Bertrand Russell’s Message to People Living in the Year 2959: “Love is Wise, Hatred is Foolish”

in Life, Philosophy | February 11th, 2015

Bertrand Rus­sell, the great British philoso­pher and social crit­ic, appeared on the BBC pro­gram Face-to-Face in 1959 and was asked a clos­ing ques­tion: What would you tell a gen­er­a­tion liv­ing 1,000 years from now about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned. His answer is short, but pithy. You can read a tran­script below:

I should like to say two things, one intel­lec­tu­al and one moral:

The intel­lec­tu­al thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are study­ing any mat­ter or con­sid­er­ing any phi­los­o­phy, ask your­self only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Nev­er let your­self be divert­ed either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have benef­i­cent social effects if it were believed, but look only and sole­ly at what are the facts. That is the intel­lec­tu­al thing that I should wish to say.

The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very sim­ple. I should say: Love is wise, hatred is fool­ish. In this world, which is get­ting more and more close­ly inter­con­nect­ed, we have to learn to tol­er­ate each oth­er. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some peo­ple say things that we don’t like. We can only live togeth­er in that way, and if we are to live togeth­er and not die togeth­er we must learn a kind of char­i­ty and a kind of tol­er­ance which is absolute­ly vital to the con­tin­u­a­tion of human life on this plan­et.

No truer words have been spo­ken.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Bertrand Russell’s Improb­a­ble Appear­ance in a Bol­ly­wood Film (1967)

Lis­ten to ‘Why I Am Not a Chris­t­ian,’ Bertrand Russell’s Pow­er­ful Cri­tique of Reli­gion (1927)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Haruki Murakami Reads in English from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in a Rare Public Reading (1998)

in Books, Literature | February 11th, 2015

Murakami 92Y

Note: It looks like the 92nd St Y took the read­ing off of its Youtube chan­nel for unknown rea­sons. How­ev­er you can stream it here.

Haru­ki Muraka­mi does­n’t make many pub­lic appear­ances, but when he does, his fans savor them. This record­ing of a read­ing he gave at New York’s 92nd Street Y back in 1998 (stream it here) counts as a trea­sured piece of mate­r­i­al among Eng­lish-speak­ing Murakamists, espe­cial­ly those who love his eighth nov­el, The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle. When asked to read from that book, the author explains here, he usu­al­ly reads from chap­ter one, “but I’m tired of read­ing the same thing over and over, so I’m going to read chap­ter three today.” And that’s what he does after giv­ing some back­ground on the book, its 29-year-old pro­tag­o­nist Toru Oka­da, and his own thoughts on how it feels to be 29.

The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle, pub­lished in three parts in Japan in 1994 and 1995 and in its entire­ty in Eng­lish in 1997, began a new chap­ter in the writer’s career. You could tell by its size alone: the page count rose to 600 in the Eng­lish-lan­guage edi­tion, where­as none of his pre­vi­ous nov­els had clocked in above 400. The­mat­i­cal­ly, too, Murakami’s mis­sion had clear­ly broad­ened: where its pre­de­ces­sors con­cern them­selves pri­mar­i­ly with West­ern pop cul­ture, dis­ap­pear­ing girls, twen­tysome­thing lan­guor, and mys­te­ri­ous ani­mal-men, The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle takes on Japan­ese his­to­ry, espe­cial­ly the coun­try’s ill-advised wartime colo­nial ven­ture in Manchuria.

As a result, the book final­ly earned Muraka­mi some respect — albeit respect he’d nev­er direct­ly sought — from his home­land’s long-dis­dain­ful lit­er­ary estab­lish­ment. Despite hav­ing held its place since the time of this read­ing as Murakami’s “impor­tant” book, and one many read­ers name as their favorite, it might not offer the eas­i­est point of entry into his work. When I asked Wang Chung lead singer Jack Hues about a Muraka­mi ref­er­ence in the band’s song “City of Light,” he told me he put it there after read­ing The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle on his daugh­ter’s rec­om­men­da­tion and not lik­ing it very much. I sug­gest­ed he try Nor­we­gian Wood instead.

Note: You can down­load a com­plete audio ver­sion of The Wind-Up Bird Chron­i­cle if you take part in one of the free tri­als offered by our part­ners Audible.com and/or Audiobooks.com. Click on the respec­tive links to get more infor­ma­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Haru­ki Muraka­mi Lists the Three Essen­tial Qual­i­ties For All Seri­ous Nov­el­ists (And Run­ners)

Pat­ti Smith Reviews Haru­ki Murakami’s New Nov­el, Col­or­less Tsuku­ru Taza­ki and His Years of Pil­grim­age

Haru­ki Murakami’s Pas­sion for Jazz: Dis­cov­er the Novelist’s Jazz Playlist, Jazz Essay & Jazz Bar

A Pho­to­graph­ic Tour of Haru­ki Murakami’s Tokyo, Where Dream, Mem­o­ry, and Real­i­ty Meet

In Search of Haru­ki Muraka­mi: A Doc­u­men­tary Intro­duc­tion to Japan’s Great Post­mod­ernist Nov­el­ist

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Hear the World’s Oldest Instrument, the “Neanderthal Flute,” Dating Back Over 43,000 Years

in History, Music | February 10th, 2015

Back in July of last year, we brought you a tran­scrip­tion and a cou­ple of audio inter­pre­ta­tions of the old­est known song in the world, dis­cov­ered in the ancient Syr­i­an city of Ugar­it and dat­ing back to the 14th cen­tu­ry B.C.E.. Like­ly per­formed on an instru­ment resem­bling an ancient lyre, the so-called “Hur­ri­an Cult Song” or “Hur­ri­an Hymn No. 6” sounds oth­er­world­ly to our ears, although mod­ern-day musi­col­o­gists can only guess at the song’s tem­po and rhythm.

When we reach even fur­ther back in time, long before the advent of sys­tems of writ­ing, we are com­plete­ly at a loss as to the forms of music pre­his­toric humans might have pre­ferred. But we do know that music was like­ly a part of their every­day lives, as it is ours, and we have some sound evi­dence for the kinds of instru­ments they played. In 2008, arche­ol­o­gists dis­cov­ered frag­ments of flutes carved from vul­ture and mam­moth bones at a Stone Age cave site in south­ern Ger­many called Hohle Fels. These instru­ments date back 42,000 to 43,000 years and may sup­plant ear­li­er find­ings of flutes at a near­by site dat­ing back 35,000 years.

bone flute

Image via the The Archae­ol­o­gy News Net­work

The flutes are metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed, reports Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, par­tic­u­lar­ly the mam­moth bone flute, which would have been “espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing to make.” At the time of their dis­cov­ery, researchers spec­u­lat­ed that the flutes “may have been one of the cul­tur­al accom­plish­ments that gave the first Euro­pean mod­ern-human (Homo sapi­ens) set­tlers an advan­tage over their now extinct Nean­derthal-human (Homo nean­derthalis) cousins.” But as with so much of our knowl­edge about Nean­derthals, includ­ing new evi­dence of inter­breed­ing with Homo Sapi­ens, these con­clu­sions may have to be revised.

It is per­haps pos­si­ble that the much-under­es­ti­mat­ed Nean­derthals made their own flutes. Or so a 1995 dis­cov­ery of a flute made from a cave bear femur might sug­gest. Found by arche­ol­o­gist Ivan Turk in a Nean­derthal camp­site at Div­je Babe in north­west­ern Slove­nia, this instru­ment (above) is esti­mat­ed to be over 43,000 years old and per­haps as much as 80,000 years old. Accord­ing to musi­col­o­gist Bob Fink, the flute’s four fin­ger holes match four notes of a dia­ton­ic (Do, Re, Mi…) scale. “Unless we deny it is a flute at all,” Fink argues, the notes of the flute “are inescapably dia­ton­ic and will sound like a near-per­fect fit with­in ANY kind of stan­dard dia­ton­ic scale, mod­ern or antique.” To demon­strate the point, the cura­tor of the Sloven­ian Nation­al Muse­um had a clay repli­ca of the flute made. You can hear it played at the top of the post by Sloven­ian musi­cian Ljuben Dimkaros­ki.

The pre­his­toric instru­ment does indeed pro­duce the whole and half tones of the dia­ton­ic scale, so com­plete­ly, in fact, that Dimkaros­ki is able to play frag­ments of sev­er­al com­po­si­tions by Beethoven, Ver­di, Rav­el, Dvořák, and oth­ers, as well as some free impro­vi­sa­tions “mock­ing ani­mal voic­es.” The video’s Youtube page explains his choice of music as “a pot­pour­ri of frag­ments from com­po­si­tions of var­i­ous authors,” select­ed “to show the capa­bil­i­ties of the instru­ment, tonal range, stac­ca­to, lega­to, glis­san­do….” (Dimkaros­ki claims to have fig­ured out how to play the instru­ment in a dream.) Although arche­ol­o­gists have hot­ly dis­put­ed whether or not the flute is actu­al­ly the work of Nean­derthals, as Turk sug­gest­ed, should it be so, the find­ing would con­tra­dict claims that the close human rel­a­tives “left no firm evi­dence of hav­ing been musi­cal.” But what­ev­er its ori­gin, it seems cer­tain­ly to be a hominid arti­fact—not the work of preda­tors—and a key to unlock­ing the pre­his­to­ry of musi­cal expres­sion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to the Old­est Song in the World: A Sumer­ian Hymn Writ­ten 3,400 Years Ago

What Ancient Greek Music Sound­ed Like: Hear a Recon­struc­tion That is ‘100% Accu­rate’

Hear The Epic of Gil­gamesh Read in the Orig­i­nal Akka­di­an and Enjoy the Sounds of Mesopotamia

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 24 ) |

Designer Reimagines Iconic Movie Posters With Minimalist Designs: Reservoir Dogs, The Matrix & More

in Art, Film | February 10th, 2015

reservoir dogs poster

While watch­ing Inter­stel­lar and hat­ing it, design­er Nick Bar­clay came up with a project for him­self — tak­ing the posters of famous films and reimag­in­ing them with a min­i­mal­ist design that uses only cir­cles. Above, you can see his clever take on Taran­ti­no’s Reser­voir Dogs. It’s a far cry, to be sure, from the orig­i­nal movie poster found below.

Over at My Mod­ern Met, you’ll find oth­er min­i­mal­ist designs for The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Bram Stok­er’s Drac­u­la, For­rest Gump, Har­ry Pot­ter, Pulp Fic­tion, Trainspot­ting, 101 Dal­ma­tions, Léon: The Pro­fes­sion­al, The Deer Hunter, Total Recall, Mon­sters Inc., and, of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Prints can be pur­chased on Bar­clay’s web­site.

2.-Reservoir-Dogs-Original

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gaze at Glob­al Movie Posters for Hitchcock’s Ver­ti­go: U.S., Japan, Italy, Poland & Beyond

Down­load Vin­tage Film Posters in High-Res: From The Philadel­phia Sto­ry to Attack of the Crab Mon­sters

50 Film Posters From Poland: From The Empire Strikes Back to Raiders of the Lost Ark

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch the Coen Brothers’ TV Commercials: Swiss Cigarettes, Gap Jeans, Taxes & Clean Coal

in Film | February 10th, 2015

Rais­ing Ari­zona; The Big Lebows­ki; O Broth­er, Where Art Thou? — Joel and Ethan Coen have made more than a few movies not just wide­ly beloved, but also wide­ly thought of as eccen­tric. One thus would­n’t imag­ine their sen­si­bil­i­ty trans­lat­ing well to adver­tis­ing, that means of occa­sion­al sup­port for many an uncom­pro­mis­ing auteur. But just as the Coen broth­ers have brought Hol­ly­wood at least par­tial­ly over to their way of cre­at­ing, they’ve also, on sev­er­al occa­sions, bent the form of the com­mer­cial to their advan­tage.

Take the Coen broth­ers’ Parisi­enne cig­a­rette com­mer­cial at the top, pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture (along­side David Lynch, Emir Kus­turi­ca, Roman Polan­s­ki and, Jean-Luc Godard’s work for the same appar­ent­ly auteur-lov­ing brand). But if they felt guilty about thus encour­ag­ing the befoul­ing of the air, they sure­ly cleared their own con­sciences with the satir­i­cal spot about “clean coal” just above. And in the slight­ly more straight­for­ward Gap ad below, they used the main­stream-yet-alter­na­tive icons Christi­na Ric­ci and Den­nis Hop­per:

And even if you keep up with the Coen broth­ers’ short film work, you may nev­er have seen the spot below, which orig­i­nal­ly aired dur­ing the 2002 Super Bowl. Work­ing for H&R Block, they use per­haps the least promis­ing set­ting imag­in­able, a slow-mov­ing tax law lec­ture, to cre­ate a dystopi­an vision not a mil­lion miles from the one Rid­ley Scott used to intro­duce the Apple Mac­in­tosh eigh­teen Super Bowls before.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cig­a­rette Com­mer­cials from David Lynch, the Coen Broth­ers and Jean Luc Godard

Tui­leries: A Short, Slight­ly Twist­ed Film by Joel and Ethan Coen

World Cin­e­ma: Joel and Ethan Coen’s Play­ful Homage to Cin­e­ma His­to­ry

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

An Ambitious List of 1400 Films Made by Female Filmmakers

in Film | February 10th, 2015

It’s a tru­ism to say that Hol­ly­wood is a boy’s club but Dr. Sta­cy L. Smith of the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia put this say­ing into stark, empir­i­cal terms: a mere 4.4% of the top 100 box-office releas­es in the USA were direct­ed by women. That’s it. It’s a per­cent­age that should be used to describe the amount of cream in whole milk, not half the human race.

The truth is that the film indus­try in gen­er­al, not just Hol­ly­wood, is dom­i­nat­ed by men. In books on cin­e­ma and class­es on film his­to­ry, female direc­tors fre­quent­ly get over­looked.

Over at MUBI, some­one apt­ly named Ally the List­mak­er has tak­en great pains to counter that. She has com­piled an exhaus­tive col­lec­tion of movies by women. The list runs the gamut from pop­corn fare like Amy Heckerling’s Clue­less (1995), to for­eign art house films like Chan­tal Akerman’s The Cap­tive (2000), to chal­leng­ing exper­i­men­tal movies (any­thing by Peg­gy Ahwesh).

Ally’s list con­tains over 1400 movie titles, most­ly films made with­in the past 20 years. Yet with­in this list are oth­ers lists – “Films Direct­ed by Dan­ish Women,” “Actress­es Who Have Tried Their Hand at Direct­ing” – reveal­ing a mind-bog­gling range and diver­si­ty of movies. Here are a few favorites:

  • The Glean­ers & I (2000) – Agnes Var­da
    A fas­ci­nat­ing med­i­ta­tion on art, aging and for­ag­ing off left­overs of oth­ers. Var­da turns the act of hunt­ing for pota­toes into a polit­i­cal act. You can watch the first four min­utes of the film above.
  • The Apple (1998) – Sami­ra Makhmal­baf
    The daugh­ter of Mohsen Makhmal­baf, one of the true trail­blaz­ers of the Iran­ian new wave, Sami­ra proved to be a cin­e­mat­ic tal­ent in her own right with this movie that blurs the line between doc­u­men­tary and nar­ra­tive.
  • Wendy and Lucy (2008) – Kel­ly Reichardt
    A woman at the mar­gins of soci­ety whose life utter­ly comes apart after her car breaks down. Riechardt’s direc­tion is slow, qui­et and ulti­mate­ly dev­as­tat­ing.
  • The Pervert’s Guide to Cin­e­ma (2006) – Sophie Fiennes
    Slavoj Zizek, the reign­ing rock star/comedian of the cul­tur­al the­o­ry world, riffs on some of the great­est films ever made.
  • Amer­i­can Psy­cho (2000) – Mary Har­ron
    Per­haps the best por­trait out there on the mind­set of the 1%. You’ll nev­er lis­ten to Huey Lewis and the News in the same way.

Check out the full list here. And if you’re inter­est­ed in more, take a look at this sub­list – Female Direc­tors Present on the Jonathan Rosen­baum 1000 Essen­tials List.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch The Hitch-Hik­er by Ida Lupino (the Only Female Direc­tor of a 1950s Noir Film)

Alice Guy-Blaché: The First Female Direc­tor & the Cin­e­mat­ic Trail­blaz­er You Like­ly Nev­er Heard Of

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

New Video Shows What May Be Michelangelo’s Lost & Now Found Bronze Sculptures

in Art | February 10th, 2015

We all know that Michelan­ge­lo sculpt­ed in mar­ble. What’s less well known is that he worked in bronze too. The his­tor­i­cal record shows that Michelan­ge­lo once made a David in bronze for a French aris­to­crat, and a bronze stat­ue of Pope Julius II. But the David dis­ap­peared dur­ing the French Rev­o­lu­tion, and the Julius was lat­er melt­ed down for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es in Italy. For years, schol­ars thought that Michelan­gelo’s bronze cre­ations were all irre­triev­ably lost to his­to­ry. And then came the big dis­cov­ery.

A team of inter­na­tion­al experts (from Cam­bridge, the Rijksmu­se­um and the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick) recent­ly gath­ered evi­dence sug­gest­ing that two bronze male nudes “are ear­ly works by Michelan­ge­lo, made just after he com­plet­ed the mar­ble David and as he was about to embark on the Sis­tine Chapel ceil­ing,” reports a Cam­bridge blog post. Although the stat­ues aren’t signed by Michelan­ge­lo, 

pe*****@ca*.uk











“>Prof Paul Joan­nides (Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Art His­to­ry at Cam­bridge) “con­nect­ed them to a draw­ing by one of Michelangelo’s appren­tices now in the Musée Fab­re, Mont­pel­li­er, France,” and it turns out that the draw­ing con­tains fig­ures that close­ly resem­ble the stat­ues. What’s more, Cam­bridge reports, the “bronzes were com­pared with oth­er works by Michelan­ge­lo and found to be very sim­i­lar in style and anato­my to his works of 1500–1510.” The Cam­bridge video above gives you a fur­ther intro­duc­tion to this impor­tant dis­cov­ery.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Michelangelo’s Hand­writ­ten 16th-Cen­tu­ry Gro­cery List

Take a 3D Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca and Oth­er Art-Adorned Vat­i­can Spaces

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Hand­writ­ten Resume (1482)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Listen to 90 Famous Authors & Celebrities Read Great Stories & Poems

in Literature | February 9th, 2015

In a logo­cen­tric culture—as Jacques Der­ri­da defined it—such as has exist­ed in the West for hun­dreds of years, writ­ing occu­pies a hal­lowed space, and lit­er­ary or philo­soph­i­cal writ­ing all the more so. The rhythms of every­day speech, the ges­tures and sig­nif­i­cant looks that char­ac­ter­ize our quo­tid­i­an inter­ac­tions are deemed less impor­tant than the pre­sum­ably indeli­ble marks on the page. Of course, before the writ­ten word, or at least the print­ed word and wide­spread lit­er­a­cy, speech was pri­ma­ry, and no lit­er­ary cul­ture exist­ed with­out it. From philoso­phers con­duct­ing peri­patet­ic dia­logues, to priests recit­ing scrip­ture, to bards recit­ing poet­ry in tav­erns, the nuances of voice and ges­ture were insep­a­ra­ble from the text.

Of the many rev­o­lu­tion­ary qual­i­ties of the inter­net, one of them has been to restore to lit­er­a­ture its voice, as lit­er­ary read­ings (pre­vi­ous­ly the pre­serve of a priv­i­leged few able to attend spe­cial­ized events and con­fer­ences) become avail­able to all. Whether through Youtube video and audio or mp3, lovers of lit­er­a­ture around the world can access the voic­es and vis­ages of authors like Maya Angelou (top, read­ing “Still I Rise,” with some ad libs), whose total­ly dis­tinc­tive face and voice don’t sim­ply sup­ple­ment her work but seem to com­plete it. We can hear W.H. Auden him­self read “As I Walked Out One Evening” (above, from a 1937 record­ing) in his deep bari­tone. We can hear Sylvia Plath read “Ariel” (below) and many more poems from her final col­lec­tion of the same name.

We also have the plea­sure of hear­ing, and see­ing, oth­er read­ers inter­pret the work of authors we love, such as the per­fect con­flu­ence of text and voice in the Tom Waits’ read­ing of Charles Bukowski’s “The Laugh­ing Heart,” below. Oth­er notable poet­ry read­ings by some­one oth­er than the author include James Earl Jones’ ren­di­tion of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and Allen Ginsberg’s reading—or singing, rather—of the poet­ry of William Blake. And while poet­ry should always be read aloud, it can be equal­ly rev­e­la­to­ry to hear great prose works read, by their authors and oth­ers.

In the list of 90 read­ings below, excerpt­ed from our col­lec­tion of 630 Free Audio Books, you can find works by Faulkn­er and Hem­ing­way, read by Faulkn­er and Hem­ing­way, and Melville’s Moby Dick, read by a host of celebri­ty voic­es. And much, much more. So take some time and recon­nect with the voic­es and faces of lit­er­a­ture, which are as impor­tant as the words they pro­duce. And if you know of any read­ings online that aren’t on our list, feel free to leave a link to them in the com­ments.

  • Angelou, Maya – Still I Rise & On the Pulse of the Morn­ing (read by author) – YouTube
  • Apol­li­naire, Guil­laume – Le pont Mirabeau (Read by author in 1913) – Free MP3
  • Auden, W.H. - As I Walked Out One Evening (read by author) – YouTube
  • Auster, Paul – Free MP3 – The Red Note­book (read by the author)
  • Barthelme, Don­ald - “Con­cern­ing the Body­guard” (read by Salman Rushdie) – Free MP3
  • Blake, William - Songs of Inno­cence and Songs of Expe­ri­ence, as read by Allen Gins­berg — Free Stream/MP3
  • Borges, Jorge Luis – The Gospel Accord­ing to Mark (read by Paul Ther­oux) – Free MP3
  • Brad­bury, Ray – If Only We Had Taller Been (read by the author) – YouTube
  • Brad­bury, Ray – The Veldt (Read by Stephen Col­bert) – YouTube
  • Brad­bury, Ray – Sto­ries Read by Leonard Nimoy – YouTube
  • Brod­key, Harold – Spring Fugue (read by Jef­frey Eugenides) – Free MP3
  • Brod­key, Harold – The State of Grace (read by Richard Ford ) – Free Stream
  • Brown, Mar­garet Wise – Good Night Moon (Read by Susan Saran­don) – YouTube
  • Bukows­ki, Charles – The Laugh­ing Heart (read by Tom Waits) – YouTube Audio
  • Bukows­ki, Charles – The Crunch and Roll The Dice (read by Bono) – YouTube Audio
  • Bukows­ki, Charles – The Secret to My Endurance (read by the author) – YouTube Audio
  • Calvi­no, Ita­lo – Invis­i­ble Cities (excerpts read by Calvi­no) – Free Stream
  • Car­roll, Lewis – Alice in Won­der­land – Alter­na­tive ver­sion read by Cory Doc­torow of Boing­Bo­ing
  • Carv­er, Ray­mond - “Fat” (read by Anne Enright) – Free MP3
  • Carv­er, Ray­mond – “The Stu­dents’ Wife (read by Richard Ford) – Free MP3
  • Carv­er, Ray­mond – “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (Read by Carv­er) – Free MP3
  • Cheev­er, John – “The Death of Justi­na” (read by John Cheev­er) – Free Stream/Download
  • Cheev­er, John ” The Enor­mous Radio” (read by Nathan Eng­lan­der) –Free Stream
  • Cheev­er, John - “The Reunion” (read by Richard Ford) – Free MP3
  • Cheev­er, John – “The Swim­mer” (read by Anne Enright) – Free MP3
  • Cheev­er, John – “The Swim­mer” (read by Cheev­er) – Free Stream/Download
  • Chabon, Michael – “S Angel” (read by author) – Free Stream/Download
  • Coleridge, Samuel – Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Ver­sion read by Orson Welles
  • Cum­mings, EE - Some­where I Have Nev­er Trav­elled – (read by author) – YouTube
  • Cum­mings, EE - Any­one Lived in a Pret­ty How Town – (read by author) – YouTube
  • Dan­ti­cat, Edwidge - Water Child (read by Junot Diaz) – Free MP3 – Free iTunes
  • DeLillo’s, Don – “Baad­er-Mein­hof” (read by Chang-rae Lee) – MP3
  • Dick­ens, Charles – A Christ­mas Car­ol (Read by Neil Gaiman) – Free Stream
  • Faulkn­er, William – Faulkn­er Reads – Free Stream
  • Fer­linghet­ti, Lawrence – Selec­tions from A Coney Island of the Mind (read by author) – Free MP3 – Free Stream
  • Frost, Robert – Stop­ping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (read by author) – YouTube
  • Frost, Robert – The Gift Out­right (read by author) – YouTube
  • Gins­berg, Allen – A Super­mar­ket in Cal­i­for­nia (read by Gins­berg) – Free MP3
  • Gins­berg, Allen – Amer­i­ca (read by Gins­berg) – Free YouTube Stream
  • Gins­berg, Allen - Howl, A Strange New Cot­tage in Berke­ley, and Super­mar­ket in Cal­i­for­nia (read by Gins­berg) – Free MP3/Stream
  • Gordimer, Nadine – “A Style of Her Own” and “The Bride­groom” (read by the author, 1961) – Free Stream/Download
  • Gordimer, Nadine – “Loot” (read by author) – YouTube
  • Hem­ing­way, Ernest – Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads Ernest Hem­ing­way –Free Stream
  • Hem­ing­way, Ernest - Homage to Switzer­land (read by Julian Barnes) – Free MP3
  • Hem­ing­way, Ernest – “In Harry’s Bar in Venice” (a short sto­ry read by Hem­ing­way: .au for­mat, .gsm for­mat, .ra for­mat)
  • Hem­ing­way, Ernest – “The Snows of Kil­i­man­jaro” (read by Charleston Hes­ton) – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4
  • Joyce, James – “The Dead” (Read by Cyn­thia Nixon & Colum McCann) – Free Stream
  • July, Miran­da - “Ron Spivey” (read by David Sedaris) – Free MP3
  • Kaf­ka, Franz – “A Hunger Artist” (read by Hanif Kureishi) – Free MP3
  • Kin­caid, Jamaica - “Fig­ures in the Dis­tance” (read by Chi­ma­man­da Ngozi Adichie) – Free Stream
  • Kin­caid, Jamaica – “Girl” and “Wing­less” (read by Edwidge Dan­ti­cat) – Free Stream
  • McCann, Colum – “Transat­lantic” (read by author) – Free MP3
  • Melville, Her­man – Moby Dick read by Celebri­ties – Free iTunes – Sound­cloud – Big Read – More details
  • Moore, Lor­rie – “Paper Loss­es” (read by Gary Shteyn­gart) – Free Stream
  • Nabokov, Vladimir - My Russ­ian Edu­ca­tion (Read by Orhan Pamuk) – Free MP3 – Free iTunes
  • O’Connor, Flan­nery – “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” (Read by author in 1959) – Stream/Download
  • Oates, Joyce Car­ol - “Mas­tiff” (read by Louise Erdrich) – Free Stream
  • Ozick, Cyn­thia – “The Shawl” (read by Joyce Car­ol Oates) – Free Stream
  • Paley, Grace – “Love” (read by George Saun­ders) – Free Stream
  • Plath, Sylvia – Ariel (read by author) – YouTube Stream
  • Poe, Edgar Allan - The Raven (as read by Christo­pher Walken) – Free YouTube Audio
  • Poe, Edgar Allan - The Raven (as read by James Earl Jones) – Free YouTube Audio
  • Pound, Ezra – Ses­ti­na: Altaforte (read by author) – YouTube
  • Pritch­ett, V.S. – The Res­cue (Read by Jonathan Lethem) – Free Stream
  • Rich, Adri­enne – Mourn­ing Poem, Spring Thun­der, White Night and oth­er poems (read by author) – Free Stream/Download
  • Rumi – Like This (read by Til­da Swin­ton) – YouTube
  • Sara­m­a­go, José - “The Cen­taur” (Read by Nadine Gordimer) – Free MP3
  • Seuss, Dr. – Green Eggs and Ham (read by Neil Gaiman) – YouTube
  • Sex­ton, Anne – Wait­ing to Die (read by author) – YouTube
  • Shake­speare, William – The Son­nets (read by Sir John Giel­gud) – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
  • Shel­ley, Per­cy Bysshe – Ozy­man­dias (read by Bryan Cranston) – Free YouTube
  • Singer, Isaac Bashe­vis – Dis­guised – Free MP3 (read by Nathan Eng­lan­der)
  • Stevens, Wal­lace – “Cre­dences of Sum­mer” and “An Ordi­nary Evening in New Haven” (read by the author) – Free Stream/Download
  • Thomas, Dylan – A Child’s Christ­mas in Wales (read by Thomas) –Youtube
  • Thomas, Dylan – Do Not Go Gen­tle Into That Good Night (read by the author) – Free MP3/Stream
  • Thomas, Dylan – Do Not Go Gen­tle Into That Good Night (read by the Sir Antho­ny Hop­kins) – Free YouTube
  • Thomas, Dylan – The Wild West (read by the author) – Free MP3/Stream
  • Thomas, Dylan – Under Milk Wood (read by the author) – Free MP3/Stream
  • Updike, John - “Play­ing with Dyna­mite” (read by Roger Angell) – Free MP3
  • Updike, John – “A & P.” (read by Alle­gra Good­man) – Free MP3
  • Wal­lace, David Fos­ter - “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster” (read by DFW) – Free MP3
  • Wal­lace, David Fos­ter - “The View from Mrs. Thompson’s” (read by DFW) – Free MP3
  • Wel­ty, Eudo­ra - “Where Is the Voice Com­ing From?” (read by Joyce Car­ol Oates) (MP3)
  • Whit­man, Walt – Song of Myself (read by James Earl Jones) – Free Stream/Download
  • Wilde, Oscar – The Hap­py Prince read by Stephen Fry – YouTube
  • Williams, Willam Car­los – The Red Wheel­bar­row, Tract, The Defec­tive Record, To a Poor Old Woman, A Coro­nal, To Elsie, The Wind Increas­es, Clas­sic Scene (read by poet 1954) – Free
  • Wolff, Tobias – “Bul­let in the Brain” (read by T. Cor­aghes­san Boyle) (MP3)
  • Wolff, Tobias – “The Night in Ques­tion” (read by Akhil Shar­ma) (MP3)
  • Yeats, William But­ler – The Fid­dler of Dooney (read by the author) – Free MP3
  • Yeats, William But­ler – The Song of the Old Moth­er (read by the author) Free MP3

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Down­load 55 Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es: From Dante and Mil­ton to Ker­ouac and Tolkien

Crash Course on Lit­er­a­ture: Watch John Green’s Fun Intro­duc­tions to Gats­by, Catch­er in the Rye & Oth­er Clas­sics

Thug Notes Demys­ti­fies 60 Lit­er­ary Clas­sics (from Shake­speare to Gats­by) with a Fresh Urban Twist

What Are Lit­er­a­ture, Phi­los­o­phy & His­to­ry For? Alain de Bot­ton Explains with Mon­ty Python-Style Videos

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.