For over a decade, every other Monday at noon listeners have flocked to Thrilling Tales, the Library’s story time for grownups, spending their lunch hour rapt in suspenseful narratives. Janice Leadingham, a local bookseller said in a recent article in City Arts: “Especially for impatient people, it’s good because it slows things down a bit. For one hour, you can just be.” In a recent front page article in The Seattle Times, audience member Zachary Valenter said of Thrilling Tales emcee David Wright, “He’s one of the best storytellers I’ve ever listened to. We come every week that he does the show.”
Find out what all the fuss is about: drop by the Central Library at five minutes past noon on any of the following days, and remember just how fun it was to sit back, relax and be read to.
- Monday, April 4. Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, by A. E. Coppard. On a day most extraordinarily beautiful and strange, Mr. Jaffa Codling finds himself quite without a body. This classic tale is far stranger and more uncanny than a typical ghost story.
- Monday, April 18. My Lady Love, My Dove, by Roald Dahl. Marriage is like a dance, and although the desperate waltzing of Arthur and Pamela threatens to spin out of control, there’s never any doubt just who’s leading.
- Monday, May 2. Fisherman’s Friend, by Ingrid Noll. Will she manage to murder her husband, or will he always be the one that got away? A twisted tale by Germany’s Queen of Crime.
- Monday, May 16. Like a Bug on a Windshield, by Lawrence Block. Long nights hauling heavy loads on roads filled with idiot drivers: it is any wonder that sometimes a trucker just …snaps? Chilling tale of hunters on the highway.
- Monday, June 6. The Country of the Kind, by Damon Knight. If you found yourself in a world of love – a world where hatred had finally been eradicated, you could rule over those docile souls without opposition. It would be a living hell. A tale worthy of the Twilight Zone from a visionary master.
- Monday, June 20. The Purple Shroud, by Joyce Harrington. Some say leave murder to the professionals, but for the resourceful Mrs. Moon, homicide should be an artisanal, homespun expression of one’s soul.
- Monday, July 11. The Howling Man, by Charles Beaumont. Deep within the remote German Abbey of St. Wulfran’s is an evil secret, soon to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
- Monday, July 25. The Two Bottles of Relish, by Lord Dunsany. Meet Smithers, a small man with a big story to tell about a murder most foul, and how he helped solve the crime.
This Saturday at 1 p.m. we also have the last of six Page To Screen presentations, which pairs short stories with the films based on them. This week’s presentation is Killings, by Andre Dubus, a powerful and moving story of violence and its impact on one family that was brilliantly adapted into an award-winning film In The Bedroom, starring Marissa Tomei, Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson. Guns change everything, forever.
– Posted by David W.
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