In the same vein, librivox.org is an organization dedicated to the "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain." According to their homepage:
LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.I found them while searching for e-text versions of Swift's A Modest Proposal, which is also available online from the Gutenberg Project. So there's a free recorded version of A Modest Proposal available, but also audio versions of The Importance of Being Earnest, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet. Versions of Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Pygmalion are also in process. I listened a little to The Importance of Being Earnest and while the reading speed is a little slow, it's probably a perfect speed for students. I found the reading of King Lear to be equally over-slow, but again, probably extremely helpful for students, although if they're not reading from the same edition they might be thrown by changes from folio to folio.
A shame that the Pygmalion project is not complete, but there is a fascinating bulletin board with discussion among readers (actors) and those coordinating the project about how to interpret the characters, whether to read the stage directions or leave them implied, and so on. This might be worthwhile reading for students reading the play, to get a sense of some of the issues directors and actors face with drama.
Let me know what you think of these sites. I'll post more as I start using them with kids.
