In this episode we present Mark Twain’s Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is a gloriously ridiculous frontier yarn in which a well‑meaning visitor asks a simple question and immediately gets trapped in the verbal quicksand of Simon Wheeler — a man who can talk longer than a summer day. Wheeler launches into the saga of Jim Smiley, a gambler who would bet on anything: horses, dogs, birds, sermons, and probably the weather if you gave him a minute. Smiley’s pride and joy is Dan’l Webster, a frog he “educates” to jump like a green lightning bolt. Everything goes great until a stranger cheats by secretly filling the frog with quail shot, turning the champion jumper into a paperweight. Twain’s tale is a celebration of tall stories, bad bets, and the eternal human talent for being bamboozled — all told with a straight face and a wink. is a gloriously ridiculous frontier yarn in which a well‑meaning visitor asks a simple question and immediately gets trapped in the verbal quicksand of Simon Wheeler — a man who can talk longer than a summer day. Wheeler launches into the saga of Jim Smiley, a gambler who would bet on anything: horses, dogs, birds, sermons, and probably the weather if you gave him a minute. Smiley’s pride and joy is Dan’l Webster, a frog he “educates” to jump like a green lightning bolt. Everything goes great until a stranger cheats by secretly filling the frog with quail shot, turning the champion jumper into a paperweight. Twain’s tale is a celebration of tall stories, bad bets, and the eternal human talent for being bamboozled — all told with a straight face and a wink. Read by Myron Hieronymous Thomas

In this episode of Radio Reading Room Podcast: Stories of Americana, host and reader Myron Hieronymous Thomas presents Ambrose Bierce’s haunting Civil War short story "A Horseman in the Sky". First published in 1889, the story follows a young Union soldier facing an impossible choice between family loyalty and military duty, offering listeners a dramatic reflection on courage, conscience, and the human cost of war.

In this episode, we take listeners into the mist‑covered hollows of early America, where superstition lingers in the treetops and every rustle in the underbrush feels like a whisper from the past. Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow remains one of the most enduring tales in American folklore—rich with humor, mystery, and the eerie charm of a village caught between daylight reason and nighttime imagination. The story unfolds like an autumn evening by lantern light. You’ll meet the lanky schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, the spirited Katrina Van Tassel, and the boisterous Brom Bones—each brought to life with character, cadence, and the gentle theatricality that defines The Radio Reading Room. As the tail winds toward its famous midnight ride, Myron’s reading captures both the playful satire and the creeping suspense that have made Sleepy Hollow a classic for generations. Settle in, slow down, and let this timeless American ghost story carry you into a world where legends ride at night… and where the line between myth and memory grows wonderfully thin. Read by Myron Hieronymous Thomas.