The Portable Mansfield Park

Recipe for satisfying entertainment while visiting Europe:

• 1 juiced up 8 gig Nano Ipod
• 48 downloaded podcast chapters of Mansfield Park
• 5 hours of uninterrupted driving
• 14 hours of uninterrupted flying
• six sleepless nights in a foreign hotel

Result: Completed the book before the battery conked out; one fairly* satisfied Jane reader/Nano customer.

Next step: Download 50 podcast chapters of Sense and Sensibility

Source of free podcasts: Librivox

*Let's face it, Librivox volunteers are not exactly professional readers. While almost 50% of the people who read Mansfield Park were satisfactory, the rest were stultifyingly bad. Only my extreme love for Jane's words and my innate stubbornness kept me listening in some instances.

Update: For free downloads of Persuasion by professional voice actor, Nikolle Doolin, click here. She has also thoughtfully included a synopsis of every chapter and a list of the primary characters on her site.

Posted by Ms. Place

Librivox Records its 1,000th Book

Librivox, a source for free audio books, recently recorded its 1,000th public domain book. If you haven't visited their site, click here. The site features all of Jane Austen's books including some of her juvenalia, and other classics you have come to love. My only critique is that the persons reading the books are volunteers, not professional actors. But, hey, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. These downloads are free!