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Mother Nature

Posted on April 1, 2013 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: Comments Off on Mother Nature

Mother Earth is celebrated wordwide on Earth Day, April 22nd. Have a great party with 10 gems from our catalogue!

No feat(ure) of nature is so widely discussed, praised and condemmed as – the weather. J. G. M’Pherson explains all its details in his 1905 science book Meteorology.

Mostly monotone weather is expected by Mary, who spends her Christmas vacation in dry Arizona. But she’s up for a surprise in Ethel Twycross Foster’s charming children’s book Little Tales of the Desert.

Another lovely read for children is The Book of Nature Myths, where Florence Holbrook collected stories told by the North American Indians to explain the secrets of nature and her animals.

A similar goal on a much higher level was Charles Darwin’s when he wrote his seminal book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Simply a must read!

Not quite so natural is the selection a gardener has to make to guarantee a satisfying outcome. In Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim, the protagonist learns gardening – and writes a diary about it.

But what to do with all the things you don’t want in your garden? Mother Nature will take care of it in The World’s Lumber Room. Selina Gaye wrote what can be seen as the story of the world’s rubbish – and it is fascinating!

None of those issues worry little Mary Lennox who is simply delighted about the Secret Garden she finds at her uncle’s place. This is our brand new dramatic reading of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic.

Freckles, the orphan, is not so lucky – he finds himself in Limberlost Swamp as guard for timber. But he soon begins to love the harsh environment in the novel by Gene Stratton-Porter.

Stewart Edward White tells a similar story about early lumbermen in Michigan. While focusing on the life of newcomer Harry Thorpe, the vanishing wilderness also plays a major part in The Blazed Trail.

The River Duddon once formed the boundary between Lancashire and Cumberland in north-west England. This is a collection of more than 40 Sonnets written about it by William Wordsworth.

Enjoy – and go outdoors!

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Like Day and Night

Posted on March 1, 2013 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 1 Comment on Like Day and Night

On the equinox both day and night are 12 hours long. The following 10 gems from our catalog are concerned with differences – and equality.

Photogen is a boy who never saw the moon. Nycteris is a girl who never saw the sun. Find out what happens when The Day Boy and the Night Girl overstep their boundaries set by the witch Watho and meet – in the lovely novel by George MacDonald.

Also like day and night, or rather like Tempest and Sunshine are the two sisters Fanny and Julia. Mary Jane Holmes weaves her story of the life of the different siblings in the pre-civil war South of the US.

The South of England is the home of Margaret, but circumstances force her family to move to an industry town in the North. Elizabeth Gaskell’s second social novel North and South focuses on the views of the employers.

All of Charles Dickens‘ novels can be considered as social critiques. So is The Old Curiosity Shop, where young Nell lives with her old grandfather until they lose all their money and are foced to live as beggars. We also have a Dutch version of this book.

Had Robin Hood been around, he would certainly have provided for them – with money stolen from the rich. Read J. Walker McSpadden’s book about the hero from Sherwood and decide for yourself whether he was a real person.

But money is not everything, as Gwendolyn already knows in the novel by Eleanor Gates. Left by her rich parents in the care of negligent servants, The Poor Little Rich Girl takes the wrong medicine – and promptly finds herself in a strange world…

From rags to riches only works if the outside appearance is matched by the speech of the person. At least that’s what Prof. Higgins believes in George Bernard Shaw’s famous play Pygmalion, as he tries to have poor Eliza pass as lady of society.

Mark Twain, with his sharp wits had a great time commenting – in disguised literary form – on current events. Sketches new and Old is a collection of his shorter writings.

Always old and always new – every religion is reinterpreted by every generation. In Henry Scougal’s letter The Life of God in the Soul of Man he dwells on his definition of true religion.

The English poet William Blake had his own view on religion. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell he describes a visit to hell, which he sees as source of energy, as opposed to a more regulated vision of heaven.

Enjoy the attraction of the opposites!

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The Color Black

Posted on February 1, 2013 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 2 Comments on The Color Black

Slavery – a black chapter in human history. Find out what it meant for those involved, even after its abolishment, from 10 gems of our catalog.

Clotel, the President’s Daughter, lived a quite comfortable life – until the death of her father. Still legally a slave, she and her mother and sister end up at a slave auction. What happened to the three of them is described in the novel by William Wells Brown – based on the life of the alleged children of Thomas Jefferson.

Joel Chandler Harris was an American folklorist who collected the stories of plantation slaves. The Tar Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus is a collection of 26 stories put in verse. It’s certainly not politically correct these days, but an important testimony of times that should not be forgotten.

Plenty of whites were not happy with the abolishment and tried their best to undermine it. Charles W. Chesnutt writes about the rise of the white supremacist movement – and how they tried to take political control over the town of Wellington – in his novel The Marrow of Tradition.

Not only in America, but also in the Caribbean, slaves demanded their freedom. Toussaint L’Ouverture was a main part of it: Born in slavery, he led the uprising and saw the foundation of the Independent State of Haiti. Eventually, he became govenor of the island, but was imprisoned by the French and died in France. Read his fascinating biography by John Relly Beard.

Henry Ossian Flipper was also a slave who rose to fame. Although not the only one, he was the first Colored Cadet at West Point who eventually graduated – as 2nd lieutenant in 1877. Read about his experiences at the most famous of all military schools in the US in his autobiography.

Another first – the first black woman political writer – was Maria W. Stewart. Her book Meditions from the Pen is a collection of various of her works. Part memoir, it also contains four of her speeches on women and slavery, as well as her meditations and prayers.

Two women are at the center of Nella Larsen’s novel. Though of mixed race, both are Passing as white, but their lives are as different as they can be: Irene marries a black man and Clare a white one. Their meeting years later leads to painful consequences.

Painful consequences is exactly what Iago has in mind when he seeks to destroy the loving marriage of Othello and Desdemona. An expert in sowing distrust – will he succeed in our production of Shakespeare’s drama?

A butler who is not trusted, has no place in a household. This is what Barry Hamilton has to find out after a large sum of money disappears. So, he takes his family to New York to find new employment. But things go from bad to worse in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s novel The Sport of the Gods.

New York is also the scene of our last book by Irvin S. Cobb. J. Poindexter, Colored, is the personal assistant of Judge Priest, who is currently on holidays abroad. So, Jefferson has time to roam the city – and has plenty of (humorous) adventures…

Enjoy – but don’t forget!

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After the Apocalypse

Posted on January 1, 2013 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 1 Comment on After the Apocalypse

Happy New Year! And happy it is indeed, as we have just survived the latest apocalypse of 21. December 2012… However, it’s never too early to prepare for the next one – with 10 gems from our catalog.

The major problem of people predicting the End of the World is that hardly anyone believes them. This happens in H. Beam Piper’s novel The Edge of the Knife: A man sees a nuclear war, the rise of the Terran Federation and, finally, the start of space travel.

If you do meet alien peoples – not necessarily from outer space – being able to communicate is essential. Wouldn’t a language designed for easy learning be perfect for the purpose? Take a class with Helen Fryer, The Esperanto Teacher.

Although uninhabited, comets certainly come from outer space, and the one in Camille Flammarion’s novel is going to hit. Read Omega: The Last Days of the World and see how the world is coping with imminent destruction.

The most popular strategy in such cases is to run and hide. This is what the protagonists in the Decameron do, they flee from a plague to the countryside. To escape boredom they tell each other stories in Giovanni Boccaccio’s masterpiece, which we have staged as dramatic reading.

When a plague strikes, you’ll have a lot of sick people to care for. For a manual on how to do this lovingly and efficiently, read Notes on Nursing by Florence Nightingale, regarded as the founder of modern nursing.

But what if all treatment fails? In the novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Lionel Varney is the only one immune to a violent illness that slowly but surely kills all mankind except him. Find out how he deals with being The Last Man.

At least Adam is not completely alone after natural desaster strikes – luckily he has Robin. How the two strive to learn everything they need to survive is described in The Master Knot of Human Fate by Ellis Meredith.

Food is the primary ingredient to successful survival – but what if the ingredients are scarce? Dr. Albert P. Sy, a professor of chemistry, wrote the WWI pamphlet Food Preparedness about how to get maximum nutrition out of minimum supply.

Avis Everhard witnesses the rise of an oligarchic tyrannny in the US. 700 years later, her diary is published with correcting commentary by Anthony Meredith. Read The Iron Heel by Jack London, only one of many scenarios for a dystopic future.

Judgement day will come for all of us, at least if you are religious. Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy gives a glimpse of the afterlife awaiting us. This book is also available in German and in the original Italian.

Enjoy – and get prepared!

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