When the Nobel Prize committee praised his “impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life,” Isaac Bashevis Singer modestly replied, “I never sit down to write to make a better world. I consider myself an entertainer.” These four stories — “Gimpel the Fool,” “Esther Kreindel the Second,” “The Spinoza of Market Street,” and “The Black Wedding” — radiate Singer’s celebrated wit and imagination. Theodore Bikel reads these timeless tales of shtetl life in classic, Yiddish storyteller cadence, giving the author's 'inspired madness' a special warmth.