Monday, April 09, 2007

Wired for Books

Ohio University has created a fantastic online resource for author interviews, plus other literature audio resources, through its radio, television and web accessible station WOUB http://www.wiredforbooks.org/

Recent additions to the site include Don Swaim's CBS Radio Book Beat interviews with authors of the 20th century. Although the original radio program only broadcast about 2 minutes of the interviews, the full interviews, typically 30-45 minutes in length, are now available online.

Edward Abbey, Russell Baker, Janet Daily, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Rice, John Updike, Amy Tan are just a few of the wide range of authors interviewed over 10 years of the show.

Kids Corner features the tales of Beatrix Potter in both text and audio, and other children's classics such as Alice in Wonderland, Rudyard Kipling's Just So stories, interviews about Beatrix Potter, Mr. Fred Rogers, and more.

Poetry readings, with contemporary poets Robert Pinsky and Sharon Olds reading their own works, and now classic poetry such as Walt Whitmans' Leaves of Grass and the poems of Emily Dickinson read by others are found here.

Hear the Iliad, Book 1 read aloud in ancient Greek, and the Aeneid, Book IV, declaimed in Latin.

These various audio resources use either RealPlayer or RealAudio, available for downloading on the site. Some of the interviews are available for MP3 format.