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!

This June is all about the World Football Championship in Brazil. If you are not that much of a fan, get your sporty kick of a different variety with 10 gems from our catalog.

When Americans speak about Football Days, they mean what the rest of the world calls American Football. William Hanford Edwards gives an interesting account of how this sport came to the US and the beginnings of its popularity.

Another popular American sport is baseball, and it is played at Oakdale Academy, of course. This year, three boys want to become starting pitcher, which leads to not so nice scenes between the Rival Pitchers of Oakdale, as told by Morgan Scott.

Now it’s Casey at the Bat, and he is going to do his very best, won’t he? Listen to what is probably the best known poem about baseball, written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer.

For a long time, golf has been a pastime for the rich, but it is now becoming more and more popular as a mass sport. P.G. Wodehouse wrote ten short stories revolving around golf and collected them in The Clicking of Cuthbert.

Only one of the privileges of the gentry was hunting, especially when it came to hunting with animals. James Campbell wrote A Treatise on Modern Falconry, a book that, although from the 18th century, is still one of the main sources for falconers.

Hunting is only one of the activities Our Little Canadian Cousin can pursue. Canoeing, camping, skating, snowshoeing,… and many more are described in Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald’s book about children in the great Canadian outdoors.

A 500 miles racetrack must be covered by Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout, a prototype electric race car. But first, he has to find the criminals that plot to bankrupt many people dear to him. Find out if he will succeed – and if he can win the race – in Victor Appleton’s novel.

Cashel Byron is a world champion prize fighter, but, infatuated with aristocrat Lydia Carew, he does everything to prevent her from finding that out – afer all, he wants to marry her… In The Admirable Bashville, a play by George Bernard Shaw, this is probably not as straightforward as it seems.

Jack London’s novel The Game has a similar topic, but is written from a woman’s perspective. Tomorrow is the day on which she will marry a boxer. Tonight is his last fight. But was it really such a good idea of hers to go and watch it?

Hitting other people not your thing? Outdoors not appealing? Well, there are always mental sports. Paul Morphy the Chess Champion was hailed as the best player of his era. In 1958 he travelled to Europe to challenge the best players there. His secretary, Frederick Milnes Edge, records the journey and the matches.

Enjoy – and keep on scoring!