.

Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti reads Charles Perrault's translation of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, where goodness prevails. It has been the inspiration of several blockbuster movies and shows.

Perhaps one of the most famous fairy tales of all time is the tale of the three little pigs. This adaptation of the story is from Joseph Jacob's 1890 collection English Fairy Tales.

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale that appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 and as Benjamin Tabart's moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807. Henry Cole, publishing under pen name Felix Summerly, popularized the tale in The Home Treasury (1845), and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in English Fairy Tales (1890). Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today, and is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralizing.

"The Ugly Duckling" was first published in 1843, and the tale has been adapted to various media including opera, musical, and animated film. This story has stood the test of time and become an inspiration to those who are bullied or picked upon.