Suggest a "Staff Pick" for archive.org

Comments about LibriVox? Suggestions to improve things? News?
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22422
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

That's exactly the kind of book I'm looking for - thank you! :D
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
mightyfelix
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 11082
Joined: August 7th, 2016, 6:39 pm

Post by mightyfelix »

Did I suggest this one already? :oops: Maybe.

https://librivox.org/if-i-had-a-father-by-george-macdonald/

It centers around two dads and their young adult children.
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22422
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

The staff has picked for June - thanks for your great suggestions! Please have a look at this page for the current pickings. You can also check out our wiki page for a plain vanilla list that contains all the staff picks for this year plus the readers.

Next month is July, and hopefully, we can all go out and enjoy our summer holidays... Let's do something slightly different this year with

Books that everybody knows

I'm not looking for the stuff you read in school, like Jane Eyre or Shakespeare or Goethe. I'm looking for books that influenced generations and are part of the collective memory of the world or a particular country.
Think LoTR, Narnia, Batman, Stephen King... - but public domain and in our catalog please. :wink: Or do you have any beloved book that you re-read ever so often and that you wish more people would know of? Tell me!

Especially welcome are suggestions of plays and poetry!
And, as always, and especially now: All languages welcome!

Suggest away!
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
ColleenMc
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 2785
Joined: April 9th, 2017, 5:57 pm

Post by ColleenMc »

I have three possible suggestions:

First, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, which had an impact on the youth of its time that was earthshaking, and needs to be understood to understand the entire Romantic era of the early 1800s. Librivox doesn't appear to have the German edition recorded, but the English version is here: https://librivox.org/the-sorrows-of-young-werther-by-johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/ According to Wikipedia, it was widely read (and still inspiring suicides among fans) as recently as the 1920s and 1930s among the Zionist settlers in Palestine.

Second, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, which is a book I love personally but I would also point to as one of the oldest (aside from maybe Jane Austen) novels that continues to be read by young readers, especially young female readers, for pleasure outside of school assignments. As a kid I dutifully plowed through older classics like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but I read them as assignments with one part of my brain picking out themes and points that would probably be discussed in class. Little Women is the oldest classic novel I truly remember getting lost in as a kid, vividly picturing the world portrayed in it and wanting to be a part of it and see it in person, like I did with later works like the Little House on the Prairie book or the All of a Kind Family series (both too recent to be in the public domain!). Lots to choose from for this one -- we have four complete versions (and two in progress) but I'd probably go with recommending the dramatic reading version: https://librivox.org/little-women-dramatic-reading-by-louisa-may-alcott/

Third, Les Liasions Dangereuses (or Dangerous Connections) by Choderlos de Laclos. I don't think it's as well known or influential as the other two but it was a book I was assigned for a novels course in college and have gone back and re-read since, because it's so well written (and pretty dark and cynical). I think it might be my favorite epistolary novel. Librivox has a French version: https://librivox.org/les-liaisons-dangereuses-by-choderlos-de-laclos/ and an English one: https://librivox.org/dangerous-connections-by-pierre-choderlos-de-laclos/. The English one appears to have been performed as a dramatic reading, with the same readers voicing the letters by their assigned character all the way through.

This is my first time making suggestions in this thread I think -- hope I did it right!

Colleen
Colleen McMahon

No matter where you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22422
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

Excellent, thank you! :thumbs:

Although these may be almost too well known, I think they have all been chosen before (and I prefer not to spotlight a book twice). Or maybe I'm Librivox-biased? :lol:

Any more personal suggestions?
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
knotyouraveragejo
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22067
Joined: November 18th, 2006, 4:37 pm

Post by knotyouraveragejo »

Eleventh Grade English required reading (I won't tell you what year...)- three excellent solo recordings in the catalog:

Moby Dick https://librivox.org/moby-dick-by-herman-melville

The Red Badge of Courage https://librivox.org/the-red-badge-of-courage-an-episode-of-the-american-civil-war/

The Scarlet Letter https://librivox.org/the-scarlet-letter-by-nathaniel-hawthorne-2/


Julius Caesar https://librivox.org/julius-caesar-by-william-shakespeare/
Jo
annise
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 38542
Joined: April 3rd, 2008, 3:55 am
Location: Melbourne,Australia

Post by annise »

What do you define as classics? I'm never quite sure - I tend to think of leather-bound with gold lettering equals classic but I think that is too narrow

Anne
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22422
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

I have amended my post above:

I'm not looking for the stuff you read in school, like Jane Eyre or Shakespeare or Goethe. I'm looking for books that influenced generations and are part of the collective memory of the world or a particular country.

Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Batman, Dracula, Star Wars, Heidi, the Kamasutra...
Books that everybody reads or sees a movie of or at least knows the story.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Kazbek
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 6466
Joined: April 24th, 2019, 12:06 pm

Post by Kazbek »

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage helped turn Byron into a hero for a whole jaded generation coming of age amidst the debris of Napoleonic wars. There are just two audio versions of it out there, one commercial and another at LV. Ours is much better. 8-)

https://librivox.org/childe-harolds-pilgrimage-by-george-gordon-lord-byron/

Some time before that, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Laurence Sterne was widely read and had a huge impact on two literary tendencies, travel writing and sentimentalism. Knowing this only, one wouldn't expect to find a book that is both fairly abstruse and very funny. Read for LV by Martin Geeson:

https://librivox.org/a-sentimental-journey-by-laurence-sterne/

I don't believe they teach either of these at school (before university).

Michael
Kazbek
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 6466
Joined: April 24th, 2019, 12:06 pm

Post by Kazbek »

And while I'm at it, how about those Russian Fairy Tales? A whole repertoire of rural word craft was injected into the common Russian language via this collection.

https://librivox.org/russian-fairy-tales-1-by-alexander-nikolayevich-afanasyev/
https://librivox.org/russian-fairy-tales-2-by-alexander-nikolayevich-afanasyev/

Michael
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22422
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

:thumbs:
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Leni
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 16269
Joined: July 27th, 2008, 9:10 pm
Location: Lexington, KY, USA

Post by Leni »

For Portuguese books, I suggest the recently cataloged Dom Casmurro: https://librivox.org/dom-casmurro-by-machado-de-assis/

It is read in schools, but it is also widely referenced and discussed... the question if the wife of the main character cheated on him or not is THE QUESTION in Brazilian literature. :lol:

But in terms of books everybody knows, or stories everybody knows, one can't go wrong with Bulfinch's Age of Fable. Jason and the Golden FLeece, The Labours of Hercules, The Trojan War, and some Norse Mythology also for good measure. https://librivox.org/bulfinch-age-of-fable/
Leni
=================
mightyfelix
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 11082
Joined: August 7th, 2016, 6:39 pm

Post by mightyfelix »

How about Consolation of Philosophy? It's only one of the most influential books ever. :D

Or, if it's not too soon to mention MacDonald again, George MacDonald's Phantastes, which inspired Lewis Carrol, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien....
Availle
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 22422
Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
Contact:

Post by Availle »

Sounds good - keep 'em coming! :D
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Post Reply