Here's the finished piece!

LibriVox King Lear

It was a tremendous project, brilliantly executed by all the readers (I only read the stage directions), and completed in record time. It was only when cataloguing it that I realised it was the first group recording of Shakespeare to be completed on LV.

Spurred on by hearing in Andrew Marr's 'Start the Week' on Radio 4 yesterday morning, that King Lear was first performed on Dec 26th (the Feast of Saint Stephen, now of course Boxing Day) 1606, I thought what a great idea it would be to have a LibriVox recording of the play ready to release on Boxing Day.

Mad though it is is to even try to get people to give up time in the week before Christmas to record the parts, and for me to have time to edit it all together and catalogue it, we are giving it a try. Less than 36 hours after the idea, we're now more or less fully cast. Watch this space!

Someone's put CDs (both audio and mp3) of LibriVox recordings for sale on ebay. It's fine as a service for those who can't access the files online, and something LV itself decided not to get involved in. And he does make it clear they are LV recordings; he credits the readers, states they're public domain recordings, and has apparently left the LV disclaimer etc. in the recordings.

It was good to catalogue Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis', a recording I was really pretty pleased with. Three fairly long recording sessions, and an overdue re-acquaintance with the work. The translation is by Ian Johnstone, available at www.kafka.org

It's been several months in the making, but I've at last completed the solo recording of Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ