Hugh McGuire

librivox recommendations

Matt asked me for some LibriVox recommendations for a long drive to Toronto. I whipped up this list, and, well … it’s not authoratative or anything, but if you know about LibriVox and are wondering what to listen to, here are some that I have enjoyed (I’ll update the list periodically):

NON-FICTION

• God and State, Mikhail Bakunin (solo)
  seminal anarchist text, v well-read.
• China and the Chinese, Herbert Allen Giles (solo)
  Wonderful exploration of Chinese culture, beautifully read.
• The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
  classic political text, still relevant.
• Poetics, by Aristotle (solo)
  the great Greek gives you the low-down on how to write a story. Wonderful idiosyncratic reading.
• Book of Tea, by Okakura Kakuzo (solo)
  a meditative book on tea, flower arranging, art, life, zen, and more. published in 1906. beautiful.

FICTION

• The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells (solo)
  Alex Foster’s great rendition of curious Wells tale of the nasty man who disappears.
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson (solo)
  RLS’s cautionary story of scientific hubris.
• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (solo)
  dashing adventure in the age of the French Revolution.
• Parenticide Clube, Ambrose Bierce (solo)
  very funny, but very very dark.
• Heart of Darkness (solo)
  conrad’s tale read by a young woman w american accent. odd but it works, somehow.
• Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, John Cleland
  very saucy Victorian pornography.
• War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells (solo)
  the great sci-fi adventure.

NOTE: I love the collaborative projects (read by many different people) but a well-read solo book is probably a good place to start with LibriVox.