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LibriVox Community Podcast #138

Posted on September 29, 2014 by | Posted in Blog, For Volunteers, Librivox Community Podcast, News, Podcast | Comments: Comments Off on LibriVox Community Podcast #138

Listen to LibriVox Community Podcast #138 hosted by Piotr Nater (Piotrek81). Duration: 28:00

Solos vs. Groups Part 1 

Featuring  Tricia G., J. Korth, Maria Kasper, Algy Pug, Claudia Salto and David Wales.

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00:00 – Intro
01:08 – TriciaG with her thoughts on the topic
05:09 – Bassaga with the newbie perspective on project types
12:54 – commonsparrow on why she prefers group projects
17:00 – Algy Pug on his first solos and on reviews
19:10 – Claudia (smike) on her project preferences
25:35 – BONUS! Project 8000
26:10 – David Wales on the 8000th project

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We are interested in whatever feedback – positive or constructively critical – anyone has about our podcasts. Add a comment below or pop over to this forum thread. Any member of the community who has contributed readings to the LibriVox catalog can host a podcast and is most welcome to do so. Visit this thread on the forum to express an interest and float your ideas.

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To Subscribe to the Librivox Community Podcast, go to: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibrivoxCommunityPodcast Or hit this itunes link to get you to the subscribe page: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=203970211

Recent past LibriVox Community Podcast files can be found at our spot on: Archive.org and archived shows for previous years can be found at: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Archived shownotes for the Community Podcast can be found at: http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/ And the rss feed for those shownotes is: http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/feed

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Back to School!

Posted on September 1, 2014 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: Comments Off on Back to School!

It is September and in many countries this is the month when school starts again. Whether you love school or hate it – get in the mood with 10 gems from our catalog.

Let’s do something easy to warm up: In A Soup of Alphabets from A – Z various authors teach children about birds, famous people, the evils of slavery… all in a pleasant way using little poems.

Not quite so pleasant are the school days of Laura, who enters a boarding school in Melbourne in the novel by Henry Handel Richardson. There, the poor girl faces the ridicule of the wealthy ones, and soon learns that The Getting of Wisdom means more than just acquiring bookish knowledge.

Morgan is The Pupil of Pemberton, a young man with more education than money. Unfortunately, Morgan’s parents also develop financial problems and cannot pay the tutor Pemberton, so he is forced to leave. When he finally returns in Henry James’ novel, things have gotten even worse for Morgan and his family.

Different problems – those of an intercultural kind – awaited Anna H. Leonowens in 1862, when she became The English Governess at the Siamese Court. Although the king wanted a Western education for his wives and children, she came to be seen as difficult person and often reflects critically.

22 year old Ann Veronica is a biology student and moves out of her father’s home after a fight. H. G. Wells describes her slow emancipation from a timid school girl to a New Woman, which caused a sensation when published in 1909.

All about emancipation – in the strict sense of the word – is the work of Dr. Maria Montessori. The Montessori Method of Education supports the self-development of children, who are naturally curious; and even today, the system is used in thousands of schools all over the world.

Children learn easiest when they are involved on more than one level. Mary Ella Lyng created 14 short History Plays for the Grammar Grades about famous people and incidents, for example: Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,…

Finding the right type of teaching is always difficult, and even more so when the child has special needs. John Dutton Wright, a pioneer in the education of the deaf, explains in What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know his method of acoustic and auricular training.

Of course, such special approaches were quite unknown when Ralph Connor grew up in rural Ontario. The very popular sketches of his Glengarry School Days take you back to the time of the Canadian Confederation.

A similar book is by Thomas Hughes, whose book about Tom Brown’s School Days is based on his own experiences at Rugby School for boys in the 1830s. Still, life and school are different on the two sides of the great pond: Tom’s top event is a cricket match…

Enjoy – and never stop learning!

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LibriVox Ninth Anniversary Podcast No. 137

Posted on August 10, 2014 by | Posted in Blog, For Volunteers, Librivox Community Podcast, News, Podcast | Comments: Comments Off on LibriVox Ninth Anniversary Podcast No. 137

Listen to LibriVox Community Podcast #137 celebrating LibriVox’s ninth birthday,  hosted by Ruth Golding (RuthieG).

Duration: 33:08

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Featuring MaryAnnSpiegel,  DACsoft, bookangel7, mhhbook, Hobbit, lubee930, Piotrek81, commonsparrow3 and a host of others.

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00:00 Introduction
00:49 RuthieG and MaryAnnSpiegel have a good old natter about the last year at LibriVox.
03:34 Don Cummings (DACsoft) talks about his activities at Distributed Proofreaders and LibriVox.
05:48 Bookangel7 tells us how she finds books to record.
07:40 Mary in Arkansas (mhhbook) shares her thoughts on book selection.
10:08 Lucretia (lubee930) appeals to any non-LibriVoxers listening to come on in, the water’s lovely!
12:37 Eden Rea-Hedrick (Hobbit) sings Oh, LibriVox! words by Jason Mills (Vandermast), music  a traditional Irish air, arranged by Fred. E. Weatherly.
14:53 Piotrek81 talks about recording in Polish and English, and how he finds suitable texts.
17:50 Ruth and MaryAnn finally get around to talking about text sources for recording.
24:38 Maria Kasper (commonsparrow3) tells us of her enthusiasm for original sources.
27:21 Ruth has a word about an unfortunate experience during her time at LibriVox, in the hope that it may prove helpful to anyone else who has a ‘dental disaster’.
29:21 Pin back yer lugholes (or put in your earplugs, actually). The LibriVox choristers have been at it again, and poor old Luigi Denza will be spinning in his grave.

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Sources for reading ideas mentioned in the podcast:

http://www.gutenberg.org/
https://archive.org/details/texts
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
http://www.hathitrust.org/
http://www.unz.org/
Book suggestions forum: viewforum.php?f=1
Abandoned projects thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22757
Books on the Ambleside home schooling lists: http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Recommended_Listening_List
Nobel literature laureates thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51945
Polish texts: http://wolnelektury.pl/

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We are interested in whatever feedback – positive or constructively critical – anyone has about our podcasts. Add a comment below or pop over to this forum thread. Any member of the community who has contributed readings to the LibriVox catalog can host a podcast and is most welcome to do so. Visit this thread on the forum to express an interest and float your ideas.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

To Subscribe to the Librivox Community Podcast, go to: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibrivoxCommunityPodcast Or hit this itunes link to get you to the subscribe page: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=203970211

Recent past LibriVox Community Podcast files can be found at our spot on: Archive.org and archived shows for previous years can be found at: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Archived shownotes for the Community Podcast can be found at: http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/ And the rss feed for those shownotes is: http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/feed

 

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Around the World

Posted on August 1, 2014 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, Books, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: Comments Off on Around the World

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!

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