The University of South Carolina hosts a few gems, including F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) reading lines from Shakespeare’s Othello. Or, more specifically, Othello’s oration to Venetian senators.

You can access the sound file in two formats here (aiff) and here (real audio).

This comes to us via Mike. Thanks to all who started sending good links our way. Whenever you see something good, please fire us a quick email. It will take one minute out of your day and make the day for many others.

From the TIMES ONLINE:

More than 65,000 19th-century works of fiction from the British Library’s collection are to be made available for free downloads by the public from this spring.

Owners of the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader device, will be able to view well known works by writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as works by thousands of less famous authors.

You can read the rest about this Microsoft funded initiative here. In the meantime, we’ve made it relatively easy to download major classics to your Kindle, iPhone, smartphone or computer. See our collection of Free eBooks (and Audio Books).

A lighter piece for Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, this clip isn’t exactly heady. And, yes, it botches some facts (archers apparently shoot from 70 meters, not 20 yards). But, nonetheless, it gives you the basic physics of Drew Brees’ passing game. Brees will be playing QB for the New Orleans Saints tonight, and, as you’ll see, his accuracy is remarkable. Hat tip to Mike.

via Discover Magazine’s Cosmic Variance blog

How can you learn foreign languages online? Last week, The New York Times outlined a good number of options for its readers. And, for days, the article remained one of the most widely read pieces on the NYT site. Today, the paper issued a followup post, highlighting yet more ways to learn languages digitally. And happily our collection of free language lessons got a small mention there. When taken together, these two pieces spell out the different educational opportunities fairly well. Some of the sites mentioned include LiveMocha.com, BBC languages, and Mango Languages.

Our reader Garnet sets the stage for this video: “Mathematicians have long declared that geometrical hyperbolic space could not be modeled in the real world. Now it’s been done, through crochet! Watch TED video science writer Margaret Wertheim explain how the art of crochet emulates sea slugs creating coral structures in hyperbolic space, using art to bring attention to the disappearance of coral through global warming.” You can get more information about this presentation here. And, for more TED Talks, don’t forget to check out this handy online spreadsheet.

Alfred Hitchcock loved making cameo appearances in his own films. Apparently, he made 37 such cameos over a 50 year period. The appearances can be tough to spot. So the video above helps point out many of them.

If you’re looking for complete Hitchcock films, then head over to our collection of Free Movies Online. There, you’ll discover 12 complete Hitchcock films from his early career, including The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Now do you know what you’re doing this weekend?

via @EbertChicago

Great message. Give it a minute to get going. Performed by Taylor Mali at the Bowery Poetry Club on November 12, 2005. Thanks Thomas for sharing.

This clip is now added to our YouTube favorites.

Somewhere during your day, you spot a great video, an enriching audio lecture, or an excellent free ebook. And you think, that’s perfect for Open Culture. So you shoot us a quick note, and the next thing you know, your personal discovery is live on the site, being shared with thousands of like-minded readers from across the globe — readers from London to New York, from Tehran to Bangalore, from Sydney to Sao Paulo and beyond. And our global village is happy … and better off for it. Sounds good, right? We think so.

So here’s what we ask: Whenever you see a great piece of intelligent media, please quickly send it our way. (We have a nice “Suggest a Link” button on the upper right side of the site.) And, assuming it fits with Open Culture’s general mission, we’ll share it with your fellow readers, give you full credit, and thank you warmly. Look forward to your suggestions, and, if you haven’t already, please join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Caveat: If you missed it, yesterday’s post was 10 Reasons iPad Will Not Kill Kindle. So take everything here with appropriate grains of salt.

10.) Books with graphics. Many books contain photos, graphics and diagrams that the Kindle does not handle well, if at all. When people realize that the iPad will do this flawlessly, they’ll head in that direction. Example: while reading the new Carver biography on my Kindle, an experience that I loved, I had to miss out on all of the pictures collected from Carver’s life. Once you take into account newspapers and magazines, there’s even more weight on iPad’s side.

9.) Cost: Seriously, Amazon really overstepped their boundaries when they set Kindle’s price at around $300, as they did. If they had made it $100 or less, they would have probably have sold 4 or 5 times the number of devices, hooking more readers to their bookstore and their device. Look at Gillette as an example: which costs more—the razor or the razor blades?

8.) “I love my Kindle!” – less than two million people have bought the Amazon product. By comparison, over forty million iPhones and iPod Touches have been sold. No one knows how many folks will rush out to buy an iPad, but if previous iPhone sales and the buzz around the iPad are any indication, this is going to be another big win for Apple.

7.) iPad is a Kindle: just use that free Kindle app on your iPad and you’ve got the whole Kindle store wide open to you. You can even take your whole Kindle library right over to Apple’s iPad with the Kindle App.

6.) Cost, again: with iPad coming in at a low $499 for a device that’s much better made and features much more capability than the Kindle, with at least four times the memory… well, you get the picture. Oh jeez… I just found out the Kindle DX goes for $489. Oh, Mr. Bezos… what are you thinking?

5.) Capability. People don’t want a dedicated reading device: if you can carry around a device the size of your e-reader, but also use it to check email, surf the web, watch TV and movies, listen to music, use office-type apps, etc. then that’s going to win in today’s economy.

4.) Book pricing. It looks like Apple, the diabolical pricers of all songs at $.99, might wind up being the publishers’ darling in the e-book market by pricing their titles higher than Amazon has been. So far it looks like ibooks will be closer to the $14.99 price point that publishers like. Right now, as evinced by this past weekend’s squabble between Amazon and Macmillan, publishers appear to be fed up with Amazon’s pricing strategy. Apple may just become publishers’ white knight. (more…)

Listen up. The clip above features the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. It comes from a 1937 BBC radio broadcast. The talk, entitled “Craftsmanship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” You can find a transcript of the recorded portion here. Thanks Kirstin for helping get this nugget out there.

via mhpbooks

Caveat: before half of you get your shorts in a bunch, tomorrow’s post will be: Top 10 Reasons Why iPad Means Kindle Is Dead. With that said, have at it!

10.) Taking reading from a simple printed page to an e-book environment such as the Kindle is a great step forward. Its ease of use, portability and storage are ideal for readers. No more innovations needed!

9.) The enjoyment of reading has always taken place within a reader’s mind. This is both why reading is great and why the words on the page don’t need to be in flashy colors or feature fancy graphics.

8.)  Added cost of iPad and $30/month fee for 3G from AT&T (the realistic cost) make Kindle a better deal. Enough said.

7.) Everyone hates AT&T, their 3G service is spotty at best, and NO ONE who’s buying a 3G iPad will use less than 250MB a month, so the $14.95 price point for 3G is useless!

6.) Glare/e-ink. You can always read during the daytime with your Kindle. Take it to the beach, read in broad daylight. e-ink is simply easier on readers’ eyes than back-lit pixels.

5.) There’s no need for a device that fits between laptop and smart phone. Both are extremely portable and serve different purposes. If I want to curl up in bed with a movie or the web, I can use my laptop for that already. If I want to curl up in bed and read, I can use my Kindle!

4.) Apps! That’s right: The new opening up of Amazon’s Kindle format to app developers will mean a lot more versatility on the device. Once a few folks come along and develop email clients or web browsers for the Kindle, Kindle will become even more useful as a potential smart phone substitute—the niche that iPad seems intent on filling.

3.) The new price-sharing announcement (70% publisher/30% Amazon) for Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) makes Kindle more attractive once again to all the powers that be in publishing. If they can get this pesky text-to-speech battle cleared up, things will be even better.

2.) Big publishing is currently doing so much of their sales through Amazon, that they might be afraid to carry business over to Apple. Sure, they will sell books there, but keep in mind that Apple might have to keep prices in the iBook store higher than at Amazon.

1.) “I love my Kindle!” –Seriously, a lot of readers are devoted to these devices, including me. I’ve found a nice cover that makes the Kindle easy to hold. I really like the ease of buying/storing books on it. And I just want a plain, simple device to use for reading.

The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of Open Culture or the author.

Up next (tomorrow): Top 10 Reasons Why iPad Means Kindle is Dead

Seth Harwood is a voracious reader, subversive publishing maven and crime novelist. His next book Young Junius will be available from Tyrus Books this fall. He’s sure to have some crazy promotions going at his site this spring as well.

Bertrand Russell, the Nobel Prize-winning philosopher, mathematician and peace activist, died 40 years ago today. And so, above, we rewind the video tape to 1959, to Russell explaining why he doesn’t believe in God. This was a viewpoint that he otherwise elaborated upon in his well-known lecture/essay, Why I Am Not a Christian. For more vintage Bertrand Russell, you can check out another wide-ranging BBC interview with Russell flagged by one of our faithful readers, Mike S. Find it in three parts here, here and here. To be sure, some readers won’t share Russell’s views on religion. But don’t take umbrage. Just remember, we offer media from across the divide too..

Update: Another reader sent us a nice addition to the video above. Here, you can listen to a famous 1948 debate between Bertrand Russell and Father Frederick C. Copleston, Jesuit Catholic priest and professor of philosophy. It was aired on the BBC. You can listen to the audio below.

Following J.D. Salinger’s death last week, The New York Times has created an interactive map that retraces the footsteps of Salinger’s most famous character, Holden Caulfield. The Times introduces the map as follows:

Trace Holden Caulfield’s perambulations around Manhattan in “The Catcher in the Rye” to places like the Edmont Hotel, where Holden had an awkward encounter with Sunny the hooker; the lake in Central Park, where he wondered about the ducks in winter; and the clock at the Biltmore, where he waited for his date. Roll your mouse over each point and read about Holden’s experience there in J.D. Salinger’s words.

Note: The map comes with an accompanying article that you can read here.

A quick fyi on a free eBook from the University of Chicago. (It’s an offer that seems well timed, given this weekend’s copyright debate on OC.) Here are the details from UC:

Offered as a free e-book for one day only, February 1: Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. “[Adrian Johns] traces the tensions between authorized and unauthorized producers and distributors of books, music, and other intellectual property in British and American culture from the 17th century to the present. . . . The shifting theoretical arguments about copyright and authorial property are presented in a cogent and accessible manner. Johns’s research stands as an important reminder that today’s intellectual property crises are not unprecedented, and offers a survey of potential approaches to a solution.”

For more free eBooks, please visit our collection of Free eBooks.

Great find by Robert B., who captions this clip: “the teenage Glenn Gould at his Canadian home.” Gould is playing here J.S.Bach’s Partita #2. Give this a minute to get going. It’s a pretty awesome display of Gould’s talents. Thanks for sharing Robert…