"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway

In a clean, well-lighted cafe, late at night and just before closing time, the waiters and an old man debate life and death in a most Hemingwayesque manner. Read by Neil Miller.

This is one of Ernest Hemingway's most famous short stories, a typical example of his terse yet tender style, simmering with violence just beneath the surface. The author's adventurous, peripatetic life took him from Illinois to France to Florida to Cuba to Idaho, and a lot of places in between. This story was first published when he was living in Key West.

Neil Miller is an award-winning writer who teaches journalism at Tufts University; his last book is Sex Crime Panic, quite possibly set to become a major motion picture. He is currently working on a book about the discovery of a huge cavern system in Arizona.