Who else loves audiobooks?

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten I still need to post about Corfu.

But first a short break so I can tell you about something really cool.

I grew up with no TV. (And no, I'm not that old. 40 is still quite some way off!) No TV, but loads of books. My mother was a librarian, and she taught us to love books as much as she does. When we couldn't have the written word - for instance on long car journeys - we had the precursor of those nifty backseat DVD players. That's right, the audiobook. Or Books On Tape, as we knew them. (I am *that* old. Just about.)

I love audiobooks. I would listen to them every night before bed. Some my mother narrated for me - mostly when I was smaller - and others were professional versions. As well as being excellent entertainment, they're great for your memory. I can still recite most of Nicol Williamson's wonderful rendition of The Hobbit, complete with regional accents. And virtually all of the slightly-abridged Chronicles of Narnia read by Michael Hordern. That version of The Chronicles of Narnia is still available by the way, in a CD box-set, and I wholeheartedly recommend it, but sadly The Hobbit is now only available secondhand on cassette.

All of this brings us to Librivox.

No this isn't an advert. Well it sort of is. But I'm not getting paid for it, and as Librivox is a completely volunteer organisation, neither is anyone else.

Librivox volunteers record public domain texts - such as The Green Fairy Book, remember that? and make them available to listen to, free of charge, with various different downloading options, over the internet.

Why?

"We love reading, love books, love literature, think the public domain should be defended and enriched, we like free stuff, we like to hear people read to us, and we like reading to other people. It's fun, it's a great community, it's a rewarding public service to the world. And "nothing" is in it for us, except the satisfaction of participating in a wonderful project."

Is what their website says. I've just signed up to be a volunteer. So far I've read one chapter and am halfway through editing a second. Some people have read hundreds. Here's where you can listen to the recordings:

http://librivox.org/newcatalog/

Remember we're only talking about Public Domain stuff here. Generally speaking that means the author has been dead for 70 years or more. The rules differ slightly depending on the country you're in - but basically you won't find any J.K. Rowling or Bill Bryson, to name just a couple of my own favourite authors. You will however find Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and many many others who I have never heard of. And if there's something missing that you know is in the public domain and you think ought to be there, you can leave a suggestion on the Librivox forum, or here in the comments if you don't want to sign up there. If you're not sure whether it's in the public domain, see if it's on Project Gutenberg, and if it's there, it's good to go.

You could even volunteer to read yourself.

Review: the voice of psalms

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The voice of psalms is a paperback retelling of the Biblical book of Psalms by the Ecclesia Bible Society, published by Thomas Nelson. It's part of a larger project called “the voice”. Like many Bibles, it includes some commentary and some daily reading plans but that is pretty much where the similarities end.

The first thing that struck me was that here is a very beautiful book. The text is laid out like poetry, with a single column per page, and the pages themselves have a lovely background design giving a feeling of sacred art that the plain-white, onion-skin pages of a standard Bible never really conveyed to me.

Additions to the text have been inserted in italics rather than footnotes, and I found myself in two minds about this. The translator in me understands the need to expand on a phrase because the English equivalent doesn't convey the subtler nuances of the original. At the same time I find the voice in the back of my head going “aha, italics: an optional extra” very distracting! However, having finished reading a whole passage I could then look back and see what the italics had really added, for instance in the 23^rd Psalm a sense of present danger, which isn't so tangible in the more traditional versions, with or without footnotes. Of course, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so I can't really tell how accurate that sense is either!

I did appreciate that the translators didn't feel the need to modernise the language all the way into slang, which was something I found very off-putting with the Message version of the Psalms even though I was in my early twenties then.

All in all I like the book, but I wonder if the format – especially the italics - will be too hard to get used to, so I won't ditch my NIV just yet. I wouldn't buy it as a first Bible for a new believer, but it's good as a fresh look at a too-familiar text, as long as you're looking for a narrative rather than a constitution-type document to be taken literally.

Just two more things (which I didn't put in my amazon review): some of you may remember I was looking for a program of advent readings last autumn. Well the voice of psalms has one with readings from Psalms and other books! And also a Lent program! Pretty cool huh.

And secondly, they also do various other books, but the one that attracted me most is called the voice from on high, which contains excerpts from 19 Bible books referring to Jesus as the Liberating King. That one sounds really cool and I think would work well in this format, not to mention that Brian McLaren, one of my favourite authors, is involved, so I'll get it and keep you posted. :-)

MTM - Childrens Lit

If you're looking for the Save One Mammy post, it's here.

Like I said last week, I'm really excited about this theme. I love books, especially childrens books. Click here to see what everyone else came up with.

Froglet and I picked Star Seeker as our book. It's actually on loan from a friend but we love it so much we're definitely going to buy a copy. We love the poetry, the illustrations and the explanations about the Solar System in the back. It's a great book for any kid interested in outer space.

Click on the photo to get a closer look... I think... Anyway clockwise from right we have:

Cookies on Venus = a gingerbread rocket
Mars, the red planet = bread roll covered in tomato paste
Fireworks on Pluto = yoghurt and raspberries with sprinkles
Moons and asteroids = cheese and pickled onions
Saturn = Pineapple rings and gold-wrapped chocolate
The Milky Way = frothy whipped cream with a gingerbread Bear and a pinwheel, representing the page you can see open (my favourite).

In case you can't read it, it says:

I'll spin like a pinwheel
Through the Milky Way's froth
Take a ride on the Great Bear
And never fall off

Can you guess why cookies for Venus and fireworks for Pluto? :-)

Learning to read

I am pulling together a bunch of things from various sites to help me teach Froglet some phonics. He already knows the alphabet thanks to the wonderful Starfall website, and as he's started spelling out words to himself while playing, I think now it's time for the more complicated stuff.
Sound of the week is a great place to start, with a different page for each sound (e.g. /ee/), including a theme to match the sound (e.g. trees), book ideas, rhymes or poems, and art projects. So far we have done the first two sounds off this page: /ck/ and /ee/. Other sites I have been using include the brilliant Phonics, and the BBCs Words and Pictures.

After thinking about it quite a bit, and to-ing and fro-ing between various possibilities, I've decided to link the sounds I teach to whatever longer theme I'm currently on, rather than follow the order set out at SOTW or Phonics. And as we're doing flowers and gardening at the moment, next up are /er/ and /ow/ (as in cow not grow). I have ordered a book about plants, which hasn't arrived yet, but fortunately we do have a book on weather, which also has the /er/ sound in it, and as it's particularly rainy at the moment this will be a good place to start tomorrow.

In fact I've ordered a whole bunch of books, which may get reviewed on here at some point. They are:
How Flowers Grow (Usborne Beginners)
Summer Nature Activities for Children (by Irmgard Kutsch, I think)
Floppy Phonics (Stage 1+)
Miffy in the Garden
Things that Go (Trace, Stick and Learn)
Stories Jesus Told (by Nick Butterworth/Mick Inkpen)
and several less educational ones for our own entertainment.

Froglet saw me ordering the Miffy book and said that he wanted one too. I said it would have to be with his own money, so he chose Miffy is crying (!) and now owes me 3 pounds. His first book purchase of his very own!