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    13/07/2024
    Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 096 cover

    Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 096

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    Chapter: 20 | Listen: 4

    “Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic yes.” This quote, from U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address, captures the searching tone of many reader-chosen selections in vol. 096: The Peace Movement; Fortifications for Peace; An Effective Diplomatic Service; Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs; Bigamy Act; Trade in the Dead; Traffic in Women; Inaugural addresses of Presidents Carter and Reagan; and an essay “Have You an Educated Heart? Other readings highlight the arts: Parchment bindings; the Chinese Book; Folklore of Southern India; The Rosetta Stone; The WPA Art Collection; Jackie Coogan and the Kid; the Cradle of the Movies; and View of a City Sky Line. Rounding out the collection is a humorous piece, The Fatal Legs. Note: The missing part of “The Rosetta Stone (Except)” concerns the deciphering of hieroglyphs, which is difficult to convey in audio. Please see the text.” Summary by Sue Anderson     [chương_files]  

    13/07/2024
    Happiness: Essays on the Meaning of Life cover

    Happiness: Essays on the Meaning of Life

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    Chapter: 9 | Listen: 1

    A series of essays based on Christian doctrines on how to attain true happiness. – Summary by Lynne T     [chương_files]  

    13/07/2024
    Morality of Marriage and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Woman cover

    Morality of Marriage and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Woman

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    Chapter: 17 | Listen: 4

    In this series of essays, British feminist and novelist Mona Caird discusses marriage customs at various points in history, offers thoughtful and informed criticisms of the state of marriage in the Victorian era, and debunks prevailing sexist beliefs of her time. She advocates for an equal partnership between wives and husbands and calls for the reform of the relations between the sexes, sharing her vision of a future society that affords women greater dignity and freedom. (Summary by Scarbo)     [chương_files]  

    13/07/2024
    Ukrainians and the European War cover

    Ukrainians and the European War

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    Chapter: 10 | Listen: 6

    The WWI (European war) for Ukrainians was the hope of its nation unity and freedom from Austria-Hungary but mostly from Russian Empire. Galicia was the bone in the throat for Russian government because Austria-Hungary provided Ukrainians with permission for their national development on its territory. Thanks to this Ukrainian patriotic literature spread all over the Ukrainian territories. Ukrainians who were trapped under Russian regime were inspired by the thought of their independence. Russia, fearing of riots and protests, pushed their propaganda about oppression of the Russians by Austria-Hungary in Galicia to annex it. This was the threshold of the European war. Meanwhile, realizing the inevitability of the war between Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary, Ukrainian people all as one started to prepare for the struggle for their freedom. (Summary by Anastasiia Solokha)     [chương_files]  

    13/07/2024
    Satires and Profanities cover

    Satires and Profanities

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    Chapter: 24 | Listen: 6

    “Believing as I do that James Thomson is, since Shelley, the most brilliant genius who has wielded a pen in the service of Freethought, I take a natural pride and pleasure in rescuing the following articles from burial in the great mausoleum of the periodical press. There will doubtless be a diversity of opinion as to their value. One critic, for instance, has called “The Story of a Famous Old Jewish Firm” a witless squib; but, on the other hand, the late Professor Clifford considered it a piece of exquisite mordant satire worthy of Swift. Such differences are inevitable from the very nature of the subject. Satire, more than any other form of composition, rouses antipathy where it does not command applause; and the greater the satire, the more intense are the feelings it excites.” (G. W. Foote in his Preface)     [chương_files]  

    13/07/2024
    Coffee Break Collection 035 - Birds cover

    Coffee Break Collection 035 – Birds

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    Chapter: 20 | Listen: 2

    This is the 35th Coffee Break Collection, in which LibriVox readers select and read stories or poems, fiction or non-fiction pieces of fifteen minutes’ duration or less, suitable for short commutes and coffee breaks. The subject for this collection is “BIRDS” (includes bird watching, training, pets, migratory patterns, filming, fantasy fiction, etc) … and the collection is full after 20 pieces have been submitted.     [chương_files]  

    12/07/2024
    Anti-Dictator: The Discours sur la servitude voluntaire cover

    Anti-Dictator: The Discours sur la servitude voluntaire

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    Chapter: 4 | Listen: 4

    Étienne de La Boétie was the closest friend of Michel de Montaigne and the subject of the latter’s famous essay “On Friendship.” Here, however, he tackles a different, more impersonal relationship: that of ruler and ruled. The argument in this work is encapsulated in this quote: “A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it.” Montaigne claimed that Boétie composed this work at the age of 18, and it was published over a decade after the young man’s tragic death at 32. Some commentators up to the present day have argued that Montaigne himself was the author, and that he used the cover of his late friend’s name because of its radical content. Whatever the truth, these words have inspired anti-authoritarian thinking for centuries. – Summary by Ben Adams     [chương_files]  

    12/07/2024
    Excursions cover

    Excursions

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    Chapter: 25 | Listen:

    Excursions is an 1863 anthology of several essays by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The anthology contains an introduction entitled “Biographical Sketch” in which fellow transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson provides a description of Thoreau. The book, other than R. W. Emerson’s biography of Thoreau, contains nine of Thoreau’s essays: Natural History of Massachusetts, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Winter Walk, The Succession of Forest Trees, Walking, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples, and Night and Moonlight. – (summary from Wikipedia.org)     [chương_files]  

    12/07/2024
    Letters to Catherine E. Beecher in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism cover

    Letters to Catherine E. Beecher in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism

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    Chapter: 13 | Listen: 3

    This is a collection of thirteen letters from Angelina Grimké on the subjects of abolitionism and human rights in the United States.     [chương_files]  

    12/07/2024
    Dolliver Romance and Other Pieces cover

    Dolliver Romance and Other Pieces

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    Chapter: 13 | Listen: 4

    This post-humous collection of stories, sketches and essays by celebrated quintessential New England author Nathaniel Hawthorne gives us glimpses of the many different facets of Hawthorne’s personality. The titular tale The Dolliver Romance was an unfinished manuscript that was edited and prepared for publication after Hawthorne’s death and relates the story of an aged man with a small child in his care who swallows a magical tincture daily that rejuvenates his vitality, reversing the aging process. Also in a more fantastical vein are the stories “The Ancient Ring”, a legend told of a ring cursed, and “Graves a Goblins”, a wryly humorous and moving tale from the point of view of a ghost. In addition, found within are non-fiction essays such as “Sketches from Memory” and “My Trip to Niagara” where Hawthorne evokes a sense of place and time in a most remarkable and vivid fashion. We also see Hawthorne’s somber, allegorical side in stories such as “Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man” and “The Old Woman’s Tale”, stories told with a nuanced touch. For fans of Hawthorne, this collection provides a last look at various works a master storyteller has given so generously. (Summary by Ben Tucker)     [chương_files]