Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Our Addiction

So, Miranda is what is known as an ‘enabler’ in my book. She is the kind of person that leads you to things that you can easily get addicted to and then keeps feeding the addiction. Alright- I don’t know if enabler is the right term, but I seem to remember people using it in the context of drugs so I just went with it. If that is not it’s actual meaning then just pretend like it is for the next 5 minutes, ok? Thanks.

Miranda is an enabler. She has led me down many paths in life and many of these paths have led to addictions and it is ALL HER FAULT! She took me with her to Goodwill and a few thrift stores and now I clothes shop nowhere else, seriously. Besides a few pairs of jeans, I cannot remember the last article of clothing that I bought that wasn’t from Goodwill. Miranda also introduced me to crafts. Not your popsicle stick VBS crafts, but DIY curtains and pillow cases and decorations and designspongeonline.com. Have you been to Design Sponge, oh my goodness gracious holy moly.

Miranda the Enabler, also introduced me to Librivox. It started out innocently-

“Hey Michelle, I am listening to this audio book at work. You should listen to it to and then we could email back and forth and talk about it. Ha.”

“That sounds great, Miranda. How do I listen to the book?”

“Allow me to show you, it is called librivox.org and once you go there you will never want to read another book in your life.”

Gee, thanks.

So, Librivox is this free website with free audio books you can download or subscribe to in iTunes. All of the books are in the public domain which is why you can get them for free and also why everything on there is like 50+ years old. And that, my friends, is the glory of it. Nobody is going to remember trash books in 50 years, so it is ALL good. There are entire books, short stories, poems, hymns, sermons, fiction, non-fiction and anything else you can imagine from authors like Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, Spurgeon, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, O. Henry, Hans Christian Anderson, Lewis Carroll and everyone else that you have heard of forever but never read any of their stuff.

The books are read by volunteers so it can be hit or miss sometimes with if you get a good reader or not. But there are many of them that are fantastic!!!

I have downloaded and listened to 17 books, countless short stories, and a couple of Spurgeon’s sermons. Many of the books I have listened to several times. It is just so great! I listen to them at work when I am doing something that doesn’t require a whole lot of brain power, if you know what I mean.

Here is the list of the books that I have listened to:

Pride and Prejudice- romance, duh!
Jane Eyre- perfection, my favorite and a great reader, currently listening to for the 8th time
Les Miserables- hmm, action and beautiful
Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island- just plain girly fun
Little Women- girly, a little romantic, just life
Sense and Sensibility- romance
A Pair of Blue Eyes- lovely, great reader!
Far From the Madding Crowd- excellent, same reader as A Pair of Blue Eyes
The Mystery of the Yellow Room- well- mystery obviously, with a great twist at the end
The Princess and the Goblin- action, caves, goblins, a princess, and brave hero
The Prisoner of Zenda- action, murderous plots, body doubles, romance
The Scarlet Pimpernel- action, trickery, love, disguises
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz- weird, short people
Alice’s Adventures, Through the Looking Glass- even more weird
Every Sherlock Holmes ever written- elementary, my dear Watson

And then the short stories! There are so many good ones, but two of my favorites are Wee Willie Winkie and Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling.

You should go to Librivox and download some audio books. And then I can be your enabler, but it will all still be Miranda’s fault!

Peace,
Michelle

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