Ms M. brought this to my attention, saying, “Some cool samplage possibilities here, I bet.”

Books and other writings now in the public domain read by all sorts of folks—surely not those seeking profit—resulting in a growing catalog of free audiobooks, available in various levels of fidelity.

LibriVox: Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain

I started with Thomas Chapais’s Chronicles of Canada Volume 6 – The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672.

I moved on rather willy-nilly to Chapter 6, Book 1 of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace (1827 – 1905).  Chapter 1’s male reader has a sort of Appalachian accent.  Chapter 6 features a young female reader with a semi-thick French accent:

In Solomon’s day there was great traffic at the locality, shared in by traders from Egypt and the rich dealers from Tyre and Sidon. Nearly three thousand years have passed, and yet a kind of commerce clings to the spot. A pilgrim wanting a pin or a pistol, a cucumber or a camel, a house or a horse, a loan or a lentil, a date or a dragoman, a melon or a man, a dove or a donkey, has only to inquire for the article at the Joppa Gate.

Many years since childhood, i still get giddy at the notion of story time.  LibriVox promises to provide endless journeys of shared voices and shared imagination.

Enjoy!  I intend to!