I got frustrated by the disorganized pile of audiobooks on my “Kayray Reads to You” page so I started making sub-pages by author. I’m not finished yet, but here’s a start:
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There are a few books that don’t have their own page yet but I’ll get them done soon. I also plan to make a podcast feed for each author so that the books are even easier to download into your smart phone.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbour that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!†cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!â€
Youtube closed down my main account a few months ago. (I was bad; I shared The Great British Bake-Off — but still, they could have given me some warning…) I thought that these two storytime videos were lost, but my nephew pointed out that there were copies on https://archive.org/details/KayrayReadsToYou! (I’ve recorded so much stuff, I can’t keep track of it all, hahahah) So here they are, on my new youtube account. Quick, watch them before youtube gets mad at me again! :)
A kind listener just emailed to ask if I was planning to record RotK book 2 and I had a panicky moment — did I never finish LotR? Did I only imagine that I had finished? I’m pretty sure I finished the entire trilogy; I have no clear memories of recording that book, but that’s par for the course…
So I did a search of my own audiobook archive, and there were the files. *Whew*. Checked my various collections on archive.org and found that I had indeed uploaded the files when I finished the book. *Whew* again. Looks like I just forgot to post the links on http://kayray.org/kayray-reads/. The links are now there.:) Thanks, Arnold R.!
Edit: oops, the links were bad. I’ve fixed ’em. :)
I think this one took me about a year. The last time I posted a new “Kayray Reads to You” recording was September 2015. Oof. It’s been a hard year.
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill: the third book in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. The series is based on the author’s life; her family and friends have been renamed, but they really were just like the the people in the books! In this book, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib all turn ten years old, and they’re obsessed with Kings and Queens.
Ok guys, I’ll probably be feeling well enough to do some recording soon, knock on wood. I’m still working on Betsy-Tacy for “Kayray Reads to You” but I need to choose a new solo for LibriVox.
I want to do a kids’ book. It must be in the Public Domain (published before 1923), beautifully written, and one I haven’t done yet — see http://kayray.org/my-recordings/.
I’m thinking of A Wind in the Willows, but I haven’t quite decided. Any suggestions? No matter what I choose now, I’ll be glad to have a list for the future!
Librivox’s 11th anniversary is today, August 10th 2016! We had a 6-week drive to finish nearly 200 books in order to reach 10,000 books by our anniversary, and we not only reached that goal easily but we surpassed it by 22 books. We now have 10,022 free audiobooks in our catalog!
Everyone pitched in — book coordinators chased down languishing chapter claims, narrators helped out with books that were lingering unfinished, proof-listeners took on extra work, admins cataloged the finished books, our cover team made cover art for all these extra books, and many soloists put in an extra effort to finish up those solos that were close to completion.
That’s what I did. I wasn’t planning to finish Dracula till December, but I really pushed myself in those few hours when I felt ok (and the house was relatively quiet) and got it done in time to be part of the 10,000! My proof-listener, Mark, managed to get all those long chapters proofed when he wasn’t playing with his grandkids, and Ann cataloged it swiftly.
Betsy-Tacy and Tib: the second book in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. The series is based on the author’s life; her family and friends have been renamed, but they really were just like the the people in the books! In this book, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, who are now eight years old, play just as well together as Betsy and Tacy did, and they never quarrel. They get into a little more trouble in this book, though!
I’m going to post the whole book here all at once; the chapters will be in my podcast feed three times a week, as usual, but I don’t feel like scheduling individual posts here to match.
My next LibriVox solo will be Treasure Island, yay! Pirates and parrots and adventure! I’ve got the first four chapters done already. It won’t take eight years this time ;-) Although my beloved but elderly laptop (mid-2011 Macbook Air) is having Serious Issues and it’s going into the shop on Wednesday so I won’t be able to get any recording done for a while. Boo.
Mood: up, down, up, down. Saturday was horrific. Sunday was ok; today was pretty good. Reading lots of Marian Keyes’s Walsh Family novels. Playing Capitals on iPhone. Listening to podcasts. Discovered a band called The Decemberists and I think I might be developing an unhealthy obsession for their song “The Infanta”.
The lyrics tell a story which is incredibly vivid in my mind. A vast slow-moving procession of nobles on elephants and camels. It’s hot, there are bright flags and sidelong glances, trumpet fanfares, cannon salutes, intrigue.
Meanwhile the little princess, the unwitting cause of all the commotion, is dreaming of a peaceful quiet lake.
Here she comes in her palanquin
On the back of an elephant
On a bed made of linen and sequins and silk
All astride on her father’s line
With the king and his concubines
And her nurse with her pitchers of liquors and milk
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
Among five score pachyderm
Each canopied and passengered
Sit the duke and the duchess’ luscious young girls
Within sight of the baronness
Seething spite for this live largesse
By her side sits the baron
Her barrenness barbs her
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
A phalanx on camelback
Thirty ranks on a forward tack
Followed close, their shiny bright standards a-waving
While behind in their coach, in fours
Ride the wives of the king of Moors
And the veiled young virgin, the prince’s betrothed
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
And as she sits upon her place
Her innocence laid on her face
From all atop the parapets blow a multitude of coronets
Melodies rhapsodical and fair
And all our hearts afire
The sky ablaze with cannon fire
We all raise our voices to the air
To the air…
And above all this falderal
On a bed made of chaparral
She is laid, a coronal placed on her brow
And the babe, all in slumber dreams
Of a place filled with quiet streams
And the lake where her cradle was pulled from the water
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
And we’ll all come praise the infanta
I even forgive them their mispronunciation of “infanta”.
If you’re obsessed with Mad Men, you’ll recognize the song from the opening montage in “Maidenform”, s02e06. Which is of course how I discovered it in the first place.
Thank you all so much for the kindhearted comments and emails. It means a lot.
I’m feeling a better now. I mean, my situation is still exactly the same but I’m managing to think about other things and the terrible terrible depression has lifted again and I am ok for now.
I’ve been working on a LibriVox recording of a US History book for kids — This Country of Ours. It has 99 chapters and is divided into 7 parts. I started recording it in 2007 and got the first 6 parts done within three years, but I started the 7th part in 2013 and it’s just been sitting there unfinished for ages.
LibriVox is doing a finish-up-lingering-projects drive in June, so I decided to get it done. Right now I have only 8 chapters remaining, so the end is in sight!
In non-audiobook news, my cousin Chloe and I saw the new Pixar movie, “Inside Out” yesterday and it was so good! Chloe is one of my favorite people in the whole world and I love to spend time with her, plus the movie was excellent — beautiful and funny and sad and lovely. So that was really fun.
Betsy-Tacy: the first book in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. The series is based on the author’s life; her family and friends have been renamed, but they really were just like the the people in the books! The first book starts in 1897, when Betsy and Tacy meet, just before Betsy’s fifth birthday. (The series grows with the characters, so please don’t be put off by the relative simplicity of this first book.) You can find out more at the Betsy-Tacy Society: http://www.betsy-tacysociety.org/betsy-tacybooks
I’m going to post the whole book here all at once; the chapters will be in my podcast feed three times a week, as usual, but I don’t feel like scheduling individual posts here to match.
