Back to Graustark, podcasts and blog-meta

So, another volume from the histories of that fictitious country, Graustark, has been released. No strange accents snuck into this one (in a previous volume, an otherwise innocent-looking character came out of my mouth with a deep, gentle Transylvanian lilt, which oddly, wasn’t inappropriate, but was a huge surprise since I hadn’t planned it in… Read more »

“Levelling up” in 1873

I was reading “The Intellectual Life” by P.G. Hamerton the other day, as you do. It’s a book of hypothetical letters to some imaginary friends around the theme of being a proper Victorian intellectual (it was published in 1873.) And in one essay, I was much amused to find an unexpectedly-modern usage of the term… Read more »

More D.H. Lawrence poetry: Malade and One Woman to All Women

I do like D. H. Lawrence’s poetry. It’s mostly well-written, thoughtful stuff, without (too often) being stuffy, pompous or boring. So, last month I recorded a couple for the LibriVox Short Poetry Collection. Malade is a sickbed poem, straightforward and elegant. [audio:http://www.archive.org/download/short_poetry_083_librivox_0911/malade_lawrence_cs.mp3] (1:43min) One Woman to All Women is harder for me to get my… Read more »

Kipling’s Explanation and a Navajo Liturgy

Yes, I have indeed been at the poetry this month … another two pieces of mine have just hit the catalogue. Rudyard Kipling’s The Explanation was last week’s LibriVox Weekly Poetry, and saw quite a good turnout – I’m one of 16 people who recorded it. A simple little poem, it was something quick to… Read more »

New solo complete: Royal Children of English History

I came across this lovely book about a month ago. Shortly after, a partner-in-crime whizzed it through Distributed Proofreaders in most accomplished style, and it was stored at Project Gutenberg. Preserving all its charming illustrations, and quite a bit of the book’s layout, I might add! And then I took a holiday and recorded it,… Read more »

October recordings

This month, I have catalogued a book, some collaborative contributions, and — finally, more pirates! I’ve been working on my solo recording of Anna Sewell’s “Autobiography of a Horse”, Black Beauty, all summer, as its short chapters and positive attitude were a pleasant change from the intense modern non-fiction book I was recording for Audible… Read more »

StarShipSofa story: The End of Oil by Gwyneth Jones

Having done a few round-number celebratory podcasts myself, I’m absolutely chuffed to bits to find myself included in someone else’s. Tony C. Smith’s StarShipSofa is a great podcast, full of short and longer-form science fiction stories and articles. It’s been running a show a week for just over two years, now – this is the… Read more »

Communication in modern culture

Another great video … this one is about the constant undermining of decisive speech by, like, you know, nambypamby fillers. I’d like it more without the audience noise, I confess, but that’s just a picky detail. Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo. Poem by Taylor Mali. Via Tom Elliot (whose website seems to be having… Read more »

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost – dance & music mix

Every now and again I search YouTube to see what people are doing with LibriVox files or saying about the site. And found a really lovely video – this is a dance to a remix of Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice. You can hear my read along with lots of other LibriVoxers (it was… Read more »