News

To Spring

Posted on April 1, 2018 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 1 Comment on To Spring

It’s April, and nature bursts with the energy of spring! Don’t hold back your own powers, with 10 gems from our catalog.

This year, April starts with the Easter weekend. Louisa P. S. Hopkins contributes with 16 Easter Carols – little festive poems, both religious and otherwise.

To stay on topic, try out An Easter Lily by Amanda M. Douglas. The little book contains five short stories for children – all with a lesson, and a happy ending, of course.

You’ll have to read The Diary of a Goose Girl by Kate Douglas Wiggin to find out whether there’s a happy ending for her. For now, she is hiding from her lover on a farm in Sussex, where she helps taking care of geese, rabbits, and other small animals.

It may be hard to get hold of geese, but there is always gardening as an alternative. Now is the perfect time to set one up, and Eben Eugene Rexford is happy to teach the ABC of Vegetable Gardening to experts and novices alike.

Dimitri Sanin is a novice in Frankfurt, and the 22-year-old promptly falls in love with Gemma. However, the young lady is engaged, and what started out as Torrents of Spring, quickly takes a turn for the worst. We also have the Russian original of Ivan Turgenev’s masterpiece.

Alfred East helps you to create your own masterpiece: go outside and learn how to sketch trees, skies, grass, and more from nature in his book The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour.

Guy de Maupassant paints with language. He wrote more than 300 short stories, and the Ausgewählte Novellen is a collection of novellas concerned with life and love – with a little bit of erotics added to spice things up.

Plenty of stories to tell have T.G. Allen and W.L. Sachtleben, since they spent a good part of 1890 on a trip Across Asia on a Bicycle. Starting out in Turkey, they made it to China, where they even met one of the country’s top dignitaries.

Sganarelle has reached out to even four dignitaries to cure his daughter, but all the doctors do is argue. Desperate, he brings in a random quack from the street – and it turns out that Love is the Best Doctor. Listen to our production of Moliere’s famous play.

Two lovesick gentlemen are in pursuit of Joyce, April’s Lady, who is unsure who would be the better husband for her. Find out which one she finally settles for in the romance by Mrs Hungerford.

Enjoy – and get your juices flowing!

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Feed Me!

Posted on March 1, 2018 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: 1 Comment on Feed Me!

Food – one of the major drives of every species. Our own has come a long way from hunting and gathering – discover just how far with 10 gems from our catalog.

Everybody should learn how to cook! But remembering recipes can be difficult. Imogen Clark has the solution: Rhymed Receipts for Any Occasion are recipes in verse, with a focus on desserts, cakes, and candies.

What’s the perfect thing to go with cake? Coffee of course! Not just any kind though, but rather Six Cups of Coffee, perfectly brewed by various authorities on cooking.

Jerome K. Jerome, being British, probably prefered different fare in the afternoon. Various characters meet for his imaginary Tea-table Talk, where they speak frankly about a number of sometimes frivolous, sometimes thought-provoking topics.

Even more inspiring is what Andrew Murray has to say about the last supper. In his book The Lord’s Table, he focuses on the weeks before, during, and after this important event in Christian religion.

Hetty Thompson also experiences a turning point in her cosy farm life: Her chickens suddenly lay golden eggs, and her cows produce milk that explodes. It’s all because of the new atomic testing site nearby – but what to do about it? Find out in the fun story Make Mine Homogenized by Rick Raphael.

The best way to avoid complications with dairy products is by going vegan with Rupert H. Wheldon’s No Animal Food & Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes. This very first vegan cook book was written back in the early 20th century.

John Dough and the Cherub also prefer not to be eaten. Created from a batch of gingerbread mixed with a magical elixir, they try to flee from hungry mouths in one of the fantastic worlds created by L. Frank Baum.

Gene Stratton-Porter has created the world of The Harvester, where a young man grows medicinal herbs for a living. When he has a spontaneous vision of the girl of his dreams, he leaves everything behind to try find her…

Mr. and Mrs. Bassett also leave everything behind when they are called to grandma’s bedside. “Everything” includes their seven children who must prepare An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving dinner all by themselves. Read our dramatic adaptation of Louise May Alcott’s novel for kids.

Very dramatic is also the dinner Mr. von Schatz is attending. He tries to divide his attention between the meal and Gräfin von Erlach, but she has other priorities for the evening… Otto Roquette spins a fun tale in Bei Tische – eine gastrosophische Novelle.

Enjoy – both our books and your meal!

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Cold, Cold Winter

Posted on February 1, 2018 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: Comments Off on Cold, Cold Winter

February is usually the coldest month in the Northern Hemisphere. That means: lots of opportunity to stay home with 10 gems from our wintery catalogue.

The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge is the main topic of conversation among the family, so busy is everybody planning their Christmas vacation. But before, they have to try and clear Bert form an untrue accusation in the novel by Laura Lee Hope.

There’s no way Fridtjof Nansen will stay home either, regardless of the weather. In his short book Auf Schneeschuhen übers Gebirge he tells about a hiking trip in the Norwegian mountains – from Bergen to Kristiania to Voss.

Bob Sumner on the other hand would rather be home in St. Louis. But he has been shangaied and is now on his way to The Land of Frozen Suns, where he must learn to survive both the environment and the unfriendly fellows he travels with. Read the adventure by Bertrand W. Sinclair to find out if he will!

Definitely a survivor is Sir Wilfred Grenfell. While he was crossing a frozen bay on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, he was caught Adrift on an Ice-Pan – and lived to tell the tale!

“How I was murdered” is the tale that comes to the ears, or rather: eyes, of detective Muller of the Austrian Police. Will he be able to solve The Case of the Pocket Diary Found in the Snow, written by Auguste Groner and Grace Isabel Colbran?

Equally in the dark – literally – is Snow Blind Sylvie, who was rescued at the last minute by fugitive Hugh. Brought to the small cabin where he lives with brother Pete and cook Bella, Sylvie is forced to rely on her ears to unravel the story. Katharine Newlin Burt tells a story of expectations – will they be met?

Matthew A. Henson surely never expected to be A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. This is his exciting memoir of Robert Peary’s expedition, of which he was a very important part.

Part of the poorest people was Yosef Haim Brenner, a Russian Jew who emigrated to Palestine in 1909. The four stories of בחורף – In Winter tell about the struggles of poor Jewish families during the Russian Anti-Jewish massacres of that time.

In The Snowflake and Other Poems, Canadian poet Arthur Weir deals with everything winter related with a focus on the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.

Don’t worry – winter won’t last forever! Just like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has a happy ending, so will the cold give way to spring. While you’re waiting, listen to the dramatic adaptation of the famous fairy tale by Jessie Braham White.

Enjoy!

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Librivox Community Podcast #147

Posted on January 18, 2018 by | Posted in Blog, Librivox Community Podcast, News | Comments: 1 Comment on Librivox Community Podcast #147

Listen to LibriVox Community Podcast #147 – Then and Now. Hosted by Amelia Chesley (plaidsicle).

Duration: 33:05

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00:00 Welcome & Introduction – Amelia (plaidsicle)
01:23 Looking back at how LV production has changed by exploring all 8 LV versions of Anne of Green Gables, from 2005-2016
04:26 Very short excerpts from all 8 versions (described and listed here by catalog date):

06:46 Memories and thoughts from volunteers:

32:40 Thanks and a very short goodbye

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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, 2012 and 2013-2018.

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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