Showing results by narrator "Joyce" in All Categories

Minding Ben invites listeners into the private world of one of the anonymous West Indian babysitters who have peopled the lives of so many young urban families for decades. Grace left Trinidad for New York with hopes for a better life and education. As she struggles to adjust to her new life - and to determine just what shape her American Dream will take - Grace finds work as a nanny for the unconscionable Bruckners, a job that pays meager wages for its demanding and humiliating responsibilities.

It is 1919 shortly after the termination of the 1st European holocaust. Henry Earlforward, a middle aged North London Bookseller, courts and marries Violet Arb, a widow who has inherited the confectioners shop opposite his own premises in Riceyman Square. Henry and Violet engage the services of Elsie as ‘charwoman’.

Queen Victoria... and Prince Albert were married in 1840. Dickens uses this event as an ingenious ploy to salute and promote domestic felicity, advising young ladies upon several examples of the different types of male available as partners. There follows a section describing various married couples from whom the young ladies could possibly learn a lesson. The author then entertains with a tale of Nicholas Tulrumble, newly appointed Mayor of Mudfog, with ideas above his station.

It doesn't get more romantic than Andy Beck's cottage on Martha's Vineyard. But love is the last thing on his mind - he just wants to get the cottage ready for his best friend's honeymoon. At least that's the plan, until he finds the gorgeous Maid of Honor ransacking his house - in the most irresistible way...

A highly-placed school official is accused of buying drugs on the street. Is he an out-of-control addict or a victim of discrimination? Voir Dire - a legal term meaning “to say what is true”- is the story of the racially-mixed jurors who will decide the official’s fate. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Christine Avila, Barbara Bosson, Shannon Cochran, Ella Joyce, Kevin Kilner and Amy Pietz. Directed by Ken Frankel. Recorded before a live audience.

"Cautionary Tales", humorous poems with an implausible moral, are the most widely known of Hilaire Belloc's writings. Supposedly for children, they, like Lewis Carroll's works, are more to adult and satirical tastes. Here, Joyce Grenfell reads a selection.

On a weekend vacation, Beth Anderson is unnerved when a stroll on the beach reveals what appears to be a skull. When a stranger approaches, Beth panics and covers the evidence. But when she later returns to the beach, the skull is gone. Beth digs deeper into the mystery of the skull, and everywhere she goes, Keith Henson, the stranger from the beach, seems to appear. A body washes ashore, and Beth begins to think she needs more help than she bargained for.

Anna Pigeon has been a ranger with the National Park Service for many years, but she had a very different life before tragedy sent her west seeking something new. Now Nevada Barr finally tells the previously untold story of Anna’s first foray into the wild, and the case that helped shape her into the ranger she became. Thirty-five years old, fresh off the bus from New York City, and nursing a shattered heart, Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job....

Twenty-eight-year-old Rebecca (Becky) Emig has her hands full. A new position as an administrator at The Tides - a nursing home for senile, elderly, handicapped and insane residents - leaves her little time for her crumbling personal life. Compounding her stress, she has begun experiencing bizarre hallucinations and strange childhood memories after she is mysteriously drawn to visit an empty lake bed behind the nursing home. And her father, Marshall, who is an Alzheimer's patient at The Tides, has begun calling her "Faye", a name Becky does not recognize....

There is a special bond between mothers and their sons, and it never goes away. This book contains some of the best stories and poems from Chicken Soup's library honoring that lifelong relationship between mothers and their male offspring.

No one likes to diet, but this book will encourage and inspire listeners with its positive, practical, and purposeful stories of dieting and fitness. You'll find hope, help, and hints on getting fit and staying healthy in these stories from those who have been there, done that, and maintained it. Stories about wake-up calls and realizations, moving more and eating better, self-esteem and support, will motivate any listener looking to start fresh or needing a boost.

Adapted directly from the actual transcripts, Unquestioned Integrity examines the notorious Senate Confirmation hearings, when law professor Anita Hill charged Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment.

"To Paragot I owe everything. He is at once my benefactor, my venerated master, my beloved friend, my creator." Thus begins the story of one of the greatest characters of English Literature - Paragot the lovable Bohemian and celebrated Bon Vivant. A young urchin from the London slums is adopted by the hero and given an adventurous education traveling through Europe, tambourine player in a group of ragamuffin musicians.

If you’re like most women, you're still climbing out of a hole created by the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. If that's not enough angst to deal with, your boss wants it yesterday, your kids want it today, and your spouse wants it tonight. We also face an onslaught of time-sucking distractions: the Internet, email following you everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, texting, and virtual relationships - all competing with our ability to accomplish Big Things in our lives.

Inspired by an actual terrorist attack on Greenwich Laboratory in 1894 ‘The Secret Agent’ is arguably Conrad’s greatest work. Mr. Verloc, the spy, is roused to action by his masters. He is to instigate an act ‘of destructive ferocity so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, and almost unthinkable; in fact, mad’. All does not run smoothly however and leads to Mr Verloc’s wife, Winnie, demonstrating how quickly rational equilibrium can change to frenzied destruction.

An exciting... adventure indeed as the Seagrave family, en route to Australia, are shipwrecked and become castaways on a desert tropical island. Thankfully Masterman Ready, a good man to have in a crisis, is on hand to build shelter and solve the many problems they encounter- to build a fish pool, catch turtles and how to cultivate the available resources .

Kate Malick, a former Carmelite nun turned security professional to the stars, is dedicated to protecting her clients. Celebrities are her specialty, and right now teenage celebutante and slow-motion train wreck Chelsea Brewer is testing Kate’s devotion. A poster child for the pitfalls of childhood fame and fortune, Chelsea is careening past the boundaries of “poor choices” and into the deep waters of self-destruction. On LA’s mean streets, young lives are often cut short, and Chelsea’s is no exception.

In an ocean of weightless air where sunlight has never been seen, only the running lights of the city of Pacquaea glitter in the dark. One woman, Leal Hieronyma Maspeth, lives and dreams of love among the gaslit streets and cafés. And somewhere in the abyss of wind and twisted cloud through which Pacquaea eternally falls, a great voice has begun speaking. As its cold words reach from space to the city walls—and as outlying towns and travelers' ships start to mysteriously disappear—only Leal has the courage to try to understand the message thundering from the distance.

Julia Fox Garrison refused to listen to the professionals she called Dr. Jerk and Dr. Panic, who - after she suffered a massive, debilitating stroke at age thirty-seven - told her she’d probably die, or to Nurse Doom, who ignored her emergency call button. Instead she heeded the advice of kind, gifted Dr. Neuro, who promised her he would “treat your mind as well as your body.” Julia figured if she could somehow manage to get herself into a wheelchair, at least she’d always find parking. But after many, many months of hospitalization and rehab, Julia not only got into a wheelchair, but she got back out.

Malcolm Jameson's short story "Blind Alley" is probably his best remembered and most reprinted work due in large part to the fact that it was the basis for a very memorable episode of Rod Serling's popular television series "The Twilight Zone" titled "Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville".