Humor audiobooks page 18

Psmith takes over editing a paper while the usual editor is away on vacation. He takes on a local slum lord, and divers alarums ensue. (description by Psuke Bariah)

In his inimitable way, Mark Twain gives sound advice about how to tell a story, then lets us in on some curious incidents he experienced, and finishes with a trip that proves life-changing.

Cranford is set in a small market town populated largely by a number of respectable ladies. It tells of their secrets and foibles, their gossip and their romances as they face the challenges of dealing with new inhabitants to their society and innovations to their settled existence. It was first published between 1851 and 1853 as episodes in Charles Dickens’ Journal Household Words. Appended to this recording is a short sequel, The Cage at Cranford, written ten years later and published in the journal All the Year Round. In a letter to Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte wrote: “Thank you for your letter, it was as pleasant as a quiet chat, as welcome as spring showers, as reviving as a fri...

Bill Nye was a respected journalist who also became known as a humorist. His short pieces range from a description of a visit to a friend residing in Ludlow prison, to “advice” to a son, to a wry commentary on his visits to Oakland, California. From real estate “investments” to accounts of less than ideal train passengers, Mr. Nye had his eye trained on the ironies of life, addressing them in the only sure way to preserve sanity, with humor.

The Amoretti (meaning little love poems) is a sequence of 89 sonnets written in the tradition of the Petrarchan sonnets, a popular form for poets of the Renaissance period. Spenser’s sequence has been largely neglected in modern times, while those of his contemporaries William Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney have been acclaimed. However, because of the artistic skill, along with the emotion and the humor exhibited, these poems deserve a broader hearing, even though they may be somewhat difficult for the present-day reader, partly through Spenser’s love for words and expressions that were already archaic in his time.

Amoretti, written throughout the year 1594 and published the f...

“Brazilian Tales” is a collection of six short stories selected by Isaac Goldberg as best representative of the Brazilian Literature of his period – the end of the 19th century. His comprehensive preface aims at familiarizing the reader with a literature that was – and still is – virtually unknown outside the boundaries of its own land, and the pieces chosen by Goldberg to be translated belong to writers that reached popularity and appreciation while still alive. This “pioneer volume”, as the translator himself puts it, still keeps its charm and interest as a way of offering to the English speaking public some “sample cases” of Brazilian Literature.

Victor (Viggi) Störteler betreibt ein einträgliches Speditions- und Warengeschäft und hat ein "hübsches, gesundes und gutmütiges Weibchen". Er könnte zufrieden sein, doch fühlt er sich zu höherem berufen und widmet sich ohne Talent aber mit desto größerer Hingabe und Selbstüberschätzung der Schriftstellerei. Die gutmütige Gritli kann für die überdrehte Schreiberei ihres Mannes kein Verständnis aufbringen, dennoch bestimmt er sie zu "seiner Muse" und verfällt auf die Idee, ihr von einer Geschäftsreise salbungsvoll leidenschaftliche Liebesbriefe zu schreiben; diese soll sie in gleichem Sinne beantworten, auf dass er diesen Briefwechsel einmal in Buchform veröffentlichen könne. Gritli, die s...

Volume 1 contains these 12 essays: 1.) "Americans on a Visit to the Emperor of Russia." 2.) "The Austrian Edison keeping school again" 3.) "The Canvasser's tale." 4.) "The Czar's Soliloquy." 5.) "English as She is Taught." 6.) "Grasses in the South." 7.) "Hawaii." 8.) "A Helpless Situation." 9.) "How I Escaped being Killed in a Duel." 10.) "Important to Whom it may Concern." 11.) "The Austrian Edison Keeping School Again" 12.) "Jim's Investments, and King Sollermun."

The humorous account of Dad and Dave and the rest of the Rudd clan as they attempt to carve a farming 'selection' out of the Australian wilderness in spite of fire, famine, snakebite, and a loony hired hand.