Showing results by narrator "Mike Vendetti" in All Categories

"Three-Day Blow'' is a short story that became a chapter from In Our Time. Jake (Hemingway's alter ego) hikes to his friend Bill's house where they spend the morning talking and drinking. The conversation is mostly chit-chat until the liquor loosens them up enough to discuss Jakes's breakup with Marjorie.

As I listened to this, I couldn't help but compare Buggs and Ad to George and Lennie in Steinbeck's Mice and Men. Buggs protects Ad as George protected Lennie. Ad, though diminutive in size, as a former professional boxer could be as dangerous as Lennie when he had a crazy spell. Hemmingway portrays Buggs as the true leader of the group, highly intelligent, articulate, and gentle to his companion Ad while leading Ad to believe he is in charge.

Big Two-Hearted River features a single protagonist, Hemingway's recurrent autobiographical character Nick Adams, whose speaking voice is heard just three times. Hemingway explores the destructive qualities of war, but he also creates a great fishing story.

There comes a time in the course of a battle when a soldier leaves his fate in the hands of the Gods of war. He carries on with the battle at hand, the only way he knows how - fight now, think later. Stephen Cranes’ classic novel ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ offers us an insight into the mind of a young soldier. As he delves into the black depths of both PTSD and trauma, Cranes’ striking descriptions and masterful prose make this captivating novel unmissable for fans of Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Edith Wharton.

The poems in this collection, "Fairies and Fusiliers", appeared in 1918, after Robert Graves returned from World War I in his early 20s. The fairy poems are from the carefree happy days of childhood and make-believe recalled by a man who has lived the reality and horror of war. The poems of war are written only as one who has witnessed it can tell them.

Days have turned into weeks with no contact from anyone outside of North America, where the power, communication, and transportation grid has been completely destroyed by massive solar flares. In the ensuing chaos, grocery store shelves have been stripped bare and panicked survivors have fled the cities and towns, sweeping across the countryside in a desperate attempt to find sustenance and avoid the violence. 

One of the most iconic TV series ever was Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. This audiobook contains four short stories that inspired four episodes of The Twilight Zone: "The Bus Conductor" by E.F. Benson; "Elegy" by Charles Beaumont; "Time Enough at Last'' by Lynn Venable; and ''An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge'' by Ambrose Bierce. Read by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti, one can understand why Searling was inspired by these short stories.

Imagine if you will a three-year journey to outer space and back, drinking distilled water, breathing filtered air, and synthetic food. You can imagine the anticipation of returning to Earth, and then discovering you are allergic to everything on Earth from women to the air you breathe. This is the story of four aging astronauts, able only to look at Earth from their spaceship or venture out to water the geraniums wearing a spacesuit.

"Just room for one inside, sir," isn't quite as bone-chilling as hearing "room for one more, honey" in one of the Twilight Zone's most popular episodes, "Twenty Two." The Rod Serling masterpiece was inspired by E.F. Benson's "The Bus-Conductor". A ghost bears the chilling news instead of a recurring dream in Benson's chiller.

As massive solar flares bombard the Earth, an intense electromagnetic pulse brings down America’s long-neglected power grid. The electric age ends and anarchy descends as desperate citizens panic. Artie Drager, whose dream Bahamas vacation turns into every parent’s worst nightmare, finds himself stranded thousands of miles from his home and only daughter, Jessica. As the horrible aftermath unfolds, Jessica is frantic about her father lost somewhere at sea. But first she must save herself right at home. 

First published in 1953 ,"Time Enough at Last" by Lynn Venable is the basis for the eighth episode of The Twilight Zone, becoming one of the most famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone. It is "the story of a man who loves books yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. Hope springs forth when the protagonist appears to be the sole survivor of a gigantic nuclear attack, but wait folks; there is more."

Imagine if you will, a cat-like animal able to read your mind. That is not too far-fetched because I believe at times my cat can read my mind, but this cat is different. This creature also has another power, the ability to project to your mind. It is so intent upon pleasing you, that what you think about becomes very very real. Real to the point you believe and act upon what the cat projects.

"The time is the day after tomorrow. The place: a far off corner of the universe. The cast of characters: three men lost among the stars, three men sharing the common urgency of all men lost.... They're looking for home. And in a moment they'll find home, not a home that is a place to be seen but a strange, unexplainable experience to be felt."

Massive solar flares bombard the Earth. An intense electromagnetic pulse undermines America’s power grid, wreaking havoc. Panic and chaos ensue in cities like New Orleans, where 16-year-old Mitch Henley was stranded after driving his parents to the airport. The son of a game warden in a rural Mississippi county, Mitch is an expert hunter and woodsman and knows he can survive back on his family’s remote 600 acres. With no way to know if his parents’ plane landed safely or crashed because of the pulse, Mitch sets out alone to walk home.

The Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters, narrated by the award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti and professional actress Kathy Verduin, is a collection of short free-verse poems that collectively narrates the epitaphs of the residents of Spoon River, a fictional small town named after the Spoon River, which ran near Masters' home town of Lewistown, Illinois.

Krebs, Hemingway's protagonist, leaves home a college kid and returns a very changed man. This story explores the extremely changed family dynamics within the Krebs family when Harold returns home. Roles switch from parent-child to adult/adult.

Immerse yourself in T.S. Eliot's thought-provoking poem as award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti reads "The Hollow Men".

Three professional narrators, Mike Vendetti, Kathy Verduin, and Stephen Jay Cohen, lend their voices to what is considered by many to be one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest novels, The Great Gatsby. Travel back with them to the Jazz Age, where the wealthy and entitled collide with pretenders and common citizens.

A poke at idioms, sci-fi style. If we read everything literally, we'd go mad.

Award-winning audiobook narrator and storyteller Mike Vendetti reads Poems in Prose, the collective title of six prose poems by Oscar Wilde derived from Wilde's many oral tales. These prose poems are the only six that were published by Wilde in his lifetime, and they include (in order of appearance): "The Artist", "The Doer of Good", "The Disciple", "The Master", "The House of Judgment", and "The Teacher of Wisdom".