A LibriVox superstar
December 16th, 2007You may by now know that I am very fond of audio-books in general, and of free audio-books in particular. Among those, I have a clear preference towards the public-domain audio-books which the LibriVox volunteers offer as unconditional gifts to the whole world and all future generations.
What you do not know is that I have come to worship one specific LibriVox voice. Warm and crystalline at the same time, this voice is the ideal bedside storytelling mother’s. If I’d been born to an English-speaking family, my dreams of being read Peter Pan, Narnia or Harry Potter to would feature that very voice.
My greatest luck is that I have had the privilege to edit some of the recordings in which this dream voice had been preciously collected, for subsequent release on LibriVox. Even if it was easy work (there are hardly any bits that need to be edited out), I am proud to have contributed to these priceless presents for humanity.
Dear Cori, I am in love with your voice.
[…] thanks to Mandarine, I now have something interesting to listen to as I run. I just figured out how to download books […]
Oh, she has such a lovely, honey-toned voice. I especially like the way she says her name. I’ve always thought you can learn a lot about a person from the way they say their own name.
I’ll start practicing the way I say my name, then, in preparation of the time when I finally muster enough courage to actually record stuff for LibriVox.
Hmmm…maybe I’ll have to download her Three Men in a Boat and Jane Eyre.
Cori must be voicilicious … a word Ingrid from www.thegirlinthecafe.com came up with to describe Bill Nighy’s voice. It sound like it would apply to Cori.
Bonne année !
Emily: you’ll definitely have to
kate: and a bonne année to you too!
Voices are so very seductive, aren’t they? Particularly when removed from bodies - open to endless fantasy!
I think I don’t actually imagine any specific ‘embodiment’ for the people whom I only know through their voices. The voice seems to carry all possibilities at once: the skinny old lady, the fat girl, the grungy punk or the shy debutante. The latest example was with ezwa (the LibriVox volunteer who recorded ‘Around the World in 80 Days’). When I looked up her profile in the LibriVox forum after having finished the book, I learnt that she was from Africa, and was now living in Belgium. It was completely unexpected, and yet it did not surprise me. I had not imagined her black or non-black; or maybe I had imagined her both. A little like quantum physics.
[…] choose a narrator with a soft voice, and a narrow dynamic range: I do not want to have to turn the volume up to listen to whispered […]