About me
Last updated: 29th November 2017
I’m Cori Samuel, living and working in England. I accidentally emigrated to Australia several years ago and gave away the majority of a vast book collection at that time. Once I’d repatriated myself, I found it quite hard to start buying books again, unsure if I’d want to move again, and being well aware of how heavy boxes of books can be.
Instead, I developed a love-hate relationship with my local library system and also started reading books online. This led to a two year stint as a Distributed Proofreader, followed by time at eBookForge. Across both sites, I proofread (in one way or another) more than 17,000 pages of public domain texts, most of which are now available at Project Gutenberg. I did the final assembly of about 38 ebooks, and developed a special passion for mentoring other folks starting out with this process, helping another 74 books through the final checks. In summary, I am the kind of person who italicises full-stops where appropriate and thinks that it’s actually important.
I’ve not proofread for some years now, and this is mainly because of a serious addiction to my microphone — the majority of this website relates to my LibriVox activity. The acoustical liberation of books into the public domain is so very cool, and such huge fun, that it’s quite taken over my time. I do all my own recording, editing, sound processing, etc., except in some rare, but very fun cases, so I have tended in the past to contribute mainly single-chapters and short readings to collaborative works. However, in 2008, I took the plunge and since then have also been working on my own solo projects too; both for LibriVox, and for some external publishers, including Audible. I’m also an admin at LibriVox, helping to run projects, producing community podcasts and supporting new folks as they get going with recording.
More recently, I’ve also been recording books which are NOT in the public domain in the US, but are fine for people in ‘Life+70’ countries (all Europe, many others.) Check out the Legamus! catalog for more info. See my listing page for the books I’ve read or contributed to; it also links to my LibriVox catalogue page which lists both completed works and all the current projects I’ve signed up to.
I welcome feedback, requests and any voice-related queries … you can leave a message here, contact me via the LibriVox forums, or
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The Scarlet Letter (LibriVox) is my first introduction to your work. You are fabulous. The Pearl/Hester passages, in your voice, are wry and mischievous. Thank you for applying your sensibility to this period piece. I look forward to hearing other books read aloud by you. best wishes, Tracy
Hi Cori! I just finished reading Conrad’s The Secret Agent for the second time and I want to tell you again that you do such an incredible job with that title. I feel you read Conrad the way he meant his book to be read. Wonderful job, Cori. Thank you for your excellent work!
Enjoyed the audiobooks a lot.
Thank you .
Love your voice, it helps me to fall asleep many a night, in all different universes of story. Thank you for having a passion for what you.
Thank you so much for your reading of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”. Your voice filled it with a feminine kind of melodious gentleness and an intelligent precision that suited it perfectly, to the point that I often re-listen again and again to bits of your recording in the car or on a walk, just to be calmed by that something in your voice which is both refreshing and calming. Thanks for sharing this gift of your reading.
Hi Cori,
I just wanted to say that you have an amazing and beautiful voice. I’ve been listening to Dante’s Inferno on LIbrivox, and am glad I found this site as well. Cheers
Just listened to your rendition of War of the Worlds. It was a fabulous narration, enjoyed every moment of it. I wanted to thank you for the all the work an effort you put.
Best,
William
a voice to fall in love with. Thanks for reading us, among many others, Virginia Woolf and Sherwood Anderson. Greetings from Hanoi 🙂
I have listened to a couple hundred books on LibriVox…totally not joking ; ) You are by far, one of the best narrators! Thank you for giving your wonderful gift of narration to this forum and choosing such wonderful books.
I just listened to your reading of “The Moving Picture Girls” and LOVED IT! The story touched me so deeply because I have been a television producer for over twenty years, and was once the studio head of one of the biggest independent film companies in Los Angeles. This book brought back so many memories, and I want to hear the other books in this series. Can you please read them?
Titles in the Moving Picture Girls Series:
1. The Moving Picture Girls, 1914
2. The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm, 1914
3. The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound, 1914
4. The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms, 1914
5. The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch, 1914
6. The Moving Picture Girls at Sea, 1915
7. The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays, 1916
On another note, I am going to send you an email to introduce myself to you and make an inquiry.
Your angelic voice suits the protagonist of Mary Shelley’s Mathilda so, so much. My life is better now after listening to it. Thanks a lot for recording it.
After listening to you read Scarlet Letter, I could listen to you say “if”… Forever.
If there is anything I can do to help get you to read a full recording of Dante’s The Divine Comedy please let me know.
I also found your reading of the first chapters of the Divine Comedy mind blowing. Indeed, as already some other people suggested here, to hear more of it read by you, would be delighting, or, possibly enlightening…
Hi Cori,
I’ve enjoyed you Librivox work for some time. I have a new children’s book coming out soon and would like to discuss you doing the reading for an audiobook version.
Bil
I’ve dropped you an email, Bil 🙂
Hi Cori,
I just finished the Return of Sherlock Holmes and I just loved your work. Perhaps I’ll find out soon enough as I am planning to listen to more of your work, but do you do different voices?
Please keep up the work.
Cheers,
Thank you, your reading of Frankenstein the 1818 text by Mary Shelley is proving to be a godsend…I have a comparative essay due in a week and it has helped better interpret the reading.
Thanks a bunch from a Brit Lit student/fan in Finland…
Cori, your reading of Paradise Lost was so pleasant that it ruined the rest of the book from other readers. Except for that gentleman who used a voice synthesizer for Satan and his crew, did you listen to that? Lol well I hope I come across more of your work, I think that you would be good for the Aeneid, or a collection of poems by the Bronte’s.
Dear Cori,
It took a lot of searching to unearth a bit about yourself. I am curious. I went to a memorable school called Arts Educational Trust in Tring, we had a Drama teacher called Mrs Ayers. I hear your perfect elocution and wonder where you trained? Are you a Tringite?
I am so happy to have (recently) discovered Audio Books and feel so connected to stories you can listen to, read with such comprehension and perfection.
Thank you.
Anne.
Hello Anne,
No to Tring — the accent is from southern parents and teenage years in Surrey. Training-wise, I did a LAMDA exam several years ago (the levels seem to have changed since then, but this sort of syllabus, anyway.)
I’m so glad you’re enjoying listening. I’m listening to more myself too, for the first 4-5 years, I didn’t listen to other readers at all, and it was sporadic until relatively recently. I’ve been missing out, though!
Dear Cori Just to say I find it hard work listening to audio books but I am listening to Black Beauty and was enchanted by your voice. Its a gift you have and I intend to find all your work. By the way you have same name as my daughter but she is Corrie named after Corrie ten Boom. Are you on FB ?
Hi Peter, Black Beauty was one of my earliest books, and still a huge favourite. Such an amazing story! Corrie ten Boom was a wonderful woman, that’s a strong name to have given your daughter. No, I’m not on Facebook, it’s never really appealed. 🙂
Currently about 1/2 way through your recording of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Thank you for the lovely reading of this remarkable book!
Dear Cori Samuel,
Your voice is wonderful. I really enjoy listening to you. Thanks for your beautiful voice. I wished you had some recordings in which you speak more slowly. because I’m not so perfect in English and it is a little difficult to me to follow you all the time. So, please, think about English Students in your next recordings. I’m sure they will really enjoy listening to you.
Thanks again,
Regards.
Cori,
I listened to your reading of Morris’s “Wood Beyond the World” and was utterly disarmed and left helpless by the beauty and loveliness you are able to command with your voice. I was enthralled from the first by your mastery of the material and I just wanted to thank you again again for your work.
Greetings from Mexico.
Thank your for your beautiful voice. How I wish you would have read all of Dantes Inferno. This breath-taking work deserves your poetic voice.
I listened to your libravox recording of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and was captivated to the very end. You have given me and everyone else who has the pleasure of hearing you’re narration a remarkable gift. Thank you.
Hi Cori 🙂
I stumbled across you during the my first step of ‘relaxed reading’ Dantes Divine. After a couple of enquiring clicks, I instantly recognized experience that I am hope to develop further.
I am making a web site (hope to have it running by Xmas 13′ – Widephilosophy.com), writing a book and have also been recording the little moments that few ‘see’ or have time for.
e.g. time lapse of clouds, edits of water moving, astronomical, plants, ‘non commercial’ animals 🙂 etc. etc., pretty much anything not man made, yes and funny sounds that I change on audacity sometimes (the ‘air fan’ sound I made once with a tweak of tone had an unexpected effect when wearing earphones – it made your ears keep popping even on low volume lol) there’s more than is generally thought about hehe.
I love my clay models and TL animation. The book is not easy to explain, nor the series of utube clips that will follow. In short highly ‘nutritious’ ‘food’ for the ‘health’ of all with a line of ‘pure’ woven throughout. Of course trying to impart such a large piece of mind in this ‘reply’ is all but impossible.
CONGRATULATIONS on your elevated accomplishments btw.
Your tones of action rang/ring true so much I had to mention 🙂
I will take a very rough guess and ask are you a good mentor (silly but humble question)?
Perhaps one day my book might be read by you? 🙂
Please could you contact me.
Would be most pleased to give further details 🙂
Yours Dave
Thanks to the New York Times reviewing a new edition of Charles Kingsley’s “The Water-Babies”, I made a trip over to LibriVox to see if they had a version. Not to put down the many generous and talented volunteers there, but after about two minutes of your rendition I had to pause and see what other work you had done! Absolutely superb. You have marvelous “pipes”, but a very natural sense of timing, pace and intonation. Bravo!
Regarding the Kingsley, if I understand it correctly, the earlier versions printed in the US cut out some of the material that isn’t quite so flattering to those of us on this side of the pond? Did you use a particular ebook (or printed) version? Google books has an interesting early (US) illustrated version, but I fear it might be a “cut” one. Amazon Kindle has a free version as well, but perhaps this University of Adelaide version is best? (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kingsley/charles/k55w/)
May I ask what microphone you use?
Best wishes,
Neal K.