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Scientific Studies

Posted on October 1, 2011 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: Comments Off on Scientific Studies

Schools and universities have started again after summer. Why not use 10 gems of our catalogue to catch up on the vast field of science?

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!

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Different Tongues

Posted on September 1, 2011 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 1 Comment on Different Tongues

September 26 is the “European Day of Languages” to promote language learning. We at librivox do that all-year-round with recordings in more than 30 different languages. And we’ll present the following 10 gems from our non-english catalog:

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!

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Happy Birthday Librivox !

Posted on July 31, 2011 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 15 Comments on Happy Birthday Librivox !

Librivox’ 6th Birthday is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the most important part of it: Our readers! And that it’s all about equality on here is proven by the fact that our top 10 praised readers during the last year are 5 men and 5 women.

Ladies first:

Elizabeth Klett, professor of literature, expert knitter and drama editor, switches effortlessly between BE and AE. Her wonderful reading of Jane Eyre is the top downloaded solo at the moment.

Another Bronte sister makes the top 10, this time read by a real Brit. Ruth Golding from beautiful Kent delights listeners from librivox and iambik alike with her aristocratic style. Enjoy as she reads Wuthering Heights to you.

Pride and Prejudice has several librivox versions, in fact, it’s the book that attracted the most soloists! All of them are lovely, but our listeners seem to enjoy the one read by Karen Savage the most.

Kara Shallenberg – librivox member, reader and admin of the first hour – is quite into children’s literature. And, given the constant praise for her recording of The Secret Garden, kids of all ages love listening to them.

Not quite so present in the forums as our four admins above is Mil Nicholson. However, her sensitive readings deservedly place her in our top 10 praised readers. Her most appreciated recording is Dombey and Son.

And now for the gentlemen:　

Mark F. Smith from Simpsonville South Carolina, is certainly our reader with the largest variety in his catalog, and he received thanks for the largest number of different books last year. A fine example of his variety in inventing charcter voices is his reading of Great Expectations.

John Greenman is Mark Twain.　Or at least the voice of his books on librivox. Nothing but reading Twain’s full oevre is the goal here, from the most obscure letters to newspapers to the best known masterpieces like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Another man with preferences, this time for a genre, is Mark Nelson. Pulp and Science Fiction of the 50s and 60s is what he enjoys most. Maybe he should consider a slight change in his preferences though, as our listeners most praised his reading of Right Ho, Jeeves.

The catalog of Adrian Praetzellis is also impressive – and only with a slight bend towards Jewish literature of all times and several languages! The spy-mystery The 39 Steps is our listeners favourite reading of his.

The last reader in this list is exceptional. He has the least number of recordings of al the people in the top 10. However, one of his 2 solos consistenly keeps drawing comments like “I would not have been able to appreciate the depths of this book in any other way”. The most praised librivox recording of all our 6 years is Stewart Wills’ recording of Moby Dick.

Only 10 readers are placed before the curtain here. But all our readers deserve praise – whether they made 2000 recordings or a single one. All of you made librivox what it is today – you ARE librivox!

Happy 6th Anniversary!

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Adventurous July

Posted on June 30, 2011 by | Posted in Blog, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 1 Comment on Adventurous July

July it is, and summer is at its peak in the Northern hemisphere. Just the right time to present 10 adventurous gems from our catalog.

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!

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