Free Audio Friday, holiday edition! Today’s featured title is Elizabeth’s solo recording of James Joyce’s The Dead, which you can download from LibriVox. This novella is the final story in Joyce’s collection Dubliners, and describes a Christmas party given by Kate and Julia Morkan, two elderly Dublin ladies, that is attended by their nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife Gretta. While the party is festive, full of dancing, drinking, and eating, it is also pervaded by political, religious, and sexual tensions, as well as memories of loss. When Gabriel and Gretta go home at the end of the night, she reveals a long-kept secret that leads to an epiphany. This is one of the most beautiful short novels ever written, and Elizabeth hopes you enjoy it. (The image is Anjelica Huston as Gretta in the 1987 film version, directed by John Huston.)