Audio Podcast Directory - Podcasts with only audio episodes
Librivox: May Day by Teasdale, SaraJoin Now to Follow
To celebrate May Day , LibriVox volunteers bring you six different recordings of May Day , by Sara Teasdale. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 30th, 2006. (Summary by Annie Coleman)
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Librivox: China and the Chinese by Giles, Herbert AllenJoin Now to Follow
Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935) spent several years as a diplomat in China and in 1897 was appointed Cambridge University’s second professor of Chinese. His published works cover Chinese language and literature, history and philosophy. This series of lectures, published as “China and the Chinese”, was given at Columbia University in 1902, to mark the establishment of a Chinese professorship there. The lectures were not intended for the specialist, more to urge a wider and more systematic study of China and its culture, and to encourage new students into the field. While many of the observations are just as relevant today, others will remind us how much China has changed since the period of the Manchu Qing dynasty in which he wrote.(summary by David Barnes)
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Librivox: War of the Worlds, The by Wells, H. G.Join Now to Follow
H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds in 1898, when there was much speculation about life on the planet Mars. The book is considered to be one of the first science fiction novels. In the story, an English gentleman narrates the events of a violent and fast paced Martian invasion. The frightening images of people fleeing from gigantic tripod machines and the prospect of life under Martian rule have served as a bottomless well of inspiration for popular culture. The novel has served as a template for many derivative or inspired works, including comics, countless books, a tv series, several films, a bestselling musical, and the famous Orson Wells broadcast. Overall, The War of the Worlds has become an early milestone in and inspiration for the invasion genre. The novel demonstrates Wells' typical pessimistic outlook on human nature and offers a good deal of critisism on society and people's ignorance and vanity. The War of the Worlds can be read as an indictment of European colonial actions around the globe at that time - with which the injustice of the Martian invasion can be compared. Wells has since been credited with predicting quite a number of technologies, such as laser-like rays, industrial robot-like machines, and chemical-warfare. (Summary by Stephan Möbius and Annie Coleman)
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Librivox: Ragged Dick by Alger, Horatio, Jr.Join Now to Follow
Horatio Alger, Jr. was well known for his best-selling series of books highlighting “the American Dream” of poor boys making good and becoming rich and successful through “luck and pluck”. Ragged Dick was the first in this niche, and follows the adventures of Dick Hunter, a ragged bootblack as he makes the decision to “grow up ’spectable”, and how he goes about achieving his goals through the help of his friends, his inherent honesty, and his belief in hard work and study. (Summary by Alice)
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Librivox: Amendments to the United States Constitution (version 2) by United States, Founding Fathers of theJoin Now to Follow
The Constitution has a total of 27 amendments. The first ten, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified simultaneously. The following seventeen were ratified separately. (Summary from wikipedia.org)
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Librivox: From October to Brest-Litovsk by Trotsky, LeonJoin Now to Follow
This account by Trotsky is of the events in Russia from the October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, to his signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany on 3rd March 1918 which took Russia out of the First World War. The treaty exacted heavy losses for Russia in terms of annexations of land and financial indemnities to Germany. In this extended essay, Trotsky argues the reasons as to why he decided to sign what appears to be a disastrous agreement for Russia. (Summary by Rebecca)
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Librivox: Prince, The by Machiavelli, NiccoloJoin Now to Follow
ll Principe (The Prince) is a political treatise by the Florentine writer Niccolò Machiavelli, originally called “De Principatibus” (About Principalities). It was written around 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli’s death. The treatise is not actually representative of his published work during his lifetime, but it is certainly the best remembered one. (Summary from Wikipedia.org)
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Librivox: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The by Twain, MarkJoin Now to Follow
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain is one of the truly great American novels, beloved by children, adults, and literary critics alike. The book tells the story of “Huck” Finn (first introduced as Tom Sawyer’s sidekick in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ), his friend Jim, and their journey down the Mississippi River on a raft. Both are on the run, Huck from his drunk and abusive father, and Jim as a runaway slave. As Huck and Jim drift down the river, they meet many colorful characters and have many great adventures. The true heart of the story, however, is the friendship between Huck and Jim. A constant theme throughout the book is Huck’s internal struggle between what he has been taught, that helping a runaway slave is a sin, and what he truly believes, that Jim is a good man and it couldn’t possibly be wrong to help him. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was unique at the time of its publication (1884) because it is narrated by Huck himself and is written in the numerous dialects common in the area and time in which the book is set. Although the book was originally intended as a sequel to the children’s book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , as Twain wrote Adventures of Huckleberry Finn it progressed into a more serious work. Twain’s views on slavery and other social issues of the time become clear through the words, thoughts, and actions of Huck Finn. The book has always been the subject of great controversy, and according to The American Library Association it was fifth on the list of most frequently challenged books in the 1990s. (Summary by Annie Coleman)
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Librivox: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The by Stevenson, Robert LouisJoin Now to Follow
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886. London lawyer Utterson is driven to investigate Edward Hyde, the unlikely protégé of his friend Dr Henry Jekyll, suspecting the relationship to be founded on blackmail. The truth is worse than he could have imagined. Jekyll’s ‘full statement of the case’, the final chapter of the book, explores the idea of dual personality that led him to his experiments, and his inexorable and finally fatal descent into evil. (Summary by David Barnes)
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Librivox: Short Poetry Collection 010 by VariousJoin Now to Follow
Librivox’s Short Poetry Collection 010: a collection of 20 public-domain poems.
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