Yes, this is rather old … the original talk was all over the web earlier this year. But, it resonates for me again now as I work on Frankenstein and can hear that it’s not quite what I want it to be. There’s no obvious Thing To Fix, I couldn’t really say why I don’t feel like it hits the mark. But, I have to do it as it is, as I am, in order to improve at all and move a tiny bit closer to wherever it is I’m heading. And there’s no way to wait for that to happen, to put off recording the very best texts, because if I did that, I’d never ever be good enough to do them. A frustrating situation, but true for me.

Also, I don’t know what happens when I do Arrive. There could be a lot of rerecording to get through, while there are a LOT of other unread books out there waiting for me. Guess I’ll just figure that out when I get there. *smiles*

I would advise not clicking through to the final news story about the possible identity of the sculptor, as in my opinion, this is much better left a mystery.

Willow is a under-employed journalist, living a relatively sedate life in the house her hippy parents left her, trying not to strangle her quirky siblings, hanging out with her best friends — and strictly no romance. Willow has a little problem, you see … (or at least you will hear, if you listen to the first chapter below.)

The book is set in York, and you will be relieved to learn that I do not perpetrate any kind of accent tomfoolery upon it, other than my usual southern Estuary lilt, which can’t really be helped. The heroine is entirely modern, so be prepared for strong language. There are some saucy scenes but they’re not hair-straighteningly explicit and didn’t make me blush while recording, so I’m sure you’ll be fine when listening too. It runs to 8hrs 38min. I’m 95% sure I pronounced the word ‘scones’ correctly, but if you hear of my having a terrible exsanguinatory accident — you’ll know I didn’t. And that it was no accident.

You can buy it here at Iambik and enter the code “september-nights” at checkout for 20% off (is $6.99, so that’ll get you it for $5.59USD or £3.55 if you’re a Brit and the exchange rates don’t go crazy between now and time of purchasing.) It will probably be available through Audible eventually, if you’d rather do it there — and if you’re an audiobook reviewer, book blogger, or Iambik ambassador, email Miette for review copies of any Iambik title, including this one.

Listen to the whole of Chapter 1: (16:07) Download audio file (01-reversingoverliberace.mp3)

From a classic discussion of self-interest as applied to shared grazing-land:

Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit — in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
– The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin (1968)

This is quoted at The Cornucopia of the Commons by Dan Bricklin (2000) who further says, in regard to the peer-to-peer music sharing network Napster, but it applies to LibriVox too:

What we see here is that increasing the value of the database by adding more information is a natural by-product of using the tool for your own benefit. No altruistic sharing motives need be present, especially since sharing is the default. [...] In our case, we find the Cornucopia of the Commons: Use brings overflowing abundance.

More information, in our case, is more recordings. A reader benefits by having fun in contributing, and sharing is implicit in the LibriVox model — it’s made effortless (for non-admin readers, at least.) All the work is in activities such as recording, editing and proof-listening. Also, the act of sharing (cataloguing) has been refined over the years to be as easy as possible for admins, though it still remains a non-trivial task.

In a follow-up piece, Dan says:

Instead of making you feel bad for “only” doing 99%, a well designed system makes you feel good for doing 1%. People complain about systems that have lots of “freeloaders”. Systems that do well with lots of “freeloading” and make the best of periodic participation are good.
– Blog post by Dan Bricklin (2005)

In this sense, recording one short poem is as welcome as a full solo of War and Peace, because the most important consideration is the happiness of the contributor. LibriVox, as it is strictly defined, is a community around readers, so I don’t think it’s possible to have freeloaders as such. However, if one equates “freeloader = listener”, the system still benefits from them, in that it can provide a source of fun for some readers to see how many listeners they have (as measured vaguely and unreliably by archive.org, one of many file distribution methods) and also sporadically by feedback via the forums or other contact methods. Many contributors start as listeners, so here, success breeds success: more recordings, more widely distributed, bring in more people wanting to participate.

This is, in my opinion, also part of the reason not to have any sort of direct reviewing system. It’s largely meaningless within the “have fun” framework! By the time a file reaches a listener, the initial fun has already been had, and it’s just an (enormous!) added bonus when subsequent audiences also “have fun”. A Cornucopia indeed.

This is all.

I started this book several months ago, after beginning Frankenstein, and it took some doing to shift my head from 8ft Tall Creature voice to 23-yr Young Shopaholic voice. In fact, the only way to do it was to buy several pairs of shoes, including a perfectly lovely pair of stilettos. This is how I found out I could barely move in such footwear … but standing around in them was entirely feasible, and put me very much more in the mood of the book. Look, here they are. Admire the shiny!

This is a commercial recording so it’ll eventually be available via Overdrive and Audible, but for now, the only way to hear it is to visit iambik.com (6hrs 12min, US$6.99.)

If Bridget Jones with a shoe-fetish sounds like your kind of thing, give it a go. Here’s the first chapter (13:58)
Download audio file (01-aroundtheworldinstilettos.mp3)

Download audio file (shortstory049_07_valleychildishthings_cs.mp3)
(13:48)

In the introduction to another of her short story collections, she wrote:

“To a generation for whom everything which used to nourish the imagination because it had to be won by an effort, and then slowly assimilated, is now served up cooked, seasoned and chopped into little bits, the creative faculty (for reading should be a creative act as well as writing) is rapidly withering, together with the power of sustained attention; and the world which used to be so grande a la charte des lampes is diminishing in inverse ratio to the new means of spanning it; so that the more we add to its surface the smaller it becomes.”

Little pieces, yes, deliberately so, and beautifully-written. Hopefully they’ll be as fun to listen to as they were to read.

Download audio file (moreancientmariner_carman_cs.mp3)
(03:30)

Short Poetry Collection #95 – various authors

Just in case you hadn’t heard of Nash, he was a celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in 18th-century England and is best remembered as the Master of Ceremonies at Bath. According to Wikipedia:

His position was unofficial, but nevertheless he had extensive influence in the city until early 1761. He would meet new arrivals to the city and judge whether they were suitable to join the select “Company’ of 500 to 600 people at the centre of Bath society, match ladies with appropriate dancing partners at each ball, pay the musicians at such events, broker marriages, escort unaccompanied wives and regulate gambling (by restraining compulsive gamblers or warning players against risky games or cardsharks). He was notable for encouraging a new informality in manners, breaking down the rigid barriers which had previously divided the nobility from the middle-class patrons of Bath, and even from the gentry.

Here’s the LibriVox page, including a link to download a single zip file for the whole audiobook: http://librivox.org/the-life-of-richard-nash-esq-by-oliver-goldsmith/ and here’s me, reading the first section (Goldsmith didn’t really do chapters in a useful way):

Download audio file (lifeofrichardnash_01_goldsmith.mp3)
(13:54)

But the problem is, Frankenstein has GOT me. I’ve been thinking about making a free public domain recording of it for more than a year now, and the other day, I thought I’d just try out a sample recording, as a warm-up, you know. Two weeks and nine sections later, I am still largely in denial about this activity. The deadline for $newBook is April and that’s a while away still. And in the meantime, Frankenstein, which is NOT officially being read, I haven’t started a thread for it at LibriVox or anything … is somehow sneaking into files on my computer.

I’m not reading from the 1818 edition, which is rather less flowery than the 1831 “gosh, people like my book, I’d better revise it to make it more suitable for a wider audience” version. I’m not agonising over whether the Preface should be file 00, or considered an integral part of the book and numbered 01. I’m not wondering at all whether I might sound anything like Mary Shelley, and I definitely haven’t looked around online to see if any other women have ever recorded it (couldn’t find any.) I’ve not listened to Simon Vance’s widely available and very excellent version nor subsequently thought about how I myself would have approached those accents and voices.

Really, I’m only trying to fool myself, and I’m not even doing a good job of that. This book has completely gripped me, and I am enjoying recording it hugely. Last time I read the paper version, it was the 1831 one, and that seemed to drag … I’m not even sure I finished it. 1818 is (relatively!) punchy, and different in many ways (according to various comparisons and discussion online) that I approve of. (See also this listing of the 1823 edition’s changes.) A key aspect is the importance of free will in this version, vs. fatalism in the later edition. It’s less conventional — by the standards of the Nineteenth Century, at least. It’s a great book.