Arts Podcasts

"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Audiobook (Audio book)Join Now to Follow

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." Ernest Hemingway. This audiobook is performed by Marc Devine and co-produced by LoudLit.org and LiteralSystems.com. Each episode is has 2 to 4 chapters and is approximately 30-40 minutes in length. Text provided at Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org). This recording was made possible by the generous support of Gordon W. Draper. Also available via podcast from LiteralSystems and LoudLit.org: "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens, "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and "Heart of Darkness" by Joesph Conrad.

By Mark Twain performed by Marc Devine

Visions of VancouverJoin Now to Follow

Inspired by the style of old-time radio broadcasting, Visions of Vancouver is a series of four short plays commissioned to celebrate Vancouver’s 125th anniversary. The plays were performed live at CBC Studio 700 in October 2011. Recordings of those live performance are available here free of charge. Gather the family around the computer and listen together or download them and listen to them on the go. Each play will only be available for six months so listen while you can!

Librivox: Secret Agent, The by Conrad, JosephJoin Now to Follow

The Secret Agent is Conrad's dark, and darkly comic story of a band of spies, anarchists, agents-provocateurs plotting and counter-plotting in the back streets of London in the early 20th Century. The novel centers on Verloc, a shop-owner, phony-anarchist and double-agent, who becomes embroiled in an ambitious terrorist plan to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. (Summary by Hugh McGuire)

By LibriVox

Librivox: Fishing with a Worm by Perry, BlissJoin Now to Follow

Fishing with a Worm by Bliss Perry includes the poignant and philisophical observations of a fly fisherman lured by the worm. Bliss Perry was a professor of literature at Princeton and Harvard Universities and spent time in Vermont writing and fly fishing. (Summary written by Sadie, Betsie, and Wikipedia)

By LibriVox

Librivox: On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery by Lister, JosephJoin Now to Follow

Joseph Lister was born near London in 1827. He studied medicine at the University of London and pursued a career as a surgeon in Scotland. He became professor of Surgery in Glasgow and later (1877) at Kings College Hospital, in London. Lister’s contribution to the advancement of surgery cannot be overestimated. Before his work on antisepsis, wounds were often left open to heal, leading to long recoveries, unsightly scarring, and not infrequently amputation or death due to infection. Lister’s work enabled more wounds to be closed primarily with sutures, drastically reducing healing time, scarring, amputations, and deaths due to infection. Lister retired in 1896 but was called back to assist in the operation on King Edward VII for appendicitis just days before the King’s coronation. The King later credited Lister for his survival and quick recovery. Lister died in 1912. (Summary by Martin Clifton)

By LibriVox

Librivox: More Goops and How Not to Be Them by Burgess, GelettJoin Now to Follow

Deep in the heart of every parent is the wish, the desire, to have other adults tell us, in an unsolicited way, just how very polite one’s child is! This perhaps was even more the case in 1903, when Gelett Burgess produced his second book on the Goops. With entertaining cartoons - cariacatures of misbehaving children - he described many different breaches of tact and good manners. Burgess wrote several books of poetry on the Goops, each poem describing some significant way in which an unthoughtful or unkind child could offend polite society and often offering the hope that the listener would never behave that way. Ahem! Well, perhaps very few people have succeeded in not acting Goop-like at some point in their lives, but read along with Burgess as he attempts to define, in a humorous fashion, exactly what the differences between “Good” and “Goop” are! (Summary by Mark F. Smith)

By LibriVox

Librivox: O Captain! My Captain! by Whitman, WaltJoin Now to Follow

In honor of President’s Day, LibriVox brings you thirteen versions of O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman. This classic poem was written by Whitman following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It appears in Leaves of Grass , Whitman’s masterpiece of a poetry collection and is considered by many to be one of his greatest poems. This was the LibriVox Weekly Poetry Project for the week of February 19th, 2006. (Summary by Annie Coleman)

By LibriVox

Librivox: Secret Garden, The by Burnett, Frances HodgsonJoin Now to Follow

Mary Lennox is a spoiled, middle-class, self-centred child who has been recently orphaned. She is accepted into the quiet and remote country house of an uncle, who has almost completely withdrawn into himself after the death of his wife. Mary gradually becomes drawn into the hidden side of the house: why does she hear the crying of a unseen child? Why is there an overgrown, walled garden, its door long locked? (Summary by Peter)

By LibriVox

Librivox: Songs of Innocence and Experience by Blake, WilliamJoin Now to Follow

William Blake’s volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were “the two contrary states of the human soul,” and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems either written from the perspective of children or written about them. Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience, with quite a different perspective of the world. The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the despair found in Songs of Experience. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Annie Coleman)

By LibriVox

Librivox: Poet To His Love by Bodenheim, MaxwellJoin Now to Follow

Librivox volunteers bring you thirteen different readings of Poet To His Love, by Maxwell Bodenheim. This weekly poetry project was selected to celebrate Valentine’s Day. (Summary by Annie Coleman)

By LibriVox