Earlier this week (and quite earlier than expected but just perfectly in time for the big November LibriVox clean up) Kara and I finished our duet of “Alice’s Abenteuer im Wunderland” by Lewis Carroll.  (That’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland only in German!) The translation is awesome and it was so much fun to read.

Now we are trying to find another German children’s book to read. But this is amazingly tricky… especially since even the translation has to be published before 1923 (and the author should be dead 70 years!) So suggestions would be very welcome!!!

Listen and meet the mock turtle, the white rabbit, the Cheshire cat (my very fav.)…! It’s fun! Soooooo here it is:

Alice’s Abenteuer im Wunderland

As I’ve mentioned before LibriVox is doing a huge clean up in November! So far 120 *loud cheering* projects have been cataloged! That makes it the best month ever in the whole LV history (and will be really hard to beat next time )! Anyway… YAY us!!!

Among those are Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang and Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott! I’ve prooflistened both of them… so I’m the one to blame if there are still repeats, sneezes and so on!

Listen! Both of them are awesome fun books!

I have been making little films for almost a year now and I have come to the conclusion that  the parts that take a lot of time are excruciatingly boring and stupid.

I want the content to play at a really high quality using a freely available open source standard codec  but so far nothing really seems to work.   So i guess that just means each iteration of a film is essentially a new print as the codec used to compress the file can have a huge impact on the final product(There isn’t much talk about lossless video) and the available codec make HUGE files.

Actually I hear there are actually people out there that use pirated versions of popular media manipulation software which are easily attained THey essentially function as a further avenue of marketing , a way to get a large enough user base so your software can actually become a vital part of a working environment. An environment will include many companies that do buy the software.  But seriously Sony Vegas has a really nice multiple format drag and drop video audio mixing interface that is really easy.

I made two films which include some crudely rendered canon 7d footage the last one was 1.1 gigs yet it failed to upload to You Tube(2 gig,ten minute limit) I’ve tried 4 times so far..oh well.

In conclusion here is the first of aforementioned film followed by some notes

You may wonder how this related to the material but given the constraints of time I have decided to construct a longer more ruminated on piece of “film” and therefore certain aspects may only become concrete after a few episodes.
You may also question the style of the video and my only comment there is that time is what is needed.  Time and huge embracing screens or isolation tanks filled with salt and wired for video.

Words

“Some have asked if I did not feel lonesome”
“If there were anyone else”

Henry David Thoreau Walden
From the Librivox recording

“Leading A modest life in an Idyllic fake… ….staged to keep him satisfied.”

Text by As read by a computer(apparently).
It refers to the Phillip K. Dick Novel “Time Out Of Joint”
Which was a really neat book about this dude who does crosswords or some other mindless thing unawares that he is also somehow determining the launching trajectory of these missiles that are being fired at the moon.

“Classically in philosophy there was a distinction drawn between
Being with a capital B,
Which a philosophical way of writing the word God or Fundamental Entity
Being Big B.
and
being/entity
one among which is dasein
Heidegger, However,and I don’t want to mislead you because many readers have been mislead
Heidegger
is no humanist.”

Rick Roderick From his lecture series Titled””Self under Siege” lecture series”(I’ll note where it is next time i hear it)

Man-”It’s beautiful here
I can see the whole valley”

Woman-”yes and there’s our cottage down there
it’s time to go back isn’t it

Man-”Yes.

“but we’re not going to”   ” there is nothing there for us”.
“ah the town’s empty no ones going back”
“there’s no reason to…none at all…?

“Such odd
such ridiculous houses”

Woman- “such ugly people I’m glad their gone”

Man- “Gone?

Where did they go?”

Woman-”I don’t know?

Man-”We’ll go back to town maybe next year,
or the year after that”

Woman-
Or, maybe the year after that

Man- Maybe?

c’mon

let’s take a swim”

Ray Bradbury

From a later 20th century Production

of one of his short stories

that was on NPR(Yuck)

Facsimile of page one of "Objects," from the edition of 1914.

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.

A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.

This prose poem—if that is what we are to call it—opens Gertrude Stein’s 1914 volume Tender Buttons, and also the section therein called “Objects,” the second and third sections being titled “Food” and “Rooms.” These categories, together with the vocabulary of much of the first section of the book, the items of which bear titles including such words as: carafe, cushions, and coffee; umbrellas, stamps, and seltzer water; hats, coats, and dresses; a piano; chairs and tables; purses, shawls and petticoats; cups, saucers, and plates; jargon associated with cleaning, washing, and polishing;—as I say, these “categories” (objects, food, rooms) and the vocabulary used to refer to them all suggest a “domestic,” and feminine, context. They locate us there, and in that gender, even as they mix us up. The language is eccentric to the point of forming an idiolect. It is at once utterly familiar—most all of the entries in “Objects” may be read quite fluently, as they are by Cori Samuel, whose whose voice knows what to do with them—and also de-familiarizing. De-familiarizing in the way meaning works within and against grammar chiefly, but in other ways as well. Stein writes in an idiom, and in tones of voice, at once publicly available, even cordial, and yet she remains inscrutably private in what one of the entries in “Objects” calls a “perfectly unprecedented arrangement between old ladies.” These ladies let us in, but not really in. Some readers considered the book a kind of hoax when it first appeared. But no one reads it that way any longer so far as I can tell. I think I am correct in calling it the book by Stein most favored by non-specialists, and even by many specialists. Tender Buttons charms us.

Detail, cover of the first edition.

First, we have to deal with the title: Tender Buttons. From the 16th down through the mid 19th century, reports the O.E.D., the word “button” could mean “a bud; also used of various other parts of plants of a similar shape, as the protuberant receptacle of the rose; the small round flower-head of some Compositæ; a small sort of fig; a small round seed-vessel,” as in the following instances, cited by the O.E.D.: “1578: Alongst the braunches [of wormwood] groweth little yellow buttons.” And: “1872: The simple flowerets open their infant buttons.” The O.E.D. tells us also that the word was used, chiefly in the 16th and 17th centuries, “as the popular name of many different plants having button-like flowers.” Doubtless Stein knew these meanings. Neil Schmitz, a fine reader of the book, suggests a sort of pun in the title, making of it a gentle imperative, offered in what he rightly calls a spirit of “gaiety”: “Tend her buttons.” Where “button” means “bud,” and where “bud,” of course, suggests an element of the (female) genitalia. A “button” is also a thing one presses, in contexts more or less mechanical, but here in contexts tender, perhaps in a bodily way. “Tender” also means both “to give” and “sensitive,” is both verb and adjective.

Stein, photograph by Carl van Vechten

In short, no inconsiderable wordplay—no inconsiderable play—begins even before one opens the book and reads the item reprinted above: “A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.” Which now we shall do. First, to indicate how easily the thing can be read aloud, I make bold to re-punctuate it: “A carafe—that is [to say], a blind glass. A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange—a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing: all this—and [yet it is] not ordinary, not unordered in [its] not resembling [anything]. The difference is spreading.” A carafe is, of course, a type of “glass,” and, moreover, not the sort of glass that either sees—no glass does, except, perhaps, a “looking glass”—or that is used to see with. So there is really nothing nonsensical in calling our carafe “blind,” even if what it contains—a good Bordeaux, say—may open our eyes, convivially. And the “that is” of the title, if we take it as appositive in function, as I do above, introduces the idea of likening things, of equating things, of restating things in other terms. Which notion eases us into the first phrase: “A kind in glass and a cousin.” “Kind” is a noun here, related to the word “kin,” which latter meaning the subsequent word “cousin” further awakens. And yet the not at all “strange” “spectacle” next spoken of brings the word “glass” back into its “optical” orbits, let’s say: spectacles are either things looked at, or looked through. You might suppose “spectacles” in the former sense to be “strange,” or at least often strange. So “nothing strange” sorts rather oddly with the later assertion that “all this,” whatever “this” may be, is “not ordinary”—is, then, extraordinary. Like Tender Buttons.

Title page, edition of 1914.

But what of that “hurt color”? I know of people whom colors can “hurt,” but it is a very “tender” and sympathetic sensibility indeed that can feel the pain of a “color,” all the more so for the color’s “singularity.” Whatever is at issue here, Stein speaks as though she is exacting about it. (Who knows? Perhaps the proper context for the phrase “a single hurt color” is the painterly one Stein inhabited, with Picasso and all the rest: they could probably tell us when  and where someone “hurts” a color, or even abuses it.) And isn’t that the main thing in this book, as I hinted above, to intimate at once both precision and vagary, exactitude and vagueness, familiarity and alienation, the domestic and the strange? Anyway, Stein speaks of a single hurt color, and of “an arrangement in a system to pointing.” Arrangements and systems are close “kin,” of course, alike in “kind”: cohabiting cousins. And “systems” and “arrangements” do tend to “point,” don’t they? In any case, they are indexes of something “not unordered.” That much we can say for sure. And yet, and yet—this “not unordered” “arrangement” is “not unordered in [its] not resembling.” Which is to say what? That the “non-resemblance” of carafes, glass(es), spectacles, “single hurt colors”—that all of these have been ordered here so as to “resemble” nothing—cousin-ship, mirroring, and “kinds” notwithstanding? Well, so it is: “The difference is spreading.”

N.B.: As I pointed out above, Cori Samuel has done a fine recording of Tender Buttons for Librivox, which is available both above, where first I mention Ms. Samuel, and here. For the complete text of the book at Project Gutenberg, click here. And for the pages devoted to Stein at the Modern American Poetry site, click here. For a down-loadable facsimile of the first edition of of Tender Buttons (1914), click here.

Yesterday the very first project I BCed got cataloged. It’s “Aunt Jane’s nieces” by Frank L. Baum. The book is about an rich, difficult, elderly woman, who had no children of her own. So she askes her three teenage nieces to pay her a visit, in order to decided who shall inherit her estate. Louise, Elizabeth and Patsy, who are all completely different from each other, come and a lot of funny

Here is the first paragraph:

Professor De Graf was sorting the mail at the breakfast table.

“Here’s a letter for you, Beth,” said he, and tossed it across the cloth to where his daughter sat.

The girl raised her eyebrows, expressing surprise. It was something unusual for her to receive a letter. She picked up the square envelope between a finger and thumb and carefully read the inscription, “Miss Elizabeth De Graf, Cloverton, Ohio.” Turning the envelope she found on the reverse flap a curious armorial emblem, with the word “Elmhurst.”

Then she glanced at her father, her eyes big and somewhat startled in expression. The Professor was deeply engrossed in a letter from Benjamin Lowenstein which declared that a certain note must be paid at maturity. His weak, watery blue eyes stared rather blankly from behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. His flat nostrils extended and compressed like those of a frightened horse; and the indecisive mouth was tremulous. At the best the Professor was not an imposing personage. He wore a dressing-gown of soiled quilted silk and linen not too immaculate; but his little sandy moustache and the goatee that decorated his receding chin were both carefully waxed into sharp points—an indication that he possessed at least one vanity. Three days in the week he taught vocal and instrumental music to the ambitious young ladies of Cloverton. The other three days he rode to Pelham’s Grove, ten miles away, and taught music to all who wished to acquire that desirable accomplishment. But the towns were small and the fees not large, so that Professor De Graf had much difficulty in securing an income sufficient for the needs of his family…

It’s the first book of a series of 10 books… and I hope to get all of them into the LibriVox catalog soon!

Thanks again to all, who participated in getting this book done. Particularly to TriciaG and Meg!

The audiobook can be found here and if anybody feel like participating the second book “Aunt Jane’s nieces abroad” is currently in progress!

Searching the internet for ordinary things sometimes brings pleasant surprises. While looking for digital “photography” sites, I came across a great find … a quality online, digital “publishing” site. It is called Issuu. This is a free site where ordinary people and publishers can collect, share, and publish their work online … and, did you catch that great word – FREE? The site provides convenient reading of a variety of magazines, books, catalogs, reports, and more. (The digital photography book I found)

Digital publishing is a growing industry. Type “digital publishing” in any search engine and you will be overwhelmed with thousands of different takes on the same idea. Sites selling software to help you publish digitally, companies that are designed to provide digital publishing assistance to businesses, how to books, digital print shops, etc …. I found Issuu by accident and thought wow, what a terrific new idea … however, upon one more search I discovered that Issuu is not alone … there are many sites publishing books and magazines online for free …. like: YuDu (which even has page turning sounds on books), or Scribd, or Calameo.

The amount of digital reading available to everyone with a computer is mind boggling. These publishing sites are a wonderful use of technology. Besides being free, they also allow ordinary people an outlet to share their written and/or artistic work … projects that may have never been made available by the “paper” publishers of the past (because of cost or not seen as profitable) … can now be shared in a much cheaper and greener way with a much wider audience. Because of the quantity of material, time is required to sift through and find the best quality products (obviously, not all of them will be great) … but, like other technological sharing sites, the search is part of the fun.

On a related note, in a past post I mentioned two other excellent, free, online reading resources. They differ from these public, digital publishing sites as they are strictly for classic works that are in the public domain. LibriVox is an online site that provides free audiobooks (you can volunteer to read/record public domain works to add to the site’s library, as well). The other site is BookGlutton where you can read books alone or … what makes this site unique .. you can also read with a group and comment along the way – it is like an interactive, online book club (not all books are free).

Some of my finds at Issuu have inspired me to contemplate putting together a publication of my own …. maybe something like this nature photo book I found. I can see it now … The Black Bears of Minnesota? … Northwood’s Wildlife?

It seems appropriate that I have a short selection of Jewish books to write about today, when I have to hurry and then get ready for Shabbat/Shabbos (and no, I amn’t entirely consistent about which of those I use).

48. With This Ring by Sarah Kisner

Hm, does my getting frustrated by the characters in a book perhaps say more for the book than I generally assume it does? When I get annoyed at them not taking the obvious step that would solve their problems (like family members actually talking to each other or (in the Jewish novels) asking their Rabbi for advice) is that just them behaving as real people do, much as we shouldn’t? Certainly (as I’m noticing again in Alice Adams, that I’m currently listening to (not this minute, as I couldn’t concentrate on both) by Booth Tarkington), it’s when the protagonists fall down in these basic areas, and/or in their care or attitude towards others, that I find myself disliking the main characters. And perhaps it is me. Perhaps the old adage is right, in that we see the faults in others that we struggle with ourselves (although I think I do see some faults that aren’t mine too).

So not a bad novel, just characters I was neither relating nor aspiring to. I was a bit put off by the title, as well, (as were others I spoke to about the book). It’s largely about a father in trouble in the diamond trade, and a daughter getting used to putting her marriage first, so I can see why they used the phrase, but it jars.

(Ooh look, I did tell you what the book is actually about! I’ve had several verbal comments that I should do that more often on the blog, rather than focussing so much on my own reactions to the book, which often have more to do with the themes than the content. Thoughts, please?)

49. The Disappearing Dowry by Libi Astaire

I really enjoyed this short historical mystery. Set in Regency England, it’s apparently the first in a series, and I’m looking forward to the rest. It seems well researched, without shoving the research down the reader’s throat (always a balance historical novels need to be wary of). I amn’t someone who seeks out mysteries as a genre, but I enjoy them sometimes, when well put together. The book is told in first person narrative by a likeable character (which as above is important to me).

Zahav Press appear to be trying to take small paperbacks into the Jewish market, and if they’re going to be this good I’m all for it! (This book was one I kept to travel with, so I’m pretty sure it’s misplaced on the list chronologically, but nevermind that. It didn’t last long, but was easy to fit into hand luggage.)

50. The Secret of Jewish Femininity by Tehilla Abramov

Well written, clear in its guidance and not-overly cloying in its encouragement. It was highly recommended to me, and I can see why. Definitely a topic to learn with a qualified teacher, however, with this as a textbook, rather than only from the book (and the book says the same).

Repeating the question from above: Would blog readers prefer I say more about the content of the book as a regular thing, rather than focussing on my reaction(s) to it? (Not promising to change, but I’d be interested.)

I’ve just started reading Trinity: a novel of Ireland by Leon Uris, as I finished The Professor and the Madman this morning, and this was one my DH expressed an interest in my opinion of. I’ve seen novels by Uris before, but not read any of them. At the moment this is sharing the opening set-piece of Dubliners: the wake of an old man, respected in the community (if not by all), as viewed by a young boy connected to his family. I haven’t got far enough in it to say more than that as yet. Already, though, it’s got my DH and I discussing Irish history again, which is never a bad thing.

Still, if I’m to get to even having read a quarter of last year’s total books (320), I do need to get a move on, as I’m at precisely a fifth (64) today. Not that anyone besides me does or should care about that…

37. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling

I believe I was given one copy of this and offered two or three more. Not sure if this says more about me or the book (I was being offered once read copies, where the purchaser thought it unlikely they’d reread the book). It is perhaps more of a book of children’s fairy tales than might be expected from Hermione’s fascination with it in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but for those who enjoyed the Harry Potter series in its totality it’s certainly worth reading once, and for more than the sake of completeness.

38. Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon

After 2008’s reading of the original American version, this was me going back through the series as I knew it originally. As I pointed out then, they are only fractionally different. I still love the story and the writing in this series, but on this reread I was getting disturbed by the huge amount of violence (sexual and non) within the books, so it may be awhile till I go back to them, presuming I do. I haven’t even got hold of or read An Echo in the Bone (the newest book, which came out this September just gone) because of this.

39. What Diantha Did by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I listened to this back to back with Mr Hogarth’s Will, as described two days ago, and since they have some overlapping themes I thought I was going to get them thoroughly mixed up, but I think I have them more distinct now than I did at the time!

Unlike Mr Hogarth’s nieces, who are educated to provide for themselves, and then turfed out to do so, Diantha has to do a lot of persuading of her family that she be allowed to try so to do (so far so like Agnes Grey), especially since she has a young man desperate to marry and look after her (so not like any book I’ve come across before the current generation). This is a clever, practical, principled young woman with her own plan of action, to benefit many women young and old, who will not be deterred from her path, especially by those she loves.

40. Posing for Portrait Photography: a head-to-toe guide by Jeff Smith

One of those random books I read for work, but I like to think it has and will help in my snapping, even though it’s decidedly written for those in or going into professional portrait photography. (I did some ‘proper photography’ courses in school, after learning a lot from my father, but these day I use an automatic digital camera mostly to record my crochet here and on Ravelry, and otherwise to snap pics of friends, family, and touristy stuff.)

Oh, and while I’m discussing improving photography skills, I just came across a really interesting photography blog. It is aimed towards proper photography, but those of us trying to get beyond ‘just snaps’ (again) can learn and be inspired too.

I should be crocheting, but I’ve actually designed something, and since I don’t have the yarn to make it, I’ve got temporarily disinterested in the rest. I’ll let you know more about it as and when I can…

So for now, a couple more books. I just finished Agnes Grey, and I’d like to write about that, but if I don’t catch up with the list in order I’m afraid some of the entries upon it will remain forever undescribed, and that would be terrible, of course!

31. A Tale of Seven Sheep by Gadi Pollock

This is a beautifully (and amusingly) illustrated modern Jewish fable. Do not let the illustrations make it seem like it should be for young children, as I suspect it would take adolescents (or their older friends) to get all of the subtle references.

32. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

I haven’t read the other three books in this series, but certainly wouldn’t object to doing so if I happened to find them. At the centre of this book is Tom Natsworthy, a young apprentice on the Traction City of London who by chance gets caught up in the personal disputes of Hester, Katherine, and the latter’s father Valentine, London’s hero, and must flee for his life. Tom lives in a world where people are expendable; villages, towns and cities must destroy each other or be destroyed for their resources; and where the very idea of actually settling in one place is taboo. It’s a complicated world, but a well thought out one, and an intriguing set of tales.

33. Mr Hogarth’s Will by Catherine Helen Spence

It’s been quite awhile, and the main thing I remember about listening to this book is the regular surprise at what was going to happen next. Certainly the romances did not go as expected. Which is not to say that the story is not memorable – just that it’s fairly complex, and keeps the reader guessing.

Mr Hogarth has brought up his two nieces, and educated them in a way generally considered suitable for boys who will have to make their own way in life, rather than for girls. On his death they discover he means them to do just that, leaving all of his money and property to a hitherto unknown son, who in turn would have preferred some contact with his father in life. After thinking through the opportunities both young women make their way to Australia, and the new society there, and slowly build themselves decent lives.

34. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

Now I specifically read this at Pesach, (which shows just how far behind I am with this list, and why I amn’t recalling every detail) because I brought it as a gift for the family (good friends) I spent the first days with, and the three-year-old boy had me (and everyone else) read it to him countless times. [Note that I haven't included on the list all the other kids' books I read to them, but we went through this one enough for it to count, I think!] He was in fits of laughter every single time (the older kids liked it, but not as much as he did). I had great fun doing voices, and his exuberance and the book itself were a perfect match. It’s just good, and I highly recommend it for reading to young children (which I love doing).

I discovered an interesting site with audio recordings that are all public domain. (The site states that copyright laws may differ outside the U.S.) LibriVox has a couple thousand selections to browse through: Aesop’s Fables, L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, the preservationist John Muir’s adventures in Yosemite, and the works of Mark Twain, to name a few. I’ve listened to some selections, and so far I’m happy with the readers’ clarity of speech. Because this is unadapted literature, the recordings would be appropriate only for upper level students. Consider some possibilities:

• Incorporate a regular listening session in your weekly schedule. Longer works are already broken into segments. Also, you can choose to work with a long recording of, say, 30 minutes and spread it out over the course of one month, allowing for appropriate review and predictions from week to week. Each month can be devoted to a new author.

• Prepare a vocabulary list for the class to study prior to listening. Simple Q&A can serve as a comprehension check in post-listening. Listen a second time and follow with one or two discussion questions.

• Shorter works, such as The Fox and the Grapes (approx. 20 seconds) are appropriate for a gapped exercise. Allow students to listen once. Then distribute a partial copy of the story. During a second listening have students try to fill in the missing words. Let them compare with a partner before a third listening. Correct the exercise as a class before a fourth and final listening.

• Shorter works also are appropriate for oral retelling or self-recording. At home or in a language lab, students can be asked to listen to a passage (30 seconds or less), record it (through a computer accessory such as Sound Recorder), and submit it for your review.

I have to admit, the number of books I have listed as read, but haven’t yet reviewed here is a bit daunting, so I thought I’d make things a little less so by discussing some of the books I haven’t finished. Hopefully most of them will get added to the list and mentioned again reasonably soon…

This post will mention some crochet, though, since the bookmark holder I made yesterday would seem rather relevant! I’ve been playing around with Tapestry Crochet, with the leftover yarn from the sheep’s head I made for Rosh Hashana, since that is the only set of matching yarns with different colourways I have at the moment. I’ve been using the white as background and the variegated browns for the pattern, which works fine when the actual browns show. The ecru, though, is rather too similar to the white for full impact. The first thing I made so is a present, for someone who does read this blog occasionally, so I won’t show the pictures, but Ravelers can see it here.

What I made yesterday was for my DH, however, and he received it when he arrived home (about five minutes after I finished it), so I can show you that. I used a cross stitch writing tool from Stitchpoint, which I’ve mentioned on this blog before, but shouldn’t have chosen an italic font, since tapestry crochet adds to the slant, meaning that a non-italic font would have looked somewhat italic, and been far more legible. That and the clumps of ecru mean that my DH can’t actually read the text (having it all around the container doesn’t help either, but it was going to be far too tall done sideways), but he appreciates the item and its immediate value to us (he’s a bookworm too), so that’s okay!

I’ve never blocked acrylic (I’ve barely blocked anything), but if anyone has good ideas for how to make it stand straight I’d appreciate hearing them!

And now to the unfinished books (I would say the ones still with bookmarks in them, but I have the habit of leaving bookmarks in after I finish the book, so that would not be the correct category).

Jewishly, I’m reading Praying with Joy by Rabbi Daniel Yaakov Travis, as well as Anshei Hayil: Volume 1 by Rabbi Haim Levy, both of which will hopefully help me improve my tefilla. I’m enjoying both in small sections at a time.

In print non-fiction, I’m reading The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, which I heard about when it came out, I think, but have never found before. Thankfully my lovely MIL gave it to my DH several years ago, so I get to read it now. It’s about the creating of the OED and two of the major players involved in the project. They were very different Victorian gentlemen, and it’s intriguing and apparently well-researched so far.

My DH and I are both reading a book my father gave him, What Did You Do Today, Professor?, edited by Eoin P. O’Neill, which is a collection of essays by TCD scientists about their research and what led them to this point, often with a particular emphasis on how mathematics is important to all the other sciences. It’s really interesting. I like learning about current research, and while this is written to be accessible to non-specialists, it isn’t dumbed down in the way some popular science is. I have to say I’m finding the Irish/Dublin/TCD references much easier than my DH, of course, but they aren’t stopping him enjoying the book.

The fiction is mostly audio at the moment, but I am occasionally dipping into Harry Potter agus on Órchloch (yes, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in Irish, by J. K. Rowling, of course) just to see if I can… I amn’t getting through it very fast, but then I think I know the original well enough that it’s not very fun to read slowly.

From Librivox I’m most of the way through Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë. I haven’t read this before, and am enjoying it. The protagonist seems very self aware, and though some of the other characters are somewhat one-dimensional, most of these are being pointed out as what happens when children are thoroughly spoilt. There are multiple readers, so far all (I think) women I’ve heard on other Librivox recordings, so obviously quality and pronunciations vary, but they’re mostly pretty good, and none had me wanting to turn the thing off.

Unfortunately the same can’t be said of the new recording of Dubliners by James Joyce. Part of the problem is just that I am a Dubliner, so it jars when placenames, intonations and phrasing are completely wrong in a series of short stories so specifically written to show the city and its people. I’ll admit I only listened to the first one-and-a-half stories, each read by a different (American) man, so the later readers might be better, but at the moment I’m severely tempted to just read the whole book myself for Librivox. Not that I could do all the accents for the different groups of Dubliners in the book, but at least I would know what the references were too. Perhaps I could do that in time for 2012, when the book will be out of copyright in the EU… (And no, I wasn’t in the EU when I downloaded or listened to this, and amn’t now. Copyright is important.)

Okay, I admit it, I’m a snob. It doesn’t bother me for very English or American fiction to be read by voices from all over the world, but it does when the voice should be a Dublin one, and isn’t. Still, it does help for any reader to check unfamiliar words for their pronunciation.

So that’s what I’m reading (or amn’t, but chose not to finish).

Is het iemand opgevallen bij het bekijken van de Personal Library-tutorial? Dat ik  ‘Het Boek van Ot en Sien‘ in mijn lijstje met geleende boeken had staan? Niet direct de literatuur die je zou verwachten voor een informatiespecialist Geneeskunde misschien…

De afgelopen maanden heb ik dit boek ingelezen als gratis luisterboek, en vanaf deze week is het hier voor iedereen beschikbaar om te beluisteren en te downloaden – op LibriVox.

LibriVox is een initiatief dat geheel gedragen wordt door vrijwilligers, die hoofdstukken van boeken  opnemen die vrij van auteursrechten zijn . De geluidsbestanden worden op internet geplaatst – gratis.

Inmiddels zijn er meer dan 2500 titels beschikbaar. Voornamelijk in het Engels, maar ook in 25 andere talen, waaronder dus Nederlands.

De enige eis is dat de boeken vrij moeten zijn van auteursrechten. In de praktijk betekent dit dat het boek verschenen moet zijn voor 1923 (volgens Amerikaanse wetgeving) én dat de auteur (en evt. vertaler) meer dan 70 jaar geleden moet zijn overleden (volgens Europese wetgeving).

En… iedereen mag voorlezen voor LibriVox. Een microfoon en (gratis) opnamesoftware zijn alles wat je nodig hebt!

To get into the spirit of the season, I’ve been revisiting some classic ghost stories. One recording I’ve been particularly enjoying is Ghost stories of an antiquary by M.R. James. I’ve been listening to a LibriVox (which is to say, volunteer) recording, but Peter Yearsley, who reads it, is very good. I’ve listened to a good half-dozen of his audiobooks, as a lone reader or with part of a group of English readers who just churn out great stuff about English folk history, and you needn’t have any concern about the quality of the recording.

I’ve just edited this post, so that instead of just linking to Ghost stories of an antiquary, it instead links to this helpful page, where one of the other LibriVoxians has put together links for many Hallowe’en appropriate audiobooks, including the one I’m recommending.

James was one of the pioneers of the modern ghost story. Sadly this is a genre which appears to now be officially dead. I think it almost fair to say that R. Chetwynd-Hayes was the last fellow writing in this style, as opposed to a more modern horror style. Sad to see it go…but Chetwynd-Hayes himself thought it was a declining market, and mostly wrote “for the library trade”.

Please be aware that James has a style of ghost story telling which is a bit different than the modern. He particularly enjoys indefinite endings, which some modern readers deeply loathe. Let me put it this way: if you’ve seen both versions of The ring and you liked the Japanese version more, then James may be for you. If you liked that the American version explained what the ring was (and changed it, in a bad way) and told you “Why seven days, exactly?” then he may not be for you, because he doesn’t feel the need to nail these things down. Indeed, he tells you that deliberately in stories like “Number 13″. Still, it’s a great book, well-recorded.  Happy Hallowe’en!