Each month ChristianAudio offers one of their audio books for free afterwhich they go back to the regular price. This month the free book is G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. Add the audiobook to your cart and then just enter the coupon code “APR2008″ to receive this book completely free.

From the site:

All that G. K. Chesterton’s critics and comrades labeled him - devotional, impious, confounding, intelligent, humorous, bombastic - he wove into The Man Who Was Thursday. This page-turner sends characters bobbing around a delightfully confusing plot of mythic proportions. There are so many twists and turns that soon you’ll be tangled in a story that you cannot put down…even if you’re not entirely sure why!

The Man Who Was Thursday begins when two poets meet. Gabriel Syme is a poet of law. Lucian Gregory is a poetic anarchist. As the poets protest their respective philosophies, they strike a challenge. In the ruckus that ensues the Central European Council of Anarchists elects Syme to the post of Thursday, one of their seven chief council positions. Undercover. On the run. Syme meets Sunday, the head of the council, a man so outrageously mysterious that his antics confound both the law-abiding and the anarchist. Who is lawful? Who is immoral? Such questions are strangely unanswerable in the presence of Sunday. He is wholly other. He is above the timeless questions of humanity and also somehow behind them.

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was born in London. He matured into one of the great journalists, philosophers, novelists, and personalities of the twentieth century. Chesterton offered inspiration to many others, including his fellow Brit C. S. Lewis. His much-loved works include The Everlasting Man, Saint Francis of Assisi, Orthodoxy, and the Father Brown series of mystery novels.

Great Books Audio has begun podcasting The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I am sure I am not alone in not having read the story even though I am familiar with the characters. I look forward to finally getting a chance to ‘read’ the complete story.

According to Wikipedia, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic Edward Hyde. The work is known for its vivid portrayal of the psychopathology of a split personality; in mainstream culture the very phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” has come to mean a person who may show a distinctly different character, or profoundly different behavior, from one situation to the next, as if almost another person. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an immediate success and one of Stevenson’s best-selling works. Stage adaptations began in Boston and London within a year of its publication and it has gone on to inspire scores of major film and stage performances.

I have listened to the first installment and cannot wait to hear the remaining chapters as they are published. Go check it out over at Great Books Audio.

Some heroines will steal your heart…
This one will steal your wallet

What happens when a con-artist gets herself stranded in a distant galaxy after hijacking a space ship from an alien doing a human survey mission? Christiana Ellis just finished putting the 10th and last episode of this hilarious and very original sci-fi comedy audiodrama, Space Casey, online. The production quality is superb with great sound effects, music, and an all-star cast of voice talents.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy this great story.

Title: Space Casey
Author: Christiana Ellis
Published: November 2007 - February 2008
Length: 10 episodes, Approximately 4 hours
License: Non-Commercial, Share and Share Alike, Creative Commons license
Website: http://www.SpaceCasey.com
Podcasts: http://www.spacecasey.com/?feed=podcast

LiteralSystems publishes classic literary works as free mp3 audio books under the Creative Commons License. What sets there recordings apart from others is that they utilize paid performers to create the recordings. Due to the cost of using paid help the selection is limited but the recordings are all of the highest quality.

I like what the site admin says about why he uses paid performers:

On average an hour long audio book requires about four or five hours of work on the part of the actor to make it good. Consider, during the recording stage, the actors also have to deal with the director (yours truly) calling “…one more time.” from the next room; this process tends to be more work than most volunteers want to put in. But, because the director (yours truly) likes the results better, in the last two years, in this fashion, we have moved largely away from working with volunteer performers to a paid performers situation.

Below is a list of the titles that are currently available:

• The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
• An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
• The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood
• Excerpt from Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Upper Berth by Francis Marion Crawford
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm
• Travelling Musicians, The by the Brothers Grimm
• donaco de la Magoj, la by O Henry
• The Gift of the Magi by O Henry
• The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs
• The Elephant’s Child by Rudyard Kipling
• Gunga Din by Rudyard Kipling
• Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
• To Build A Fire by Jack London
• The Heathen by Jack London
• Saves You Time by Kendall McCook
• The Highwayman by Alfred Noyez
• The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar A. Poe
• Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain
• 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• The Red Room by H.G.Wells
• The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

Each week the Classic Tales Podcast delivers an unabridged classic short story professionally performed by the host, B.J. Harrison. With the podcast, B.J. attempts to make unabridged classics available and approachable to a media savvy generation and provide a healthy dose of enchantment and adventure from such timeless authors as Dickens, Hardy, Hawthorne, Poe, Stevenson. His choice of stories, he says, are those will uplift and inspire and never to degrade which is his definition of what it means to be a “classic”.

According to the website, B.J. first fell in love with the classics when ran across a comic book version of Hamlet at age 12. As a teenager, he loved to listen to the old radio dramatizations including Frankenstein, War of the Worlds, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. For the last 11 years, he has been able to listen to audiobooks while he works and became acquainted with many colorful characters like David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Ivanhoe, and many others. The allure of these tales was enhanced for him by the performance of the reader in the presentation of the story. He uses what he learned to bring to life the stories presented in his podcast.

I appreciated B.J.’s pledge that he will not publish explicit material of any kind in The Classic Tales. It is nice to know that this will always be a family friendly podcast. I can listen to these stories to my kids and not need to awkwardly fast forward through portions.

He also sells some longer stories as audiobooks. He currently has 3 for sale, The Invisible Man & The Time Machine, the Edgar Allan Poe Collection, and Treasure Island. Each of these is available for instant download at $9.99 each. I will probably be adding these to my collection shortly.

Details

• Website: http://www.theclassictales.com/podcast.shtml
• RSS: http://classictales.podshowcreator.com/podcasts.aspx?feedid=1258
• Host: B.J. Harrison
• Started: June 2007
• Frequency: Weekly
• Duration: 30-45 minutes
• BackIssues: Last 3 available online

Our goal is to spread the word of liberty, freedom and democracy to people, communities and countries where they may not be readily available. Personal freedom is sought by everyone young or old, male or female, no matter what race, ethnicity or culture. It is unfortunate that a small but powerful few have taken it upon themselves to deny others freedom for their own gain. Liberty and freedom is not a partisan issue but a human condition that we all seek.

The site was started in July 2003 with the publication of Frederic Bastiat’s highly influential work, “The Law: The Classic Blueprint for a Just Society.”

If you ever wondered why people involved in politics often fight so vehemently for their cause, this book goes a long way towards not only describing why this is but also what must be done in order to avoid it and how to create a just and equitable society. This book will most likely change the way you think about politics forever.

A few more titles were added in 2005 and then the final update to the site was made in December 2006. I hope that they are able to add more titles in the future. Below is a list of what is on the site at present.

Law and Economics

• Law, The by Frederic Bastiat
• Candle Maker’s Petition by Frederic Bastiat

American Independence

• Common Sense by Thomas Paine
• Farewell Address, Washington’s by George Washington
• Virginia Declaration of Rights by George Mason
• Bill of Rights by James Madison

Anti-Slavery / Civil Rights

• African Slavery in America by Thomas Paine
• Awakening of the Negro by Booker T. Washington
• Case of the Negro by Booker T. Washington
• Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln
• Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
• Inaugural Address, Lincoln’s Second by Abraham Lincoln
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass

Thanksgiving

• Thanksgiving Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln
• Thanksgiving Proclamation by William Bradford (http://www.freeaudio.org/1623)
• Thanksgiving Proclamation by George Washington

Below are the titles that are currently available on LoudLit.org

Novels

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Typee by Herman Melvile

Short Stories

• The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
• The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
• How I Edited an Agricultural Paper by Mark Twain
• On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain
• The Open Window by Saki
• The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
• To Build a Fire by Jack London

Poetry

• Alone by Edgar Allen Poe
• Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe
• Corinna’s Going A Maying by Robert Herrick
• Danny Deever by Rudyard Kipling
• A Description of a City Shower by Edgar Allen Poe
• A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allen Poe
• Eldorado by Edgar Allen Poe
• Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
• The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
• Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Selected Shakespearean Sonnets by William Shakespeare
• To the Virgins to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick

Children’s

• Briar Rose by The Brothers Grimm
• Clever Gretel by The Brothers Grimm
• The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen
• King Grisly-beard by The Brothers Grimm
• The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
• Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm
• The Travelling Musicians by The Brothers Grimm

Historical

• The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson et. al
• The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

Astronomy Cast humbly claims to take its listeners on a fact based journey through the cosmos. Astronomy is no longer just pointing a telescope at the sky and making observations. All of our ‘earthly’ sciences have a sister science in space The weekly podcast covers a wide range of astronomy topics using a format where an avid astronomy lover is able to explore the universe and our knowledge of it by asking questions and interacting directly with an astronomer.

The show is co-hosted by Fraser Cain, who publishes the site Universe Today, and Dr. Pamela L. Gay, a professor (SIUE) and blogger. The interaction between the enthusiast and scientist can not only hold the listeners attention but will entertain and educate the listener as the hosts share their passion for all things astronomical.

The show began in September 2006, and appears to not have missed a single weekly issue. It is worth going back and listening to back issues on the archives page if you get a chance.

Details

• Website: http://www.astronomycast.com
• RSS: http://www.astronomycast.com/podcast.xml
• Hosts: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay
• Started: September 2006
• Frequency: Every Monday
• Duration: 30 minutes

Tomorrow Chapter A Day on Wisconsin Public Radio will begin it’s broadcast of All Brave Sailors by J. Revell Carr. The book is read by Norman Gilliland and will run from Thursday, February 21, through Friday, March 7, 2008. This book was originally published in January 2004 and the paperback version was published in July 2007.

Summary

In the early years of WWII, a German raider, the Widder, would disguise itself as a neutral Swedish freighter and attack unsuspecting enemy ships, usually sinking the ships and killing all on board. In August 1940 the unarmed British freighter, Anglo-Saxon, was sunk by the Widder but 7 merchant marines were able to escape undetected on a small ‘jolly boat’.

The story chronicles the fate of these seven men over the next 70 days as they drift across the Atlantic Ocean and struggle with hunger, exposure, thirst, and madness. Along with this amazing story, the author adds the story of the notorious captain, Hellmuth von Ruckteschell who was eventually tried as a war criminal.

Listening

Chapter A Day broadcasts online at 12:30pm CST each weekday but they also make available the last 5 days readings online so you can listen at a time more convenient for you.

Patrick Henry’s speech, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, was given in March 1775 at the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond Virginia. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were among the delegates present to debate the issue of organizing a militia to resist Great Britain’s oppressive rule. I do not ever remember ever having heard or read the actual text of this speech before.
I can see how this speech might have been a deciding factor in committing Virginia troops to join Massachusetts troops to fight the British.

The speech can be downloaded for free from Learn-out-Loud at the link above. I found this audio file while searching for free audio books and discovered Learn-Out-Loud’s Founding Document’s Podcast. This looks to have been a great podcast but Learn-out-Loud has not added anything new to the schedule since April 2007, but I still look forward to listening to the half-dozen things they did post.