Audibly Speaking: Listening to History - podcast cover

Audibly Speaking: Listening to History

The nexus between history and the news is the focus of this podcast by Dr. Rick Reiman
Last refreshed:
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Download Metacast podcast app
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

NEW! 2025 Edition of the Greatest Sherlock Holmes Story of All, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”

Twitter Facebook I have had the pleasure of recording nearly all of the Sherlock Holmes short stories for this podcast, but one stands out among all the others, both as a recording effort and as a story by the great Conan Doyle. That is THIS story, a BRAND NEW RE-READING of “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.” I first recorded this in the summer of 2022, in the early stages of my recovery from my first bout with COVID-19. You can still listen to that version, if you go back through my episodes t...

Jul 19, 202558 min

NEW! “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” A Sherlock Holmes Theatrical Drama

Twitter Facebook “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” by Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, was one of two stories in the canon which was told not in the voice of Dr. John Watson but in third-person. Intended as the basis of a play, a one-act drama, it consists mainly of dialogue between two individuals at a time. Most of the time Holmes is one of the two persons, but not always. The device was necessary to make the surprise of the story possible. The story was published in the UK and in the US in 1921. I...

May 24, 202539 min

“NEW! “THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL,” The Final Episode of My Narrations of the Classic Sherlock Holmes Stories

Twitter Facebook Well, it has been quite an odyssey. Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic episodes have been narrated by readers like Stephen Fry, for a cost; and by readers like your host, for free, in the spirit of the 18th century Enlightenment. This series has been other-directed–directed to others–without charge or fee. The hope is to spread cheer and enjoyment of the mysteries of an extraordinary writer and his remarkable detective. Please let me know, at rreiman33@gmail.com, if you have enjoyed t...

May 16, 20251 hr 18 min

NEW! Chapter Three of “The Great Gatsby,” Narrated by Rick Reiman!

Twitter Facebook In this year of 2025, we celebrate the centennial of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby . I have recorded the first three chapters of the heartbreaking novel, and the latest chapter is out today! I have links to all three chapters below should you wish to listen to them in order. Perhaps you, too, admire the green light on the far horizon. Watch out, because it may be the chimera of the “American Dream,” an apparition best left in quotation marks as airy as the cocktails on ...

Apr 16, 202541 min

NEW! “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” by Arthur Conan Doyle: Doyle’s Last Great Sherlock Holmes Tale

Twitter Facebook In 1922, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle capped his marvelous series of Sherlock Holmes story with an entry in the series to rival any of his best: “The Problem of Thor Bridge.” How fitting that Doyle’s last great Holmes story may be the final Holmes story narrated by yours truly, Rick Reiman, for I am moving on to other academic contributions that may better suit my talents and more greatly increase the sum of my contributions to academic learning in these, the two thousands and twentie...

Mar 31, 20251 hr 3 min

NEW! A New Sherlock Holmes Part-Pastiche: Doyle’s “The Adventure of Shoscomb Old Place,” with a New Conclusion

Twitter Facebook Some readers, who are avid fans of the atmosphere of the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes tale, “The Adventure of Shoscomb Old Place,” may be disappointed with the hastily wrapped conclusion that Doyle sought fit to conclude the story. As a pastiche, a different ending concludes this audio narration of the tale. Will Sir Robert Norburton get his just deserts after all. Listen and learn to find out. Twitter Facebook

Mar 04, 202549 min

NEW: News Ahead on the Audio Narration Front and the Production Process of the Sherlock Holmes’ Clips

Twitter Facebook A hoped-for interview ahead with Gabra Zackman of audio narration fame is the news in today’s show on the channel. We also look back on the perils of narrating Sherlock Holmes while “falling out” with Covid, as well as the advances in the art of audio narration thanks to the progress of time. Something different: Sherlock Holmes, sick with Covid, this time on AudiblySpeaking ! Twitter Facebook

Feb 21, 202538 min

NEW! Perhaps the Most Popular of all Sherlock Holmes Stories, “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League!”

Twitter Facebook What a whimsical tale Dr. Watson has to tell of Jabez Wilson and “The Red-Headed League!” Between the laughter and the mirth that Holmes teases out of the tale, there emerges a dastardly crime so cunning that only Holmes himself could solve it. John Clay, the “fourth smartest man in London,” according to Holmes, and probably a man working for Moriarty, the second smartest man, is plotting to bankrupt a vital English bank. But the narrator should not reveal the plot. He simply ta...

Feb 15, 20251 hr 2 min

NEW! An Abridged Overview of Chapter 7 from “The American Yawp” Textbook: “The Early Republic”

Twitter Facebook This is your narrator for this series, Dr. Rick Reiman. Americans know too little about the Early American Republic, the Republic of President Thomas Jefferson, leading to the War of 1812 and its aftermath, the Era of Good Feelings. In this overview of Chapter 7 from The American Yawp , I summarize its major themes. This will benefit my students, who must complete a Major Project in which they identify the major fractures in American life and politics from the 1780s through this...

Feb 03, 202539 min

NEW! A New Recording of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” a Sherlock Holmes Classic

Twitter Facebook Hello, everybody! Rick Reiman here, audio narrator for Audibly Speaking . On rare occasions, I re-record a short story in the Sherlock Holmes series written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Not that I think I did a bad job in my reading the first time around. But I am quite certain that I am doing better in my reinterpretation of these stories as I go along, both sonically and artistically. Therefore, I look back on those Sherlock Holmes stories that I think are Doyle’s very best and ...

Feb 01, 20251 hr 2 min

NEW! My Interview with Laura Malvoyante, a YouTube Leader in the Digital Minimalism Movement

Twitter Facebook What a pleasure it was for me to interview Laura Malvoyante about her insights into society’s growing need for digital minimalism in the face of the addictiveness of tech. Technology is a voracious feeder on the limited and priceless commodity of time in our lives. At the same time, sometimes the antidote to this invasion is technology itself, in the form of devices that can force upon ourselves, in their build capacity and form factors, a more limited and rational relationship ...

Jan 10, 202551 min

NEW! A Sherlock Holmes Christmas Story: “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”

Twitter Facebook Move over Charles Dickens! Stand aside, Scrooge! For a nineteenth century English Christmas tale without parallel, you cannot do better than Sherlock Holmes’s conveying of the Christmas message in his discover and commutation of a felony, all to save a soul in the season of forgiveness of this time of year. My narration of this tale is my Christmas present to all of my listeners. And now, happy listening ion the frosty air of crackling fires, ice crystals, and Sherlock Holmes hi...

Dec 02, 202452 min

NEW! Oh, Those Medicare Advantage TV Commercials (from One Not a Fan of Medicare Advantage)!

Twitter Facebook This opinion piece on Medicare Advantage concerns the “hard-sell” that private insurance companies make this time of year on behalf of “Medicare Advantage,” the private insurance alternative to Original Medicare. I record this podcast episode to warn seniors to do their homework, and ask the question, why are insurance companies so anxious to sell their Medicare Advantage plans and not the Supplement plans that offer the insurance companies so little of a profit margin? Hmm…mayb...

Nov 27, 202427 min

NEW! Stupid, Idiotic Ideas about Medicare: Facebook Complaints About Medicare and their Ignorance

Twitter Facebook In our post-truth world, ignorance about Medicare has reached avalanche proportions. The greatest and most secure health care system in the world is now suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the form of babbling malcontents whose ignorance of Medicare is only matched by their outrage at it. Just go to Facebook or some other social media cesspool and you will see a lot of such heat, but precious little light. Medicare complainers, please heal yourselves and do ...

Nov 14, 202415 min

NEW! 2024 Repeats the 1963 Calendar: JFK, Oswald and Veterans Day Weekend, From Sunday, November 10 to Tuesday, November 12

Twitter Facebook Today, Sunday, November 10, 2023, I reflect on the events of Veterans Day Weekend 1963, when JFK and Oswald lived out their last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, November 10-12, 1963. We review what we know of those fateful days. Next, I talk about the events of Wednesday, November 13 through Friday, November 22, 1963, to be published here on Audibly Speaking before Friday, November 22, 2024. Twitter Facebook

Nov 11, 202423 min

NEW! About the Part D Madness in Medicare this Annual Election Period for 2025

Twitter Facebook In this final episode about my opinions and experience with learning Medicare for retirement, I spread the word that many people are talking about: Medicare Advantage plans and Part D Prescription Drug plans are undergoing big changes, premium hikes and in some cases disappearing acts during this Annual Election Period between October 15 and December 7. If you are on Medicare Advantage OR a Part D prescription drug plan (you can’t be on both) you need to research Medicare.gov to...

Nov 09, 202413 min

Medicare Musings, Part Three: Myths about Medicare Advantage and Part B

Twitter Facebook In this third part of my series on what I have learned, or thought I have learned, about Medicare I talk about some myths I have discovered about Medicare Advantage and Part B. While Medicare Advantage may be the right choice for some people, I cringe when I watch the commercials during this Annual Election Period and see the slick pitch that insurance companies make to see the cash cow (for them) of MA. Here are the realities that I see from behind just some of the myths about ...

Nov 08, 202415 min

NEW! My Experience Learning about Medicare’s Part D Prescription Drug Coverage

Twitter Facebook What in the world is Part D? My personal experience learning what I appreciated to find out about Medicare Part D coverage is the subject of this this brief podcast episode. Disclaimer: These are my opinions and what my impressions were. This is no substitute or necessarily as accurate as your doing your own research on Medicare. It is just an opinion piece on my reflections of my own experience. Twitter Facebook

Nov 07, 202420 min

NEW! My Experience Learning About Medicare

Twitter Facebook Medicare is confusing– what an understatement. Two years out from retirement I decided to try to understand it, suspecting that it might take me that long. I was not wrong! Now that I am retired and am now on Medicare, I tell this slightly autobiographical tale of what I think I have learned about Medicare in hope that it will either be interesting to or helpful for others, whichever the case may be. Twitter Facebook

Oct 31, 202442 min

NEW! The JFK “Single Bullet Theory” Explained in Under Three Minutes

Twitter Facebook Listen to this audio version of my Youtube video explaining the “Single Bullet Theory” of the JFK assassination, and WHY IT IS TRUE. Many conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination discredit themselves by disputing this thrice-confirmed theory first revealed by the Warren Commission in 1964. Twitter Facebook

Oct 26, 20243 min

NEW! Rick Reiman Narrates Chapter 13, “The Sectional Crisis,” from the Open Source History Textbook, “The American Yawp”

Twitter Facebook In the course that covers the first half of American History, the chapter on the Sectional Crisis of the Union, also sometimes called “The Impending Crisis,” leading to the American Civil War, is the penultimate such chapter. Next to the magisterial, Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the crisis written by the great historian David Potter, that one audio narrated by Eric Martin, this chapter from the Open Educational Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” narrated by me, Dr. Rick ...

Sep 13, 20241 hr 9 min

One of the Great Essays in American History: Crevecoeur’s “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?

Twitter Facebook Hector St. John de Crevecouer, a French immigrant to American wrote this classic essay, “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?” in 1782, as American Independence from Britain loomed. Was he correct in his descriptions of Americans then? Do his descriptions accurately describe Americans today? How was he wrong then, if he was, and how do his descriptions fail to characterize Americans today, if indeed they do? Twitter Facebook

Sep 04, 20249 min

NEW! “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of The Naval Treaty:” An Audio Narration by Rick Reiman

Twitter Facebook In this epic short story, Arthur Conan Doyle exceeds himself. “The Naval Treaty” is the longest of all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short stories. It contains allusions to his other stories and many humorous asides as well as quite larger-than-life characters, some almost Dickensian in their strangeness. Holmes has to sift his clues and there are almost too many for him to select the relevant from the superfluous. “Almost,” but not too many–not for Sherlock Holmes. Twitter Faceboo...

Aug 12, 20241 hr 22 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android