feeling slightly defensive

So about a week ago when I couldn’t sleep I was trolling the internet and found this site called LibriVox. It’s a site where people volunteer to read whole books or chapters from public domain titles which then free to download.  This hit me at the right time because the summer is when I traditionally start to think about picking up some classics to read.  I’d say that was all about conditioning – you know, assigned summer reading for the next school year – except that back in the dinosaur days when I went to school there was no such thing as assigned summer reading.

I happen to think that’s a good thing.  I dare you to ask me how I feel about homework. (One hint: What is the antonym for ‘useful’?)

Anyway, I got all excited looking over the list because I was thinking here’s another great idea for teen guys.  You’ve got some classics you want to get out of the way, and you can do it while getting to and from a summer job, or while you’re in the workshop tinkering with a vibrobot or whatever. And there’s even the opportunity to participate in the project.  I’m thinking, dang, if I had portable audio when I was a teen maybe I’d have “read” a lot more classics because sometimes those books are easier to hear than to read, especially since I was more a kinesthetic learner and could have been doing things at the same time.

So I blogged it at Guys Lit Wire.

I’m not going to make any excuses, except that at the time I was writing to post about LibriVox it was late and I was tired and I half wondered if I’d done a crappy job of it.  No, I finally decided, and hit ‘publish’.

Yeah, well, getting clever with the title I sort of forgot one of my own rules: never use a title that can be used against you by critics.  By saying Classics.  Audio.  Free. I felt like I was playing up an old advertisers trick of creating interest and then hitting with the most powerful word in the world of selling.  Then yesterday I checked the site to see how it looked and saw there was a comment. And this guy responded with

How about “Gripping. Audio. Free.” Instead of “the classics,” how about some contemporary books produced with great zest?

You know, I kinda take offense at the idea classics are somehow less gripping.  There’s this notion out there that classics are always boring, or of no interest to teen boys, and that’s just not any more true than saying all boys like sports. While we’re at it why don’t we just give in and say “boys don’t read, so why bother trying to ferret out what they like?”

That’s when I realized that I didn’t really “sell” the post the way I should have. I did do a crappy job because I left wiggle room for that traditional bias against classics.

I’m not against the new, far from it.  And I’m grateful for Mr. Cottonwood‘s pointer to newer works on audio for teens. But I learned not to take my blogging so casually in the future.  I’m not doing any justice to the blog or the issue by letting my personal exuberance get in the way of clear writing.

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classics. audio. free.

Admit it, one of those words above is more exciting than the other two.

I don’t know what it is about summer, but something about the shift in seasons triggers my desire to read more classic books. Weird, I know, but there you have it. In casually bopping around I stumbled onto this site called LibriVox which provides (here it comes again) free audio book readings of titles in the public domain.

Which means a lot of classic books over 85 years old.

At LibriVox the readers are all volunteers which can make for some interesting choices and voices. Shorter poems, for example, have several versions by different readers. Walt Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! has no less that 13 different readers tackling it. And with Joyce’s Ulysses (all 32-plus hours worth) “pub-like background noise was encouraged, as well as creative group readings; and no editing was required, so in places there may be some accidental variation from the original text.” Well, that sounds intriguing!

Finding my way through the catalog I stumbled on at least half a dozen titles I’ve wanted to read and never got around to. The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood by Sabatini to start, and there are a couple of Dickens titles I haven’t read yet. Ooo, and some Kafka! Plays by Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare get full-cast readings that could helpful for some students — yes, I do advocate listening as a legitimate form of reading, so long as it is a complete text.

In fact, I can’t think of a better way of dealing with all that downtime commuting to and from summer jobs, or during lunch breaks, than with some fine classic book recordings. Forced to hang with extended family over the Fourth of July or Labor Day Weekends? Disappear into a quiet spot with some audio books. Can’t stand the eye strain of reading in the bright sun at the beach (or prefer to look less nerd-like with a pair of ear buds)? Want something to do after you’ve built yourself that hammock? Here you go.

Sure, there are lots of ways you can get free audio books. The local library has audio books that you can upload onto your computer or MP3 player of choice, but why not remove a step? LibriVox has it set up for easy downloads, things went to my iTunes with a single click, and it took no time to load.

Another thing about LibriVox that I thought was cool: you can also participate by volunteering to read chapters from books.

Worth a look-see.

(Does this post look familiar?  Yup, I’m cross-posting over GuysLitWire! This isn’t my first “official” post, that comes on Wednesday.  If you haven’t checked out GLW yet, please, do so!)

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Guys Lit Wire goes live!

Or is it hot when a wire has juice running through it? Anyway…

I don’t think it’s been any secret that a number of kidlit bloggers have been working behind the scenes for some time now (has it been six months?) getting ready to launch Guys Lit Wire. There’s a good chance that if you’re reading this announcement you’re either one of the many people involved or this is going to be, like, the fifty-first post about this. Nonetheless, today is launch day, the blog is officially open!

Guys Lit Wire!

The whole thing came about some time late last year, I believe, in the comments section over at Sara’s blog Read Write Believe. A bunch of us kidlit blogger types were hashing out ideas and fantasies about teen boys and books and ideal environments and then – WHAM! – the next thing you know there’s nearly two dozen bloggers scheduled to post reviews and interviews and whatnot every weekday for the rest of 2008!

Okay, so it wasn’t all like spontaneous combustion, it was the hard work of many people but primarily Colleen at Chasing Ray and Sarah at Finding Wonderland who did the heavy lifting. But the rest of us are in there, making lists and posting posts, talking amongst ourselves to make this the best dang thing of its kind. It’s serious, folks, we’re a dedicated bunch. Check out that contributors list!

And I say “we” because I am proud to be participating in the enterprise. Once a month I’m scheduled to share some of what I consider to be good stuff for teen boys, my first post will come a week from Wednesday on June 9th. What will my inaugural post be about? Well, you’ll just have to check it out then.

(hint: think NYC and dystopia)

No need to mark your calendar — you’ll be a regular to the site by then anyway, right? — but just in case I’ll be cross-posting with linkage so you can jump around and get lost in all that GLW goodness! Trust me, there are plenty of great people involved in this thing Head on over and read the contributors bios and you’ll see what I mean.

Right tasty!

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