Showing results by narrator "Mike Vendetti" in All Categories

Who is Mercer? Coyote. Soul Smuggler. A body-hopping, phantasmal anti-hero. A disenfranchised spirit doomed to inherit the earth, cursed by both heaven and hell. An enemy of god, but no friend of the devil. Soul Smuggler collects nine Mercer tales.

I recorded this the day after we lost one of our beloved pets. Rainbow Bridge is the theme of several works of poetry written in the 1980s and 1990s that speak of an other-worldly place where pets go upon death, eventually to be reunited with their owners. It brings a lump to my throat, and often a tear to my eye but also comfort as I recall good times with Pongo.

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.

Follow Caroline, a young bride seeking adventure in the ancient ruins of Italy, as she uncovers the tragic history of the tower and encounters the ghost of Niccolo di Ferramano's young wife. With each step she takes up the 475 stairs, the mystery unfolds, and Caroline must make a terrifying choice: jump to her fate or face the unknown on the treacherous descent.

John O'Brian travels to Dagon's Cave to murder Richard Brent for the love of Eleanor Bland. Eleanor is a beautiful blonde who won't commit to Brent or O'Brian so John has decided to settle it for her. The cave is a really creepy place with lots of local myths surrounding it including mysterious Little People, the prehistoric beings of British legend. Celts and Saxons battled in the area for decades. O'Brian wanders into the cave and manages to fall headlong down a flight of stairs knocking himself unconscious. To say he wasn't himself when he came to is an understatement.

Isaac Asimov wrote "The Magnificent Possession" early in his career. This is one of the few humorous stories that Asimov created.

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

Masterfully read by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti, travel to the town of Hamelin suffering from a rat infestation, when a piper dressed in multicolored ("pied") clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the mayor a solution to their problem with the rats. The mayor, in turn, promised to pay him for the removal of the rats (according to some versions of the story, the promised sum was 1,000 guilders). The piper accepted and played his pipe to lure the rats into the Weser River, where they all drowned. The rest is a legend enjoyed for centuries.

"A Visit from St. Nicholas", more commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas" and "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously in 1823 and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who claimed authorship in 1837.

We travel with The Hawk, or Carl Ericson, son of Norwegian immigrants, born at the end of the 19th century, through the first three adventurous periods of the young man's life. We see him as an adventurous boy, running away with Gertie Cowels, the girl that lives in the big house in the better part of town, only to be rescued by Bone Stillman, a backwoods philosopher and influence on Carl. He leaves his childhood, Gertie and Joralemon behind, for a short attempt at higher education, then to pursue the hobo life, a Bowery bartender, an engineer in Panama, and an aviator.

Evil always seems to lurk in the world of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s character stumbles into an area inhabited by evil spirits from another place disguised as a large strange tree. Even images of the tree can bring about madness.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen...so pliant...so yeilding..so all-enfolding....

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.

Anyone who has to spend the better part of his days chained to a routine job in our workaday world will appreciate the sorcery that captured the heart of Mr. Sladden. That gentleman's experience in finding a private peep-hole out of this world is one we all may envy.

This is a happy, feel-good tale by Lord Dunsany aka Edward Plunkett, the 18th Baron of Dunsany. Read by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti, the wild things take you into their world.

A gentleman enjoying the morning over the River Seine waves to a steamer, and the nightmare begins. He believes he may be going insane, but then he begins to feel there is an entity that he cannot see invading his mind and his home. The entity is perhaps an invader from another world. Guy de Maupassant's tale of classic horror will enthrall you.

It was a dark and starless night when a schooner becalmed in the Northern Pacific is a approached by a rowboat whose occupant although nonthreatening refuses to be seen. We find out who this hideous appearing creature is, and how he and his fiancée came to be marooned on an island inhabited by a strange fungus.

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.

College freshmen have dissected this poem for ages, but it takes an older person to understand it.

Award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti recites this timeless nursery rhyme.