Showing results by narrator "Fred Stella" in All Categories

The stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul will encourage listeners to stay upbeat, because there's always a brighter way to look at life. This collection includes 20 stories about laughter and accepting help.

This audiobook is based on the autobiography of Hamid Bey, titled My Life Preceding 5,000 Burials, telling the dramatic story of the life of Master Hamid Bey, who could control his heartbeat to three beats per minute and put himself in a trance. This is how he was able to be buried alive and come out breathing just like you and me. Bey also was able to stick pins in his body with no visible marks to be left, and he appeared on the old Ed Sullivan Show to demonstrate his ability to withstand weight when he had Mr. Sullivan stand on his body while he laid on a bed of nails.

In a remote Venice church, a dead woman named Santa Teodora lies before the altar. She has been there for centuries, ever since the Crusaders carried her mummified body away from the Holy Land, and she is as much a part of this mysterious city as the Grand Canal. Urbino Macintyre, an American expatriate who makes a living writing biographies of legendary Venetians, believes he knows every detail of Teodora's legend, but another chapter is about to be added to her myth.

Friends fall out of touch, we run out of time, or sometimes our courage simply fails us - and thank-yous, regrets, feelings, and secrets are left unshared. In 2009, Jackie Hooper came up with a way to help people recapture a moment that had once passed them by. She began asking them to write letters that answered one question: If you had another chance, what would you do differently? Based on the popular blog of the same name, this captivating collection of letters presents the stories of ordinary people.

Each of the sisters of the Charity of Santa Crispina chooses a different way to die. Some relax into the arms of death, eager for their eternal rewards. Some leave this world violently, screaming in pain as they take their last breaths. The convent is a severe place, its rooms spartan, its food bland. But the time has come for Carnival in Venice, and a tourist will take any room he can find.

As snow falls on Venice, turning the city into an elaborate gothic confection, Gaby Pindar fears for her life. Crippled by intense agoraphobia, she hasn't left her family home in two decades, instead dedicating herself to tending to the small collection of historical trinkets that make up the family museum. When she begins receiving death threats, she begs for help from her cousin, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, whose friend, Urbino Macintyre, is something of an amateur sleuth. But the search takes a gruesome turn when Gaby's sister, Olimpia, turns up dead.

The Contessa da Capo-Zendrini is one of the leading lights of Venice society, but there is one house where she has long been unwelcome. Her late husband's family, the Zenos, have loathed her since the 1930s, when a gathering at her palazzo ended in tragedy. Decades later she hits on a devilish plan to make amends: inviting the Zeno clan over for a house party to make up for the one that ended in bloodshed long ago. But soon after her guests arrive, murder strikes again.

Centuries ago, Venice celebrated the Day of All Souls by building a bridge of boats across the canal to the cemetery island of San Michele. As the tourist season winds down, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini decides it's time to revive the tradition, organizing a fleet so the city can mourn once more as it did in ancient times. Her plans are upended, however, when her latest fascination, a rakish playwright named Bobo, begins receiving anonymous threats.

Samuel Possle is Venice's oldest expatriate, a reclusive former playboy whose hedonistic youth would make the perfect subject for a book - that is if any writer could make him talk.

Did you hear? The company is planning to downsize another ten percent? They're going to drop health benefits from the retirement plan! Our department is being moved to another state! We've all heard similar, disconcerting rumors. But when you're offered an early-retirement package and two weeks to decide, what do you do next?

For two years Urbino Macintyre has been away from his beloved city, wandering the streets of Morocco in search of material for his next book. When he steps off the train and into a gondola in Venice, he knows he has come home. His first stop is to see his beloved friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, a society butterfly who has two years of gossip stored up for him. But the contessa is not her usual lively self. She is being blackmailed, and only Macintyre can help.

In the sun-blasted expanse of St. Mark's Square, hundreds of tourists form a slow-moving herd, dragging themselves forward on a tortuous sightseeing expedition. Inside the elegant Caffè Florian, the atmosphere is more refined as Urbino Macintyre shares a conversation with his beloved friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini. Life in Venice is serene, and they are happier than they have ever been - until a murder shatters the peace of the caffè.

There is a curse on Point Vestal. Time moves differently in this sleepy Northwestern coastal town, where the ghosts of the past roam the streets as readily as the living inhabitants. It's still the late 19th century, and underneath the quaint touristy allure of the commingling of the past and present is a lurking darkness.