Showing results by narrator "George Newbern" in All Categories

Dummling, the youngest and simplest of three brothers, is sent into the forest to chop wood. He shares his food and drink with a little gray man who directs him to a tree which, when chopped down, is found to contain a golden goose. Dummling sets off on a journey with the goose under his arm, eventually arriving in a kingdom wherein the king will offer his daughter's hand in marriage to any man who can make her laugh.

A boy is murdered and made into a stew by his evil stepmother, who buries his bones beneath a juniper tree outside their house. The boy is reincarnated as a bird who flies forth from the tree and enlists the townspeople to help him exact revenge.

In this folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward, a young girl is forced by her cruel stepmother and stepsisters to a life of servitude. Sleeping next to the fireplace, she earns the nickname Ashputtel, or Cinderella.

A lonely couple hopes for a child, even, the wife says, if it were no bigger than my thumb. To their delight, their wishes come true, and the boy is named Tom Thumb for his diminutive stature.

The boy is crafty and helps his father by directing the family horse to haul firewood by standing in his ear and whispering commands. Embarking on several adventures, Tom displays a knack for tricking the slow-witted people who attempt to take advantage of Tom's unique size.

A tailor parleys his success at killing seven flies in one stroke into a string of unlikely successes. Making a belt with the words Seven at one blow written on it, the gullible townspeople assume the tailor to have amazing strength. After a contest in which he tricks a giant into believing he is stronger, the tailor persuades the king he can rid the kingdom of giants. In exchange for this the king offers his daughter's hand in marriage and half his kingdom. When the king balks on this promise and creates more conditions, the tailor must again rely on his wits to prove his bravery.

A childless couple awaits the arrival of their firstborn. One day, the husband is caught stealing the salad greens, called Rapunzel, that his wife craves from the garden of the evil witch next door. The witch strikes a deal with the man, obtaining their firstborn child in return for all the Rapunzel the wife can eat. The child, growing up in captivity with the witch turns into a beautiful maiden with a voice of gold and extraordinarily long hair. When a handsome prince passes through, the witch's cunningly-won custody arrangement starts to fall apart.

A princess' maid turns on her mistress while traveling and forces her to switch roles with her. The false princess then kills the princess' horse to keep it from talking and forces the real princess to herd geese with the boy, Conrad. Conrad begins to notice strange things about the new goose-girl and informs the king. Will the false princess be discovered?

A spoiled princess grudgingly befriends a frog after a chance meeting at a pond. Forced against her will to spend time with the creature, he is ultimately revealed to be a handsome prince under a spell when she hurls him against the wall. In many other versions of the story, the curse is broken by a kiss or a night spent on the princess' pillow.

In this tale, twelve princesses, each of astounding beauty, are locked in their shared bedroom by their father each night. Vexed to discover that their dancing shoes show signs of wear every morning, the king demands an explanation, which they refuse to give. The king offers his kingdom and marriage to any of his daughters as a reward to the man who solves the mystery. However, if the mystery remains unsolved after three nights, the erstwhile suitor will be put to death. After many entrants fail, a wise old soldier finally cracks the case.

In Briar Rose, better known as Sleeping Beauty, seven good fairies are invited to be godmothers to an infant princess. An old, overlooked fairy feels slighted and puts a deadly curse on the princess. A kind fairy modulates the curse from death to 100 years of deep sleep which can be broken by the kiss of a handsome prince.

In The Golden Bird, a king who has been robbed of a golden apple commands his gardener's sons to watch the tree. Seeing that the thief is a golden bird, the youngest son tries to shoot it but only knocks a feather off. Fascinated by the feather, the king decides he wants the whole bird. The gardener's son and his two brothers must make fateful choices in what turns into a fearsome quest to capture the bird.

Grimm's Fairy Tales was first published in 1812 by the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm. Though earlier editions included material deemed unpalatable to modern audiences, subsequent editions softened some of the violence and raciness of the original. Containing 62 stories, including "Briar Rose" ("Sleeping Beauty"), "Hansel and Grete", "Snow White", and "Rose Red", and "Ashputtel" ("Cinderella"), this collection was praised by W.H. Auden as among the founding works of Western culture.

The city of Wichita, Kansas, is wracked with panic over the abduction of toddler pageant princess Lindy Bobo. However, the dealers at The Heart of America Antique Mall are too preoccupied by their own neurotic compulsions to take much notice. Postcards, perfume bottles, Barbies, vinyl records, kitschy neon beer signs - they collect and sell it all.

Eric Brach's new book Double Lives: True Tales of the Criminals Next Door offers terrifying true stories about the criminals hidden among us and the banality of evil and crime, elevated by its frank discussion of the nation-wide criminal scourge of the moment: opioid addiction. Double Lives chronicles the very monsters who walk unnoticed among us - even serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, or John Wayne Gacy. They are neighbors and students, professionals and friends living out criminal double lives.

The Camera Lies unpacks Hitchcock's legacy both as a director who continuously taught audiences to distrust appearance and as a man with an uncanny insight into the human capacity for deceit and misinterpretation.

A mysterious beachcomber appears one day on the coastal bluffs near the small town of Carverville, a place whose best days are long behind it. Who is he, and why has he returned after nearly 40 years? Carverville's prodigal son, James, serendipitously finds work at a gentrified motel, but his homecoming soon takes a sinister turn when he and a local teenager make a gruesome discovery on the beach. It forces him to reckon with the ghosts of his past‚ and the dangers of the present.

After China announced a space mission to place its own flag next to the one US astronauts planted during the Apollo 11 mission, few people bat an eyelid. Shortly after this statement, Charlie Stephens, an 81-year-old former filmmaker, is murdered. The incident is made to look like an accident, but why?

Recently recovered from his epic bicycle journey that took him from the Delaware shore to the Oregon coast, distinguished climate scientist David Goodrich sets out on his bike again to traverse the Western Interior Seaway - an ancient ocean that once spread across half of North America. When the waters cleared a geologic age ago, what was left behind was vast flat prairie, otherworldly rock formations, and oil shale deposits.

George Entmen just turned 40, and he can't complain. As the James Lydecker chair of hermeneutics in the English department at Northwestern, he is honored in his field, beloved by friends and family, and ready to drift quietly into tenured middle age. But then he discovers he can fly. Sure, he can only fly very, very slowly - he needs to have his hands thrust out in front of him like Superman - and he only flies three or four inches above the ground. But why does this nonetheless amazing phenomenon drive so many people into a rage?

In About You, Dick Staub addresses irreligious, religious, spiritual seekers, and all kinds of Christians and shows us that Jesus came to satisfy our universal longing for a fully human life, not to establish a narrow us-versus-them religion. In short, Jesus didn't come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human.