Air times: Saturday @ 9:30 am/Repeated Sunday @ 9:00pm
January 10_11_17_18, 2015
The Old Wife’s Tale Written and Read by Gillian Roberts
“I cry at weddings. All weddings, even for people I don’t know…The poor brides and grooms are like innocent and idealistic recruits being sent to battle by seasoned warriors who know the odds are stacked against them….George–George Edward Alexander, a man of three first names–and I made our death-do-us-part vows years ago….George is the love of my life. He always was, he still is, and he always will be. I’ve made sure of that.”
Hmmmmmmmm. What can this mean? How did this woman make “sure of that.”
Caught Dead in Philadelphia by Gillian Roberts; Chapter 1 read by Elizabeth Michaels
“At 7:58 am on a wet Monday morning, twenty-seven hours after giving up cigarettes and a green-eyed disc jockey, I was not in a mood to socialize. Facing myself in the bathroom mirror had exhausted my conviviality. Choosing a sweater and skirt had used up my intellectual reserve.”
Caught Dead in Philadelphia by Gillian Roberts; Chapter 2 read by Elizabeth Michaels
September 13-14, 2014
The Fly by Katherine Mansfield read by Joy Hockman
“It had been a terrible shock to him when old Woodifield sprang that remark upon him about the boy’s grave.” If this is a story about a grieving father, why is it called, The Fly?
September 6-7, 2014
A Chest of Silver by Ernest William Hornung read by Chris Jones
You are undoubtedly familiar with Sherlock Holmes, master detective. Now meet A.J. Raffles, Master Cracksman. Can a Raffles get away with a daring crime?
August 9-10
The Man with the Knives by Heinrich Boll
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Part 2 of 3 part introduction read by Joy Hockman
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind.”
August 16-17, 2014
Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare as told by Charles and Mary Lamb and read by Sonia Cropper
August 9-10
The Man with the Knives by Heinrich Boll
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Part 2 of 3 part introduction read by Joy Hockman
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind.”
July 26-27, 2014
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Part 2 of 3 part introduction read by Joy Hockman
The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind.”
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Part 1 of 3 part introduction read by Joy Hockman
“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
March 22-23 2014
The Half-Brothers by Elizabeth Gaskell read by Joy Hockman
Every bone, every fibre in my body seemed first to ache, and then to swell, and then to turn numb with the intense cold. My brother bore it better than I…
February 8-9,2014
Butch Minds the Baby by Damon Runyon read by David Greenwald
December 2013
The Happiest Man in the World by Albert Maltz read by Joy Hockman
When you take this job your luck is a question mark. The only thing certain is that sooner or later you get killed. “Okay then,” Jessie shouted back, ” Then I do. But meanwhile I get something, don’t I? I can buy a pair of shoes…I can buy some candy for the kids. I can eat some myself. Yes, by God, I want to eat some candy.”
November 30-December 1, 2013
The Man with the Knives by Heinrich Boll read by Joy Hockman
Jupp was holding the knife by the point of the blade and letting it swing idly from side to side. It was a long breadknife with a thin blade and one could see that it was sharp. With a sudden movement he threw it up into the air. It went up….struck the ceiling, lost its momentum and fell sharply down, point foremost, straight at Jupp’s head…
November 23-24, 2013
Excerpt from The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn read by Joy Hockman
Columbus and the other early explorers and the American Indians. How to look at history.
November 2-3, 2013
A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner read by Joy Hockman
A Rose for Emily reveals the influence that Southern Gothic had on Faulkner’s writing. This story has a moody and forbidding atmosphere; a crumbling, decaying old mansion and a woman not willing or able to be a part of the change going on around her. She finds an ingenious solution to her problem.
October 26-27,2013
Halloween Special: Stories by two famous spooky writers. The Boy Drew Cats by Lafcadio Hearn and The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
September 28-29, 2013
The Hammer of God by CK Chesterton read by Joy Hockman
“Norman,” said the cleric, with his eye on a pebble in the road, “are you ever afraid of thunderbolts?”
“What do you mean?” asked the colonel.
“I mean, ” said Wilfred, without looking up, “do you ever think that God might strike you in the street? But if you do not fear God, you have good reason to fear man.”
August 31- September 1
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall read by Anthony Hall Smith
The Dordogne Deception written and read by Sherry Joyce
Listen to the opening of this romantic suspense novel.
July 13-14, 2013
Stop-time by Frank Conroy read by Joy Hockman
This excerpt is to introduce or re-introduce Frank Conroy’s Stop-time. It’s one of the most sensitive, powerful accounts of a young man’s coming of age…..and it’s so well written.
July 6-7, 2013
The Last Speaker of the Language written and read by Carol Anshaw
“…her mother is still passed out on the floor of the bathroom. Darlyn needs to use the toilet, which her mother is sort of propped against, like a bad doll. She takes her by an arm and a leg, and pulls her sideways by her sweatshirt over a ways toward the wall, lifts her head onto a folded towel. Then, while she is sitting on the toilet, she sinks into the special sorrow of peeing while your mother is out cold on the floor next to you.”
June 1-2, 2013
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons read by Joy Hockman
Have you ever been on a farm like Cold Comfort Farm…..with a family like the Starkadders? Meet Adam. “He stood up, sighing, and crossed over to Pointless, who was eating Graceless’ tail. Adam, who was linked to all dumb brutes by a chain forged in soil and sweat, took it out of her mouth and put into it instead, his neckerchief–the last he had. She mumbled it, while he milked her, but stealthily spat it out as soon as he passed on to Aimless…She did not want o hurt the old man’s feelings by declining to eat his gift”
May 25-26, 2013
The Christmas Gift by Robert Penn Warren read by Joy Hockman
May 18-19, 2013
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett read by Dan Sipe
You saw the movie now hear an excerpt from the book.
May 11-12, 2013
The Cinema of the Dardennes Brothers: Responsible Realism written and read by Philip Mosley
The Dardennes Brothers of Belgium are two of the greatest directors working today. Listen to this excerpt from Mosley’s book about them to get a window into how they work.
May 4-5, 2013
On the Divide by Willa Cather read by Joy Hockman
It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin once in a while. He had been there for ten years, digging and plowing and sowing,and reaping what little the hail and the hot winds and the frosts left him to reap. Insanity and suicide are very common things on the Divide.
April 27-28, 2013
The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor by Deborah Eisenberg read by Vicki Solot_Part 2
“What had she done? What had been seen or heard or said? Had someone already told Mr. Klemper? Was it cutting lacrosse? Had she been reported smoking again in back of the Science Building? Because if she had she was out. Out. Out. End. The end of her fancy scholarship, the end of her education, the end of her freedom, the end of her future.
pril 20-21, 2013
April 13-14, 2013
The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor by Deborah Eisenberg read by Vicki Solot_Part 1
April 6-7, 2013
2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr._read by Joy Hockman
“Everything was perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.”
March, 30-31 2013
East of the Sierra written and read by Allison Alsup (repeat)
“The boy stays close. From the moment the steamship docks, his son’ts jacket brushes his own. Lin-Hui thinks they must make for an odd sight: the taller, wide-shouldered youth crouching in the armpit of a man almost old enough to be a grandfather….And now, even though he has seen ten thousand Americans, he thinks it better to keep the boy near. Anything can happen on Gold Mountain.”
March 23-24, 2013
Creative Fiction written and read by Wendy Forman
Tune in this week to hear the personal essays–very funny–of Wendy Forman
March 9-10, 20
The Susquehanna, River of Dreams, Part One_Logging_by Susan Q. Stranahan
In November 1817, Chauncey Brockway, his wife, Rhoda, and their infant daughter left their home in New York State, bound for land they had purchased in what is now Elk County…They were forced to abandon the canoe on the Sinnemahoning Creek when the rocky stream froze solid…Brockway carrued the baby, and his wife a satchel of clothing. Brockway was 24 years old. Ms. Stranahan introduces the reading.
March 16-17, 2013 Susquehanna, River of Dreams_Part 2_by Susan Q Stranahan with commentary by the author.
Williamsport was a gilded city with a seemingly unlimited future–as long as the river delivered trees and the mills kept humming. In the summer of 1872 the mills fell silent.
March 2-3, 2013 (repeat show)
Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero written and read by Chris Matthews
Join us for a Tell Me a Story Exclusive: Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, reads a chapter from his new book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. Interviewed by Arnold Prehn and Joy Hockman, Chris Matthews talks about why he chose to write about Kennedy.
February 23-24, 2013
Big Business by P.G. Wodehouse read by David Greenwald
Listen to this hilarious story read hilariously by a talented reader, David Greenwald.
February 16-17, 2013
Legends written and read by Edwidge Danticat
Hear award winning writer, Edwidge Danticat, read her beautiful prose-poem, Legends. A WFTE exclusive.
February 9-10, 2013
Valentine’s Day Love Poems
Sonnets by William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning_introduced and read by Lennie Belasco and poems written and read by Melanie Simms.
February 2-3, 2013
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane read by Sam Peppard (repeat)
“Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom’s chest.”
January 26-27, 2013
A Summer Tragedy by Arna Bontemps
Old Jeff Patton, the black share farmer, fumbled with his bow tie. His fingers trembled and the high stiff collar pinched his throat. A fellow loses his hand for such vanities after thirty or forty years of simple life
January 19-20, 2013
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde read by Joy Hockman
An excerpt from this famous Oscar Wilde story about the vanity of man, the desire for immortality, perhaps.
January 12-13, 2013
It’s So Not Me from Shout Her Lovely Name_written and read by Natalie Serber
“Walter didn’t put any demands on me. He just liked me to be home when he came in. I liked the straightforward sex. For added mystique, I had him whisper things about Pi and solving for x while we fornicated.” Serber’s collection of stories, Shout Her Lovely Name,” was named one of the 100 notable books for 2012.
January 5-6, 2013
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton by Arthur Conan Doyle read by Joy Hockman
“Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton iimpresses me.”
December 29-30
Albert Nobbs (repeat)
December 22-23
Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero written and read by Chris Matthews
Join us for a Tell Me a Story Exclusive: Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, reads a chapter from his new book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. Interviewed by Arnold Prehn and Joy Hockman, Chris Matthews talks about why he chose to write about Kennedy.
December 15-16
The Man Who Loved Islands_Part 2_by D.H. Lawrence read by Joy Hockman
It was a kind of pity for her which made him become he lover: though he never realized the extent of the power she had gained over him, and how SHE had willed it. But the moment he had fallen, a jangling feeling came upon him, that it was all wrong.
December 8-9
The Man Who Loved Islands by D.H.Lawrence read by Joy Hockman_Part One
An island, if it is big enough, is no better than a continent. It has to be really quite small, before it FEELS like an island; and this story will show how tiny it has to be, before you can presume to fill it with your own personality.
December 1-2
A Summer Tragedy by Arna Bontemps
Old Jeff Patton, the black share farmer, fumbled with his bow tie. His fingers trembled and the high stiff collar pinched his throat. A fellow loses his hand for such vanities after thirty or forty years of simple life.
November24-25, 2012
Thanksgiving Special: Howard Zinn’s account of Christopher Columbus and the early Explorers from A People’s History of the United States
November 17-18, 2012
God Sees the Truth, But Waits by Leo Tolstoy read by Joy Hockman
Aksionov looked, and seeing a blood-stained knife taken from his bag, he was frightened. “How is it there is blood on this knife?” Aksionov tried to answer, but could hardly utter a word, and only stammered: “I—don’t know–not mine.”
October 20-21, 2012
The Rocking Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence_read by Joy Hockman
“And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money!…The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse…a voice would start whispering: “There must be more money!”…And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment.
October 13-14
Two Stories by Virginia Woolf_Read by Joy Hockman
October 6-7
Assisted Living by Russell Baker read by Joy Hockman
A story of family and of unspoken questions.
September 29-30
One Autumn Night by Maxim Gorky read by Joy Hockman
I walked and walked along the cold wet sand, making my chattering teeth warble in honour of cold and hunger, when suddenly, as I was carefully searching for something to eat behind one of the empty crates, I perceived behind it, crouching on the ground, a figure in woman’s clothes dank with the rain and clinging fast to her stooping shoulders.”
September 22-23
East of the Sierra written and read by Allison Alsup
“The boy stays close. From the moment the steamship docks, his son’ts jacket brushes his own. Lin-Hui thinks they must make for an odd sight: the taller, wide-shouldered youth crouching in the armpit of a man almost old enough to be a grandfather….And now, even though he has seen ten thousand Americans, he thinks it better to keep the boy near. Anything can happen on Gold Mountain.”
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan_The Potato_Part 2
“On my way back to Boise I did a drive-through at a McDonald’s and ordered a bag of the fries in question. You know, their fries really are gorgeous: slender golden rectangles long enough to overshoot their trim red containers like a bouquet. To look at them is to appreciate that these aren’t just french fries: they’re Platonic ideals of french fries, the image and the food rolled into one….” Listen to hear how this “ideal” has affected potato growing.
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan_The Potato_Part 1
The gardener learns that every advance in his control of the garden is also an invitation to a new disorder…So the freshly hoed earth invites a new crop of weeds, the potent new pesticide engenders resistance in pests, and every new step in the direction of simplification–toward monoculture, say, or genetically identical plants–leads to unimagined new complexities.”
September 1-2 The House on an Irish Hillside_written and read by Felicity Hayes-McCoy
“If you walk up the Clasach from Dun Chaoin today there’s a place where you can turn and look back for a last glimpse of the islands. People call it The Place of Goodbyes. In the past, some of the saddest gatherings in Ireland were called American Wakes.”
August 25-26 The House on an Irish Hillside_written and read by Felicity Hayes-McCoy
“If you walk up the Clasach from Dun Chaoin today there’s a place where you can turn and look back for a last glimpse of the islands. People call it The Place of Goodbyes. In the past, some of the saddest gatherings in Ireland were called American Wakes.”
August 18-19 Sredni Vashtar and Tobermory by Saki read by Susan Cropper and Joy Hockman
“Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. de Ropp, who counted for nearly everthing.”
August 11-12 Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Pierce read by Philip Weber “A man stood on a railroad bridge in Alabama, looking down at the swift water twenty feet below. His hands were tied behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck.
August 4-5, 2012 The Secret Garden by G. K. Chesterton read Joy Hockman
“Astride Valentin, Chief of the Paris Police, was late for his dinner…He was, in truth, making some last arrangements about executions and such ugly things.”
December 3-4
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
“There was only one catch and that was Catch 22…Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t but if he was sane he had to fly them.”
December 10-11
The Mourning by William Trevor
“It was then that Liam Pat began to feel afraid. It was one thing to have it over Huxter, to know what Huxter didn’t know; it was one thing to get a smile from the barmaid. It was another altogether to be sitting on a bus with a device in a sports bag.
December 17-18
Hanukah Program Lights and Miracles
The Power of Light by Isaac Bashevis Singer and The Demon Foiled by Ann Roiphe
“The new mayor of the city was Jewish, which didn’t mean he wouldn’t celebrate Kwanzaa. Also Christmas Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sea…”
December 24-25
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
“Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town…’Oh my,’she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, ‘it’s fruitcake weather!'”
December 31-January 1
The German Refugee by Bernard Malamud
“To many of these people, articulate as they were, the great loss was the loss of language…As Karl Otto Alp, the ex-film star…put it years later, ‘I felt like a child, or worse, often like a moron. I am left with myself unexpressed. What I knew, indeed, what I am, becomes to me a burden. My tongue hangs useless.”
January 14-15
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson and Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
“From wanting to reach the ears of Kate Swift, and through his sermons to delve into her soul, he began to want also to look again at the figure lying white and quiet in the bed.”
“But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?”
January 21-22
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
“But we can’t possibly have a garden party with a dead man just outside the front gate.”
January 28-29
The New Dress by Virginia Woolf
“We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable.”
February 4-5
The Kugelmass Episode by Woody Allen (Repeat)
“Kugelmass’ heart danced on point. I am in love, he thought, I am the possessor of a wonderful secret. What he didn’t realize was that at this very moment students in various classrooms across the country were saying to their teacher, “Who is this character on page 100. A bald Jew is kissing Madame Bovary?”
February 11-12
‘Selling the General’ from A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan_Part 1
“And then Arc had called. The general wanted an exclusive retainer. He wanted rehabilitation, American sympathy, an end to the CIA’s assassination attempts. If Qaddafi could do it, why not he?”
February 18-19
‘Selling the General’ from A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan_Part 2
“Kitty came toward him slowly–poured toward him, really, that was how smoothly she moved in her sage green dress…she poured toward the general and took his hand…”
February 25-26
Rothschild’s Fiddle by Anton Chekhov
“When Bronze sat in the orchestra…there was a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked… while the flute wailed at his left, played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the famous millionaire Rothschild.”
March 3-4
The Two Bottles of Relish by Lord Dunsany
“In fact they had more clues than anybody could make head or tail of. Every kind of clue to show that he’d murdered the poor little girl; every kind of clue to show that he hadn’t disposed of the body; and yet the body wasn’t there.”
March 10-11
The Enchanted Cliff by Willa Cather
“There’s a big red rock there that goes right up out of the sand for about nine hundred feet. The country’s flat all around it, and this here rock goes up all by itself, like a monument. They call it the Enchanted Bluff down there, because no white man has ever been on top of it.”
March 17-18
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane read by Sam Peppard
“Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom’s chest.”
March 24-25
The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte
“As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.”
March 31-April 1
Devil in the Blue Dress by Walter Mosley read by Derrick Brown
“Joppy’s windows were so dingy that you couldn’t see out onto 103rd Street. But if you sat at a small cherry table next to them, at least you had the benefit of the the dull glow of daylight.”
April 7-8
The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell read by Sam Peppard
“An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters,could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun three times.”
April 14-15
The Monkey’s Paw by W.W.Jacobs
“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.”
April 21-22
See last week.
April 28-29
Recuperation by Roddy Doyle read by Paul Federico
Hanahoe sets off on his daily prescribed walk around his neighborhood, the sights triggering recollections of his wife, his children and his younger days.
May 5-6
Albert Nobbs by George Moore
Albert Nobbs has a secret. Listen to what happened to Albert Nobbs after he meets Hubert Page.
May 12-13
Botany of Desire (The Apple) by Michael Pollan
“Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers…In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship.”
May 19-20 and May 26-27
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann read by Sam Peppard
Listen to two excerpts of the 2009 National Book Award Winner, Let the Great World Spin, read by Sam Peppard. See our
Facebook page for a sample of the reading. It’s a treat!
June 2-3
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne read by Joy Hockman
“Make way, good people, make way, in the King’s name!”cried he. “Open a passage; and, I promise yoe,Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her…come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market place!”
her.”
June 9-10
‘Selling the General’ from A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan_Part 1 read by Joy Hockman
“And then Arc had called. The general wanted an exclusive retainer. He wanted rehabilitation, American sympathy, an end to the CIA’s assassination attempts. If Qaddafi could do it, why not he?”
June 16-17
‘Selling the General’ from A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan_Part 2 Read by Joy Hockman
“Kitty came toward him slowly–poured toward him, really, that was how smoothly she moved in her sage green dress…she poured toward the general and took his hand…”
June 23-24
Jews Without Money by Mike Gold read by Jake Rosen
Hear Jake Rosen, our CEO read excerpts from a book that is sad, funny, poignant and real. The rhythm of the language, the subject matter and the humor all reflect the Jewish immigrant experience of the early 20th century. Don’t miss Jake’s reading.
July 7-8
Christmas Gift by Robert Penn Warren
July 14-15
The Cop and the Anthem/Tobin’s Palm by O. Henry
“On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, and when women without sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that winter is near at hand.”
July 21-22
Mr. Lismore and the Widow by Wilkie Collins
“Observing the lady as she approached him…,he noticed that she still preserved the remains of beauty…At the same time she evidently held herself above the common deceptions by which some women seek to conceal their age. She wore her own gray hair, and her complexion bore the test of daylight
July 28-29
In the Old Days by Edwidge Danticat Read by Edwidge Danticat
“The call came on a Friday evening as I was lying in bed, grading student essays. ‘My husband,’ the sniffling woman said, ‘is dying and it seems that-‘She paused and it sounded as though she was swallowing more air than she wanted to. ‘And it seems as if his final wish is to spend a few minutes with you.'”
December 3-4 Catch 22 by Joseph Heller “There was only one catch and that was Catch 22…Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t but if he was sane he had to fly them.”
December 10-11 The Mourning by William Trevor “It was then that Liam Pat began to feel afraid. It was one thing to have it over Huxter, to know what Huxter didn’t know; it was one thing to get a smile from the barmaid. It was another altogether to be sitting on a bus with a device in a sports bag.
December 17-18 Hanukah Program Lights and Miracles The Power of Light by Isaac Bashevis Singer and The Demon Foiled by Ann Roiphe “The new mayor of the city was Jewish, which didn’t mean he wouldn’t celebrate Kwanzaa. Also Christmas Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sea..
December 24-25 A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote “Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town…’Oh my,’she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, ‘it’s fruitcake weather!'”
December 31-January 1 The German Refugee by Bernard Malamud “To many of these people, articulate as they were, the great loss was the loss of language…As Karl Otto Alp, the ex-film star…put it years later, ‘I felt like a child, or worse, often like a moron. I am left with myself unexpressed. What I knew, indeed, what I am, becomes to me a burden. My tongue hangs useless.
January 14-15 Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson and Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters “From wanting to reach the ears of Kate Swift, and through his sermons to delve into her soul, he began to want also to look again at the figure lying white and quiet in the bed.” “But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?”
January 21-22The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield “But we can’t possibly have a garden party with a dead man just outside the front gate.”
January 28-29 The New Dress by Virginia Woolf “We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable.”
February 4-5 Kugelmass Episode by Woody Allen (Repeat) “Kugelmass’ heart danced on point. I am in love, he thought, I am the possessor of a wonderful secret. What he didn’t realize was that at this very moment students in various classrooms across the country were saying to their teacher, “Who is this character on page 100. A bald Jew is kissing Madame Bovary?”
February 11-12 ‘Selling the General’ from A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan_Part 1 “And then Arc had called. The general wanted an exclusive retainer. He wanted rehabilitation, American sympathy, an end to the CIA’s assassination attempts. If Qaddafi could do it, why not he?”
February 18-19’Selling the General’ from A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan_Part 2 “Kitty came toward him slowly–poured toward him, really, that was how smoothly she moved in her sage green dress…she poured toward the general and took his hand..
February 25-26 Rothschild’s Fiddle by Anton Chekhov “When Bronze sat in the orchestra…there was a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked… while the flute wailed at his left, played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the famous millionaire Rothschild.”
March 3-4 The Two Bottles of Relish by Lord Dunsany “In fact they had more clues than anybody could make head or tail of. Every kind of clue to show that he’d murdered the poor little girl; every kind of clue to show that he hadn’t disposed of the body; and yet the body wasn’t there.”