News

Halloween

Posted on October 1, 2014 by | Posted in about LibriVox, Blog, For Volunteers, Monthly Picks, News | Comments: Comments Off on Halloween

Autumn mists are rising and slowly engulf the world… Not everything in the gloomy shadows finally reveals itself as a simple tree… Say hello to the ghosts hiding in the twilight with 10 gems from our catalog.

Something lies hidden in the little lake behind the old farmhouse Roger Locke recently bought. A woman appears to warn him of The Thing From the Lake, but who is she – and on whose side? Find out what will be revealed in the horror novel by Eleanor M. Ingram.

The History of the Caliph Vathek by William Beckford tells the story of a caliph who renounces Islam and thus loses his wordly power. Now, Vathek wants to gain supernatural powers and is ready to sacrifice anything and anybody to get them.

Alexandre Dumas tells of real life villains in his series Celebrated Crimes. The first volume puts the powerful Florentine Borgia family in the spotlight; they played an influential role in 15th and 16th century Italian politics and religion.

Religious expression? Hellish possession? Mass hysteria? Between the 14th and 17th century, The Dancing Mania befell groups of people of all ages all across Europe. Justus Hecker tries to find the reason for the societal phenomenon.

Helen Vaughan is a dangerous woman who leaves destroyed men in her wake wherever she ventures. In the end, she is urged to kill herself, but on her death she transforms… Read Arthur Machen’s book The Great God Pan to find out about Helen’s life and death.

The nature of death is one of the great questions of mankind. In Emily Dickinson on Death we find a collection of letters and poems of the famous poetess dealing exclusively with this subject.

Not dead, but mentally and physically ruined are all the former apprentices of a great master. Nevertheless, in George Sylvester Viereck’s novel, a young novice writer moves in with the old man into The House of the Vampire.

Another haunted house mystery was written by Charles Goddard and Paul Dickey, and it is full of strange characters, heroes and villains. Listen to our dramatic version of the famous story The Ghost Breaker.

William Hope Hodgson pictures in all spooky details the last voyage of a haunted ship, from being besieged by ugly sea-devils to the final sinking. Let yourself be captivated by The Ghost Pirates.

Hopefully, you won’t get bad dreams from our selection above. If you do, have a look at The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. There may be more to your dreams than you had thought…

Enjoy – but don’t get scared!

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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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