Post: #1

I appreciate what Librivox is doing. Their goal is to put every book in the public domain on audio. Great.

But I simply cannot stand it when they use a woman to narrate an important classic book written by a man. This is nothing against female readers in general; it just doesn't sound right to the ear.

For instance, Emerson's essays being read by what sounds like a hippy chick that can't figure out if she wants to start masturbating, go outside to look for shapes in the clouds, or give herself a medal for being deep enough to read Emerson?

What the fuck is that shit? Can't they screen readers on such important texts just a little? I just can't take it seriously.

And now I just downloaded Mental Efficiency by Arnold Bennett and the narrator sounds like M from the James Bond movies.

Certain works written by men should be narrated by men. Period. And certainly not by readers like the one mentioned above.

Even some of the narrations with men reading are shitty though - they'll enunciate what are clearly the wrong words to enunciate and sometimes don't sound like they actually understand what they're reading.

I'm trying to be open-minded given that the audios are free, but it's a struggle. I need another source.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #2

http://www.thoughtaudio.com

Not many titles, but great narration by the same author. I've only listened to two books from this site, but enjoyed the narration. Worth a quick check if any titles interest you, but don't get you hopes up to find a lot of modern stuff. Has a few works by Mark Twain, some uhhh, just look at it. Sorry, very sleepy.

Thanks for mentioning Librivox, I hadn't heard of it before.

Post: #3

Some of the Librivox recordings are unintentionally hilarious -- the guy doing Aristotle's Poetics drops what seems a shocked "Oh, my" when the Philosopher mentions his views on women in that book. And the guy who does John Keats has a near-impenetrable accent.

Post: #4

Librivox is... spotty. Since anybody can contribute there are no quality controls at all.

If you like horror, though, you owe it to yourself to listen to Peter Yearsley's Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and King in Yellow.
Those are some scary, scary books.

Post: #5

Audible is what I have used in the past, but I used their .de and .fr counterparts. It's a flat-rate monthly fee and great for upkeeping language proficiency. The audio quality and narration is generally very high. Bear in mind it is owned by Amazon though...

A bit off topic, but a good method for foreign language study is to buy the book you want and then get the matching audio from Audible, of course making sure that it's the same version. I've found that this really helps new words stick.

Post: #6

If you are learning Russian, check out War and Peace. It's only 73 hours and 53 minutes!

http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Voyna...840&sr=1-6