Librevox.org
Free public domain Audio Books.
I really enjoyed "The War of the Worlds" read to me in a british accent.
AND
Archive.org
Public domain movies, music (including a TON of Grateful Dead shows) and books.
https://librivox.org is also amazing.
Especially The 1984 audio book - Direct Download link
Not to mention - http://archive.org/
Wonderful resource for everything.
Plus there are some really cool websites that provide quality stuff for free.
https://librivox.org - Audio books from the public domain.
https://www.gutenberg.org - Free e-books
https://archive.org - Free downloads for music, movies, books, software, etc
free ebooks: Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/
Check out options in various countries because copyright laws can vary somewhat. These are older titles with expired copyright or titles whose authors have made them available for free.
audiobooks : librivox.org
Just for what it is worth, Amazon carries a lot of blame for the general lack of access to digital formats of books via public libraries. They have attacked Public Libraries' ability to deliver digital content in an affordable fashion at every turn.
And also "Librivox" which is volunteers reading books from Project Gutenberg. It's not always top quality, but it's nice to have. Basically people sign up to read certain chapters (or entire books) and record and submit them. So even the sight impaired can enjoy Project Gutenberg.
​
I'm a huge audiobook fan but you're NTA here. Abridged audiobooks are fine in some circumstances (listening for pleasure; just want the TLDR version) but for a school assignment it's really a terrible idea.
They may have been struggling to find a legal free version of the audiobook on short notice? I'd advise against telling them right now before the assignment is due because there's really nothing they can do at the moment aside from freak out.
After the assignment is turned in, gently suggest they pay attention to the length of audiobooks in the future to determine if it's abridged. The library and LibriVox will likely have free copies of audiobooks for future assigned books if you want to steer them in another direction.
This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, OR TO VOLUNTEER ~go to~ PLEASE VISIT Librivox.org
Filthy Casual
I'm not a big audiobook person (I'd prefer a podcast in that situation), but I listened to Ten Days in a Madhouse and thought was super interesting / illuminating.
​
https://librivox.org/ten-days-in-a-madhouse-by-nellie-bly/
"In 1887 Nellie Bly, one of the first female newspaper writers, and a young reporter who would soon go on to make a career for herself as an investigative journalist and “stunt” reporter, had herself committed to the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum in New York. Her purpose was to discover what life was like for those who had been deemed insane. She was surprised to discover the depth of mistreatement of the patients. Partially as a result of her reporting, more money was allocated to the asylum and reforms were put into place. (Summary by Alice)"
Oregon Publishing is the company that is ripping off librivox books and changing the narrator's name and passing them off as their own.
You can find the original book from the sound sample here and the sound sample should be obvious here
This book is legally free and anyone paying money for it is literally giving money to people that steal the work of others and deny credit.
If you have access to the internet, you have access to free books thanks to Project Gutenberg and LibriVox.
Does every have access to the same books? No, the world is incredibly unequal and some of us are way more privileged than others, but that doesn't mean you get to steal from hard working authors.
I also detest this trend of using goodreads to bash an author for their views instead of rating the actual book.
LibriVox! Free audiobooks in the public domain. In addition to all the classics, they have tons of obscure stuff you'll never find anywhere else. You can browse by genre. As a horror/Gothic/paranormal fan, I've listened to the following:
Black Magic: a Tale of the Rise and Fall of the Antichrist by Marjorie Bowen (1909)
A Romance of Two Worlds by Marie Corelli (1886)
Stella Fregelius by H. Rider Haggard (1903)
Là-bas by Joris-Karl Huysmans (1891)
The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions (1911)
Citadel of Fear by Francis Stevens (1918) - A must for H.P. Lovecraft fans.
Not so much bad as outright lazy, this cover is the worst one I have seen of arguably the first example of isekai literature, where a Yankee engineer goes to fantasy Medieval England and shakes things up with machineguns, electricity and proto-democracy.
The Librivox audiobook version is real fun to listen too as well.
For anyone who's interested, I recorded a book written by an Arab who lived in Turkey during the years of the genocide. What he saw was heartbreaking: https://librivox.org/martyred-armenia-by-faiz-el-ghusein/
I just finished flatland. There's a good librivox recording of it if you commute. Some interesting mind expanding ideas in it and suitable for younger readers if you want to get them interested in math
The alternate cover is a definite improvement.
Greener than you think and Ward Moore's work in general is the perfect example of underrated talent in genre fiction. Along with Theodore Sturgeon, I believe that Moore's work is criminally underrecognized by most readers when he was, in fact, the grandaddy of things like eco terror in fiction.
The free audiobook of Greener Than You Think, available at Librivox, is a work of love and I must recommend that you give it a listen.
Art of War / Art of the Deal it isn't a coincidence. Also:
https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/225244643837751296?lang=en
Read the art of war it's a short book and most of it seems like common knowledge now a days, but in a world where common sense and common knowledge is in short supply it is an invaluable tool. You can find the book for under 5 bucks or free online.
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli should be required reading for any pede as well. It's free on audiobook
https://librivox.org/the-prince-by-niccolo-machiavelli/
If you have kids these two books should be taught to them at an early age.
Did the talk radio for a long time. Then I switched to pod cast. Then switch to my play list. Its eclectic so, many different genres of music. But, I haven't listened to radio in years.
When I get sick of hearing everything and can't take the babble, which is often, I listen to audio books.
There is a free service for audio books. They are older due to copyright but, there are many classics and free.
Although at the time of writing the work day was longer, Kropotkin made a good point in The Conquest of Bread that workers spend most of their time working or -- so that they are well rested for work -- sleeping. Despite this, their food and shelter, at least in most cases, is not subsidised or paid for by their employer. Dark value!
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels
> Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a short book first published in 1880 by German-born socialist Friedrich Engels. The work was primarily extracted from a longer polemic work published in 1876, Anti-Dühring. It first appeared in the French language.
> The title Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was adopted for the first English edition in 1892 — the tenth language in which the book appeared. Intended as a popularization of Marxist ideas for a working class readership, the book was one of the fundamental publications of the international socialist movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, selling tens of thousands of copies.
Free public domain text from Marxists Internet Archive
Free public domain audiobook from Librivox
I would highly recommend Marx's Wage Labor and Capital instead of Capital. It's available as an easily digestible, 1 hour 42 minute audiobook.
Give Richard Wolff a shot, perhaps his Monthly Economic Update videos or Weekly Economic Update podcasts. His work is extremely accessible to those with any level of curiosity.
There's also Librivox.org, which is a source of free public domain audiobooks. The recordings are made by volunteers. You may start listening to a book and become accustomed to the reader's way of talking, and suddenly you have a different reader. It's the same book, but a different person reading. The new person may not speak the same way; so, you may have to adjust your perception a little. In my experience, some readers were better than others, but none of them were horrible. So, I really appreciate Librivox especially since the price can't be beat.
I used Librivox to listen to Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave. Anybody wanting a window to understanding the reality of slave times will want to read that or listen to this. This will have a stronger impact on people who easily create imagery in their minds.
TL;DR:
There are a ton of free eBooks and audiobooks at those sites, check them out!
Audio books changed the way I commute.
For free audio books visit VibriVox. They have a huge selection of free public domain audio books.
The books have all fallen out of copyright, so you won't get your new best sellers, but there is a huge collection of classic books.
So this publisher offers LibriVox titles. I have listened to a number of titles from LibriVox and it is worth mentioning a few things:
There are apps that one can use directly with their content much like Audible. LibiVox does not produce these apps, so there are ads with the customary fee to disable. Barring that, you can use a MP3 player app directly with files you download from the LibriVox site. You could of course buy these items on the Audible store. They are convenient I suppose. Just know that the LibriVox project doesn't, as far as I know, benefit from that purchase.
LibriVox is a non-profit and doing very good work in their own right. Bringing classics to the masses is no cheap matter, even if they don't have to pay the volunteer talent. Please consider donating to them here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/librivox-audio-books/id596159212?mt=8
My plug for favorite LibriVox title: https://librivox.org/the-count-of-monte-cristo-version-3-by-alexandre-dumas/
Enjoy!
Hey! I think it really awesome that you want to do that sort of work and help make stories more accessible to everyone. I would really suggest you check into https://librivox.org/
They are an organization of volunteers who do exactly what you want to do. Creating audio readings of various books and short stories.
I listen to a science fiction story every night when going to bed, it really helps my anxiety which seems to pop up at night more so :) good luck!
The best solution I've found for not being able to finish reading a book is to have someone read it to me. In this case, I believe this version is the best I found and it's the one I used to get through the Count. And it was AWESOME!
Aside: Librivox appears to be down. Anyone know what's up?
Also, here's an audiobook just in case you prefer that over reading a screen.
Best of luck; post any and all questions in one of the anarchist subs, preferably r/anarchy101! Please!! We would love nothing more than to help you understand our positions.
are you talking about as a narrator?
i'm not a narrator, but i can share what little i know. please correct me where i'm wrong. there are typically two ways to go: flat rate or royalty sharing. flat rate is pretty straight forward. you charge some rate (100-300+) per finished hour. royalty sharing means you get a smaller amount, but get a % of the sales. iirc, authors typically get 40% of the sales. if they go royalty share with the narrator, it might be 20% author and 20% narrator. as you can guess, authors who expect best sellers go for flat rate and royalty share for books that don't sell as well. narrators want the opposite.
audible states that it takes around 6 hours of work to create 1 finished hour. so that 12 hour audiobook might take you a good 80 hours to create.
if you are serious about starting, i'd suggest trying your hand on librivox first. nothing prepares you for 80+ hours of work better than actually trying it. you'll have to work on your recording setup as well.
you can learn more on https://www.acx.com/help/narrators/200484550
Well, if you decide to build something open-source I might sponsor it, at least partially.
Ideas are cheap, you can take pretty much anything and improve it. What matters is execution.
Off the top of my head:
The list is really endless :)
I'm not really sure, there's just something otherworldly about it that I keep coming back to. I originally had to read it in high school, and I've read it a couple of times as an adult.
There's also a really nice reading of it on Librivox.
The podcast Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby has an ongoing project of narrating Samuel Butler’s translations of Homer. She’s up to Book 16 of the Iliad.
You may also be interested in the readings available on Librivox like Pádraic Colum’s retellings.
https://librivox.org/the-adventures-of-odysseus-and-the-tale-of-troy-by-padraic-colum/
Take improv classes, go to a local toastmasters club, volunteer to read books out loud.
Anything that gets you practice with talking more.
Librivox is a good one for public domain titles. Totally free, too! They are read and recorded by volunteers - some being better than others. You can find who you like and listen to everything they’ve recorded. It’s really cool!
EDIT: https://librivox.org
Listening while driving or commuting is a good way to get these Foundation Ideas under your belt.
Above I gave two links to unabridged recordings of the Federalist Papers and here is a link to two astonishing essays by John Locke. Don't let the title turn you off you will be amazed and I think I read that every one of our Founders had a well worn copy of John Locke's essays.
Two Treatises of Civil Government John LOCKE (1632 - 1704) https://librivox.org/two-treatises-of-civil-government-by-john-locke/
Many of those titles are available as audio book on librivox.org if you have you would like to listen to them. If they aren't listed, you can volunteer to read the books and record them. This is a gesture of goodwill that would benefit humanity, and people who like audiobooks or have disabilities, that make it harder to read! Hurray! Reading! Read Books! HUrray!
Audible -- not free, but reasonably priced (you can pay regular price, or buy "credits" for $13-ish, to use to buy books), and generally has the best selection of new/best-sellers.
iTunes store -- also not free, less reasonably priced than audible, but quite decent if you have an iPod that you like using.
BooksFree.com -- ironically not free at all. It's a netflix-style subscription service, where you pay a monthly fee to get them to mail you something, then you mail it back. The price depends on how many books you want to have at once, but even for one-at-a-time it's about $20/month or so.
Your local library! -- most have an option to borrow audiobooks for free on CD
Your local library again! -- many have an option to "borrow" digital copies of audiobooks via an app called Overdrive. However, they still follow a one-at-a-time policy, so (unlike other digital versions) you might have to wait in line if other people already have what you want.
libvrox.org is basically the Gutenberg Project for audiobooks -- all free, but not professionally read for the most part. They have user-submitted readings of things in the public domain, including classics and things like the 9/11 report.
Audio books might help you, I like to listen to them whilst commuting, when work allows, and when I am cooking.
Audible Anarchist on YouTube has a fair, and growing, selection.
Librivox has a good number of audibooks in general, but you will have to look for specific entries/authors, or browse the political science/philosophy categories to find things on this topic specifically.
Absolutely! As a primer, I was introduced to the depths of Stoicism through the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine.
Then after that, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
The reason why I recommend Irvine's book first is because he translates Stoic text into modern day use cases — without you having to ponder what ancient verbiage means today.
Another modern-day author who breaks down stoicism very well is Ryan Holiday. He's more so the "bestselling author" of the stoicism books of today. His book The Daily Stoic is a good place to start.
Thus, as you begin to become more familiar with the core values of stoic practice, you can then burn through the other works of Stoic philosophy — such as Epictetus, Seneca, Chrysippus, Zeno, etc. You can even find them <strong>for free HERE</strong>.
Hope that helps!
Edit: grammatical
I'm sure it's super frustrating when your other skills are strong. You're going to have to build comprehension from the very basics.
The podcast News in Slow French is probably one of the most basic resources since it's at a slow pace and has a restricted vocabulary. There are transcripts as well.
A bit more difficult is RFI's Le Journal en Français Facile. The pace is more natural. They also have transcripts.
French in Action is great for comprehension because there's so much extra information (pictures, examples, story, context) to help you. If you search you can find transcripts.
BBC's French Experience and Ma France are pretty simple and have subtitles. The content is pretty interesting too.
I find it very helpful to get a bilingual translation of a text that also has an audio recording. A lot of people do this with the Harry Potter series, but I prefer to use native texts to enrich my cultural knowledge. You can find some free bilingual translations of Molière, Racine, Voltaire, Rimbaud, etc. here and free recordings of at Librivox.
Assimil and Linguaphone are great for this sort of thing too, although they aren't free… and everything else I've listed is at least mostly free!
Find some French music you like and spend a lot of time listening to it—this helps too. If you can't understand anything, maybe find some children's songs and read the lyrics.
This is actually a very nice tacotron implementation.
Demos seem to be using the ljspeech dataset of Linda Johnson, an English teacher from LibriVox that probably has no clue that her libre contributions end up to push the whole research of AI speech forward.
PS: If you have the time, you can thank her too - on librivox here: https://librivox.org/reader/11049
I just listened to a wonderful Librivox recording of Great Expectations (read by Mark F. Smith), and I lost hours of sleep, it was so good.
(here's the link for the recording):
Audiobooks! Also, the books people are always impressed with are that someone has read are the classics, and you get them free from places like Librivox (they also have an app) or your local library probably has access to a service like Libby or Hoopla. Those two allow you to download audio files to a smartphone or a desktop, plus they’ll have more recent titles.
And if people ask, you can just say you like having them when you’re doing chores or working on hobbies! ;-)
Hi! If you're interested in doing volunteer V/O work there are a lot of great places that will have you. I haven't done these, but I've heard good things about them.
Librivox This one is FANTASTIC for beginners. You read old books that the copyrights have expired on. They don't expect perfection at all, or fancy recording equipment. You can even just read a chapter if you don't have time to record a whole book.
Learning Ally Record textbooks to help kids who are blind, or have dyslexia!
Many cities have blind readers services where you just read the paper, or other stories over the air (essentially radio) to people. I got my start in broadcasting on a college station that did essentially this. I work at a radio station now, and do V/O work too!
As your V/O career grows, you can hone your skills and studio, and maybe even take on some paid work. Eventually you'll get a lot of people asking you to volunteer for their non-profit, and you won't have to go through organizations to help out. This has been the case for me. Always fun to help out!
You can get free ebooks on http://www.gutenberg.org
And free audiobooks on https://librivox.org
And I think Amazon prime comes with "Kindle Owners' Lending Library", "Prime Reading", "Kindle First", and "Audible Channels for Prime", either free or discounted.
Hope this helps!
For those that like audiobooks, check out Librivox.org for thousands of free, public-domain audiobooks.
Warning: All the books are read by volunteers and the only requirements are that they be understandable and read the text accurately. Some volunteer readers are at least as competent as your average professional audiobook reader, while others... not so much. But, if you are willing to poke around, you are sure to find something you like.
The only way to improve listening comprehension is by listening. A lot. Some things that might help:
Listen to music, especially songs that you can sing along with (disney, soundtracks from musicals, etc)
Recorded books are great. You can read and listen at the same time, or listen first and "check" yourself by reading, or something else. One good source for free recorded books is LibriVox, although I don't know what they have in Spanish.
News and TV shows. If you are in the US, Hulu has lots of shows. On the Dramafever website, you used to be able to make (Spanish-language) captions pop up in a separate dialog box, although I don't know whether they still offer that.
When you read, try reading out loud. I don't think it will help as much as the other stuff, but I think it does help at least some.
(Caveat: My experience is mostly with German. My first intentional listening practice was with recorded books and podcasts. The books were a great help, but early on I think that music was better, and memorizing songs (and parts of songs) really helped. I think that part of the challenge isn't just learning to recognize specific words, but also learning to pick out common word combinations and patterns. The songs I listened to also used more informal language than the books I was reading.)
Librivox has free audio books from public domain works and if you want to kill some time by doing something worthwhile, you can contribute voice overs yourself (and learn a great skill at the same time).
Both the bread book and <em>Wage, Labor, and Capital</em> are available on the free audiobook site librivox :D
does anyone know if these books are just ripped from librivox and published on audible? i get suspicious when everything is in the public domain and i see a spanish title match. the names don't line up, but i'm not good enough to compare voices.
https://librivox.org/el-extrano-caso-del-doctor-jekyll-y-el-senor-hyde-by-robert-louis-stevenson/
A timeless classic. Free, because it's in the public domain. Nice and short, only 80-110 pages depending on who's printing it: <em>Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers</em> by John Owen with free audiobook version as well.
On a related note, LibriVox is the Project Gutenberg of audio books. Many of those public domain books have been recorded by volunteers and released for free. Granted, you sometimes get what you pay for in terms of reader quality, but it's a nice way to power through some old classics you've always meant to get to, in my experience.
i've recently read [listened to] GK Chesterton's history of the English and was surprised how well he described this era of history, really interesting take on the tireless battle between the workers and tyrants - well worth a listen https://librivox.org/a-short-history-of-england-by-g-k-chesterton/
> If I'm in the kitchen (I live alone), I've got an audiobook on. If I go for a walk, I listen to a book.
Same.
I also get some books from https://librivox.org/
It's free.
>If Audible is too pricey for you and you've got a library card, check out Libby or Overdrive. They're apps that connects you with your library system's digital collection. For free!
I love my free audiobooks from my library!
Some other options I use are:
Librivox.org and scrible.com they both have free apps on Play Store or the App store.
I've talked about 'immersion reading' on here before, but you guys should seriously try it.
Librivox for free open source audiobooks + project Gutenberg will allow you to listen to the audiobook version while reading the original text. Turn up the speed to 2.5x and Moby Dick goes from what could be a two week battle with your own attention span into two to three riveting, challenging, productive evenings spent alone.
Libraries almost always rent audiobooks now if you want to read something newer, and I find it a lot easier on the eyes to listen while reading a paper copy, but just getting used to reading a hundred pages or more a night with immersion will drastically improve your reading speed without the audio version. It will improve your attention span, increase your desire to read more, and generally improve your lifestyle to try to make a serious attempt to tackle a few hundred pages a week, whether through libraries, free audio or audible.
You should head over to librivox, where this very project exists! Otherwise head over to /r/audiobooks.
If you haven't done so lately, visit your local library and see if they offer audiobook playaways to take home or see if they subscribe to overdrive. If they subscribe to overdrive, you can access audiobooks from your phone or laptop with your library card and pin number.
According to /r/audiobooks, you can join audible right now for cheap too. I think its 99cents for 3 months.
If you are just lonely, you should hop on IRC.
I'm not a Communist in any way, nor am I particularly interested in Communism. But even I have sat down and read the Communist Manifesto, just so I could see what exactly was in it for myself. It isn't long at all. It literally just takes a couple hours or less. You can even get PDFs in 80 different languages or an audiobook of it for free. Or just go to Wikipedia and read a little bit about Communist ideas. There's no excuse for not educating yourself before throwing your support behind an ideology.
Edit: If you want to read it on your Kindle, Amazon even has the Kindle version for free. Like I said, no excuse.
Another comment - have you guys heard of Librivox? It's a website dedicated to hosting audiobooks in the public domain, like our project.
Maybe we could get involved there and offer our recordings once we've finished?
And if this project continues to be successful, we could read other public domain works related to Christianity. Reddit Reads On The Incarnation?
Also, the allegory of the cave has nothing to do with seeing the future. Side note, The Republic is a very interesting read or listen if anyone is interested: https://librivox.org/the-republic-version-2-by-plato/
Edit for clarification: The Republic is the dialogue by Plato in which Socrates discusses the Allegory of the Cave among many other things.
I think you should finish it. It is quite a lovely book, with quiet happenings. It's not extremely animated, but it's very entertaining in its way. I would give it another shot. Maybe try to get a copy in your mother language. Or, you can download a free audio version at Librivox. There's also a Librivox app, as well, and they have readings in other languages.
Do you do all your research into political ideologies via Wikipedia, a user edited encyclopaedia? Rather than, you know the fucking source material that is available on the internet... for free? You can literally listen to all of Marx’s work for free at librivox.org as an audiobook, same with most left wing philosophy source books by, you know, the people that founded them!
If your only research tool is Wikipedia, do you really think you are going to be taken seriously? I mean, even as a lefty I have actually read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and ‘Mein Kampf’, even if only in a “know your enemy” kind of vibe..!
I mean, fair enough, as quick reference or synopsis Wikipedia is fine... but shit dude, here in the UK you can’t even cite Wikipedia as a source in school on something basic like history or science! People gunna just laugh at you dude...
EDIT
It has been pointed out that saying “Have you even read the theory?” Is as much use as tech support barking “RTFM” at you when you don’t know what manual you are looking for. Whilst I do encourage you to check out the OG texts (you can find audiobooks for most leftist theory here).
There are other sources for basic theory, freely available at the IWW site.
Be ever careful not to wake MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
Gods of Pegana is on Librivox and is under two hours - for those who have not read it, there are no excuses.
Dunsany has a sort of mythic language that feels terribly absent from most modern fantasy - his turns and repetitions of phrase give it the tone and feel appropriate to an ancient religious text, beset as all ancient religious texts are by uncertainty and incompleteness.
As far as I am aware Librivox has no official app. As such I would suggest linking to the original source: librivox.org. Everything is done by volunteers so they need all the support they can get.
Or you could listen to completely legal and free public domain audiobooks from Librivox. You can contribute and listen to their projects in basically any language. Since a book needs to be PD in all countries to qualify to be read, it can feature some old fashioned language, but it is an amazing initiative that deserves more attention. Also useful for people cramming for their literature exams. They can listen to a book while doing other things like commute or exercise.
I don't know anything about Dyslexia but does it only affect your ability to percieve writing? If so then check out Librivox, a project to create free audiobooks of books in the public domain. The Communist Manifesto is on there.
A bit on the same theme that I stumbled on while reading The Golden Bough;
http://www.bartleby.com/196/pages/page477.html
Full text (abbreviated edition);
I assume you mean audiobook since you're driving? You should check out World War Z, even if you've read it. It's really well produced and fully cast with a different voice actor for every character. I listen to a lot of horror audio, and this was my favorite by far. Stephen King audiobooks are usually really good too. If you Google it, you can find a whole lot of classic horror authors for free as well, like H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, William Hope Hodgson, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley and even some Lovecraft. Check out Librivox
This is a great observation. We're discussing The Death of Ivan Ilyich on /r/RSbookclub tomorrow. It's a quick read (~80 pages, web text / youtube audio / audio RSS), and the last few chapters really hold your feet to the fire. Just unrelenting.
—What helps me is getting a text and an audio version of it. https://librivox.org/ is one place to get both for free. Then read, listen and repeat synchronously what you hear. You will utilize the maximum amount of your language: visual, audio and speaking. After you’re confortabile with a specific part of a text attempt to repeat what you hear without reading. And once you’re good with that try to tell the story with your own words as closely as possible to the original text. Once you’re good at that start deviating from the text.
You will learn vocabulary, grammar, pronounciation without even realizing it. Not easy but worth it. You won’t spend a lot of time on rarely used forms and you’ll learn all of this within a context of a native language.
Hope it helps. Good luck.—
I posted this a feed ago on this sub and hope it will help you too:
> LibriVox
Unfortunately not, librivox doesn't allow works not re-copyrighted in the US. They only have 1 book by Lenin on there rn.
If your problem with Audible is that after your two monthly credits you have to pay higher prices, note that on the annual plan I find as soon as I exhaust my credits they offer me the chance to buy more credits for $9.50 each (which is what the 24-credit annual plan averages out to.) Alternatively, you can renew the annual plan early, getting another batch of 24 credits anytime.
Still not cheap if you're doing 10+ books a month, but slightly better.
Check your public library for, e.g., Overdrive. Librivox has free audiobooks of works in the public domain.
In the area of science fiction & fantasy there are site like PodCastle, Escape Pod, Clarkesworld & Lightspeed Magazines offering free short stories via podcast.
As the book states it will come to those who are ready for it, before then it will just sound like ramblings and rubbish.
I also posted the ebook couple of weeks ago. As far as audio books go this has been my favorite version, the voice is charismatic. Never seen this version on YouTube before, I usualy went here https://librivox.org/the-kybalion-by-the-three-initiates/
The Children of Odin: https://librivox.org/the-children-of-odin-by-padraic-colum/
The Modern Scholar: The Norsemen - Understanding Vikings and Their Culture: http://www.amazon.com/The-Modern-Scholar-Norsemen-Understanding/dp/B00AN90WZ6
My son and I really enjoyed this one: http://www.blackstonelibrary.com/guts-and-glory-the-vikings
PM me, I might uh ... know a place .. ahem ... to um ... wink wink nudge nudge ... how shall we say, raid and pillage these fine works?
A very similar poem called The Chaos was written in in 1870 and is freely available in audio form on LibriVox as read by Hannah Dowel who has an utterly drop-dead SEXY blue-blood English accent.
LibriVox has thousands of free public domain audiobooks.
If you have a library card many libraries allow you to check out free professionally recorded audiobooks online using Overdrive.com and its associated app.
The Mercury Theatre has a lot of really good old radio dramas.
The next book you start you should consider reading a book and recording it for LibriVox.
It is a public domain audiobook organization.
I drive a lot for work and I love LibriVox. All the books must be public domain so they are usually the classics.
> Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.
> Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.
> "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said.
> "Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking. So to make sure, I said interrogatively, "Count Dracula?"
Great book, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). You can find the whole thing online here or listen to it here, both are free.
I started listening to audiobooks when my commute became > 1 hour, and yeah, it's a whole other level. The readers' performance is its own separate experience, and it's usually amazing. For fiction, the readers really are putting a ton of acting and voice talent into all the characters. For nonfiction, often times the author will do the audiobook, which is a fascinating way to get a little more insight into how they intended it to be read. I think it's becoming much more common for books to release simultaneously with audiobook versions, too. And lots of public domain books are available for free at librivox.org!
Check out librivox. It’s a volunteer driven public domain audiobook collection. That may give you a good starting point to build your portfolio.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius.
The Lives of Ancient Philosophers by Francois Fenelon
Do you have a local library? If so, see if they pay for a service like Overdrive. There are a ton of audiobooks on there, totally free with your library card.
If you don't have a library like that (depending on your location), you can still find some free audiobooks. LibriVox has free audiobooks of works that are in the public domain, read by volunteers. Obviously, the quality on these is hit or miss. And of course there are mainly very old books on here. But hey, it's free.
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck: Short, funny gem of a novel. East of Eden is longer, darker saga that I love.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn: I've met some of Twain's characters; they're funny, ignorant, insightful. This free audiobook of Huck Finn is great.
Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. I Listen to this version of the story every autumn. It's lush, it's funny, and it reminds you that people are the same as they ever were.
More modern books: Just Kids by Patti Smith is a great little portrait of gritty New York in the sixities and seventies. Less than Zero and Rules of Attraction are over the top, exaggerated depictions (well to me, but I didn't live anything like this) of rich, spoiled, narcistic young American assholes, but damn if I didn't enjoy it.
The Virgin Suicides is a bit of bizarre, surreal story, but I think it mirrors the decline of Detroit and this sort pulling apart at the seams that's strangely engrossing.
The Joy Luck Club is a great story of the immigrant/first and second gen America experience.
On Collins and literature. His favorite book was 'the man who was Thursday' audiobook. I think after reading it I can understand more how he acted during the war of independance. 'if you don't seem to be hiding, no one hunts you out'
I remember hearing him in some video offering the standard lazy normie excuse "I don't have time". In my opinion, to borrow from Mr. Molymeme, that is not an argument, especially nowadays with the convenience of eink ebook readers, which he can sure as hell afford.
Also, I am sure more than 90% of leftist haven't actually read Das Kapital, it's a hard read to be honest. I'd recommend "Wage Labour and Capital" to get your feet wet. Destiny could even play it in audiobook form during one of the mind-numbing factorio sessions.
Librivox.org is a great place to find free audiobooks of old literature, its quite simply changed my life. Put on an audiobook of a subject of your interest, then workout or practice an instrument or whatever. It's very easy to burn through one book in one day while improving in another area at the same time.
I'm wary of funding anything produced by Hollywood, however. I don't watch much movies but the last movie I saw was Angry Birds since I heard it had anti-rapefugee sentiments (boy did it ever).
Assuming the book is in the public domain, yes, although there's no guarantee anyone will buy it.
However, if you're not attached to the idea of profiting from it, librivox is an active community of people who do this for free.
Librivox.org has free audiobooks, I use their app to listen but there are other different ways. It is all public domain books (old) with varied recording quality but the price is right. A search outside of their site for best or most popular librivox recordings is recommended
Librivox is free, public domain audiobooks.
Also, the Kindle has a text-to-voice feature -- not the most charming voice, but has worked in a pinch (like post eye dilation, etc.).
There's a website called "Librivox" (https://librivox.org/) that offers free audiobooks in the public domain -- read and recorded by volunteers.
Contributing a reading would be great for so many reasons:
a) Helps you with elocution.
b) Helps you become comfortable with your own voice (as you said).
c) Helps you become more self-confident in communicating information.
d) Helps you contribute to a good cause -- spreading literacy/education.
e) Helps you contribute to accessible media for vision-impaired/disabled.
e) Helps you consume more books yourself -- expands your mind.
f) Helps you gain feedback that you can use to shape articulacy.
g) Helps you interact with more like-minded people (possibly).
h) Helps you develop/improve upon multimedia literacy (in treating audio).
etc.
It really is a win-win-win.
Try being a Librivox volunteer. They will help you with setting up your recording equipment and will critique a test recording. After that you have the entire Gutenberg project as source material for you to record whenever you like and there will be millions of people grateful that you made the effort. If you are into sci-fi they do a regular collection of short stories (currently up to volume 81) and are constantly rescuing golden age sci-fi and fantasy novels. They are always looking for new voices.
Look into libraries near you; not necessarily your primary library. For example, several of the larger library systems in my state will give full cards to all state residents (since there are many rural towns with no library/library doesn't have digital materials).
Otherwise:
SYNC offers audiobooks for free that might be more up your alley but their program is only around ~April-July.
Reminded me of Dagon with the floor.
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/d.aspx
There are some good tellings on YouTube.
Reminded me I used to like Librivox occasionally as an audiobook on my commute.
Also Librivox has a great community and resources to help people get started at any skill level with a modicum of technical expertise. Librivox is particular good for the hobbyist who isn't out to make a quick buck or get overwhelmed with technical requirements like at Audible's ACX.
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There's a really good version of Triplanetary read by Mark F Smith ("of Simpsonville South Carolina") on Librivox https://librivox.org/triplanetary-by-ee-doc-smith/
What? Are you another me?
Same type of service environment and always Audio Books in the car. Nice to get paid to "Read" a book.
I am a big Librivox.org fan myself. Being very cheap and all. I kind of like 100 year old books anyway.
I watch tv, listen to podcasts, or listen to audiobooks. I find TV works best if it's something that is mostly audio (sitcoms work pretty well for this) or a favorite that I don't need to actually pay attention to. Podcasts and audiobooks work great though. I highly suggest you check your library for audiobooks, both in physical form and see if they have online audiobooks you can check out; Librivox is great as well for older books, I especially recommend the entire Oz series (L Frank Baum) if you haven't read them before. I also like taking my crochet for a coffee date with friends, it's nice to chat and work (but make sure your friend doesn't find it rude!).
https://youtu.be/2PZ18Wjqt1w This channel also has some of Seneca's epistulae Morales.
Also, this guy on Librivox has some patristic stuff that's very good. https://librivox.org/reader/7860?primary_key=7860&search_category=reader&search_page=1&search_form=get_results
These have actually caused me to start moving towards ecclesiastic after years of restored and no connection to popery. So much more sonorous than an American restored.
>So unless they changed the names.
that's what i'm thinking. it's legal as far as i know, but i'm not a big fan of it if the narrator can't make money off it :/
https://librivox.org/the-hound-of-the-baskervilles-version-2-by-sir-arthur-conan-doyle/
ch 1 4:17 from librivox lines up with the audible sample:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/The-Hound-of-the-Baskervilles-Audiobook/B07F7VP4LY
and several of the narrator's other works are included under the name as well.