“Story Time for Grownups” presents the classic story of a New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul to the devil, then hires the famed statesman, lawyer, and orator Daniel Webster to win it back. The attorney demands a proper trial, and gets a jury that includes Blackbeard the Pirate and “King Philip” of the Wampanoag Indians, as well as Judge John Hathorne, who presided over the Salem witch trials. First published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1936, this tale won the O. Henry Award, and was adapted as a folk opera in 1938, and an Oscar-winning film starring Edward Arnold and Walter Huston in 1941.

Order a pint of beer, a pot of tea, soup, sandwich, or cookies while you enjoy the old-fashioned experience of listening to real-life stories read aloud. Browse the shelves for a book you might like to take home.

David Loftus has read aloud to listeners in libraries, coffee shops, Powell’s Books, Borders, and Umpqua Bank, on the streets of Portland, and for recordings for the blind. He has performed Gandalf, Bilbo, and Gollum with Willamette Radio Workshop; Sherlock Holmes on KBOO; hapless humans trying to survive on a post-apocalyptic Earth populated by zombies and vampires for “Afterhell”; and voices recurring characters on the science-fiction podcasts “Exoplanetary” and “253 Mathilde.”