My brother turned me on to Podiobooks a few years ago – an excellent solution for a fanatic reader with limited access to English-language books and who walks a lot every day. I’ve lost count of how many Podiobooks I’ve listened to the past few years, some of them really fantastic, some not bad, and at least one that I canceled after a couple of chapters. They mostly have new authors, a lot of male authors (why do males still dominate the science fiction and fantasy genres?!), but Mur Lafferty was a fabulous discovery for me. (Note to Podiobooks: please make the author’s name a link so you can see all the books by that author!)
I admit that I am on the slow-side of taking to new technologies, plus I don’t have much patience for trying to figure things. So if a website doesn’t have a giant “click here and everything happens automatically” button, I’m not often inclined to spend much time there. It’s taken me a while to get into LibriVox, another fabulous book site my brother told me about ages ago. I don’t remember now why I thought the website looked intimidating the first time I visited way back when – maybe they didn’t have the big buttons on the homepage then? Or maybe the catalog overwhelmed me. Who knows. The important thing is that I realize now it’s easy, and I am downloading podcast books to my heart’s content. You can pick a book yourself from the catalog, or you can throw caution to the wind and opt for the Books, Poetry or Short Story Podcasts. All LibriVox books are in the public domain, which means a lot of classics. I’ve listened to Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre, both books that were in my library at home for probably decades but which I never got around to reading.
My brother, ever far far ahead of me in technological know-how and coolness, recently finished his first full recording for LibroVox. He blogs about the process of recording his first solo project, Thuvia, Maid of Mars. He’s got a great voice, and it was fun to listen to my little brother tell me a story this past week.
And did I mention that LibriVox is a volunteer operation? How cool is that?! You can volunteer for LibriVox and help make public domain books available for free on the internet. I haven’t told my brother yet, but I’m hoping he’ll give me a crash course in audio recording next time I’m home. This is the kind of volunteering that (a) I can do from anywhere, (b) I enjoy the benefits of myself, and (c) is so dang cool!
It would be cool to get some Ukrainian and Russian volunteers to contribute to the site as well. Anyone game?
Anka in Kyiv 