Showing results by narrator "Mike Vendetti" in All Categories

Ichabod Crane, a city slicker from Connecticut becomes the pedagogue (teacher) of a small school in the Catskills of New York. Interestingly enough the area is haunted by a Hessian trooper who was beheaded by a cannonball, and he roams at night, probably in search of his head. When Ichabod attempts to woo the only daughter of a wealthy farmer, he must contend with a local hero. This classic American short story has been a staple in classrooms for well over 100 years.

Jack London, famed for his tales of adventure, was also a science fiction writer only rivaled in his time by the great H. G. Wells. The Iron Heel is a dystopia that would, in part, inspire George Orwell's masterwork, 1984. The Iron Heel tracks the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States of America - and the doomed attempt to counter it. It is a novel more relevant today than it was in its day. Hear the "tale of capitalist oppression" that George Orwell couldn't stop thinking about.

Cap the narrator makes a deal with his pal Sam McGee that he will cremate him when he dies. Now the problem is where to do this deed in the frozen Yukon.

Award-winning audiobook narrator Mike Vendetti reads "Invictus". Politicians and authors love to quote the inspirational last two lines of this poem: "I am the master of my fate:/I am the captain of my soul."

The 55 minutes you spend listening to this audiobook can be magical. Some of these stories and ponderings will be understood clearly, while others may elude you, but not to worry, you will want to listen several times, and the meaning will come to you. Like all great writing, these stories will remain with you.

Isaac Asimov, known primarily for his science fiction stories, was also a scientist. In cooperation with the Senior Scholastic magazine, he composed this wonderful and fascinating work of historical nonfiction. Twenty-six far-reaching discoveries and the twenty-nine scientists who made them—from Archimedes, who boasted he could move the world, to Goddard, who sent the first liquid-fuel rocket toward space.

A glitch in time. A nation in ruins. One Marine’s fight to survive a future that shouldn’t exist. When Marine combat veteran Alan Carson sets off on a solo hike through New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness, he’s searching for peace—and a path forward after years at war. What he finds is a dead man, a hidden cave, and a one-way passage seventeen years into the future… into a world where America has collapsed into chaos and survival is anything but guaranteed.

The Odyssey has survived nearly three thousand years because it speaks to a simple, powerful truth: sometimes the hardest battle is not the war abroad, but the long, uncertain journey back home. In this modern prose retelling, Homer's epic is presented as a continuous story rather than as verse. The language is clear and contemporary, but the structure and major episodes of the original are faithfully preserved.

Mr. Washington was born a slave. His family, freed after the Civil War, struggled for a livelihood under terrible conditions. Mr. Washington, however, was determined to be educated, and he took advantage of every opportunity to learn available to him. He rose from poverty and ignorance to help found Tuskegee University. This audiobook should be an inspiration to all who listen.

Phineas T. Barnum considered himself primarily a showman, but his main goal was to put money in his own pocket. Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti reads The Art of Money Getting, subtitled Golden Rules for Making Money, for you. It has a great deal of common sense about how to make money and, more importantly, how to keep it once you've made it. A little dated, but it remains one of the best self-help books ever written.

This short story is taken from Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit by Joel Chandler Harris. Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore collected from southern black Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's Fables and Jean de La Fontaine's stories. Uncle Remus is a freedman who serves as a story-telling device, passing on the folktales like the traditional African griot to children gathered around him. Award-winning audiobook narrator and producer Mike Vendetti portrays the kindly old gentleman telling the story.

On August 5, the Coast Guard cutter Seabright put to sea at 13.30 hours, in response to information concerning the auxiliary sloop Hope, and its crew consisting of the owner and one guest. After steaming for three hours through heavy seas and gale-velocity winds, the Hope was encountered at a point four miles east of the Port Everglades offshore buoy. The sailboat was found derelict, and an attempt was made to take it in tow. There was only a single survivor, one man having been washed overboard in an attempt to aid the other.

Written in 1729 as a satirical piece, selling the babies of the poor to the rich to be braised, baked, broiled, or boiled to rid Ireland of a perceived problem was probably less repulsive than it is today, but are the children of the poor still viewed as a throwaway segment of our population? Interestingly, the practice is also viewed as a solution to the "abortion" problem.

"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will simply try to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." Prologue to All Quiet on the Western Front.

This short story is taken from Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit by Joel Chandler Harris. Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore collected from southern black Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's Fables and Jean de La Fontaine's stories. Uncle Remus is a freedman who serves as a story-telling device, passing on the folktales like the traditional African griot to children gathered around him. Award-winning audiobook narrator and producer Mike Vendetti portrays the kindly old gentleman telling the story.

"Youth" is a surprisingly complex short tale, with a deep core of thought-provoking reasoning. What is our motivation? Where is our growth? What do we consider valuable? These questions and more are brought to light in this story by Isaac Asimov. Youth is one of the rare Asimov stories with alien characters.

A Gloucester fishing crew lands a monster after a 40-hour battle at sea. Turns out that this behemoth is only a baby, and what ensues later should keep you well on shore.

The scene is a rundown boardwalk with carnival attractions. Ralph Banghart manages a house of mirrors where the "Dwarf", Mr. Bigelow, comes to view himself as large, normal. Ralph Banghart is a bully, and when his friend, Aimee, takes pity on Mr. Bigelow, Ralph becomes jealous. Although his bullying had been behind Mr. Bigelow's back, Ralph decides to switch the mirror in the house of mirrors to one that makes Bigelow appear tiny instead of large.

This is a very erotic tale narrated in a sexy baritone certain to titillate the erotic desires of the listener or listeners. Told in the first person, the protagonist is a 15-year-old possessing a large penis, much virility, and a seemingly insatiable sexual appetite. He describes his sexual initiation as an adolescent - as he is "approaching 15". He catalogs his sexual experiences including incest with his sisters Eliza and Mary, sex with his governess, in addition to a very experienced and voluptuous older woman who initiates him into the rights of Venus.

They were married, but they hated and couldn't stand each other. Why not a divorce? Not that easy when there is a lot of money involved. Perhaps they could work things out on a trip to the Swiss Alps.