What was your first LV listen?

Cori · Post by **Cori** » July 30th, 2009, 11:11 am

momof3Chihuahuas wrote:I wondered if you were in the same room when you recorded it. Cool! Have the UK chapter recorded any more group recordings? I'd love to find some more!

Yes, one of the versions of The Monkey's Paw is a dramatic reading. There's also the awesome/awful Thistleton-Dyer, we recorded him for over a year, and you'll hear lots of special guests, as they visited from abroad, as well as Brit accents galore with the London Irregulars. It's not a dramatic work - we just co-read all the chapters, swapping around narrators and getting others in to read quotes and dialogue. All our best outtakes came from him, I'm sure.

It must be fun to meet with other LV'ers. I'm a bit envious, but I'm glad you all can do that.

It's been absolutely great, in my opinion! I really enjoy meeting online people anyway, and it's lovely to hang out with people who have the same passion for what can be quite a lonesome pastime.

John Lieder · Post by **John Lieder** » July 31st, 2009, 9:23 pm

I was getting ready to audition for "Big River", the musical version of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and was ashamed that I had never read the book before, even though I grew up only 170 miles from Hannibal, MO. I googled for an audiobook of it and found Annie Coleman's wonderful version in LibriVox. Listened to it on a trip to Minnesota and back. That led to listening to more downloads and eventually doing my own recordings.

momof3Chihuahuas · Post by **momof3Chihuahuas** » July 31st, 2009, 10:15 pm

Thank you, Peter & Cori! I'll definitely check those links out!

And listen to your bloopers from your podcast! Fun!

Joy

BellonaTimes · Post by **BellonaTimes** » August 1st, 2009, 8:34 am

The first full book I downloaded was the one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. I have it on a CD with a bunch of period music from Archive's 78 RPM collection.

RosaleeLuAnn · Post by **RosaleeLuAnn** » August 2nd, 2009, 3:48 pm

I heard about Librivox in a kind of unique way, I guess. I am a HUGE fan of Megan Whalen Turners Attolia books (there wouldn't happen to be any other fans around here, would there?) and I am a member of an online fan community for the series. I found out that there were a few other fans of the books who lived in my area and we decided to get together and discuss the books in person.

It was basically one of the funnest things I've ever done. (Yes, I know funnest isn't a word. This is me, not caring.) We sat and talked for FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT about my favorite books. And we'll be getting together in a few weeks to do it AGAIN. But anyway, while at this get-together I was telling them about how I really loved listening to audio books while at work. (I work as an Illustrator). Unfortunately, our library has a really supid policy of only allowing you to check out three CDs at once. This means I'd have to go back and forth to the library during lunch breaks in order to get 3 CDs of an audio book at a time. FRUSTRATION. One of my book friends told me to go to Librivox and my problems would be solved!

And they were

The first recording I listened to was The Count of Monte Cristo, which my roommate had been bothering me to read for months but, well, its LONG. The second book I listened to was The Scarlet Pimpernel, I fell in LOVE with Karen Savage's readings (and converted my roommate to Librivox through them--Karen, you have two HUGE FANS over in Utah) and I've been listening to her solos at work ever since, as well as other Librivox recordings. Once I get into the swing of things I'd love to snag one of the other Scarlet Pimpernel books to do as a solo, even though I know I could never do it quite as well as Karen

.

I've wanted to do audio recordings as long as I can remember, but it took me a few months to actually work up the courage to join. Now that I've started, I'm having so much fun.

And I am really, truly going to STOP rambling NOW.

msjodi777 · Post by **msjodi777** » August 19th, 2009, 11:27 pm

Coming in a bit late here (both literally and figuratively as it's 2:30am)... the first book I listened to is version 2 of Puddin' Head Wilson, though I don't remember who recorded it...

Haven't recorded anything because I have to wait until I can get a USB mic... my sound card one has too much static... so for now I listen... and oh, boy is it fun!

I found out about LibriVox from one of the ravelry groups... don't remember which one it was, but I saw the web name on a couple of them, and decided to check it out... now, I'm here as much as I'm on ravelry... that is NOT a good thing...

catrose · Post by **catrose** » August 14th, 2012, 3:52 am

Hey all, bringing this thread back to the top. It's very interesting!

My first was Macbeth. It's still one of the best versions of Macbeth I have ever ever seen/read!

Carolin · Post by **Carolin** » August 14th, 2012, 4:18 am

the first book i listened to was the sea hawk. i had stumbled over some shakespeare monologues before that though, but these only lead the way to librivox

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » August 14th, 2012, 5:41 am

I know I said and wrote a few times that I can't remember what was the first LV audiobook I listened to, but I've just done some checking (thankfully, I wrote about the beginnings of my adventure with LV in my blog

) and I can now officially confirm it was "Carmilla" read by Elizabeth Klett. I remembered the book being mentioned in my English language lecture and I enjoyed a song inspired by this work, so I finally decided to actually read it. When searching the Wikisources for the text I saw the audio file and I decided to give it a try.
However , it recently crossed my mind that this hadn't been the first I had heard about LV. I just can't remember how it happened

I think it was on YouTube. I was searching for various readings of "The Raven" and someone in comments (or perhaps it was the video poster) mentioned this place.

JohanLiebert · Post by **JohanLiebert** » August 14th, 2012, 5:55 am

A Little Princess, read by Kara Shallenberg. The second is Little Women

Hobbit · Post by **Hobbit** » August 14th, 2012, 1:24 pm

My first was The Three Musketeers. My dad was the one who told me about LV and downloaded that book for me. I vaguely considered volunteering after hearing the disclaimer, but didn't get around to checking the LV site until a few months later, when I had finished The Three Musketeers and was listening to the second book in the series Twenty Years After. Then I finally got around to visiting the LV website, and lo and behold, a group recording of Ten Years Later, the third book of the Musketeers series was in progress! I joined the next day.

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » August 14th, 2012, 1:38 pm

I'm guessing that you must have felt like a young vocalist joining her favourite band as a permanent group member

Hobbit · Post by **Hobbit** » August 14th, 2012, 6:45 pm

Piotrek81 wrote:I'm guessing that you must have felt like a young vocalist joining her favourite band as a permanent group member

Pretty much, only LV's better than any band!

neckertb · Post by **neckertb** » August 15th, 2012, 4:32 am

TriciaG wrote:I don't know if such a thread has been posted before. If it has, please direct me there.

I assume all our volunteers started as listeners, right? Well, what was the first book/project you listened to? Or, if you don't remember that, what was the book/project that prompted you to volunteer?

Actually, I had never listened to an audiobook, and I think it took me another six months after I started recording before I downloaded one for listening. I am not sure which it was, but it probably was one of ezwa's solos, and since I loved them all I can't tell

David Richardson · Post by **David Richardson** » August 15th, 2012, 5:48 am

The first LV I downloaded was my ‘test recording’ thinking ‘actually this is not as easy as I thought it was!’. First LV book was ‘Bladys of the Stewponey’ which I think I picked because it had a really silly title: It was read by the wonderful Andy Minter with such a tremendous array of voices and characters – I thought this is better than the professional stuff and a really hard act to follow. Then Mary Shelley’s ‘Mathilda’, brought brilliantly to life by Cori’s superb and soulful reading. At which point I thought I better give up ‘cos these guys are too good – but then I realised it’s not a competition and the real fun is in just doing it – ‘for better or for worse’…