Animated Stories Written by Tom Waits, Nick Cave & Other Artists, Read by Danny Devito, Zach Galifianakis & More

Ten years ago, Jeff Ante­bi, the founder of the record com­pa­ny Wax­ploita­tion, asked musi­cians and con­tem­po­rary painters to col­lab­o­rate on a col­lec­tion of children’s sto­ries for grown-ups. Today, you can find the fruits of their labor col­lect­ed in a new, 350-page book project called Sto­ries for Ways & Means. The book fea­tures tales by Tom Waits (above), Nick Cave, Bon Iver, The Pix­ies’ Frank Black and oth­er artists. (Note: the sto­ries con­tain “out­re art, weird images, graph­ic dis­plays of nasty stuff and cuss words.”) Also, you can now watch a series of short pro­mo films where celebs like Dan­ny Devi­to, Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis and Nick Offer­man read items in the col­lec­tion.

As a quick week­end treat, we’ve high­light­ed some of those read­ings on this page. More read­ings can be viewed here. Pro­ceeds from Sto­ries for Ways & Means (pur­chase a copy here) will sup­port NGOs and non­prof­its advanc­ing children’s caus­es around the world, includ­ing Room to Read, Pen­cils of Promise, and 826 Nation­al.

Dan­ny Devi­to Reads “Doug the Bug” by Frank Black 

Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis Reads “Next Big Thing” by Gib­by Haynes

“The Lone­ly Giant” by Nick Cave, Read by Andre Royo (aka Bub­bles from The Wire)

“Wish­ing Well Foun­tain,” Writ­ten and Nar­rat­ed by Ali­son Mosshart

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits Reads Two Charles Bukows­ki Poems, “The Laugh­ing Heart” and “Nir­vana”

Nick Cave Nar­rates an Ani­mat­ed Film about the Cat Piano, the Twist­ed 18th Cen­tu­ry Musi­cal Instru­ment Designed to Treat Men­tal Ill­ness

Tom Waits Makes a List of His Top 20 Favorite Albums of All Time