Thought Audio
September 27, 2010 10:47 PM   Subscribe

Thought Audio is a small, simple and likable free library of classic literature and philosophy MP3 audio downloads.
posted by nickyskye (21 comments total) 47 users marked this as a favorite
 
"Siddharta" sounds like it's narrated by Casey Kasem.
posted by phaedon at 11:00 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


I tried both Zarathustra and Call of the Wild, and couldn't stand the narrator for more than two minutes. Stilted delivery and works like these just don't mix.

In this case, you get what you pay for...
posted by vorfeed at 11:03 PM on September 27, 2010


Wow, he really really sounds like the narrator from the Baldur's Gate video game. Interesting.
posted by smoke at 11:23 PM on September 27, 2010


You must gather your party before venturing forth.
posted by lumensimus at 12:06 AM on September 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


@lumensimus (LOL) which is an enthralling mantra all in itself. I could listen to it for hours.
posted by ouke at 12:20 AM on September 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


I tried both Zarathustra and Call of the Wild, and couldn't stand the narrator for more than two minutes.

That was indeed weird, hearing Nietzsche dictated in the manner of an elementary-school catechism filmstrip.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:52 AM on September 28, 2010


Thoughtdio?
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:30 AM on September 28, 2010


"The United States Constitution narrated by Michael Scott.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 3:47 AM on September 28, 2010


phaedon: ""Siddharta" sounds like it's narrated by Casey Kasem"

Isn't that ... totally awesome?
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 5:40 AM on September 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


For those who don't know it, librivox is the larger, more crowdsourced version of this idea.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 5:48 AM on September 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


"Siddharta" sounds like it's narrated by Casey Kasem.

...and now, the top four Noble Truths. Number four one: here's Siddhārtha Gautama with his latest hit "Life Means Suffering," off his soon-to-be classic Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.
posted by griphus at 6:14 AM on September 28, 2010 [10 favorites]


I tried listening to Thus Spake Zarathustra on librivox once, and it sounded like it was recorded by a 15 year old with braces, who kept mispronouncing words.
posted by empath at 6:19 AM on September 28, 2010


What is it with Nietzsche here?
posted by hwestiii at 6:29 AM on September 28, 2010


Sah-weet! Thank you. Always looking for new things to listen to during my work day, especially when Pandora starts getting flaky.
posted by PuppyCat at 6:32 AM on September 28, 2010


Also, if you use iTunes, the University of South Florida maintains something called Lit2Go on the iTunesU side of the iTunes store that is very good. The reading is quite professional. I can only suppose that they've drafted members of their theatre department to do them.

I've downloaded a number of works from there ("Wuthering Heights", "Heart of Darkness", "Hamlet", etc.), and enjoyed them all. My only complaint is that the catalog of titles is a little meager, but hey, its free.

And I think they have Nietzche, too.
posted by hwestiii at 6:34 AM on September 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


I got "The Man Who Was Thursday" off of LibriVox and was pretty impressed with the narration. (At least, I think that's the one I got from LibriVox.) But then I tried a few others and found them to be quite awful in many cases. The concept is good, in the sense that it can definitely turn out gems, but at least at the time (more than a year ago) I was left with the impression that they needed a better rating/sorting system to separate out the slag.

Narrating a book is one of those things that seems deceptively easy, and I suppose is easy to do in the roughest sense of just turning on your computer's microphone and reading the book, but is apparently very difficult to do well.

A small library of well-read, high-quality works would be pretty neat. I'll hopefully get a chance to give some of them a listen later today.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:51 AM on September 28, 2010


The paid stuff isn't always perfect: I have given up on the audiobook of Antony Beevor's "D-Day" three times because the Brit doing the reading has one American (nasal cowboy) accent, one 'Cherman, one Frog, and two British accents. It's really, really intrusive. I can't even tell if it's a good book because the weird voices confuse me. Ugh.

So if the free ones are as good or better, then here I come!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:33 AM on September 28, 2010


Later, when the mic is mistakenly left on: "These guys are from India and who gives a shit!"
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 8:50 AM on September 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


There is also a site called audiobooksforfree.com that has some okay readers. The free versions are extremely compressed, though -- to the extent that it's a near thing whether they're listenable.
posted by Trochanter at 9:27 AM on September 28, 2010


You must gather your party before venturing forth.

You guys have made me think of that creepy chant you come across first-thing.

Now I want to play that damn game again.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:17 PM on September 28, 2010


"Siddharta" sounds like it's narrated by Casey Kasem.

I could listen to Casey Kasem all day! I'll have to check that one out.

(Then I thought about who else I love listening to, and I thought: Paul Lynde. Just imagine the classics read by Paul Lynde!! And now I'm so depressed because it'll never be!)

(Two more brilliant posts from nickyskye! ;-D!)
posted by Mael Oui at 7:43 PM on September 28, 2010


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