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Free audiobook: Hear a beloved classic, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea—plus other Verne works
October 3, 2007 | 11:18 am
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By David Rothman
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, one of the most beloved of public domain classics, is now available for free as a human-read audio book from Project Gutenberg (file link) and LibriVox (file link). Congratulations to PG on this being—appropriately enough—the 20,000th listed title!
By the way, the LibriVox site also offers free recordings of From Earth to Moon, Around the World in Eighty Days (first part), Journey to the Interior of the Earth, and other Verne works.
For the text version of 20,000 Leagues in the IDPF’s new .epub format, check out Feedbooks, based in France, Verne’s country. Go here for the file. The OpenBerg Firefox extension, Adobe Digital Editions, FBReader and dotReader are among the software options with claimed .epub capabilities.
A little philosophy
Along the way, you might read Wikipedia items on the film and author Jules Verne. Here’s an interesting tidbit from Wikipedia’s movie-related entry:
“Even 50 years after the initial release 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is considered by many the most mature Disney live action production, rich in controversial and philosophical dialogue revolving around timeless issues, a fascinating display of pessimism (Nemo) versus optimism (Prof. Aronnax).”
Optimist vs. pessimism, e-book angle included
What better issues for e-book-lovers to ponder than the above? I see a need for balance, but all in all, I’d side with Aronnax when it comes to technology. Even Nemo saw hope, at least in his technology. Better to try something like the One Laptop Per Child Project or the razing of the Tower of eBabel than to be smug about the status quo. I totally agree with Arthur C. Clarke’s observation that it could be more dangerous to say that something is impossible (sorry, I don’t have the exact quote at hand). That said, I might side with Nemo when it come to humanity, especially here in the States and even more so in Washington in these dark days of American history.
(Spotted via Mike Cook’s entry in Project Gutenberg News.)
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Comments:
Originally the 20,000th title was going to be a (very) short story translated into dozens of languages by Distributed Proofreaders. Unfortunately, though getting the translations done was easy, there are all kinds of logistical problems that have forestalled this project.
David, your use of the word “claimed” seems to be accurate as far as DotReader is concerned. I just downloaded the latest version, thinking that I would try the .epub support and I can’t get it to open any ebook except the ones that came with the software. No .epub, no HTML, no TXT. With all the time this program has been in development, it still fails to impress me in the least. Lone programmers, working in their spare time are delivering more useable software.
If I sound negative, it is because month after month, I read the hype about how great DotReader is, or is going to be soon, and every time I try the latest version, it fails to do what is claimed. You can only hype something so long before you have to deliver the goods. In my mind, DotReader has hyped for too long and delivered too little. It’s time to put up or shut up.
Joseph and Alan W. re dotReader: I’d encourage you and everyone else to use the TeleBlog comment box to spell out in detail the .epub-related problems with dotReader. Then I’ll invite OSoft CEO Mark Carey to respond. If he’s remedied the problems, great! If not, I’ll stop mentioning dotReader in an .epub context—even with the “claimed.” Human readers’ needs first! Just as I’ve encouraged Tamas to look for holes in the IDPF standard, I would encourage everyone to spot flaws in implementations or claimed implementations. Please persist. This is an important part of what the TeleBlog is for! Meanwhile let’s see what happens in regard to the promised Project Gutenberg editon of dotReader—which is said to read HTML and TXT. As you may know, incidentally, I took some pokes at OSoft/dotReader for not following through on the OpenReader standard and playing up a proprietary one instead. Let’s hope that the .epub support story will have a happier ending. Thanks. – David
I’ve already removed the program from my PC, but no matter what I tried to open, I got an error about a missing plugin. I downloaded the full installation version, not just an update.
This isn’t the first version I’ve tried using. I’m done wasting time with this program for now. When someone else confirms that a later version actually does something useful, I’ll take another look.
So great to see more great works posted for free. I absolutely loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I hope the reader is a good one. Hope they read other Jules Verne books, there’s a lot of very high quality ones.
cool