On February 21st is the International Mother Language Day. What a great occasion to celebrate with 10 non-English gems from our catalog.

Let’s start with the latest language addition to our catalog. Three short stories – 단편 소설 – by 현진건 (Jin-geon Hyun), finished only in November last year, mark our very first solo project in Korean.

The Indonesian archipelago with its thousands of islands is the home of numerous languages. Puisi Dari Indonesia is a collection of ancient and modern poems in five of them, written by various authors.

Up for something new? Why not learn Dholuo, one of the Kenyan languages spoken around Lake Victoria, with A Handbook of the Kavirondo language. This phrasebook was collected by the Fathers of St. Joseph’s Society.

Equally interesting, but probably much less useful in daily conversation, is Church Slavonic, used during the services of the Orthodox Church. St. Dimitri of Rostov has written about Жития Святых, т. 06 – февруарий – The Lives of the Saints for February in this language.

Apparently no saint was the man who gave the speech recorded by Plato in Ancient Greek. After all, The Apology of Socrates did not save the man from being condemned to Death. This famous work is also available in English, German, and French.

Death may also be unavoidable for Erik Poulsen, a young Danish chemist who discovered a way to turn any metal into gold. Clearly, people in power are not eager to have his knowledge come out in the sci-fi novel Guld og Ære by Otto Martin Møller.

Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri is the story of another fugitive, Apollonius. Having incurred the wrath of a king, he has to flee and survives many adventures. This is an ancient story of unknown origin, which has been translated into many languages, among them Latin.

Languages usually evolve over a long time, but Esperanto has been designed to be especially easy to learn and has many speakers all over the world. La Aventuroj de Alicio en Mirlando is the translation of Lewis Carroll’s famous Alice in Wonderland, which we also have in German.

Benito Pérez Galdós is famous for is National Episodes, a 46 volume work recounting Spanish history. Everything starts out at the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Gabriel Ariceli plays a role. This novel recounts the life of the then 14 year old up to the battle.

Faust: Der Tragödie erster Teil by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is allegedly the most quoted work in German. We have only recently completed – in a tour the force that took 7 years – a dramatic reading of the original. Our English version took much less time.

Enjoy – and brush up your language skills!

Happy New Year!
Did you know that 2015 will be the International Year of Light? Let’s get it started properly with 10 gems from our catalog.

Light, especially sunlight, is something wonderful – and mysterious and interesting too! Follow Sir Isaac Newton’s experiments on Opticks, one of the first scientific treatises of light and its properties: reflection, refraction, etc.

Much more simple are the duties of Janet of the Dunes, in her little community of people living round a lighthouse. Her story and how it is intertwined with that of her “Cap’n Billy Daddy” can be found in the novel by Harriet T. Cornstock.

Surely, the people there must have read the Instructions to Light Keepers of the US Lighthouse Board. You can do so too – you’ll never know when there is a summer job on a remote island available.

Even more remote is the moon that Chet Ballard is just passing, but wait – isn’t that a distress signal? Charles W. Diffin describes what happened during The Finding of Haldgren who was not the only inhabitant of that distant place…

The moon and his light play an important part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta occurs at various places and times. Follow them through fairyland in our production of Shakespeare’s comedy.

Both light and darkness are invoked by Novalis in his Hymns to the Night, a mixture of poetry and prose concerned with life, death, and mourning. This recording is also available in the original German.

Another way to face such things is described by James Allen. In his book Light on Life’s Difficulties he explores diverse topics like self-control and -sacrifice, values, individual liberty, and many more.

Dick Heldar’s life – spent mainly in London, but also in India and the Sudan – is not without difficulties. Find out how he deals with losing the most important thing for a painter: his eyesight. Read the novel The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling.

Not allowed to fail is Ruth Thorne, who has been invited to spend time with her aunt. But, why is she not there to greet her niece? And why did her aunt insist on Ruth lighting a candle in the attic each night? See how the mystery unfolds in Myrtle Reed’s book Lavender and Old Lace.

Jules Verne presents another mystery, that of Doctor Ox’s Experiment. Doctor Ox offers to install free lighting in the little village of Quiquendone. But is he really acting out of simple goodwill or is there a hidden agenda? We also have a German version of this book.

Enjoy – and shine a light!

It’s LibriVox’s 9th anniversary this month! Let’s celebrate with our contributors and listeners from all over the world with 10 gems from our catalogue.

In April 1884, a man started out from San Francisco on his trusty Ordinary on a journey Around the World on a Bicycle. He ended his trip after cycling about 13500 miles in December 1886 in Yokohama. Read the account of Thomas Stevens about his voyage.

Much less time for sightseeing had Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, a journalist writing under the name of Nellie Bly. She made her trip Around the World In 72 Days, thus beating Jules Verne’s famous character just as she had set out to do.

None of the two found the passage to the Earth’s center though, and brought news from the giants living there. This was left to a Norwegian sailor who tells his story about The Smoky God or A Voyage To the Inner World in Willis George Emerson’s novel.

A journey of different nature has been written by Marie Corelli. The heroine of A Romance of Two Worlds suffers from an illness that almost drives her to suicide. However, during a prescribed holiday she begins to have visions of divine origin that change her life for good.

A similar experience has the protagonist of Henry Fielding’s novel A Journey From This World to the Next, who dies in the first sentence. He then wanders through afterlife, which, unfortunately, seems to be just a continuation of life on Earth.

Well, The Way Of the World never changes, especially when it comes to love. Mirabell wants to marry Millamant, but first he has to seek her aunt’s approval, who would rather see her nephew marry Millamant… Find out if the right ones get together in the end of the comedy from the 1700’s by William Congreve.

G. K. Chesterton knows exactly What’s Wrong With the World: “I am”, he confesses, but despite that, he still felt compelled to write a number of essays on the topic, covering many more aspects of this difficult  issue – even optimism!

Maybe the application of outside ideas would help to cure the world from evils? William Shuler Harris covers Life In a Thousand Worlds and talks about how alien philosophy from other worlds could help to fix the Earth’s problems.

Sergeant Bellews is not sure whether the signals that blow up transmitters all over the planet are of alien origin. Still, the inventor is taking up the fight – will he be able to construct The Machine that Saved the World in time in the novella by Murray Leinster?

In the end, only we ourselves can make a this a better world. Stopping to fight each other would be a good start, after all, we all feel the same. Read the entries of our First World War Centenary Poetry Collection – would you know where the various authors came from?

Enjoy – and Happy 9th Anniversary, LibriVox!

On July 28th 1914, World War I began in Europe. Let’s look back at what happened 100 years ago with 10 gems from our catalog.

Many soldiers of all nations documented the Great War in diaries, drawings and photographs, and poetry. One of the most famous war poems, For the Fallen, was written by Robert Laurence Binyon, and is included in The Winnowing Fan – Poems on the Great War.

When the Great War began, people were almost enthousiastic and thought it would not last long. Legends like The Angels of Mons, written down by Arthur Machen, where angels supposedly protected British soldiers, did their part in strengthening people’s convictions.

Of course, reality was much different, as the Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914 – 1915 shows. An anonymous nurse writes about her routines caring for the wounded in France from the beginning of the war until she went back home in May 1915.

Everybody out there In the Field went through the same, regardless of where and for which side they were fighting. Marcel Dupont wrote about his impressions of the nine months he spent on the front line as an officer in the French light cavalry.

Soon it became clear that the war was here to stay. The Pretty Lady, tells about Christine, a French prostitute who fled Ostend and set up her business in London. Written in the typical style of Arnold Bennett, the novel gives an excellent insight into how the war affected the daily life of civilian society.

At this time, in all nations there was the fear of foreign spies infiltrating the country. In the short pamphlet Spy Proof America! J. Francis Logan urges American civilians to volunteer for an anti-spy organisation to help the war effort from within the country.

However, it is decidedly too late for that in England, where a vast German spy network is operating practically openly, in E. Phillips Oppenheim’s novel. After falling afoul of his superiors, the British diplomat Francis Norgate is recruited by the Germans – and becomes The Double Traitor.

He may have been one of the spies The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service had to deal with, along with other enemy soldiers. The novel by James. R. Driscoll tells of three American college friends who enter the military and work as radio operators all over Europe.

When the men are gone, the women have to do their work. Four girls, called The Friendly Terrace Quartette prepare for the war by joining the Land Army, and work in the fields. More and more girls arrive on the scene in Harriet Lummis Smith’s novel to do their bit for the war.

Much more dark is “the bit” that Amelia is to do for her country. She is expected to join the ranks of the War Brides: marry a soldier, get pregnant before he leaves, and soon bear a boy to repeat the cycle. Her sister Hedwig though, is determined to break the chain and thus send a sign to all other women in the short drama by Marion Craig Wentworth from our One-Act Play Collection 004.

Remember – and do not forget!