Future readings

Hopefully this page won’t get too ridiculously long, though I am constantly seeing wonderful books that I absolutely must … well … acquire independent means to have enough free time to record.  You know how it is.

Recommendations, votes and suggestions very welcome — though please remember that unless special arrangements are made, I will only record books in the public domain both in the UK and US.  (Usually, both published before 1923, and by an author who died before 1939).  Books listed below in no particular order.

The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance by Lucas Malet (pen name of Mary St Leger Kingsley. I’ve already started recording this one.)

The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton (an auto/biography)

A history of gardening in England by the Hon. Alicia Amerhurst (aka. the also Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil)

The Improvement of the Mind by Isaac Watts

The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon


Things I would dearly love to record if they were out of copyright, or if their rights-holders liked my voice enough to commission an audiobook:

The Hungry Cloud by Tom Ingram – this is an amazing book … its only online presence is a handful of people raving about it!  Count me among them.

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes – I’ve linked a review which says almost everything I’d want to say … except I wouldn’t characterise this as a comedy — it has unexpectedly dark shadows for the time it was written, and although the children in the story may not understand, it’s uncomfortably obvious for many adult readers what the author is hinting at.  Just brilliant.  Lord of the Flies with girls, pirates and subtlety.

The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater – a wonderful adventure story for children. It’s brilliant bedtime reading, dark, but with those with derring-do always win out.  Truly random in places, and I loved it for that and for being a book with girl-heroes.  (Somehow those were thin on the ground when I was younger; though I still love Biggles and the other boy-hero things I read, I’d LOVE to record some adventures for girls that did not take place largely in haberdasheries or ballrooms.)



10 Comments

  • Cori,
    Thank you so much for reading The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris for Librivox. Your presentation was exceptional; so much so, I used the recording to enhance my fantasy literature online class. This was the first time many of my students read/heard a work from a previous time period. Your reading was just right for them. I will continue to look for your work in the future.

    1. Thankyou ever so much, Jamie — it was a great book to read, although I don’t think I’d’ve got through it without the support of my marvellously patient editor, Mandarine: Morris’ archaic-ish language really does bend the tongue.

  • Hi Cori,

    Ever since I listened to the first chapter of The Little Duke by Charlotte M. Yonge, I’ve wished that you would consider recording the whole thing! Would you? Or maybe At the Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald? I dearly love Librivox, and you are a wonderful reader!

  • Yes, if I had a very patient director. 🙂 I don’t have a theatre background, so although I’m generally quick on the uptake, and have some familiarity with outwardly strange read-requests … patience will still be key.

  • Interesting idea, Walter — I read it some time ago, and thought about it for LV as I liked it a lot, but then it was recorded by a group, so I put it on the backburner. Hmm…

  • Just thought I’d send a little bit of fan mail to you and say that I’ve missed not hearing your on “The Mysteries of London” After hearing your presentation of the book I was so captivated by it that I purhased the Novel in hardback please continue doing what you do, your the best out there!!!

  • “Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser is marvelous and you’re the perfect voice for it. It’s the wellspring of all the “Star Is Born” stories, about the poor girl who hooks up with a rich man and goes up, up, up while he goes down, down, down. I’ve read nearly all of Dreiser’s novels and Carrie is by far the best of the bunch. The last two-thirds – a painstakingly detailed account of Carrie’s rise, and Hurstwood’s fall, in 1880s New York – are riveting. (I never looked at Madison Square Park, on Broadway and 23rd Street, in the same way again.)

  • You’re very welcome, Robert! Mysteries of London is SUCH fun … a great sprawling soap opera. Only, it is enormous, and I do need more hours in the day to work on it as well as everything else I do. Will be back on the case soon, hopefully. Enjoy your reading in the meantime — it’s quite the contrast to the “classic literature” we’re more familiar with.

  • After hearing your presentation of The Mysteries of London I was so impressed I purchased the book and would like to say thankyou for your reading and secondly for enabling me to enjoy some 19th centry reading other than Dickens and the Bronte’s Thankyou

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