3 CDs. Recorded live at the Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City and at venues across the United States, these audio anthologies feature short stories from the Selected Shorts program that airs nation-wide. Over 300,000 listeners tune in to this offering weekly to hear some of their favorite tales read aloud by an assortment of distinguished actors. What happens to people's lives during times of battle and strife from the American Revolution to the ongoing war in Iraq is the subject of this collection. Before Independence, a slave fights for freedom by taking up arms for the British; in WW I, a mother goes to the front lines to see her son; and in our time, a teenager in Oregon waits for e-mail from his father in the Middle East. Featured stories include Tom Bissell's "War Wounds" read by Oskar Eustis, Robert Olen Butler's "Mother in the Trenches" read by Kathleen Chalfant, Charles Johnson's "A Soldier for the Crown" read by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Tim OBrien's "The Things They Carried" read by Dylan Baker, and Benjamin Percy's "Refresh, Refresh" read by Ted Marcoux. Approximate running time: 180 minutes.