I love to read aloud. I started early; I have memories of reading to my little sister on weekend mornings when we still lived in New Jersey (circa 1974). Once I read the entire Scholastic Books edition of Annie Oakley in a strange syncopated jazz rhythm. I read Sarah Crewe aloud to Jenn, too.
Jenn's not the only one to listen to me read. On a long car trip in the early 90s, I read David Brin's Earth to Tod as he drove. I often read him chapters from books he's reading. I read newspaper clippings, online articles and weblog postings to friends and family. I read to friends over the phone or in person when they are sick or tired.
Now I want to perform for a broader audience. I thought about volunteering to read for the blind, but Tod had a clever idea--read and record works in the public domain.
I will record them as MP3s and post them here as well as submitting them to audio book collectives. But what to read? There are hundreds of titles via Project Gutenberg. Where should I start?
maybe somthing by jane austen or alice in wonderland.
but f. Scott fitzgerald would be my favorite.
or maybe selected pages from the tokio phonebook? );-)
i'm really looking forward to it.
This is such a great idea! I wonder if I could read something in Dutch though.
Record and then make it available to the blind societies around the world for free. That would be more meaningful.
Lisa's idea is a good one.
I remember all those reading sessions, many of them on Christmas mornings while we were waiting to go downstairs! When you read to me, I was allowed to be in your room and learn more of you. It was a treat.
Scary how in sync our thought patterns are sometimes. I was just thinking about doing nearly the exact same thing. Maybe we could make a public domain project out of it.
I would volunteer for a public domain project. Would an antipodean accent be acceptable??
For stories with a lot of dialogue it might be cool to have different people read the different parts. That way you could all collaborate.
Count me in for the foreign English accent.;-)
Thanks to you guys, I've become a big fan of Murakami Haruki's, and found the stories in "After the Quake" to work quite well aloud.
Wow, this can bring an new aspect to our mail magazines, too.