Audiobooks — kayray.org

Elli and I are thinking about recording “Alice’s Abentuer im Wunderland” as a duet for Librivox. (That’s Alice in Wonderland, translated into German. Elli happens to be German, and she says she likes my recording of Der Struwwelpeter!)

Before I officially commit to reading half the book (we’ll each do every other chapter), I recorded just the first chapter and sent it to Elli for approval. I think most of the time I did a pretty good job. I know I mispronounced a few words (maybe more than a few) but Elli will tell me what’s bad enough to need fixing, or if the whole thing is a trainwreck :)

I had a lot of fun recording the chapter, even though it was a ton of work. The unedited file was 35 minutes long, but the finished file is only 17, heheh. I had to read a lot of sentences three or four times to get them right! But I know the story well enough that I could almost always understand what was going on.

rabbit

(What good are blog posts without pictures and conversations?)

(Here’s a link to the recording: http://drop.io/alicech1#)

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The Story of Mankind, Ch 40

October 14th, 2009 — 9:17am

The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik van Loon, read by Kara and Michelle.

40 The Age of Expression – 9:04

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The Story of Mankind, Ch. 39

October 12th, 2009 — 10:15am

The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik van Loon, read by Kara and Michelle.

39 The Renaissance – 27:27

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The Story of Mankind, Chapter 38

October 9th, 2009 — 12:03pm

The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik van Loon, read by Kara and Michelle.

38 Mediaeval Trade – 12:02

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A Postcard from the Volcano

October 7th, 2009 — 6:02pm

A couple of months ago a representative from Ignatius Press posted on the LibriVox forum, asking if there were any readers who’d like to audition to narrate books for them. So I read their little audition piece and in late August they hired me to narrate “A Postcard from the Volcano”, by Lucy Beckett. It was a fantastic book! I enjoyed every minute of the story, even when I felt a little bit stressed about doing a good enough job (and pronouncing all the Polish place-names correctly) and getting done on time (they had a very short deadline for this one). You can get the audiobook here:

http://www.ignatius.com: A Postcard from the Volcano

Beginning in 1914 and ending on the eve of World War II, this epic story follows the coming of age and early manhood of the Prussian aristocrat, Max von Hofmannswaldau. From the idyllic surroundings of his ancestral home to the streets of cosmopolitan Breslau menaced by the Nazi SS, Hofmannswaldau uncovers the truth about his own identity and confronts the modern ideologies that threaten the annihilation of millions of people.

It’s a well-written book and an extraordinarily moving story. There are a few places where the characters discuss philosophy at great length and it gets a little bit slow, but on the whole it’s a wonderful book. The story takes place in Germany so there’s a ton of German, of course, and some Latin, but I studied both languages in college so I feel relatively comfortable with them. A LibriVox friend helped me with the one French phrase I encountered.

I hope you will read this book and tell me what you think of it. If you’re not into audiobooks, you can buy a paperback or an e-text instead. It’s on Amazon as well, and they offer a Kindle version. My audiobook version will be on Amazon eventually.

edit: (Oct 8, 2009) Forgot to mention that music (especially my all-time favorite composer, Bach) is a very important part of the story.

Now I’m narrating another book for Ignatius, a history of the Templars, which is interesting too. I’m so delighted that I can earn a bit of extra money doing something I really enjoy!

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