Suggest a "Staff Pick" for archive.org

[Availle]

The staff has picked for this month! 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.

May is a good time to talk about

Mother Nature

I'm looking for anything thus related: oceans and lakes, sky, forest, desert, ice, snow... No animals at this point, they'll get their own staff picks a bit later this year.

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

Suggest away!

(and please give me a plot summary (with spoilers) or a reason why you picked that specific book. It makes creating the writeup so much easier. Thanks!)

[LCaulkins]

Ooo! Steven Seitel did a marvelous solo of The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara

In an age when women were expected to remain at home, entertain, and rear children, Rosita Forbes elected "to boldly go where no one had gone before..." Like her older contemporary, Gertrude Bell (who was focused more in the Persian and Iraqi areas), Forbes held a profound love of the vast desert and the people who lived there. That love shines out in this engaging travelogue of her November 1920 - February 1921 adventure. The expedition took her deep into the Libyan desert to seek a remote location, revered by local peoples, that was protected from outside intrusion. Forbes was the first European woman, and only the second outsider, to reach Kufara, amid trials of difficult travel, complications with camels, differing priorities of personnel, political intrigue, outright betrayal, climate hardships, and near-disastrous wanderings off the route when water was short or gone. Her sharing of the surroundings, situations, and cultural nuances makes the reader feel as if you were right there with her, shading your eyes as you await the capture of the sunrise or sunset mirage that will show the distant features you hope to locate. Join her entourage and travel along through the Libyan sands as she shares this historic journey of more than a thousand miles.

[Availle]

Ah, Steve seems to have a knack for deserts - I just finished PLing another one set in Lybia and beyond.

Thanks for this one!

[Kirsten Wever]

I just discovered this thread, and I'm not sure whether this is where we suggest people for future encomiums, but all I can say is:

TRICIAG!!!

I realized the first time I worked with her that she was an MC and a DPL in a million. I am lucky indeed that she's been available to help me shepherd through my last 10 or 15 solos.

• Tricia is impeccably well-informed on every dimension that’s arisen

.

• As a PL she never misses a trick

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• Regarding sometimes ambiguous PD issues, I've never known her judgment to fail

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• In occasional debates with other LV admins about some point of procedure or content she's always got it right and, equally crucial, she communicates her views with impeccable tact.

.

• If ever a question arises that she can't answer right off the bat, she finds the answer, usually before anyone else has time to turn around

.

And so on. To say nothing of her gentle sense of humor, unflagging and enthusiastic support, and ... well, she's an all-around peach.

Anyhow, she's got my vote.

[TriciaG]

Thanks, but that's not the kind of staff pick we're talking about! This is for books/works. It originated when Archive had a "staff picks" section on its website (the LV portion). So we got suggestions of what to put there. So now that that widget is gone from Archive, it's morphed into a monthly blog entry here on our own site.

Think of it like the special "staff picks" section at Blockbuster.

[msfry]

Think of it like the special "staff picks" section at Blockbuster.

I think of it as "themed picks", being as LV isn't supposed to have a staff. The name on the Home Page has recently been changed to "Latest News" which also doesn't fit, but it still says Staff Picks in the forum and on the Wiki -- so it's very confusing.

[Kirsten Wever]

I say, DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING.

Isn't it nice for some unthinking LV plebe - once in a while - to praise some admin to high heavens?

Don't, for goodness sake, remove my post. Who knows, maybe others will follow suit, and we can all enjoy the melange of people-praise, prose -praise, poetry-praise etc.

p. s. Of course staff picks means things picked by staff, but try explaining that to a woman sailing on post surgery morphine!

[Availle]

Kirsten, this was the cutest misinterpretation of the "Staff Picks" ever!
Then again, Tricia and all the admins do deserve a shout-out every now and then.


Anyway, the staff has picked for this month! 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 (and previous ones as well) plus the readers.

July, of course, is all about
Holiday

I'm looking for anything holiday related: trips and travel, exploration, celebrations (of holidays or birthdays - xmas in July?), fun reads for the beach or the hammock in your garden.... you get it. As long as it's relaxing.

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

Suggest away!

(and please give me a plot summary (with spoilers) or a reason why you picked that specific book. It makes creating the writeup so much easier. Thanks!)

[Availle]

The staff has picked for this month! 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 (and previous ones as well) plus the readers.

In August, LibriVox will celebrate its 18th Birthday!

And, as always, I will provide you with a little birthday surprise.

Until then, I wish you Relaxing Holidays!

[Availle]

The staff has picked for this month - Happy LibriVersary everyone! 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 (and previous ones as well) plus the readers.

Once we're done celebrating and enjoying the holidays, September is all back to business, or rather back to
War and Peace

Sept. 21 is World Peace Day, so I'm looking mostly for books about peace - even though we wouldn't know what that means without war...
I guess there are plenty of nonfiction suggestions, so bonus points for novels this time!

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

Suggest away!

And please give me a plot summary (with spoilers) or a reason why you picked that specific book. It makes creating the writeup so much easier, especially if the summary is very brief. Thanks!

[Availle]

The staff has picked for this month. 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 (and previous ones as well) plus the readers.

October 4th is World Animal Day, and we're celebrating accordingly with a theme of
Creatures and Critters

I'm grateful for suggestions on all things animalistic, from furry pet friends to wild animals, insects and their behaviour, birds, fish, woodlice...

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

Suggest away!

And please give me a plot summary (with spoilers) or a reason why you picked that specific book. It makes creating the writeup so much easier, especially if the summary is very brief. Thanks!

[Leni]

How about https://librivox.org/cuentos-de-la-selva-para-los-ninos-by-horacio-quiroga/ ? Each chapter is a short story in which one or various animals are the protagonists (bees, wild dogs, flamingos, turtles...), but their narratives are a reflection on human psychological and social problems. So it is a gentle way of making us think about our own existence in the world and our connections with other people.

Edit: I didn't check if this was picked before, it is just the one book that came to mind with this theme, so, sorry if it was!

[Availle]

Picked back in April 22, sorry...

It's always great having LOTE Staff Picks, but for me they are difficult to find.
So: keep 'em coming!

[ToddHW]

Howsabout a play called "The Birds"? First performed in 414 BCE but not out of date.

https://librivox.org/the-birds-by-aristophanes/

Two Athenian men, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, encounter flocks of birds and convince them to work together to build a great city in the sky named "Cloud-Cuckoo-Land". They would then blockade earth and heaven to prevent any direct interaction between men and the Gods that does not go via their city, thus becoming powerful masters of the entire world. Or something like that....

The entire Greek chorus of the play is supposedly in costumes to represent the birds while both singing (chanting in this version) and dancing (not seen in the audio version).

(For more info, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(play) )

Thanks, Todd

[Availle]