Podcast #6 – Rise With the Occasion

Whew. That was a struggle. First in that condensing info to create a Lincoln podcast is more difficult than researching a long podcast. Second in that my computer decided to erase said podcast instead of converting it to MP3.  There’s nothing better, when you’re already overdue on the project and up past your bedtime, than to have to start over!  That said, it’s Lincoln’s birthday, and there’s a man who both started over many times and didn’t complain about it.  I’ll be doing many more Lincoln-themed podcasts, so with this instalment I tried to examine his early life and how he developed his political and moral philosophies.

To listen to this week’s podcast, visit the February page and click the link to download.

How did you celebrate Abe’s 204th?

Civil War Podcast #5 – The Fiery Gospel

I’m in over the wire this week, but hey – it’s still February 5th somewhere, so I’m counting it anyway!

This week, I celebrate the anniversary of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, published this day (or yesterday, if you want to get technical) in 1862.

You can download the podcast by visiting the February page and clicking on the MP3 link.

Librivox

As regular readers have noticed, I am an enthusiast of “free” books – those texts out of the public domain which have been uploaded to Internet archives and digital libraries. I’m also a fan of audiobooks, which I’ve taken to playing while I clean, commute, or generally bum around the house (note reverse order of preference). Librivox is a mashup of the two: Public domain books read by unpaid volunteers. The downside, of course, is that the readings aren’t always on par with professional readers, but then, you get what you pay for, and the online catalogue is free.

Librivox’s official website is disappointing in layout – there’s no way to search for subjects, only titles and authors, but archive.org has helpfully broken down all the categories. A quick glance shows Sam Watkins and Mary Chesnut amongst the titles, and I’m going to listen to Leander Stillwell’s diary. All three were heavily quoted in the Ken Burns series.

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Civil%20War%22%20AND%20collection%3Aaudio_bookspoetry