So I've been away for a while...

 ...only to log in and find another DCMA notice.

...how did they know? 

......HOW COULD THEY SEE THROUGH MY IMPENETRABLE VEIL OF SHODDY WORDPLAY!?  

I was also happily surprised to see a huge spike in regular visits to this humble archive.
I hope you have all enjoyed these lovely audiobooks, and continue to share the stories they hold.

Listen in the dark! Free bedtime stories! Let them narrate you to sleep!

Oh and please come back for more, I have some things in mind I'd like to upload.
If you like a book, leave a comment.

Ho Ho Ho keep warm and all the rest,

The Archivist

Ted Hughes - Tales from Ovid

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Published in 1997, Tales from Ovid was immediately recognized as a classic in its own right, as the best reading of Ovid in generations, and as a major book in Ted Hughes's oeuvre. 

The Metamorphoses of Ovid stands with the works of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton as a classic of world poetry; Hughes translated twenty-four of its stories with great power and directness. The result is the liveliest twentieth-century version of the classic, at once a delight for the Latinist and an appealing introduction to Ovid.

BBC R3 - Shakespeare's London

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Writer Iain Sinclair walks the streets of London in the company of Shakespeare scholars and archaeologists, to seek out echoes of Shakespeare's city in the London of today.

This programme was made available online in April 2012 as part of the the BBC's Shakespeare Unlocked season.

Blood Wedding - Federico Garcia Lorca - Ted Hughes Version

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An evocative meditation on fate, war, tradition, passion and repression, inspired by the true story of a fatal feud between two families in the Almeria province, high in the mountains of rural Spain. A version by Ted Hughes.

Oh and it's a radio drama too, with loads of voices.

One episode of approximately 1 hour 30 minutes.

A Canticle for Liebowitz

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A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960. Based on three short stories Miller contributed to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it is the only novel published by the author during his lifetime. Considered one of the classics of science fiction, it has never been out of print and has seen over 25 reprints and editions. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.

Set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it.

Inspired by the author's participation in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino during World War II, the novel is considered a masterpiece by literary critics. It has been compared favorably with the works of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Walker Percy, and its themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research.

This 15 part serial is based on the novel by Walter M. Miller, Jr. published in 1959. The story had previously been published as a series of novellas in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science. The book won the Hugo award winner for best science fiction novels of all time.

The radio drama adaptation by John Reed, and produced at WHA by Carl Schmidt and Marv Nunn.
The play was directed by Karl Schmidt, engineered by Marv Nunn with special effects by Vic Marsh.
Narrator - Carol Collins and includes Fred Coffin, Bart Hayman, Herb Hartig and Russel Horton.
Music was by Greg Fish and Bob Budney and the Edgewood College Chant Group.

George Orwell - Coming Up For Air

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Download Part I Here

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From Wiki:

Coming Up for Air is a novel by George Orwell, published before World War II and predicting that conflict. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five-year-old protagonist, telling the reader his life story. 

The social and material changes experienced by Bowling since childhood make his past seem as distant as the biblical character Og, King of Bashan, whom he remembers from Sundays at church. A news-poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania, along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something' triggers the connection in Bowling's mind and his subsequent 'trip down memory lane'. Orwell's writing tends to show a real relish for pessimism and squalor; nevertheless, Bowling expresses a nostalgic melancholy of some tenderness. 

George Orwell - '1984'

WAR IS PEACE, 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 

CELEBRATION

IS MANDATORY

Download Part I Here

Download Part II Here

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“1984” follows the life of Winston Smith as he struggles to conform. We get a first-hand look at the fear and distrust that rules his every thought and action. Reading “1984" will definitely help you to appreciate your own situation, no matter how bad it may seem. Big Brother is watching!

NARRATOR: Frank Muller is one of my very favorite audiobook narrators, and a perfect fit for “1984.” His grit and solemnity serve to augment the funerary feel of the audiobook.

Yeah whatever that dork said, now get back to your drab robotic lives spent watching Channel 4's Big Brother with four CCTV cameras installed in the corners of your living room while a giggling David Cameron watches you picking your nose.


In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and put this one down in the Archive as Factual...

As always, thanks for visiting, and spread the word!

Dylan Thomas - Under Milk Wood

"To Begin at the Beginning…."

The words of Dylan Thomas as read in the mellisonant tones of Richard Burton. One of my most treasured books, I offer you to borrow indefinitely, switch off the lights and take your imagination for a walk.

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Coming Soon!

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Under Milk Wood is a 1954 play for radio by Dylan Thomas, later adapted for the stage. A film version, Under Milk Wood directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released in 1972. 

Thomas’s poetic writing and an unforgettable cast of characters makes this a landmark play in the history of both radio and theatre.
An all-seeing narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of an imaginary small Welsh village, Llareggub.
They include Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, relentlessly bossing her two dead husbands; Captain Cat, reliving his seafaring times; the two Mrs Dai Breads; Organ Morgan, obsessed with his music; and Polly Garter, pining for her dead lover. Later, the town wakes and, aware now of how their feelings affect whatever they do, we watch them go about their daily business.

There is an original recording I've also uploaded ( Download Here ) if you're interested:

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The play had its first reading on stage on 14 May 1953, in New York, at The Poetry Center. Thomas himself read the parts of the First Voice and the Reverend Eli Jenkins. Almost as an afterthought, the performance was recorded on a single-microphone tape recording (the microphone was laid at front center on the stage floor) and later issued by the Caedmon company. It is the only known recorded performance of Under Milk Wood with Thomas as a part of the cast. A studio recording, planned for 1954, was precluded by Thomas's death during November 1953.

And I've also uploaded a BBC R4 continuity which played after the above recording back in the 1950s:

( Download Here )

Description:

I found a copy on an old tape my brother found at a charity shop some years ago. At the end of the production is about 10 minutes of priceless Radio 4 continuity, plugging three up-coming Just Before Midnight plays, giving details about the imminent wavelength changes and a complete playing of the 'New Radio 4 Opening Music', which became known as the UK Theme. This version of the Theme is about 2 minutes longer than the one that was axed in 2006.
Audio details: 96/44 mono mp3. Sound quality is rather poor - the recording was on an elderly C120 cassette, that gave up the ghost soon after this transfer.

I'm gonna try and find those three 'Just Before Midnight' plays too.

Radio Enthusiasts all up in this shiz.

Rock on.

William S. Burroughs -The "Priest" They Called Him (1992)

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The "Priest" They Called Him (1992) is an album collaboration between William S. Burroughs and Kurt Cobain. Cobain provides dissonant guitar backing based on "Silent Night" and "To Anacreon in Heaven" to Burroughs' deadpan reading.

 The titular "Priest" is the protagonist, an otherwise nameless heroin addict trying to score on Christmas Eve. After selling a leather suitcase filled with a pair of severed legs (and subsequently visiting the ubiquitous crooked doctor), the Priest returns to a boarding house with a fix. While preparing, the Priest is interrupted by muffled moans from the next room. He knocks and finds a crippled Mexican boy in the throes of agonizing withdrawal. After giving the boy his drugs as an act of charity, the Priest returns to his room, reclines on his bed and dies, in what Burroughs calls "the immaculate fix." Another reading of this piece was also used in The Junky's Christmas, a short animated film in 1990.

More info on the aul' - Wiki

Good day! 

William S. Burroughs - Break Through in Grey Room

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Continuing our William S Borroughs April series (ho ho ho) , here's another classic:

Extraordinary cut-up voices recorded during the mid-60's in hotel rooms in New York, Paris, London...It's impossible not to recognise the writer's voice -- the sonority of this voice -- a sonority also present in the silence of every text he wrote. An explosion of styles -- a blasting of borders -- the silence after a gunshot -- the overtaking of the fetishized word -- from the exploded painting to the cut tape. This record starts with a piece of more than 13 minutes, recorded around 1965 with Ian Sommerville somewhere in New York and London -- K-9 was in combat with the alien mind-screens, including various monologues, radio short waves and music...Tapes, cut and cut and cut up to the limit of sense -- emerged new structures of communication... and senses. Words gain power when loosing the boundaries of semantics. Including too Joujouka music recorded by WS Borroughs in the hills of Morocco with Ornette Coleman, circa 1973."

Compliments of BBC4Free, now taking requests, just write in the comments box below! 

William S. Burroughs - Junky

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Download Part II Here

Download Part III Here

Artwork

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"Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch, an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junk, his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an unvarnished field report from the American post-war underground."

"Unafraid to portray himself in 1953 as a confirmed member of two socially-despised under classes (a narcotics addict and a homosexual), Burroughs was writing as a trained anthropologist when he unapologetically described a way of life - in New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City - that by the 1940's was already demonized by the artificial anti-drug hysteria of an opportunistic bureaucracy and a cynical, prostrate media."

Read BY THE AUTHOR.
Total length: 3 hours, 5 minutes

Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis

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Franza Kafka's surreal novel reenacted by BBC.
Gregor Samsa wakes one day to find himself transformed into a hideous insect.

Total length: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Read by Benedict Cumberbatch

Wordsworth - Two-Part Prelude

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Some people prefer the other version of The Prelude done by Ian McKellen, but I love this recording of it, dream-like sounds and a voice draws me into the world of the poet.

The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind is an autobiographical, "philosophical" poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth wrote the first version of the poem when he was 28, and worked over the rest of it for his long life without publishing it. He never gave it a title; he called it the "Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge" and in his letters to Dorothy Wordsworth referred to it as "the poem on the growth of my own mind." The poem was unknown to the general public until published three months after Wordsworth's death in 1850, its final name given to it by his widow Mary. The poem has been referred to as the first psychological epic. - Wikipedia

H.G. Wells - The New Accelerator

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A BBC 7 commission read by Robert Bathurst.


The acclaimed physiologist, Professor Gibberne, is on the verge of a making a discovery that will revolutionise human life by creating a stimulant to speed up both the body and mind...


One episode of approximately 30 minutes.


First broadcast 21/1/2006 on BBC7.


oh also...this is the-

Better drink heavily on this momentous occasion!

The Tibetan Book Of The Dead

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In this scripture of Tibetan Buddhism—traditionally read aloud to the dying to help them attain liberation—death and rebirth are seen as a process that provides an opportunity to recognize the true nature of mind. This audio program, read by the actor Richard Gere, allows you to experience this timeless text in the traditional way. It will be of interest to people concerned with death and dying, as well as to all those who seek spiritual insight into the myriad changes of everyday life.

Total length: 2 hours, 49 minutes

George Carlin - Class Clown

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Class Clown is the third comedy album released by American comedian George Carlin. It was recorded May 27, 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, and released in September.


At the time he was relatively well-known for tame satirical routines about the entertainment industry. His previous album FM & AM released the same year, showed that he was already drifting towards counter-culture icon, but Class Clown proved a landmark. Besides musings about his youth, the album featured strongly directed remarks against the Vietnam War and his attachment to taboo topics. The album contains "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", which became the focus of government harassment in the year that followed, and, perhaps not coincidentally, Carlin's most famous calling card. Carlin would continue to explore the use of profanity for the rest of his career. Apart from this segment, Class Clown is Carlin's only profanity-free album since 1971.

Gotta love Carlin.

Bill Hicks - Arizona Bay

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Arizona Bay is an album by comedian Bill Hicks, posthumously released in 1997. It was released alongside Rant in E-Minor, marking three years since his death. The album's title refers to the hope that Los Angeles will one day fall into the ocean due to a major earthquake. Hicks contends that the world will be better off in L.A.'s absence:

Ahhh, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone...All the shitty shows are gone, all the idiots screaming in the fucking wind are dead, I love it...leaving nothing but a cool, beautiful serenity called Arizona Bay. That's right, when L.A. falls in the fucking ocean and is flushed away, all it will leave is Arizona Bay.

Several of Hicks's albums are unique in that they feature background music, meant to enhance the album's mood. Such additions were made well after the initial recordings and are the product of Hicks's own musicianship.

According to Kevin Booth, in the BBC documentary Dark Poet, it was during the early recording sessions for Arizona Bay, around Christmas 1992, that Hicks first started suffering from the pains in his side, which would later be diagnosed as pancreatic cancer. Upon learning that he had developed cancer, Hicks used his time to mix music into Rant in E-Minor and Arizona Bay, calling it his Dark Side of the Moon.


Bill Hicks - Guitar, Vocals
Kevin Booth - Bass, Keyboards, Percussion, Producer

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit (1974)

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Out-of-print audiobook adaptation which was authorized by professor Tolkien himself, this was originally put out in 1974 as a boxed set of LPs. In my view, this is pretty much the best adaptation of The Hobbit ever, rivaling even the terrific animated film adaptation. It owes its greatness to the wonderful music and simply amazing voice work of Nicol Williamson, who may be better known to some as Merlin from the film Excalibur. If there were a Criterion Collection for audiobooks, this would surely be be one of the first titles.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

Alan Watts - Myth and Religion - Audiobook

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Alan Watts, "Myth and Religion (Audiobook)"

Electronic University Publishing | 1996 | ISBN: 1882435214 | Audio CD | mp3 | 145 MB

Summary: from Iowa

Rating: 5


This is an awesome book. I was introduced to Alan Watts' work about a year ago and I have throughly enjoyed his exploration of the eastern and western religious ideas. I was born and raised in both the Hindu and Christian triditions, and it was difficult for me to compare the two religions until Alan Watts came along.

Chapters:

Not What Should Be, But What Is!

Spiritual Authority

Jesus: His Religion?

Democracy in Heaven

Image of Man

Sex in the Church

_______________________

Summary: The Christianity Trap

Rating: 5


Alan Watts lectured to live audiences during the 1960's and1970's. His talks reveal his view of Christianity and religion and leaves the listener with a keen sense that "I too, am a son of God". With this insight the listener is set free to experience life in its fullest. Alan Watts masterful description of Christianity through a Buddhist point of view is truely illuminating.

BBC Radio Stoke - On the Cut

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Download Part II Here

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For canal enthusiasts, there is nothing better than hearing about the colourful history of the waterways. Thanks to the work of one North Staffordshire radio producer, Arthur Wood, they can listen to the authentic voices.

Back in 1985, work was finally completed in the Radio Stoke studios on a huge project.
It's a project which would have challenged today's leading national broadcasters, even with the cash at their disposal.
But when you think it was essentially the work of just one radio producer, working on the sort of tiny budget provided on BBC local radio, it was an amazing feat.

Arthur Wood, whose 'day-job' was as Education Producer at Radio Stoke, had managed to record some one hundred hours of interviews out on location, and then edited them all, distilling them all down to ten half-hour documentary programmes.
It is a staggering achievement - and even more when you consider that Arthur also wrote the narrative script (and voiced it himself) and even wrote the music! Arthur was of course a distinguished jazz piano-player.

Arthur, who died in 2005, was a canals-man.
Raised in North Staffordshire, he was familiar with the many waterways that run through the area, and even chose to settle in a house near to the Cauldon. He had his own boat.
However it was those who worked on the canals that fascinated him the most; and he decided to record memories of a disappearing way of life before they were finally lost for ever - and so began the "On The Cut" project. "Cut" is of course the local dialect word for a canal.
Arthur described the opus as: "An account of day-to-day life on commercial waterways by the men and women who worked on, and alongside, some of the main canals of England in the earlier years of the 20th century."

The programmes are:

Part 1 Homes & Boats
Part 2 Narrow Boats & Broad Boats
Part 3 Carrying Cargoes
Part 4 Horses & Motors
Part 5 Boats On The Move
Part 6 Forging Ahead
Part 7 A Tough Life
Part 8 On The Bank
Part 9 Growing Up
Part 10 End of An Era

BBC R3 - Louis MacNeice's 'Christopher Columbus'

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First perfomed in 1942 to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Columbus'
first great voyage of discovery. This production made and broadcast
to celebrate the 500th anniversary. Far less theatrical/more natural
than the original production.

The music is intrusive up front, but after about five minutes settles
down and supports - rather than competes with - the action.

Music by BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC R4 - Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle

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A hundred years ago Edgar Rice Burroughs created the character of Tarzan who quickly became a global sensation - when the books were first adapted for the big screen in 1918, the resulting film was one of the first ever to take over a million dollars at the box office. Way ahead of his time, Burroughs ignored the advice of business 'experts' who told him not to roll out the character across different formats. By doing so, he was one of the true pioneers of the multi-media franchises that have since become the norm.

Tarzan himself has been as troubling as he has been popular - the different characterisations that have appeared in the hundreds of books, films, radio shows, comic books, cartoons etc., make it very hard to pinpoint one single, authentic character. Some critics have derided him for his affirmation of white, colonial assumptions, while others have championed his eco-warrior credentials. One thing is for sure - with a range of new books and films appearing, the character of Tarzan has lost little of his original appeal. John Waite talks with, among others, James Sullos of ERB Inc., Desmond Morris to find out about the plausibility of the notion of a baby being raised by apes, and cultural historian Jeffrey Richards.

BBC R4 - The Lobotomists

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2011 marks a 75th anniversary that many would prefer to forget: of the first lobotomy in the US. It was performed by an ambitious young American neurologist called Walter Freeman. Over his career, Freeman went on to perform perhaps 3,000 lobotomies, on both adults and later on children. He often performed 10 procedures or more a day. Perhaps 40,000 patients in the US were lobotomised during the heyday of the operation - and an estimated 17,000 more in the UK.

This programme tells the story of three key figures in the strange history of lobotomy - and for the first time explores the popularity of lobotomy in the UK in detail.

The story starts in 1935 with a Portuguese doctor called Egas Moniz, who pioneered a radical surgical procedure on the brain. Moniz was a remarkably distinguished figure, a diplomat as well as a doctor, who had invented the technique of cerebral angiography which is still used today. With very little evidence, he speculated that cutting the links between the frontal lobes and the rest of the brain would relieve symptoms of mental disorder. His results were seized on with enthusiasm the following year by Freeman, the grandson of one of the US's most famous surgeons. Freeman was a relentless self-publicist and managed to convince many of the efficacy of his procedure. Freeman's promotion of lobotomy as a cure for mental illness was instrumental in Moniz receiving the Nobel Prize for medicine. The operation was also taken up by the most celebrated British neurosurgeon of the time, Sir Wylie McKissock. Like Freeman, he travelled the country, performing numerous lobotomies in single sessions. For this programme, Hugh Levinson interviews McKissock's former colleagues and hears in detail about how he performed several thousand lobotomies, or leucotomies as they were known in the UK.

The operations were successful in subduing disturbed patients, usually with immediate positive results, which sometimes persisted. Freeman argued that this was better than letting mentally ill patients rot away for decades in squalid institutions, untreated and unattended. However, further monitoring showed very mixed results. While a significant number of patients with affective disorders seemed to become better, a large proportion were unaffected or got worse. Many patients reverted to a child-like state. A significant proportion died as a direct result of the procedure.

In the 1940s, Freeman pushed on, devising a faster and cheaper procedure. He hammered an icepick (originally taken from his home fridge) through the top of each eye socket, directly into the skull. He then swept the icepick from side to side, destroying the connections to the frontal lobes. Other surgeons were horrified by the random nature of the operation. He recorded with satisfaction in his diary when attending doctors ended up vomiting or fainting. His closest aide refused to participate. By the late 1950s the lobotomy craze was over, and only a very few continued to be performed in special cases. In the late 1960s, Freeman was banned from operating.

The stories of Moniz, Freeman and McKissock - all commanding and dynamic figures - raise profound questions about our ideas both of mental health and science. Is a patient "cured" just because he becomes subdued? And how come the lobotomy became so popular despite the lack of evidence of its efficacy - and the rapid dissemination of evidence of its potential for harm? To what extent is science independent of powerful personalities, economic considerations and media pressure?

Jerome K Jerome - Three Men In A Boat

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Episode 1: 

------------

4 Extra Debut. George, Harris and J holiday on the River Thames from Kingston to Oxford - with Montmorency the dog. Stars Jeremy Nicholas.

Episode 2:

------------

A tin of pineapple takes on a starring role as the story of the Thames holiday continues.

Episode 3:

------------

As the friends conclude their Thames adventure, they encounter a tragedy and some nasty weather.

Duration: 81 Mins (Each episode 27 Mins)

Cormack McCarthy - No Country For Old Men

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Download Part II Here

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In 1980 southwest Texas, Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, stumbles across several dead men, a bunch of heroin and $2.4 million in cash.

The bulk of the novel is a gripping man-on-the-run sequence relayed in terse, masterful prose as Moss, who's taken the money, tries to evade Wells, an ex?Special Forces agent employed by a powerful cartel, and Chigurh, an icy psychopathic murderer armed with a cattle gun and a dangerous philosophy of justice. 

Also concerned about Moss's whereabouts is Sheriff Bell, an aging lawman struggling with his sense that there's a new breed of man (embodied in Chigurh) whose destructive power he simply cannot match. In a series of thoughtful first-person passages interspersed throughout, Sheriff Bell laments the changing world, wrestles with an uncomfortable memory from his service in WWII and?a soft ray of light in a book so steeped in bloodshed?rejoices in the great good fortune of his marriage. 

While the action of the novel thrills, it's the sensitivity and wisdom of Sheriff Bell that makes the book a profound meditation on the battle between good and evil and the roles choice and chance play in the shaping of a life.

(Dr.) Timothy Leary - LSD: The Psychedelic Experience

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if one were to make the Joeseph Campbell connection from Star Wars then it would be clear why i'm following up Star Wars with this. If not, it simply boils down to the fact that this guided walkthrough to LSD is more than it seems. 

The ideas presented here and in general in Leary's life earned him the reputation as the "most dangerous man in America" and why he was sentenced to 30+ years in jail for half a joint (which he said was planted anyways). 

In sum, a great individual and someone I have nothing but respect for and thus am very pleased to upload.

Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (Unabridged)Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (Unabridged)

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After his youthful adventures of raping and pillaging, Alex finds himself in prison. When he volunteers for an experiment, his sentence is commuted to two weeks.

The experiment leaves him physically incapable of doing wrong and releases him back into the world. However, when he repeatedly runs into people he has wronged in the past, his real suffering begins.

Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

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Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury which was first published in 1953.

 The novel presents a future American society in which the masses are hedonistic and critical thought through reading is outlawed. The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this future, means "bookburner"). 

The number "451" refers to the temperature at which book paper combusts. Although sources contemporary with the novel's writing gave the temperature as 450 °C (842 °F), 

Bradbury apparently thought "Fahrenheit" made for a better title.The "firemen" burn them "for the good of humanity". Written in the early years of the Cold War, the novel is a critique of what Bradbury saw as issues in American society of the era. Read by the author.

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Annals of the Kings and Rulers

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This is a funny one as I discovered I had this only by chance. this is a rare recording of an appendix-type history of kings and other such information about Middle-Earth. basically if one has the Silmarillion (which will be uploaded in due time as well) then this would be right up your alley. three cheers for the master of all fantasy.

BBC R4 - Your World - Dreaming Dickens

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A dream-walk with Charles Dickens through the London night.

In the 200 years since his birth, Charles Dickens has become an institution - the archetypal Victorian novelist, whose works have spawned countless costume dramas on television.

But he also left another, very different legacy: some of the strangest and most surreal writing in the English language.

At times so cosy and sentimental, Dickens’ novels are full of transgressive desires and fears - murderous rage, anarchic glee, cannibalistic threats, and sexual obsession.

In this documentary-fantasy we bring the danger back to Dickens.

Slipping in and out of his weird and brilliant imagination, we see modern London as he might have done, travelling through the city's streets at night to crack dens and strip-joints as the police sirens wail.

We meet characters from his novels and characters who would be in his novels if he were still alive today.

Starring Sandy Grierson and Madeline Brolly.

------- File Information ---------

Broadcast BBC WS, 04 Feb 2012 

BBC R4 - Plain Tales From The Raj

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Seeing the popularity of our older post - More Plain Tales from the Raj, I decided to look around and find the first of this series, which I've uploaded here for your pleasure.

Enjoy!
________


Reminiscences of people who lived and worked in India from the late
19thC to Independence in 1947.

Interviewees came from a wide range of civilian and military departments.
Military  personnel range from the Commander in Chief of the Army in India
to Army privates. Civil servants of various ranks and members of the business
and commercial world.

Subjects include accommodation and living conditions, daily routine, social life,
recreation, health sanitation, the effects of India postings on family life, relations
between the British, other Europeans, Indians and Eurasians, events such as
riots and earthquakes, the fauna and landscape and political events.

Black Mass - Horror Programs

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Download Part III Here

Download Part IV Here

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31 of the 39 programs from the Horror stories produced by the Black Mass:

BBC R4 - Book At Bedtime: The Dream Life of Sukhanov

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It's the summer of 1985. Gorbachev is in the Kremlin and the first breezes of change are in the air. But for now, Anatoly Pavlovich Sukhanov (Tolya) is at the height of his prestige. He is the best-known art critic in the Soviet Union - editor-in-chief of Art of the World - with a grace-and-favour Moscow apartment, a dacha, and a chauffeur-driven Volga.

His wife, Nina, is the daughter of Malinin, the most famous 'approved' artist in the Soviet Union, twice-winner of the Lenin Prize. But at a retrospective of Malinin's work, things start to unravel for Tolya.

Olga Grushin was born in Moscow in 1971 and spent her childhood in Moscow and Prague. In 1989 she became the first Soviet citizen to enrol for a full-time degree in the United States while retaining Soviet citizenship. In 2006 she was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers and named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. She has published two novels: The Dream Life of Sukhanov (2006) and The Concert Ticket (published in the US as The Line) in April 2010. Olga lives in Washington D.C.

"A contemporary novel so good, I felt like buying 10 copies and sending them to friends"
The Independent

"It breathes new life into American literary fiction"
The Washington Post

Abridged by Jeremy Osborne

Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC R4 - Rudyard Kipling - The Gardener

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An aunt's grief for her nephew, killed by a splinter shell on the Somme. A poignant tale of remembrance read by Patricia Hodge.

BBC R4 - The Lost Special

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story of the mysterious disappearance of a train en route from Liverpool. Read by David Schofield

BBC R4 - Classic Serial: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels

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Jonathan Swift's classic satire, in a brand new dramatisation starring Arthur Darvill [Dr Who.]

(57 Mins each episode)

Episode 1 (05 Feb 2012)

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Gulliver is shipwrecked on the Island of Lilliput where the natives are tiny people living in a miniature society. With his unique overview of this realm, Gulliver discovers a world of petty politics and small minds. Coerced into a war between two nations who disagree on the best way to eat boiled eggs, Gulliver finds himself betrayed by friends and battered by enemies - escape is his only option if he wants to survive!

Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput are hilarious, disturbing and profound. This is a story of dishonest politicians, mindless ceremony and wars based on unconvincing arguments. A satire as potent now as it ever was!

Gulliver's Travels quickly became a classic. The book has become not only the defining work of its author but also of its genre - a landmark in English Literature to which all satirists today can trace a heritage.

Gulliver's Travels is adapted for radio by Matthew Broughton, and is a BBC Cymru/Wales production, directed by Sam Hoyle.

Gulliver's Travels stars Arthur Darvill as Gulliver. Other members of the company are Matthew Gravelle, Sam Dale, Bethan Walker, Judith Faultless, Richard Nichols, Chris Pavlo, Claire Cage, Lynne Seymour.

Episode 2 (12 Feb 2012)

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Gulliver's adventures continue when he finds himself in Brobdingnag - a land where the inhabitants are enormous! Here, as a miniature man, Gulliver must fight for survival against rats the size of dogs, a dwarf who is 40 foot high, and the ridicule and humiliation of a scornful court.

With his uniquely close-up view, Gulliver sees the people (even the great beauties) as if under a microscope - and they are dirty, stinking and disgusting. He becomes increasingly horrified by humankind, stranded in a frightening land where his only ally is an innocent child. Once again, escape is imperative - if he doesn't, he won't survive...

As an exploration of of man's vanity and complacency, Gulliver's second voyage is an acute satire - as relevant today as ever. Beyond that, it is also a rattling good adventure story - a man lost, swashbuckling his way through manifold giant-sized dangers, desperate to find a way back home.

Gulliver's Travels stars Arthur Darvill as Gulliver. Other members of the company are Matthew Gravelle, Sam Dale, Bethan Walker, Judith Faultless, Richard Nichols, Chris Pavlo, Claire Cage, Lynne Seymour, Gareth Pierce, Ewan Bailey and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Episode 3 (19 Feb 2012)

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The last voyages of Jonathan Swift's story are the lesser told. Gulliver finds himself on the floating Island of Laputa, where he encounters mad scientists and the terrifying ghosts of the great and the good. He flees from these intellectual and spiritual horrors, only to finally find a kind of Eden with the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent and gentle horses. However, in this land, humans - or as they are called, the 'Yahoos' - are considered vermin. The dark and traumatizing experiences Gulliver has in this land change his life (and his wife and family's lives) forever. With the satire here focused on crazy scientific experimentation, superstition, and finally spiritual desolation - Gulliver's Travels is as modern and potent now as it has ever been.

Gulliver's Travels stars Arthur Darvill as Gulliver. Other members of the company are Matthew Gravelle, Sam Dale, Bethan Walker, Judith Faultless, Richard Nicol, Chris Pavlo, Claire Cage, Lynne Seymour, Gareth Pierce, Ewan Bailey and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

BBC R4 - The Spike Show - Milligan Remembered

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Made for 4 Extra. Agent and friend Norma Farnes reflects on Spike Milligan, 10 years after his death. Includes clips from classic shows.

Thanks for visiting, a lot of you out there like the history of the British in India, or Spike Milligan, or hopefully both!

Herman Melville - Moby Dick

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

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The classic, read by the master.

Captain Ahab maniacally hunts the great white whale across the seven oceans.

Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential

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One of the most honest and insightful chefs to ever have graced the glass teat, Bourdain reads his book with aplomb and covers the nitty-gritty of restaurants, Bigfoot and even the CIA. recommended if you like food.

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five

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Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Total length: 5 hours, 59 minutes

Bonus Kurt books included, Happy Kurtday! 

BOOKS:

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five.pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions.pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - Cats Cradle.pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night.pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - Next Door.pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - Player Piano.pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - Slapstick (or Lonesome no More!).pdf
Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan.pdf

Edgar Allen Poe - The Raven

 

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What more can I say about this than that it's Christopher Walken being the Walken and thus delivering an excellent reading. enhanced by some creeptastic sound-effects as well.

Isaac Asimov - Nightfall

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Before Asimov embarked on his great Foundation novels, he had this gem to his claim. one of sci-fi's very best.