Monday, 20 April 2015

The Crimson Fairy Book [by Andrew Lang]

The Crimson Fairy Book contains thirty-six stories collected from around the world and edited by Andrew Lang. Many tales in this book are translated, or adapted, from those told by mothers and nurses in Hungary; others are familiar to Russian nurseries; the Servians are responsible for some; a rather peculiarly fanciful set of stories are adapted from the Roumanians; others are from the Baltic shores; others from sunny Sicily; a few are from Finland, and Iceland, and Japan, and Tunis, and Portugal. No doubt many children will like to look out these places on the map, and study their mountains, rivers, soil, products, and fiscal policies, in the geography books. The peoples who tell the stories differ in colour; language, religion, and almost everything else; but they all love a nursery tale. The stories have mainly been adapted or translated by Mrs. Lang, a few by Miss Lang and Miss Blackley. 

link to the free audiobook
The Crimson Fairy Book [by Andrew Lang]

A Confederate Girl's Diary [by Sarah Morgan Dawson]

Sarah Morgan Dawson was a young woman of 20 living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when she began this diary. The American Civil War was raging. Though at first the conflict seemed far away, it would eventually be brought home to her in very personal terms. Her family's loyalties were divided. Sarah's father, though he disapproved of secession, declared for the South when Louisiana left the Union. Her eldest brother, who became the family patriarch when his father died in 1861, was for the Union, though he refused to take up arms against his fellow Southerners. The family owned slaves, some of whom are mentioned by name in this diary. Sarah was devoted to the Confederacy, and watched with sorrow and indignation its demise. Her diary, written from March 1862 to June 1865, discourses on topics as normal as household routines and romantic intrigues to those as unsettling as concern for her brothers who fought in the war. Largely self-taught, she describes in clear and inviting prose, fleeing Baton Rouge during a bombardment, suffering a painful spinal injury when adequate medical help was unavailable, the looting of her home by Northern soldiers, the humiliation of life under General Butler in New Orleans, and dealing with privations and displacement in a region torn by war. She was a child of her time and place. Her inability to see the cruelty and indignity of slavery grates harshly on the modern ear. Regardless of how one feels about the Lost Cause, however, Sarah's diary provides a valuable historical perspective on life behind the lines of this bitter conflict. 

Read by Christine Dufour.


link to the free audiobook

Vixen [by Mary Elizabeth Braddon]

This is an exquisite and heartbreaking love story. Violet Tempest and Roderick Vawdrey, otherwise known to each other as Vixen and Rorie, are childhood sweethearts. However, Rorie's family wants him to marry elsewhere. You may think it is the old story all over again, but nothing in this novel is what it seems. It is far too realistic for that. Many books talk about falling in love. This book starts after that stage, and speaks about the harder stage of a relationship: loving earnestly but understanding that love - even in the truest and purest sense - is not everything in life. There are duties to fulfil, and they might have nothing to do with love. Family life plays a large role in this novel, and it is not always warm and good. Many of the characters are strong and complicated. The novel has some feminist ideas, but they have boundaries, and are presented side by side with the conventional ideas of the times. But the signs of change are there... loud and clear


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Police Your Planet [by Lester Del Rey]

Bruce Gordon looked at his ticket, grimaced at the ONE WAY stamped on it, then tore it into bits and let the pieces scatter over the floor. He counted them as they fell; thirty pieces in all, one for each year of his life. Little ones for the two years he'd wasted as a cop. Shreds for the four years as a kid in the ring before that--he'd never made the top. Bigger bits for two years also wasted in trying his hand at professional gambling; and the six final pieces that spelled his rise from special reporter helping out with a police shake-up coverage, through a regular leg-man turning up rackets, and on up like a meteor until.... He'd made his big scoop, all right. He'd dug up enough about the Mercury scandals to double circulation. And the government had explained what a fool he'd been for printing half of a story that was never supposed to be printed until all could be revealed. They'd given Bruce Gordon his final assignment... (Summary by Christian Alexander and Excerpt of Chapter 1)

Read by Christian Alexander.

link to the free audiobook

Malcolm Sage, detective [by Herbert George Jenkins]

A splendid collection of short stories that chronicles the first year of the Malcolm Sage Detective Bureau.

Read by Anna Simon.

link to the free audiobook
Malcolm Sage, detective [by Herbert George Jenkins]

The Stowmarket Mystery, or, a Legacy of Hate [by Louis Tracy]

Another case for Reginald Brett, barrister and hobby detective: David Hume-Frazer is in some trouble. He was the prime suspect in the murder case of his cousin, Alan. Though he was never convicted, suspicion clings to him, and he wishes his name to be cleared before he marries his fiancé, Helen Layton. The case is baffling: Alan was murdered on his grounds, in front of the library windows -- in the same place, where four of his ancestors also died "in their boots"

Read by Crln Yldz Ksr

link to the free audiobook
The Stowmarket Mystery, or, a Legacy of Hate [by Louis Tracy]

R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) [by Karel Čapek] (Translated by Paul Selver) [full cast]

Helena Glory, as the daughter of a major industrial power's president, is a woman on a mission. She faces the island factory of Rossum's Universal Robots, the world's leading company in robotic engineering. She is convinced that these new creations called robots they make are deserving of rights like humans do. Everyone else is convinced robots are nothing more than tools for human use. Is it so, or is a robot rebellion becoming a more likely prospect as the robots start to seem more intelligent than first thought? First performed in English in 1922, R.U.R. is most notable for being the play that introduced the word "robot" into the English language and one of the popular early examples of the science fiction genre onstage.

Cast 
Narrator: John Trevithick
Helena Glory / Robot Helena: Sarah Terry
Harry Domin / Primus: ToddHW
Dr. Gall: Barry Streifert
Mr. Fabry: James Callaghan
Dr. Hallemeier / Consul Busman: SteveToner
Mr. Alquist: Beth Thomas
Nana: KHand
Radius: T. Layne
Sulla / First Robot: Tina Nuzzi
Marius / Fourth Robot: Rosslyn Carlyle
A Servant: Etel Buss
Second Robot / Third Robot: Kitty Kay / Mary Kay

link to the free audiobook