Category Archives: Writers

Haiku: biking, poetic thought by George-B (The smudge and other poems Page)


Haiku: biking, poetic thought by George-B.
The smudge and other poems Page

Left leg, right leg, left…
The bicycle is rolling…
right leg-left leg-right…

Bicycle ride

Bicycle ride

quotation: Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain


Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) Discuss

quotation: E. M. Forster


Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face. The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due—she reminds us too much of a prima donna.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

quotation: Of all lies, art is the least untrue. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)


Of all lies, art is the least untrue.Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) Discuss

quotation: Most amusements only mean trying to win another person’s money. Rudyard Kipling


Most amusements only mean trying to win another person’s money.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) Discuss

today’s birthday: Astrid Lindgren (1907)


Astrid Lindgren (1907)

Lindgren was a Swedish children’s book author and screenwriter best remembered for writing the series of books featuring the character Pippi Långstrump, or Pippi Longstocking. Pippi, an unconventional, assertive, and extraordinarily strong girl—recognized by her fiery red hair worn in braids that stick out sideways from her head—was featured in many of Lindgren’s hundreds of books, which sold roughly 145 million copies worldwide. What other memorable characters did Lindgren create? More… Discuss

great compositions/performances: Elmer Bernstein – To Kill A Mockingbird Suite (Music from Films)


Elmer Bernstein – To Kill A Mockingbird Suite

quotation: Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent. E. M. Forster


Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

quotation: “Pathos, piety, courage,—they exist…” E. M. Forster


Pathos, piety, courage,—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

quotation: “An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven…”Washington Irving (1783-1859)


An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) Discuss

quotation: A memory is a beautiful thing, it’s almost a desire that you miss. Gustave Flaubert


A memory is a beautiful thing, it’s almost a desire that you miss.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) Discuss

today’s birthday: Margaret Mitchell (1900)


Margaret Mitchell (1900)

After working as a journalist, Mitchell spent 10 years writing her only novel: Gone with the Wind, a romantic, panoramic portrait of the American Civil War and Reconstruction periods from the white Southern point of view. The book, which earned Mitchell the Pulitzer Prize, is one of the most popular novels in the history of American publishing, and its film adaptation was also extraordinarily successful. Whose stories gave Mitchell insight into the Civil War-era South? More… Discuss

quotation: “Opportunities flit by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost,…” Jerome K. Jerome


Opportunities flit by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) Discuss

today’s birthday: Stephen Crane (1871)


Stephen Crane (1871)

Often classified as the first modern American writer, Crane was among the first to introduce realism into American literature. He achieved international fame with his masterwork, The Red Badge of Courage, which depicts the psychological turmoil of a young Civil War soldier. While traveling as a war correspondent, Crane survived a shipwreck and ended up adrift in a dinghy. This ordeal inspired him to write the acclaimed story “The Open Boat.” What took his life when he was just 28? More… Discuss

best readings: The Art of War by Sun Tzu


The Art of War- Sunzi_Librivox https://archive.org/details/art_of_war_librivox

The Art of War- Sunzi_Librivox
https://archive.org/details/art_of_war_librivox (click here to access website)

The Art of War

 

Librivox recording of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, translated by Lionel Giles.

Read by Moira Fogarty.

“The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. The Art of War is one of the oldest and most famous studies of strategy and has had a huge influence on both military planning and beyond. The Art of War has also been applied, with much success, to business and managerial strategies.” (summary from Wikipedia)

For more information on our readers, please visit the catalog page

For more free audiobooks, or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org.

Download M4B (17MB)

Access here: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection


The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection

LibriVox – founded in 2005 – is a community of volunteers from all over the world who record public domain texts: poetry, short stories, whole books, even dramatic works, in many different languages. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain in the USA and available as free down

The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection

The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection (Click to access the Website!)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll


Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
by Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll


Published January 11, 2006
 
Librivox recording of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. A children’s classic!

Read by:
Chapter 01 Kristen McQuillin
Chapter 02 Brad Bush
Chapter 03 Roger W. Barnett
Chapter 04 Miette
Chapter 05 Mark Bradford
Chapter 06 Raza Shah
Chapter 07 Kara Shallenberg
Chapter 08 Kristen McQuillin
Chapter 09 MarinaMechanical
Chapter 10 Roger W. Barnett
Chapter 11 R. Francis Smith
Chapter 12 Chris Goringe

For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.

For more information or to become a volunteer reader, please visit librivox.org/

Download M4B (84MB)

QUOTATION: It is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. E. M. Forster (1879-1970)


It is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks—his pipe might fall out if he did.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

today’s birthday: John Keats (1795)


John Keats (1795)

Considered one of the greatest English poets, Keats worked as a surgeon’s apprentice before devoting himself entirely to poetry at age 21. During a few intense months in 1819, he produced many of his greatest works, including “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “To Autumn.” His Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems is perhaps the greatest single volume of poetry published in England in the 19th century. Tragically, Keats died at just 25 from what disease? More… Discuss

This Pressed: Politics: The Paradox of Paul Ryan: Why the Tea Party’s Right to be Wary | BillMoyers.com


Only in a world where Cosmopolitan magazine can declare the Kardashians “America’s First Family” and the multi-billionaire loose cannon Donald Trump is perceived by millions as the potential steward of our nuclear arsenal could about-to-be Speaker of the House Paul Ryan be savaged as insufficiently right-wing.This is after all a man who made his bones in Congress and the Republican Party as an Ayn Rand-spouting, body building budget-buster slashing away at the body politic like a mad vivisectionist, as well as an anti-choice, pro-gun zealot who never met a government program he liked (except the military, whose swollen budget he would increase until we are all left naked living in a national security state).But the former vice presidential candidate is widely cited among many of his colleagues as a likable enough chap who is polite to his elders in the hierarchy of Congress, and this makes the more rabid bomb throwers seethe. To them, that chummy, self-enlightened pragmatism as well as his past embrace of immigration reform qualify him as a so-called RINO, a Republican in Name Only, a “squish.” Time makes ancient good uncouth, as the poem goes, and in the words of Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly’s “Political Animal” blog, “Nowadays if you are guilty of having ever supported ‘amnesty’ your other heresies will be uncovered, however old they are. The other way to look at it, of course, is that the GOP continues to drift to the Right, making yesterday’s ideological heroes suspect.”The House Freedom Caucus, the fractious faction of radical right-wingers gerrymandered into a permanent demolition squad, successfully conspired to bring down House Speaker John Boehner and his designated successor Kevin McCarthy. They have for the moment agreed to support Paul Ryan’s speakership, but not with the unanimity that would constitute an official endorsement. Further, it seems that for their support to continue once he takes the job Ryan must pledge to curtail some of his powers and enable the insurgents to continue to wreak havoc on the day-to-day business of the House without fear of punishment by the grown-ups.There’s a paradox to all this. Despite his ideological kinship with the anti-government crowd, Paul Ryan is the embodiment of the troika of money, power, and politics that corrupts and controls the capital, the very thing the tea partiers detest. Ryan is “a creature of Washington,” Red State’s Erick Erickson wrote. “He worked on Capitol Hill, worked in a think tank, then went back as a congressman. He speaks Washingtonese with the best of them.”He’s a master at the insider cronyism that defines Washington today. Just look at Ryan’s choice as his new chief of staff: David Hoppe, the personification of the supreme K-Street lobbyist, his footprints stamped all over the tar pit of Washington patronage, his hands chapped from rubbing at the prospect of the big bucks corporations pay for government favors. A 29-year veteran staffer on Capitol Hill, he’s a poster child for the revolving door through which members of Congress and their staffs rotate in the endless cycling between public service and private lucre.In Hoppe’s case, the rush of air from the revolving door would jumpstart the windmill in a Dutch landscape painting. The indefatigable journalistic sleuth David Sirota went digging into federal records this week and reports that, “Hoppe has lobbied for such major financial industry interests as insurance giant Metlife, the National Venture Capital Association and Zurich Financial Services.”Hoppe also has scurried along the inner corridors and back rooms of government for the investment firm BlackRock. Imagine: this man will now be sitting right there beside the Speaker of the House after working for a company which, Sirota writes, “could be affected by efforts to change federal financial regulations and which could benefit from a recent proposal to shift military pension money into a federal savings plan managed in part by the Wall Street giant.”What’s more, Hoppe has lobbied for Cayman Finance, “whose business ‘promot[ing] the development of the Cayman Islands financial services industry’ could be affected by legislation to crack down on offshore tax havens.” The big tax avoiders must be licking their corporate chops.

Source: The Paradox of Paul Ryan: Why the Tea Party’s Right to be Wary | BillMoyers.com (This Pressed)

quotation: “Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy…” Kate Chopin (1851-1904)


Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace.

Kate Chopin (1851-1904) Discuss

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

 

today’s birthday: Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466?)


Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466?)

Considered the greatest European scholar of the 16th century, Erasmus was a Dutch priest and leading humanist of the Renaissance era. After his ordination in the early 1490s, Erasmus traveled throughout Europe and became acquainted with many scholars, including Thomas More. A prolific writer, he was noted for his editions of classical works as well as the first Greek edition of the New Testament. Who placed all of Erasmus’s works on a list of prohibited books? More… Discuss

quotation: Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration. E. M. Forster


Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

quotation: Washington Irving ( quotation: Washington Irving ( “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”-Audio-book – YouTube)


A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because love is more the study and business of her life.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) Discuss

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – FULL Audio Book – by Washington Irving (1783-1859)

quotation: Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. E. M. Forster


Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Discuss

today’s birthday: Pierre Larousse (1817)


Pierre Larousse (1817)

Larousse was a French publisher, lexicographer, and encyclopedist. In 1852, he founded a publishing house called Librairie Larousse, producing textbooks, grammar books, and dictionaries, but his major work, reflecting his desire “to teach everyone about everything,” was the combined dictionary and encyclopedia Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, or Great Universal 19th-Century Dictionary, which took more than 10 years to complete. Who finished it after Larousse’s death? More… Discuss

quotation: W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)


It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Discuss

this day in the yesteryear: Jean-Paul Sartre Refuses the Nobel Prize (1964)


Jean-Paul Sartre Refuses the Nobel Prize (1964)

A French philosopher, playwright, and novelist, Sartre was a leading exponent of 20th-century existentialism. His works examine man as a responsible but lonely being, burdened with a terrifying freedom to choose, adrift in a meaningless universe. He served in the army during World War II, was taken prisoner, escaped, and was involved in the resistance, writing his first plays during the occupation. After the war, his writings became increasingly influential. Why did he refuse the Nobel Prize? More… Discuss

quotation: “To some men of early performance it is useless. …” Thomas Hardy


Thomas Hardy

To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Discuss

today’s birthday: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772)


Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772)

One of the most versatile and influential figures in the English Romantic movement, Coleridge was a poet and critic who perfected a sensuous lyricism in his poetry that was echoed by many later poets. His most famous works include “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan.” Known for his influential lectures on Shakespeare, he later wrote Biographia Literaria, the most significant work of general literary criticism of the Romantic period. To what drug was Coleridge addicted? More… Discuss

quotation: Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact. Willa Cather (1873-1947) +My Antonia, YouTube


Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.

Willa Cather (1873-1947) Discuss

My Antonia audiobook – part 1

today’s birthday: Noah Webster (1758)


Noah Webster (1758)

Webster was an American lexicographer. After serving in the American Revolution, he published The Elementary Spelling Book, or “Blue-Backed Speller,” which helped standardize American spelling and sold some 100 million copies. In 1807, he began work on his landmark American Dictionary of the English Language, which included definitions of 70,000 words—of which 12,000 had never appeared in a dictionary before. How many languages did he learn while compiling the dictionary? More… Discuss

Quotation: Ill-luck, you know, seldom comes alone. Miguel de Cervantes


Ill-luck, you know, seldom comes alone.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Discuss

today’s birthday: Virgil (70 BCE)


Virgil (70 BCE)

Virgil was a Roman poet and the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, widely regarded as one of the greatest long poems in world literature. The Aeneid, Rome’s national epic, tells the legendary story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose descendants become the founders of Rome. What later poet portrayed Virgil as the guide to Hell in his great literary classic The Divine Comedy? More… Discuss

quotation: Those who do not complain are never pitied. Jane Austen


Those who do not complain are never pitied.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) Discuss

Poezii care vor trai intotdeauna: Vasile Alecsandri – Mioriţa


Vasile Alecsandri – Mioriţa

The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. Virginia Woolf


The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Discuss


Night and Day (FULL audiobook) – part (1 of 2)

quotation: Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Friends should be weighed, not told; who boasts to have won a multitude of friends has never had one.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Discuss

today’s birthday: Denis Diderot (1713)


Denis Diderot (1713)

Enormously influential in shaping the rationalistic spirit of the 18th century, Diderot was a French encyclopedist, philosopher, novelist, dramatist, and art critic. After rejecting a career in law to pursue his own studies, he served as chief editor of the 35-volume Encyclopédie, one of the principal works of the Enlightenment, from 1745 to 1772. The controversial project was once the target of a seizure by government officials. Where were the manuscripts said to have been hidden? More… Discuss

quotation: Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)


Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Discuss

today’s birthday: Truman Capote (1924)


Truman Capote (1924)

Capote’s first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, launched a literary career that included the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and his innovative “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood, a chilling account of the senseless, brutal murder of a Kansas family that is widely considered his finest work. Capote cultivated celebrity and was famous in later years for his jet-setting lifestyle as well as his writing. Capote was reportedly the inspiration for a character in what famous novel? More… Discuss

quotation: Men cling to life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune. Aristotle


Men cling to life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune.

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) Discuss

quotation: Virginia Woolf


A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it’s there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Discuss

quotation: If youth did not matter so much to itself it would never have the heart to go on. Willa Cather


If youth did not matter so much to itself it would never have the heart to go on.

Willa Cather (1873-1947) Discuss

quotation: Harriet Beecher Stowe


Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty.Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Discuss

Marele secret din Bucegi: 300 de tabliţe ale dacilor, găsite de Carol I. Topite pentru bani, dosite în Tezaurul de la Moscova sau nedescifrate de nimeni? | adevarul.ro


Istoria celor 300 de tăbliţe din Sinaia, găsite de Regele Carol I la inceperea lucrărilor Castelului Peleş, la 1875, este plină de controverse. Istoricii şi arheologii se întrec în opinii care mai de care mai controversate despre tăbliţele din aur scrise de daci, care, ulterior, ar fi fost topite din ordinul Regelui. Copii ale acestor tăbliţe, făcute din plumb, se găsesc, însă, la Institutului de Arheologie ”Vasile Pârvan” din Bucureşti. Tăbliţele din plumb sunt scrise atât într-o limbă încă necunoscută, cât şi în alfabetul grecesc (cu câteva litere adiţionale), textele fiind însoţite, uneori, şi de imagini. Se presupune că ar fi o cronică a dacilor, pentru că în multe dintre ele apar nume de regi daci şi toponime dacice. Tăbliţele sunt considerate de specialişti falsuri moderne, însă nimeni nu le-a studiat atent până acum. Potrivit legendelor, tăbliţele ar fi fost descoperite în 1875, la începerea lucrărilor Castelului Peleş. Au fost în număr de aproximativ 300 de bucăţi, făcute din aur, care ar fi fost copiate în plumb la cererea Regelui Carol I, care şi-ar fi dat seama de importanţa istorică pe care ar fi putut să o aibă această descoperire, iar apoi topite şi vândute pentru construcţia impunătorului castel. “Privindu-le, însă, cu luare aminte, impresia este de autenticitate“ “Istoria acestor plăcuţe îşi are începutul în urmă cu un secol, la Mănăstirea Sinaia, unde le-a adus nu se ştie cine. Erau în număr de 100, unele dintre ale având 10 kilograme, dar la Institutul de Arheologie există acum doar 35 neinventariate şi mai sunt încă vreo 50 risipite prin alte locuri. Există părerea că ar fi fost de aur, iar cele care au rămas nu sunt altceva decât nişte replici în plumb. Privindu-le, însă, cu luare aminte, impresia este de autenticitate. Au fost numite pornindu-se de la propensiunea acestuia de a inventa un alfabet getic în polemosul său cu Grigore Tocilescu”, arată istoricul George Coandă, în lucrarea sa “Vechi coduri ale românilor”. Aurora Peţan, cercetător lingvistic, dar şi Dan Romalo, în cartea sa celebră , spune că tăbliţele nu sunt falsuri, considerând că ne aflăm în faţa unor mărturii despre o străveche scriere traco-getică. “Trimise în Marea Britanie pentru a se face analiza alaijului, plăcuţele, s-a dovedit, sunt autentice. Tăbliţele din Bucegi ne deconsipiră vechimea limbii geto-dacilor, care, revendicându-se, de bună seamă, din limba bază pelasgică este egală în drepturi cu latina. Aşadar, şi latina şi geto-daca au acelaşi izvor”, mai spune Coandă în lucrarea sa.

Source: Marele secret din Bucegi: 300 de tabliţe ale dacilor, găsite de Carol I. Topite pentru bani, dosite în Tezaurul de la Moscova sau nedescifrate de nimeni? | adevarul.ro

today’s birthday: Upton Sinclair (1878)


Upton Sinclair (1878)

Sinclair was a prolific American novelist and socialist activist who wrote over 90 books, including The Jungle, a best-selling muckraking exposé of conditions in the Chicago meat-packing industry that aroused public indignation and resulted in the passage of food inspection laws in the US. He also organized a socialist reform movement in the 1930s and won the Democratic nomination for governor of California but was defeated in 1934. For what book was Sinclair awarded the Pulitzer Prize? More… Discuss

quotation: Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it’s good fun. Robert Louis Stevenson


Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it’s good fun.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Discuss

quotation: Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works. Virginia Woolf


Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Discuss

Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist (1988 author of the novel “The Satanic Verses”)


Salman Rushdie

Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist known for the allusive richness of his language and the wide variety of Eastern and Western characters and cultures he explores. After his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses was deemed sacrilegious, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or legal ruling, sentencing him to death. Rushdie was forced into hiding, where he wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a novelistic allegory against censorship. What is the fatwa’s current status? More… Discuss