Comments on: Thought Audio

Thought Audio

nickyskye — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:47:24 -0800

Thought Audio is a small, simple and likable free library of classic literature and philosophy MP3 audio downloads.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:00:58 -0800

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

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:03:58 -0800

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...

By: smoke

smoke — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:23:27 -0800

Wow, he really really sounds like the narrator from the Baldur's Gate video game. Interesting.

By: lumensimus

lumensimus — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:06:32 -0800

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

By: ouke

ouke — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:20:59 -0800

@lumensimus (LOL) which is an enthralling mantra all in itself. I could listen to it for hours.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:52:32 -0800

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.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 01:30:14 -0800

Thoughtdio?

By: lauratheexplorer

lauratheexplorer — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 03:47:50 -0800

"The United States Constitution narrated by Michael Scott.

By: l33tpolicywonk

l33tpolicywonk — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:40:24 -0800

phaedon: ""Siddharta" sounds like it's narrated by Casey Kasem" Isn't that ... totally awesome?

By: demonic winged headgear

demonic winged headgear — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:48:26 -0800

For those who don't know it, librivox is the larger, more crowdsourced version of this idea.

By: griphus

griphus — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:14:41 -0800

"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.

By: empath

empath — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:19:56 -0800

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.

By: hwestiii

hwestiii — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:29:37 -0800

What is it with Nietzsche here?

By: PuppyCat

PuppyCat — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:32:40 -0800

Sah-weet! Thank you. Always looking for new things to listen to during my work day, especially when Pandora starts getting flaky.

By: hwestiii

hwestiii — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:34:31 -0800

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.

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:51:54 -0800

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.

By: wenestvedt

wenestvedt — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:33:21 -0800

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!

By: AkzidenzGrotesk

AkzidenzGrotesk — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:50:18 -0800

Later, when the mic is mistakenly left on: "These guys are from India and who gives a shit!"

By: Trochanter

Trochanter — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:27:02 -0800

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.

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:17:56 -0800

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.

By: Mael Oui

Mael Oui — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:43:19 -0800

"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!)