On August 9, LibriVox celebrates 16 years of audiobooks. Since our last anniversary we have completed more than 1450 new projects, wow! Let’s celebrate with 10 gems from our new arrivals to our catalog.

One reason for our enormous growth in the last year was the pandemic. COVID-19 was not the first virus killing thousands, however. Learn more about the history of The Bubonic Plague in the book by Chief Medical Officer of Kashmir, Dr. Rai Bahadur A. Mitra.

If you go back far enough in time, history and myth often blend into each other to become one. Joseph Jacobs collected 20 More Celtic Fairy Tales from the early days of the British Isles.

Equally far back goes the history of the Macedonians. Krste Petkov Misirkov is one of their national heros. His book За македонцките работи (On Macedonian Matters) – our first stand-alone project in the Macedonian language – is a program for his people’s national liberation.

Liberation is exactly what’s disturbing the peace in the dystopian future imagined by Yevgeny Zamyatin, where the collective We is paramount. But what happens when people start to fight for individual freedom of thought and action?

Thought, or rather, stream of consciousness is the trademark of Virginia Woolf. She brought it to perfection in Mrs. Dalloway, one of the most anticipated 1925 books by LibriVoxers. Follow Mrs. D. and her friends throughout a single day that culminates in a party in the evening.

For The Great Gatsby life in the Jazz Age is one big party where he surrounds himself with upper class socialites. But he is also a big romantic, who would do anything to bet back his former lover Daisy. Watch what happens in the famous 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Galileo Galilei was one of the greatest observers of the solar system in the Renaissance. His famous book Dialogo dei Massimi Sistemi explains the heliocentric world view and earned him a trial in the Vatican that forced him to choose between abjuration or death.

Nicholas Carter faces an even more difficult choice: Does he help a good friend or does he try to arrest a scam artist? In the last year, we completed 14 novels about America’s greatest detective. This one, A Stolen Name, is our latest one.

Madrid dressmaker Madame Pepita is also on the lookout for scammers who she suspects behind every suitor of her daughter. But careful! In the play by Gregorio Martinez Sierra, luck and misfortune are both closer than she thinks…

In the late 19th century, three young poets from Luxembourg – Nicolas Gonner, Beckesch Klos, and Jean-Baptiste Nau – went to America to seek their fortunes. Together, they share their experiences on both sides of the Atlantic in Prairieblummen, our first stand-alone project in Luxembourgish.

Enjoy – and a big thank you to all our volunteers who keep LibriVox growing still!

There are stories that have been told and retold so often, they have become universal and known throughout the world. Let’s delve into the world’s collective memory with 10 gems from our catalogue.

Western civilisation is deeply rooted in the stories of ancient Greek and Rome. From Zeus to Venus, from Hercules to Ulysses, you probably know most of Thomas Bulfinch‘s Mythology: The Age of Fable by heart already.

The story of Jesus, as told for example in the Evangelium nach Matthäus, has been equally influential to our modern world. For the German translation, Martin Luther coined a number of new phrases that have found their way into common usage of the language.

When Alexander Afanasyev wrote down a selection of Russian Fairy Tales that before had only been transmitted orally, he didn’t expect to influence Russian culture so heavily. These stories are now known by Russian kids everywhere.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood have made everyone who takes from the rich and gives to the poor a namesake. However, this Victorian-age retelling for kids by Howard Pyle hasn’t much to do with the real medieval outlaw…

A similar feat was accomplished by Robert Louis Stevenson. His swashbuckling adventure Treasure Island – here as dramatic reading – has given us a rather romantic view on pirates that is quite far from the truth. We also have this book in a Spanish translation.

The Truth is out there – and aliens too, probably. H. G. Wells‘ idea of hostile aliens on a mission to kill or enslave all humans has a firm place in our consciousness ever since The War of the Worlds, which we also have as Spanish version.

Nobody has done more to explore human (un-) consciousness than Sigmund Freud. His thoughts Über Psychoanalyse influenced generations of psychiatrists and can now be considered general knowledge, even if poeple are still reluctant to discuss mental health. These lectures are also available in English.

Only one topic is more taboo: Sex. And yet, most people have heard of The Kama Sutra. Some may have even tried one or more of the 64 arts of love as written down in detail more than 1400 years ago by Mallanaga Vatsyayama.

Much tamer are Shakespeare’s Sonnets. In these 154 poems, playwright William Shakespeare, who changed theater forever, writes about love, beauty, mortality and other human feelings.

From feelings to logics and the best sleuth ever: Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably his best-known adventure, and the brilliant detective character has become a staple in crime novels all over the world. Our readers love this book too, and we have recordings in German, Spanish, and Polish.

Enjoy – and have fun exploring your own memories!