kayray.org

I’ve had such a hard time picking a book to record next. I’m still in the middle of the giant kids’ US history book, but I wanted to do some fiction at the same time. I finally decided on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (in English this time), and I’d like to do Through the Looking-Glass as well, and then maybe Tom Sawyer after that. Yes, we already have a few versions of each in the librivox catalog, but none of them are read by me, plus I love all three books and would just really enjoy recording them! :)

So today I got my Alice project set up (well not quite all the way, but it’s in the database anyway) and downloaded a copy of Alice into Stanza on my iPhone. And then I recorded the first three chapters. And just now I sat down to start editing them and got to the part where Alice doesn’t want to drop the empty marmalade jar for fear of killing someone underneath her… except the part about not wanting to kill someone wasn’t in my recording. So I double-checked against the text — had I imagined that part? No, there it was in the version I had been looking at on the web. But it seems that I had put an abridged version on my iPhone! It doesn’t SAY that it’s abridged anywhere, but it clearly is. Sigh. So that’s three chapters wasted. I thought they seemed kinda short…

Now I’ve got the proper unabridged version in Stanza so I’ll start over tomorrow.

19 Bacon’s Rebellion – 00:19:01

Hooray! In only about two weeks we at LibriVox.org achieved our goal and can now shut down our fundraising campaign.
http://librivox.org/2010/03/09/funding-goal-achieved-thank-you/

We raised $23,000 from 433 donors, in 13 days, averaging $1,769 in donations from 33 people every day. We had a couple of big donors, who gave a few thousand dollars each, and many more smaller donations which all add up to: everything we asked for.

A big thank you to everyone who donated!

Our own Adrian Praetzellis was just the subject of a very nice article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100306/LIFESTYLE/100309770/

Way to go, Adrian!

19 The Coming of the Cavaliers – 00:11:30

18 – How Englishmen Fought a Duel with Tyranny 00:07:41

Some of our very artistic volunteers have been creating beautiful album art/cd inserts for our books. Some are so appealing, it makes me want to listen to the books even though I don’t know anything at all about them.

Here are two collections:
http://www.archive.org/details/librivox_cd_covers
http://www.archive.org/details/LibrivoxCdCoverArt

And here is the art for some of my solo books. Clicking an image will take you to the catalog page for the book, where you can get the audio files, the album art, and a printable CD case insert! Aren’t they pretty?

I think KathyrnD made most if not all of these. Thank you, Kathryn!!

17 How the Redmen Fought Against Their White Brothers – 00:10:24

16 How Pocahontas Took a Journey Over the Sea – 00:13:25

15 How the Colony was Saved – 00:24:44

Do you love LibriVox? Have you listened to some of our wonderful free recordings? Since you’re visiting my blog, perhaps you are a fan of The Secret Garden, or Heidi, or The Swiss Family Robinson?

Though we are entirely volunteer-run, we are finally feeling a financial strain — our tremendous success has caused us to require ever more server space and bandwidth for our projects-in-progress. Can you make a small donation to help defray our server costs?

http://librivox.org/2010/02/24/librivox-needs-your-help/

Many thanks!

14 More Adventures of Captain John Smith – 00:21:58

Ok, time for the next book. “This Country of Ours”, by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, is a book of US history for kids, from early exploration and settlement to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

It’s very long, but divided nicely into six or seven parts so I’ve divided my recordings likewise. I posted all of Part 1 back in 2008, but if you missed it you can download Part 1 here and catch up: http://librivox.org/this-country-of-ours-part-1-by-he-marshall/.

And now, on with Part 2: Stories of Virginia, from chapter 13 (Captain John Smith) to chapter 21 (The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe). You can read along and view the original illustrations at mainlesson.com. (You can buy a lovely paperback reprint of the original book there, too!)

13 The Adventures of Captain John Smith – 00:22:44

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 18 – 27:58

Oh, it’s the end of the book. How sad.

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 17 part 2 – 29:05

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 17 part 1 – 13:09

(sorry, had the wrong recording linked here for a while but it’s fixed now)

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 16 part 2 – 20:57

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 16 part 1 – 21:53

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 15 part 2 – 22:03

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 15 part 1 – 20:13