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Helen’s Babies by John Habberton, Part 4

Helen’s Babies, Part 4

Read by me!

(Impatient? Get the entire audio book here: http://librivox.org/helens-babies-by-john-habberton/)

Helen’s Babies by John Habberton, Part 3

Helen’s Babies, Part 3

Read by me!

Helen’s Babies by John Habberton, Part 2

Helen’s Babies, Part 2

Read by me!

(Impatient? Get the entire audio book here, for free: http://librivox.org/helens-babies-by-john-habberton/)

Helen’s Babies, by John Habberton

A new recording for you to listen too! This one is really funny. It’s probably a little funnier to teens and grownups, but I think kids will enjoy it too. I could hardly keep from laughing aloud while I was recording this one.

In this hilarious novel, Harry Burton, a bachelor white-goods salesman, goes to take care of his sister Helen’s two little boys for ten days while she and her husband are out of town. Helen says, “The children won’t give you the slightest trouble; they’re the best children in the world!” but, as you can imagine, Toddie and Budge are always up to something, and all sorts of comic mischief ensues. It just so happens that there’s a lovely young lady in the neighborhood whom Harry admires very much, but she always seems to be passing by when he’s deep in some terrible mess of the boys’ making… (Summary by Kara)

Helen’s Babies, Part 1

I’ll post another part here every Monday, but if you can’t wait just go to the catalog page and download the whole thing:
http://librivox.org/helens-babies-by-john-habberton/

We at librivox.org (where you can download free, public domain audio books) achieved two amazing milestones today. We keep track of how many books we complete each month, and of course our total. As May progressed, it looked likely that we’d break our previous record of 77 books back in July of 2007. Well, a few days ago we hit 80… then yesterday it was 90… then today we reached 100! One hundred brand-new audio books cataloged in just one month! Here’s a screenshot of that wonderful number:

(the chart was too tall to fit into my screenshot, but it goes back in time to 9-2005, when we cataloged our first book)

Oh, and the 100th book this month was http://librivox.org/book-of-tobit-tobias-douay-rheims-version/.

And another impressive number is our total number of completed audio books, which reached 1500 today!

Our 1500th book was http://librivox.org/four-great-americans-by-james-baldwin/.

Isn’t that amazing? In case you don’t know, librivox is made up entirely of volunteers, from administrators to coders to organizers to readers to proof-listeners to catalogers to cheer-leaders to cover-art makers to podcast makers, and everyone else! GO TEAM LIBRIVOX!

Finally, finally, my recording setup is fixed, or rather, not fixed but worked-around to my satisfaction. The problem started recently, after a re-install of Leopard on my Macbook. There’s really nothing to indicate that Leopard is to blame, but the problem did not occur until after the re-install on a new hard drive. (The first, original installation of Leopard caused no problems.) The problem occurred in both SoundStudio and Audacity, using any of my three USB microphones. Recordings would suddenly become filled with static and echo, OR would randomly skip and/or garble some input, leaving garbage and blank places in the file.

We tried all the usual fixes — un-installing and re-installing drivers and software. No change. Then we did a completely fresh installation of Leopard, wiping the hard drive completely. No change. (You might think I’m annoyed at losing everything for no reason, but it is rather fun getting my computer set up again, with all my favorite software and settings! Ahhhhh Apple.)

Finally Dan suggested I try his firewire audio interface instead of my USB one (It’s a box that goes between mic and computer). And, 6 test recordings later, I have not had any re-occurrence of the problems! Hallelujia! I finished up Helen’s Babies (still waiting on my proof-listener to give the last three chapters a listen before I catalog it, but it’ll be available very soon), recorded three Blackfeet Indian Stories, and started a new solo, the wonderfully charming Book of Art for Young People!

LibriVox’s full-cast reading of The Scarecrow of Oz is complete and ready for download! As usual, our recording is public domain, free and legal to download and share, of course. Every character is read by a different voice, by readers all around the world, and the narration is done by still more readers. Scott Sherris coordinated this massive project and did all the pasting-together of parts, a huge job. I did a few chapters of narration, and Henry took part as Button-Bright. Hint: Chapter 8 is Button-Bright’s first appearance ;-)

http://librivox.org/scarecrow-of-oz-by-l-frank-baum/

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 14: William’s Christmas Eve

End of the book! Hope you enjoyed it, and Merry Christmas!

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 13: William and the Ancient Souls

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 12: The Reform of William

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 11: William and the Smuggler

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Chapter 10: The Helper

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 9: The Revenge

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 8: The May King

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 7: The Ghost

As of today, October 30, 2007, LibriVox has 1000 free, legal, volunteer-read, downloadable audiobooks.

We’ve been counting down to the thousandth book, having no idea at all what it would be. It turned out to be a recording of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue, read by a relatively new volunteer, Reynard (who is a fine reader with a delicious accent), and cataloged by a brand new admin, kmerline. It was her first cataloging job! Yay Reynard and kmerline!

Download LibriVox’s 1000th book here:
http://librivox.org/the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue-by-edgar-allen-poe/

Way to go, LibriVox volunteers!!! Without each one of you, we wouldn’t have gotten where we are today.

Check our catalog. You’ll find lots more great books to listen to.

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 6: The Rivals

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 5: William’s Hobby

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 4: The Knight at Arms

More William, by Richmal Crompton.
Read by me!
Chapter 3: William’s Burglar