Let’s start in the West, in lovely green Ireland, where Clodagh, daughter of The Gambler Dennis Asshlin fights for her family’s honor – by marrying the wrong man. Find out in Katherine Thurston’s novel whether she can escape the Asshlin curse by traveling Europe.

When thinking about Portugal, one is often not aware what great discoveries we owe to this seafaring nation. The Lusiads by Luis Vas de Camões, a national epic in poem form, tells mainly about Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India.

To France we owe the first Declaration of Human Rights – and several great novels about people falsely accused and imprisoned. Read the tragic – and real – story of Alfred Dreyfus, an innocent sent to exile in Five Years of my Life 1894 – 1899.

Further to the North we get to another seafaring country, The Netherlands. With about 25 % of the country below sea level, water in all forms is an important topic. What more so when the big prize for the ice skating race is a pair of silver skates! Will Hans Brinker in the story by Mary Mapes Dodge win the race?

Värmland, a province of Sweden, also has many lakes and rivers. Selma Lagerlöf was born there and her debut novel The Story of Gösta Berling about a defrocked priest weaves local stories about cavaliers enjoying cards, music and loveaffairs, into a whole.

The end of love and marriage, and how it came about – by murdering his wife – is told by the main character of The Kreutzer Sonata, Pozdnyshev. This novel by Leo Tolstoy caused international outcries – and was promptly censored in Russia.

Eyes like the Sea is a love story between an artist and a woman who eventually chooses another husband. But the ties between them were made with rubber, loose and tight at different times… Mór Jókai’s novel won the 1890 prize for literature of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Switzerland is famous for its mountains, and climbing them is no science, you think? It certainly is if you are the first to do so – like Edward Whymper who finally seized the peak of the Matterhorn in 1865. This and many other climbing expeditions are recalled in his book Scrambles among the Alps in the Years 1860 – 69.

Another impressive mountain lies on Sicily: Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe. On the opposite side of the island, Luigi Pirandello was born, the third of so far six Italian Nobel Prize winners for literature. His most famous play is Six Characters in Search of an Author.

About 1400 islands and 80% of mountains combine to Greece, considered the true Old World and the cradle of modern civilization and democracy. Herodotus was one of the first people to write a travelogue, his Histories provide a fascinating record of numerous countries, their affairs and traditions in the 5th century BC.

Enjoy your travels – and send a postcard!

New Year – New Resolutions, which are more often than not thrown out shortly after the Christmas decorations. But maybe the following 10 gems from our catalog help you keep them for longer this year.

Top Resolution #1 is doing less of stuff: drinking, smoking, eating… The successful treatment in the clinic of Charles B. Towns inspired one of his patients to set up Alcoholics Anonymous. Read the doctor’s book Habits that Handicap how addictions of any type come to pass and how to kick them.

Top Resolution #2 is doing more of stuff: exercising, reading, studying… The problem with this is usually a lack of time. But Arnold Bennett knows exactly How to Live on 24 Hours a Day and how to make the best of each one of them.

With all this time on your hands, you should certainly spend some of it on Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management. After all, you never know when you’ll have to wean a calf, cook dinner for 25 people or advise a new butler about his duties.

At least the latter is not a problem for the grandfather of Little Lord Fauntleroy, who also tries to teach real British manners to the young American boy. However, it soon becomes clear in the charming novel by Frances H. Burnett who is really the one in need of lessons.

Obviously, you cannot start such lessons early enough if you want them to stick. The Goop Directory by Gelett Burgess contains a number of little poems to teach the right behaviour to children.

Such lessons were certainly not taught to Harvey Cheyne, who ends up a rather spoilt brat. When he is swept overbord on the Atlantic, a group of fishermen save his life. Refusing him any further indulgences is what turns his life around, as can be read in Rudyard Kipling’s novel Captains Courageous.

Another life-turning experience is the one by little Tip. He receives a Bible and is encouraged to use it as a guiding light to turn around his naughty ways. Pansy’s book Tip Lewis and his Lamp tells you whether he succeeds or not.

Louisa May Alcott tells the story of the four March girls during the absence of their father in the civil war. We hear about their lives, their ambitions and sorrows on growing up to become Little Women.

We all change profoundly while growing up, but often we do not recognize this along the way. A barely fictionalized account of the coming of age of James Joyce is his highly acclaimed A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

However you change, and whenever you do it, it’s best not to wait until the very end. Everyman can vouch for that, but not for having led a good life. Listen to our drama prodution to find out whether his friends help him through judgement.

Enjoy – and keep them resolutions!

Let’s start with the obvious: Christmas! You know the story: Bethlehem, manger, shepherds, star, three wise men,… Well, there is also the Story of the other Wise Man, who got lost on the way… Listen to the story by Henry van Dyke to find out if he reached his goal in the end.

Great similarities there are between the story of Jesus and that of John the Baptist. His life starts around the same time, and ends almost equally tragic: through the sheer stubbornness of Salome. Listen to our dramatic production of Oscar Wilde’s play.

Henryk Sienkiewicz tells about the burning of Rome by Emperor Nero, and the love that blossoms in its ruins between the Roman Marcus Vinicius and the Christian Lygia, in his famous book Quo Vadis.

“Where are you going?” is also asked of Evan McIan and James Turnbull. The devout Catholic and convinced atheist wander about to find a good spot for their duel. Whether the former gains satisfaction from the latter for insulting the Virgin Mary can be read in G. K. Chesterton’s novel The Ball and the Cross.

Seeking satisfaction and revenge was the cause for the War between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. The big battle shall start tomorrow, but the warrior Arjuna has doubts over the killing. This is when Krishna takes him aside and their talk is recorded as the Bhagavad Gita, the central text of Hindu theology. This recording is also available in German.

Buddhism is the other important Eastern religion, and it goes back to the prince Gautama Buddha, who left his palace to seek enlightenment. Read the famous Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse to delve deeper into the life of Buddha.

The prophet Mohammed is considered the founder of Islam, as its most sacred text has been written down by him. Since then, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran has been sought for by countless people. This specific translation is by Mohammed M. Pickthall.

Mary Antin’s family left their Jewish traditions behind in Russia, when they emigrated to America. Read Mary’s touching accout of their new life in The Promised Land where they hoped to find peace and acceptance.

The ancestors of Charles Alexander Eastman, also known as Ohiyesa, emigrated also to North America, albeit thousands of years ago. Read The Soul of the Indian for an in depth view of their unique religion.

Let’s get back to where we started: Christmas. If baking cookies, wrapping presents and other holiday activities contribute to a heightened feeling of stress rather than spirituality, take a break with the first volume of our Hymn Collection.

Happy holidays to people of all faiths!

The Cathay poems, written by Ezra Pound, or rather, tranlated from the Japanese and Chinese, contain Exile’s Letter by the Chinese poet Li Po. Enjoy also the other poems, most of them with travel as theme.

Another travel narrative are the 25 Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark by Mary Wollstonecraft. She went there to restore a failing relationship, and ended up writing her most popular book – composed of her letters and journal entries.

Squire Bramble’s family is travelling through England, and the letters to their friends tell about The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, the adventures of one of their ostlers. Interesting is that none of the letters in Tobias Smollett’s funniest work is written by Humphrey himself…

On the other extreme are the 320 Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman that Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, wrote during his lifetime, an enormous manual on self-improvement.

The improvement of the life of a fatherless child was the main motivation behind the letters – and the money sent – of an American boy to his Deer Godchild in France of World War I. The letters were put together by Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell.

Daddy Long Legs is the name a young orphan girl gives to her benefactor who pays her college education to become a writer. In return he expects regular letters to see how much she has learned. Find out if the money was well invested in Jean Webster’s well known novel.

Carl Stanton invested his money in an agency to have romantic letters written to him. After all, he is chained to his bed with bad rheumatism, and his girlfriend is not really into letter writing. In the end, however, he gets more than he paid for in Eleanor Hallowell Abbott’s novel Molly Make Believe.

Another romantic story unfolds in the letters of Pamela to her parents. In this epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, the long resistance of the teenage housemaid is finally rewarded when her master proposes to her.

Letters of Two Brides, namely Louise de Chaulieur and Renée de Maucombe, describes the lives of two young women, starting from the time when they left the convent where they first met. Honoré de Balzac takes you on a journey spanning 17 years and 56 letters.

You know me, Al, by Ring Lardner tells two years of baseball history in a fictional setting: A typical men’s friendship where Chicago White Sox pitcher Jack Keefe keeps writing letters to his old friend Al at home.

Enjoy – and don’t forget to write!

Now…where to start… Well, probably at the beginning: Charles Darwin waited over 10 years before publishing his results on evolution, and his seminal work applying it to humans The Descent of Man caused a great stir among scientists and the general public alike.

Once man climbed down the trees, shed his fur and started to walk upright, new challenges presented themselves: Finding food and shelter, producing clothes and weapons, watching the fire… Follow Ugh-lomi and his tribe as H. G. Wells tells A Story of the Stone Age.

At that time the world must have been an overwhelming sight: Enormous forests, vast grasslands, huge herds of all kinds of animals… Read Robert S. Yard’s Book of the National Parks for a tiny glimpse into that world.

Going Green is considered a good thing to do. Mostly. But… what if it goes too far? In Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore, a green invasion takes place – not of Martians, no, but of grass…

Scientists do have to push the boundaries to gain new insights. And often they have to leave their safe havens and explore unknown lands. This is what a square does when it leaves the realms of Flatland to explore life on a line and in space. Read the delightful novel with a mathematical tinge by Edwin A. Abbott.

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus is a classical story of a scientist yearning for knowledge and engaging the help of the devil to do so. Listen to our production of Christopher Marlowe’s drama

Frankenstein is another classic example of a scientist whose unleashed monsters haunt him for the rest of his life. Nothing more needs to be said about the best know book by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Electricity is the spark standing at the core of our modern world. In 1913, Robert A. Millikan published his famous oildrop experments in On the Elementary Electrical Charge, which won him the Nobel Prize 10 years later.

In our technological world, the majority of people have all they need and even more they want. But what would you do if there was a forseeable end to all the comfort? Check out E. M. Forster’s short novel The Machine Stops and decide for yourself.

Let’s finish with poetry: To Science is contained in a collection of Edgar Allan Poe Poems. Unusual topic you mean? Well, yes, but so are love poems written by the master of horror…

Enjoy – and never stop studying!

The Ancient Greeks are considered the fathers of Western culture, and at that time, Greek was indeed the lingua franca. No wonder St. Paul would write his letters in this language! Read the Epistole pros Collosaes in the version of the Patriarchike Ekdosi. We also have the English KJV of this text.

A major pillar of Eastern culture are the teachings of 孔子 – Confucius. His 論語 -Analects have been collected after his death, and have been ingrained in daily life until today. Besides the Chinese text, we also have a reading in English.

Egri csillagok by Géza Gárdonyi tells about culture clashes: about the occupation of Buda and the siege of Eger by the Turks in the 16th century. Of course, there is also a love story within this historical novel – the most famous one in Hungarian.

A clash of different sorts is described in the novel Max Havelaar. Multatuli writes about the corrupt government system and the exploitation of the coffee workers by the Dutch on Java from his own experience.

Matsuo Basho also relates his own experiences in his travel diary Oku no Hosomichi. It tells of his journey from Edo to Northern Honshu and back in the late 17th century. Let’s hope it will not take you 156 days to get through our recording in Japanese!

Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire about 200 years later, Franz Kafka wrote mainly short stories, and he himself considered Ein Landarzt to be one of his best. It is contained in a collection of his works in German.

The Finnish novel Rautatie by Juhani Aho is considered his main work. Here, an old couple meets progress in the form of the railroad and finally decide to take their first ride in the horseless carriages.

When from four people in a room three wind up dead, the fourth one has to be the murderer, right? Monsieur Lecoq however, does not think so and embarks on a long investigation to solve the mystery. Enjoy the whole novel by Emile Gaboriau in the original French – or the first part of it in English!

For poetry this time, we present the Spanish collection Simplemente Darío by the father of modernism from Nicaragua, Rubén Darío.

Finally, two men with very different ideas about love think that they contend for the love of a pretty widow in the drama Desencantos. It is one of the early works of famous Brazilian author Machado de Assis, written in Portuguese.

Enjoy – and keep your dictionary handy!

On the nature of audio books and “reading”

I am fairly new to the world of audio books and very new to reading within Librivox. The bother of keeping track of stacks of CDs, which might scratch if not handled with care, and the equipment one might have to tote to listen to them always kept me at a distance from that activity (shudder the thought of cassette tapes!). About a year ago our library started to offer MP3 audio books, downloadable on the Internet, and so began my journey into listening rather than reading. I now have come to appreciate how lucky I am to be a reader/listener and now so many years later, the enjoyment seems to increase while other things…well, they do not.

From my perspective, the experience of listening to an audio book starts with the intimacy. It is as though the author were speaking to me of secret, often personal things, back from countless years ago, on a one to one level; the author is here now with me, just me, to tell the wonderful story of long, long ago. The teller has no thing to be gained except my enjoyment of the eloquence, of what he or she has to tell me, at my beck and call, day or night. There is a solitude in this intimacy, one soul in touch with another. It is a fine thing to read, but the walls of the chamber are echoic and sometimes not so reliable. When I am listening all is made quiet, but the author speaking to me. I mostly walk in the mornings to listen and eventually start to feel my legs grow heavy, only then to notice that I have been out over two hours and begrudge the need to rest and go back. It is so wonderful to escape the cacophony.

Of course, the reader of an audio book is there and, in my view, their sole occupation should be to interpret the work and become the author for the listener. A digital device, saying each word as the electronic signal is received, can easily accomplish the saying of individual words without interpretation. But the interpretation of the words, including what has passed and what is yet to come in the script, is so far beyond any digital talent as to be unworthy of discussion. Most audio devices are used to listen to music, most times a product that comes forth from a sophisticated studio employing multiple people and the breathless world of electronic enhancement. A reader, on the other hand, stands fairly alone, having to interpret difficult text sometimes and then deliver a fairly accurate rendition without additional explanation. The saying of the words needs to be accomplished, but their meaning has to be presented too. I think this is best done through pace, tone and pause, but only after the reader is acquainted with the message of the passage and of the work. The unstated presence of fear, humor, melancholy, joy, love, hate etc all need to accompany the saying of the words. Unlike the musician, there are few (if any) knobs to adjust in doing this and volume can be used so sparingly as to be pretty useless (unlike some musicians apparently).

I should enjoy hearing from others on these points and if this is all old hat, why, I do hope that I will be excused. One last point: all the above is subject to my 80/20 rule; i.e. this is true only about 80% of the time, and otherwise not!

This has stimulated a heartfelt discussion on the topic, which you can read here. We welcome your thoughts too!

Let’s begin with one of the oldest adventure stories, about the return of Ulysses from Troy. His Odyssey, described by Homer, took 10 years to complete, but more than 2600 years later, it is still read – even in ancient Greek!

Comparatively short was the journey of Joshua Slocum. However, 3 years of Sailing Alone Around the World on an 11.2 m fishing boat probably felt much longer…

A sea voyage only stands at the beginning of an adventure involving searching for El Dorado in the Andes, and avoiding revolutions and priestly dangers on the way. And on top of that, a woman needs rescuing from the The Web of the Golden Spider. Interested? Check out Frederick O’Barlett’s novel.

A lot of rescuing is needed by Pauline too. And all that just because she wanted to see the world before getting married. Follow The Perils of Pauline – and those of her fiance – in our dramatic reading of Charles Goddard’s novel.

Certainly no damsel in distress was May Kellogg Sullivan, A Woman Who Went to Alaska in 1899. She took two trips of 18 months each, and covered 12.000 miles in steamers and the fledgling railroad. And on the way she was staying with the rough guys in various mining camps…

The ancient King Solomon’s Mines lie supposedly somewhere in Africa. The old fable of enormous riches that can be found there spur Alan Quatermain on a journey through central Africa, in the famous novel by H. Rider Haggard.

The jungles of Bunyip Land need to be crossed by Joe Carstairs, a boy from Australia, in search of his father, a naturalist, whose tracks were lost in New Guinea. Whether he and his small search party will succeed or not, can be discovered in the book by George Manville Fenn.

One of the most famous, most expensive, and most dangerous search–and–rescue expeditions ended after an 8 month’s journey through the heart of Africa with “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”. Let’s hope the rest of the account on How I found Livingstone by Sir Henry M. Stanley is less dry…

Certainly more exciting are the books by Jules Verne, probably the best known writer of adventure stories. Here we present a lesser known novel Michael Strogoff, about a courier of Czar Alexander II, trying to do his duty during a rebellion. This book has also been recorded in Dutch.

In the end, let’s go back in time again, to the 8th – 11th century, when Beowulf was written. Listen to the beautiful poem describing how the young warrior kills the monster Grendel and is made King as a reward.

Enjoy our summer adventures – and your own!

During holidays, many people spend more time reading. To make sure this time is well spent, we recommend Literary Taste: How to form it, with lighthearted advice by Arnold Bennett to help you choose once you finished all our books.

This point will be far in the future, though maybe not quite as far as the year 2000 was for George Sutherland. He shares his 1901 predictions of the future in Twentieth Century Inventions: A forecast. Some of his glimpses into the future were quite a failure, some of them were spot on! Find out which ones…

Taking a plunge into the ocean is a wonderful way to cool down on a hot summer’s day. You’re stuck in the city? How about reading Ballads of Lost Haven: A Book of the Sea, containing a wonderful collection of poetry about the sea by Bliss Carman?

If the beach is too far away, a cool bath can be just as refreshing. or a stimulating conversation with a stranger. What happens if you combine those two and add a serious case of mistaken identities, is described in Porcelain and Pink, a delightful 1-act comedy by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Another case of mistaken identities… well, not really. After all, both Mr. Bultitude and his son Dick know perfectly well who they are. It’s just that they happen to occupy the other’s body… More details are given in the novel by F. Anstey, Vice Versa.

Both the young and the old cannot escape the fascination of circuses, adventure parks and the like. Neil Boyton packs his own childhood memories about growing up in the world of amusement parks into Killgloom Park, a book for boys and girls of all ages.

More recollections, namely the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova are on our list now. Written by Casanova himself in old age, we hear about his life of young age – and his numerous conquests of course – in the first of five volumes.

Instead of writing his memoirs, Mr. Fulton, a millionaire, is busy worrying about whom to leave all his money once he dies. Of course, he could simply pass (it) on, but he wants to make sure the money gets into the right hands. And so he goes undercover in E. H. Porter’s novel Oh Money, Money.

The prospect of heaps of money attracts distant relatives and other shady creatures. But who is this Arsène Lupin, a new Robin Hood, an undercover policeman, or just an ordinary misfit? Maurice Leblanc’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar tells 9 of his stories. A recording in the original French is also available.

Manasseh da Costa has no doubts where he’s standing. After all, he is The King of Schnorrers. His adventures in the ghetto, involving Jews and other people alike can be found in Israel Zangwill’s novel.

Enjoy – and have a relaxing June!

Let’s start at the beginning with First Love, of which most of us have fond memories. In Ivan Turgenev’s novella, Vladimir Petrovich recounts his turbulent first romance…

If you don’t want troubles to happen in your relationship, you should take advice from Theodore Arnold Haultain. His Hints for Lovers cover all aspects of romance: from courtship to the first kiss until marriage and children.

On mother’s day (in most countries the 2nd Sunday in May) children take great pains to please their mothers. To avoid having this end in disaster, we recommend When Mother Lets us Cook by Constance Johnson – for children of all ages…

Good food and love sickness are often blamed for gaining weight – and young widow Molly has lots of the latter. While she’s trying to melt away her pounds, 4 suitors are trying to melt her heart. Who is going to succeed in The Melting of Molly, a novel by Maria Thompson Daviess?

Raina Petkoff faces a similar problem in George Bernard Shaw’s drama Arms and the Man. There is her fiance, just returned from the war, but a refugee whom she granted shelter the winter before also stakes his claims. The choice is hers – who will it be?

It’s always a choice whether to love or to leave. Sometimes the choice is made for the good of the other. How such a decision may lead to great pain for the other person after all is something that the protagonist of Camille, Alexandre Dumas (fils) famous novel, has to find out.

George Bellow hopes that the girl who just dumped him will see the errors of her ways eventually. Until then, he takes a walking tour through the country side, where he unexpectedly finds a friend and true love. Curious? Read The Money Moon by Jeffery Farnol.

Money was the driving force behind Charlotte Turner Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems. After all, by writing them she could earn enough money to get her out of jail…

Like a jail can a relationship feel when the love is gone. A woman, tightly bound in another commitment, finds some freedom while stargazing with a young astronomer. Find out about the fate of the Two on a Tower in Thomas Hardy’s novel.

Unfortunately those two would not have been able to verify Einstein’s theory of relativity. This was done when the sun was shining, or rather, during its eclipse on May 29, 1919. Read Easy Lessons in Einstein by Edwin E. Slosson to find out all about relativity.

Enjoy – and give love a chance!