Audio recordings
I make audio recordings of 19th- and early 20th-century novels and non-fiction pieces, and release them free onto the internet as .mp3s. Here's an article on the topic. What a concept! And you can do it, too, through a volunteer organization called LibriVox.
Since 2007, I've recorded 28 complete books and am working on the 29th -- that's 10+ days of listening time!
How do you do it? Using open source recording software (I like Audacity) and a simple USB mic, we LibriVox-ateers record books published in the USA before 1924 and therefore out of copyright. I record and edit each book as .wav files and then export them as .mp3s. A proof listener checks for mistakes and the resulting works are posted on the LibriVox and archive.org websites for all to download to their phone or listen online using Quicktime. The recordings are also available on public library sites such as Overdrive.
How much do you charge? LibriVox is a volunteer effort. All the recordings are free, no one gets paid, and none of the LibriVox-ateers makes any money out of it -- although LibriVox welcomes donations via archive.org to keep the servers running.
Is anyone listening? Well, yes. The iTunes app of my Treasure Island was downloaded 145,000 times in its first two years. Altogether, my audiobooks are downloaded about 60,000 times each month from the Internet Archive. That's more than 9 million downloads from this site alone (as of January 2023). Now, if I had a penny for each of those...
In a particularly weird er... happening, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan improvised an 8-hour set to my version of Siddhartha. And here it is.
At this link you will find a list of most of my recordings or click on any of the links below and go straight to the audiobook.
THE BIG BOW MYSTERY by Israel Zangwill
A man is horribly murdered in his bedroom, the door locked and bolted on the inside. Yet the seemingly unsolvable case has one sublimely simple solution that is revealed in a shocking denouement.
THE KING OF SCHNORRERS by Israel Zangwill
Hilarious story of Manasseh da Costa, a schnorrer (a professional beggar) who lives on the charitable contributions of the Jews of late 18th-century London.
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
A fabulous adventure story set in India during the former British Empire. Taking time off from his role as the traveling companion of an aged Tibetan lama, Kim is trained as a spy, matches wits with various evildoers, and wins out in the end.
TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson
When young Jim Hawkins finds a map to pirates’ gold he starts on an adventure that takes him from his English village to a desert island with the murderous Black Dog, half-mad Ben Gunn, and (of course) Long John Silver. Arr Jim lad!
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS by Lewis Carroll
The sequel to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” finds Alice back in Wonderland and a pawn in a surreal chess game. This weird and wonderful book includes the poem 'Jabberwocky,' a talking pudding, and that immortal line
'Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today.'
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame
The classic story of how Rat, Mole, and the other river-bankers saved Toad from his excesses. This book has it all: excitement, sentiment, destruction of private property (plenty of that), paganism, and a happy ending.
REUBEN SACHS: A SKETCH by Amy Levy
Repelled by contemporary literature's antisemitic stereotypes as well as the occasional idealized Jewish paragon (e.g., Daniel Deronda), Amy Levy wrote what she felt to be an honest, warts-and-all account of middle class Jewish life in late-19th century London.
JEWISH CHILDREN - יידיש קינדער Yudishe Kinder - by Sholem Aleichem
Although written from a child's perspective, this is not a book for kids but a series of funny, poignant, and sometimes disturbing stories of life in an 1890s Russian-Jewish village.
SIDDHARTHA by Herman Hesse
Siddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha, son of an Indian Brahman, leaves his family and begins a lifelong journey towards Enlightenment.
THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS by John Buchan
Great adventure story. Richard Hannay is caught up in a web of secret codes, spies, and murder on the eve of WWI. This exciting tale was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film of the same name.
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES by Thomas Hardy
One of the greatest English tragic novels, TESS is the story of a “pure woman” who is victimized both by conventional morality and its antithesis.
JIMBO by Algernon Blackwood
Unsettling story of a boy's strange experiences in an unoccupied house where he meets Fear itself...
MY FIRST SUMMER IN THE SIERRA by John Muir
The journal of wilderness-lover John Muir who spent the summer of 1869 herding sheep in the high Sierra Nevada.
MR MIDSHIPMAN EASY by Capt. Frank Marryat
The exciting adventures of an 18th-century midshipman in the British navy.
THE BLUE LAGOON by H. De Vere Stacpoole
Two shipwrecked children grow up on a desert island. This beautiful story of innocent love was published in 1908.
YIDDISH TALES - יידיש מעשה Yudishe Mayses - translated from Yiddish by Helena Frank
48 stories of Jewish life in eastern Europe and Russia written by several authors including I.L. Perez, Sholem Asch, and Sholem Aleichem. Originally published in 1912.
THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY by H.G. Wells
Feeling bored and trapped in his conventional life, Mr. Polly makes a U-turn and changes everything.
NONSENSE SONGS, STORIES, BOTANY, & ALPHABETS by Edward Lear.
A short selection of nonsense poems, songs, cookery, and stories, including the "Owl and the Pussycat" and the "Four Little Children Who Went Round the World."
THE JEWISH STATE (DER JUDENSTAAT - מדינת היהודים) by Theodor Herzl, translated from German by Sylvie d' Avigdor.
A critical statement in the history of the State of Israel.
CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO by Israel Zangwill
Life in London's Jewish East End in the 19th century.
KARI THE ELEPHANT by Dhan Gopal Mukergji
The adventures of an Indian boy and his beloved elephant.
CALIFORNIA COAST TRAILS by J. Smeaton Chase
In 1911, decades before California's coast Highway 1 was built, an Englishman rode his faithful horse 2000 miles from the San Gabriel River to the Klamath. On the way he is courteously received at isolated ranches, has many quiet adventures, and is generally amazed by the beauty of our coast. A classic early California travelog.
THE TOUR OF DR. SYNTAX IN SEARCH OF THE PICUTURESQUE by William Combe
Written in 1809, this hillarious satirical poem in 26 stanzas follows Dr. Syntax in his search for material for a traveloge that he hopes will make him rich!
THE GOLEM: A LEGEND OF OLD PRAGUE by Rudolf Lothar
Rabbi Loeb creates a clay man to house a perfect soul that he hopes will not be blighted by human prejudices.
The plan does not go as he hoped...
SONS OF THE COVENANT: A TALE OF LONDON JEWRY by Samuel Gordon
This novel of life in London's heavily Jewish East End district was published in 1900. That's just a few years after Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto (see above).
THE CURIOUS QUEST by E. Phillips Oppenheim
A sweet, simple tale of how friendship and honesty triumph over money in which a bored young millionaire transforms his indolent self
and finds love.
MEMORIES AND SCENES by Jacob Dinezon
(my only non-LibriVox recording)
Short stories by one of the founders of Yiddish literature. Dinezon was a friend and mentor to Sholem Abramovitsh (Mendele Moykher Sforim), Solomon Rabinovich (Sholem Aleichem), and Isaac Leybush Peretz, among others.
AN ANGLER'S HOURS by Hugh Sheringham
One of the classic British books about angling. The author’s love was fly fishing but the book has several chapters about coarse fishing (grayling, dace, chub, etc.) as well as a surprising account of the Japanese tenkara method as used in England.
THE WIND BOY by Ethel Cook Elliot
A gentle, otherworldly novel featuring the mysterious “girl from the mountains.” Mystical but not magical in a Harry Potter sense, it was written for children but is much loved by grown-ups, too.
(I'm still working on this one)
