I have just joined the forum and just read some of the stuff here - very interesting & informative. I checked out this reading as I had never heard of Librivox and downloaded the first chapter. Sorry Peter but you are obviously not a professional at reading books! Every sentence ahs the same inflection and you have not in my humble opinion, got a grip on the different voices. I checked out some more Librivox recordings all by amateurs. Nice idea to read everything ever published but what's the piont if its done badly?
I signed up with this website just to reply to this unfair post - even though it was made two years ago. Sorry, Sedley, but you obviously have never read a text aloud and recorded it, or else you'd know just how difficult it is. I am currently listening to the chapter in question, and it is fine. The diction is clear, which is the most important thing anyway, imo. Not everybody is a native speaker, so if something is being read in a very strong accent, it will be hard to understand for the uninitiated.
The other thing is: it's all very well to criticise the work of others, but it is something different altogether to do it yourself, and do it better.
Recording for librivox (or proofreading for Project Gutenberg, for instance) takes up a good amount of free time. You don't get paid for it (and the readers/listeners don't have to pay for the product) - so how would you expect a professional to do the reading and recording? .
