Programming note: please join me for another edition of his weekend music show Mark Steyn on the Town. It airs Saturday at 5pm UK/6pm Western Europe/12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
~Ahead of that, welcome to the seventy-sixth audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time. We are in our ninth season, and we've built a spectacular archive that runs the gamut from A to Z ...well, not quite, but certainly A to W - Jane Austen to P G Wodehouse.
But come December our focus shifts to the Christmas season. We started last weekend with a couple of Yuletide yarns by the ingenious O Henry. Of Christmas by Injunction, Terry, a South Carolina member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:
Wonderful Christmas story and read so beautifully by Mark.
Merry Christmas to all members of the Mark Steyn Club -- the only club I belong to.
Merry Christmas to you too, Terry - and glad you enjoyed it.
The third of this year's Christmas capers is as different from O Henry as could be. We're not in a western mining town but in the City of Light. As I discuss in my introduction, Christmas at Thompson Hall is one of several seasonal yarns by Anthony Trollope, who generally disliked editors' demands that he write about the subject. But he rose to the occasion. In tonight's opening episode the French capital is not working its usual magic:
That winter, however, was especially severe, and the cold of the last ten days of December was more felt, I think, in Paris than in any part of England. It may, indeed, be doubted whether there is any town in any country in which thoroughly bad weather is more afflicting than in the French capital. Snow and hail seem to be colder there, and fires certainly are less warm, than in London. And then there is a feeling among visitors to Paris that Paris ought to be gay; that gayety, prettiness, and liveliness are its aims, as money, commerce, and general business are the aims of London, which, with its outside sombre darkness, does often seem to want an excuse for its ugliness. But on this occasion ...Paris was neither gay, nor pretty, nor lively.
What follows is a comedy of errors. To hear me read Part One of Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope, please click here and log-in.
~We launched The Mark Steyn Club eight-and-a-half years ago, and I'm immensely heartened by all those SteynOnline supporters across the globe - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Surrey to the Solomon Islands - who've signed up to be a part of it. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone - all my columns, audio output, video content, every movie feature and Song of the Week.
That said, we have introduced a few bonuses for our members - not locking up our regular content, which will always be free, but admitting members to a few experimental features, such as this series of audio adventures. In Tales for Our Time I revisit some classic fiction I've mentioned in books and columns over the years - old stories that nevertheless speak to our own age. Our first serialisation was The Tragedy of the Korosko by the aforementioned Arthur Conan Doyle; next came The Time Machine by H G Wells; and then The Secret Agent by the aforementioned Mr Conrad, and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. Two of those I've since updated in contemporary iterations. I always liked reading stories, and I did do a little of it professionally a zillion years ago. So, if it works, we may release them as audio books on CD or Audible a ways down the road. But for the moment they're an exclusive bonus for Mark Steyn Club members.
If you'd like to hear this Tale, all you need to do is join the Club - either for a full year or, if you suspect we're some fly-by-night shifty Canuck scamsters and you want to see how it goes, a mere experimental quarter. And, aside from Tales for Our Time, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, such as this coming Wednesday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show and our other video content;
~Our video series of classic poetry;
~Advance booking for my live appearances such as our annual Mark Steyn Cruise;
~Customised email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our gift membership. It makes a perfect Christmas present for anyone who enjoys classic fiction.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this Tale for Our Time, or consider my reading of it a bust, then feel free to comment away below. I weigh in on the comment threads myself from time to time, but I regard it as principally your turf, to have at it as you so desire. And do join us tomorrow for Part Two of Christmas at Thompson Hall.
