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volunteers bring you 16 different recordings of Sympathy , by Paul Laurence Dunbar in honor of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Day Martin Luther King Day . Listeners will recognize a line from this poem as being the title of Maya Angelou's 1969 novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . This was the weekly poetry project for the week of January 14th, 2007....

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Poetry

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Hardy claimed poetry as his first love, and published collections until his death in 1928. Although not as well received by his contemporaries as his novels, Hardy's poetry has been applauded considerably in recent years. Most of his poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and mankind's long struggle against indifference to human suffering. (Summary from Wikipedia)....

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Poetry

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The idea was to write a whole novel in the month of November, based on the guidelines of the http://www.nanowrimo.org/ National Novel Writing Month . The twist is that there are up to 30 people writing together, instead of one toiling alone. Each writer signed up to do one section of 1,700+ words, in English. Plot and particulars were agreed before the start. Each writer also recorded his/her own chapter, which can be downloaded here. The resulting novel is in the public domain. (Summary by Gesine)...

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Mystery, Science fiction, Comedy, Fantasy, Adventure, Spy stories

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Shakespeare's Sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, comprise a collection of 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. The poems were probably written over a period of several years. (Summary from wikipedia)...

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Romance, Tragedy, Poetry

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Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte. De Conte is identified as Joan's page and secretary. For those who've always wanted to get behind the Joan of Arc story and to better understand just what happened, Twain's narrative makes the story personal and very accessible. The work is fictionally presented as a translation from the manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France. It was originally published as a serialization in Harper's Magazine beginning in 1895 and later published in book form in 1896. However the Harper's editors decided to cut 12 chapters that describe much of Joan's Great Trial, saying the chapters were not suitable for serialization since, They will not bear mutilation or interruption, but must be read as a whole, as one reads a drama. This recording contains the complete text! De Conte is a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page Louis de Contes, and provides narrativ...

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Historical Fiction, History, Memoirs, War stories

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The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.” This audio read of Forstner’s journal was prompted by a tour of a captured WWII German U-505 submarine, which is a prime draw at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The sub’s interior is not for claustrophobics--a hunkered maze of pipes and valves, banks of engines and batteries that leave very little room for humans. Particularly arresting are the sleeping quarters--bunks cozy’d up with the 15 foot long torpedoes. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)...

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Adventure, History, Memoirs, Sea stories, War stories

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The Charles Dickens 200th Anniversary Collection comprises short works previously unrecorded for - fiction, essays, poetry, letters, magazine articles and speeches - and each volume will be a pot pourri of all genres and periods of his writing. This first volume is released on Dickens' 200th birthday, February 7th 2012. Further volumes will follow during the anniversary year. Volume 1 includes short stories including, amongst others, The Holly Tree , the first part of Holiday Romance and three pieces from Mugby Junction . Some items requiring a little further explanation are Prince Bull , written as a fairy tale, but in reality a scathing attack on the Government's handling of supplies to the troops in the Crimean War; Old Lamps for New Ones in which Dickens makes clear his low opinion of the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting; and Frauds on the Fairies , a polemic against George Cruikshank's bowdlerisation of fairy tales for moralistic purposes, and the interesting revelation that 'product placement' is by no means a new phenomenon. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, Short stories, Art, Politics

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French colonists on a planet ruled by reptiles and amphibians are forced to wear living “skins” that subdue aggression and enforce vegetarianism. As children, Rastignac and his reptile friend Mapfarity force themselves to become carnivores and begin a protein fueled journey that causes Rastignac to develop a Philosophy of Violence. When a spaceship from Earth crashes in the ocean, Rastignac and company must put their philosophy to the test. - Rastignac The Devil was first published in the May 1954 issue of Fantastic Universe Magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Fantasy, Fiction, Science fiction

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The hero, Etienne Gerard, is a Hussar in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Gerard's most notable attribute is his vanity - he is utterly convinced that he is the bravest soldier, greatest swordsman, accomplished horseman and gallant lover in all France. Gerard is not entirely wrong since he displays notable bravery on many occasions, but his self-satisfaction undercuts this quite often. Obsessed with honour and glory, he is always ready with a stirring speech or a gallant remark to a lady....

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The Zeppelin’s Passenger is a tale of German espionage in England during World War I. Dreymarsh is a fictional “backwater” area in England with no apparent military value. The story begins with Dreymarsh residents discovering an observation car from a German zeppelin along with a Homburg hat near Dreymarsh. The mystery is further complicated when an Englishman, Mr. Hamar Lessingham, presents himself at Mainsail Haul which is the residence of Sir Henry Cranston. Lessingham bears with him, hand-carried letters from Major Richard Halstead, and a British prisoner of war in Germany. He presents them to Halstead’s sister, Phillipa and Helen, Halstead’s fiancée who have had no word of Richard’s fate and are deeply concerned. Phillipa, Sir Henry’s wife, is smitten with Lessingham, after Sir Henry appears to her to be a coward since he will not become involved in the war effort. Lessingham appears to be the perfect gentlemen but he is not who he pretends to be. Eventually, Phillipa and Helen discover that the delivery of Halstead’s letters come with a price. All becomes clear near the end to discover the secret of Lessingham, Sir Henry, and ...

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War stories, Spy stories

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readers present 7 versions of Men of Harlech by Talhaiarn. This was the weekly poem for the week of September 23, 2012. Men of Harlech or The March of the Men of Harlech is a song and military march which is traditionally said to describe events during the seven year long siege of Harlech Castle between 1461 and 1468. The music was first published without words in 1794, but it is said to be a much earlier folk air. The song was published in Volume II of the 1862 collection Welsh Melodies with the Welsh lyrics by the Welsh poet John Jones (Talhaiarn). A version translated by John Oxenford was published in The Songs of Wales in 1873 with music edited by Brinley Richards. This is the version recorded in this week's poetry project....

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Poetry

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The world, if we choose to see it so, is a complicated picture of people dressing and undressing. The history of the world is composed of the chat of a little band of tailors seated cross-legged on their boards; they gossip across the centuries, feeling, as they should, very busy and important. As you will see, I have devoted myself entirely to civil costume—that is, the clothes a man or a woman would wear from choice, and not by reason of an appointment to some ecclesiastical post, or to a military calling, or to the Bar, or the Bench. Such clothes are but symbols of their trades and professions, and have been dealt with by persons who specialize in those professions. (Summary excerpted from Introduction.)...

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History

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Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen’s novels, and its opening is one of the most famous lines in English literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797, and was initially called First Impressions, but was never published under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813 by the same Mr. Egerton of the Military Library, Whitehall, who had brought out Sense and Sensibility. Like both its predecessor and Northanger Abbey, it was written at Steventon Rectory. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Fiction, Romance, Humor

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Natty Bumppo goes by many names: La Longue Carabine, Hawk Eye, Leatherstocking, and in this tale, The Pathfinder. Guide, scout, hunter, and when put to it, soldier, he also fills a lot of roles in pre-Revolution upstate New York. An old friend, Sergeant Dunham of the 55th Regiment of Foot, asks him to guide his daughter through the wilderness to the fort at Oswego where Dunham serves. With the French engaging native Indian allies against the British and the Yankee colonists, such a journey is far from safe. Dunham has a plan in mind - to see his daughter Mable married off to the most redoubtable frontiersman and marksman in the territory, who is Pathfinder himself. But as an attractive and marriageable young lady, she draws other suitors. Then a military expedition contrives to put Sgt. Dunham, Mable, Pathfinder, and two other wooers into an isolated and dangerous garrison. Here treachery raises the stakes, and with the soldiers of the detachment shot down or captured, all of them must show mettle for any of them to escape with their scalps....

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Historical Fiction

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”Why do you choose such a title as The Valley of Vision for your book” said my friend; “do you mean that one can see farther from the valley than from the mountain-top?” This question set me thinking, as every honest question ought to do. Here is the result of my thoughts, which you will take for what it is worth, if you care to read the book. The mountain-top is the place of outlook over the earth and the sea. But it is in the valley of suffering, endurance, and self-sacrifice that the deepest visions of the meaning of life come to us. I take the outcome of this Twentieth Century War as a victory over the mad illusion of world-domination which the Germans saw from the peak of their military power in 1914. The united force of the Allies has grown, through valley-visions of right and justice and human kindness, into an irresistible might before which the German “will to power” has gone down in ruin. (From the Preface)...

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Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen’s novels, and its opening is one of the most famous lines in English literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797, and was initially called First Impressions , but was never published under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813 by the same Mr. Egerton of the Military Library, Whitehall, who had brought out Sense and Sensibility . Like both its predecessor and Northanger Abbey , it was written at Steventon Rectory. (Summary from wikipedia)...

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Romance

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During the late nineteenth century and until the middle of the twentieth, many elementary classrooms in America featured (along with a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington) a black-and-white print of a group of New England pilgrims on their way to church, the men carrying their muskets. Every school child at that time was intimately acquainted with the story of the Mayflower and the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. Among the historical figures, one of the best known was Captain Miles Standish, the military commander of the little “army,” which consisted of a bare handful of men, who repeatedly defeated many times their number of hostile Indians. The children also knew the friendly Indian Squanto and the young pilgrim gentleman John Alden and the lovely maiden Priscilla Mullins. In the middle grades practically all students used to read Longfellow’s long narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish, telling the story of these real people. The plot is initiated by Standish’s request that his friend, the better educated and more eloquent Alden, plead his case for him and persuade Priscilla to marry this rough middle-aged widower. W...

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Poetry

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A lively, interesting and important collection of 17th century love-letters written by an English lady, against the background of the Civil War and the Restoration [summary by hefyd] After refusing a long string of suitors put forth by her family, including her cousin Thomas Osborne, Henry Cromwell (son of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell) and Sir Justinian Isham, in 1655 Dorothy Osborne married Sir William Temple, a man with whom she had carried on a lengthy clandestine courtship that was largely epistolary in nature. It is for her letters to Temple, which were witty, progressive and socially illuminating, that Osborne is remembered. Only Osborne's side of the correspondence survived and comprises a collection of seventy-seven letters held in the British Library. (Summary from Wikipedia) Note: This reading contains all the letters in the correspondence but leaves out the editorial comments....

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Memoirs

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Harold the Dauntless is a rhymed, romantic, narrative-poem by Sir Walter Scott. Written in 1817, it weaves together elements of popular English legends and folklore using dramatic themes. The poem recounts the exploits and the personal spiritual journey of a doubtful knight errant - Harold the son of Danish Count Witikind: who seeks to recover his lands and wed a suitable spouse. Fire-breathing Harold is as much a stranger to love as he is addicted to dangerous adventure: yet his own confrontations with the spirit-world shake his faith in supposed omnipotence of the traditional Norse pantheon. Can a blood-thirsty warrior like Harold ever feel the raptures of love? Can a man born to cherish gods of war really wish to exchange them for a God of peace? (Introduction by Godsend)...

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Poetry

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of The Snowman in the Yard by Joyce Kilmer. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 26, 2012. Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American journalist, poet, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his religious faith, Kilmer is remembered most for a short poem titled Trees (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. At the time of his deployment to Europe during World War I (1914–1918), Kilmer was considered the leading American Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation, whom critics often compared to British contemporaries G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). A sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment (better known as 'The Fighting 69th), Kilmer was killed at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31. ( Summary from Wikipedia )...

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Advice, Holiday, Instruction, Nature, Poetry