20 Great Authors (and Actors) Read Famous Literature Out Loud

Every now and then, we like to present vin­tage clips of great authors read­ing clas­sic lit­er­ary works – works they have often writ­ten them­selves. These clips can be fair­ly reveal­ing. Through them, you can recap­ture the voic­es of lit­er­ary greats, most long since passed. And you can hear how they give char­ac­ter and expres­sion to their own works … or those of oth­ers. In response to a read­er’s request, we have pulled togeth­er some of the finest exam­ples pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here. And, for good mea­sure, we’ve added prime clips of famous celebri­ties giv­ing lit­er­ary read­ings too. Hope you enjoy (and share):

1) William Faulkn­er Reads from As I Lay Dying

2) James Joyce Read­ing Finnegans Wake

3) Vin­tage Radio: Aldous Hux­ley Nar­rates Brave New World

4) Dominic West (aka Jim­my McNul­ty) Reads Jane Austen

5) Tru­man Capote Reads from Break­fast at Tiffany’s

6) Joyce Car­ol Oates Reads Eudo­ra Wel­ty’s “Where Is the Voice Com­ing From?”

7) Orson Welles Reads Moby Dick

8) John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

9) Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

10) T.S. Eliot Read­ing from The Waste­land

11) F. Scott Fitzger­ald Reads Shake­speare Out Loud

12) Den­nis Hop­per Reads Rud­yard Kipling on John­ny Cash Show

13) Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five

14) Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

15) William Car­los Williams Reads His Poet­ry (1954)

16) Orhan Pamuk Reads Vladimir Nabokov

17) Charles Bukows­ki “Blue­bird”

18) Wal­lace Stevens Reads His Own Poet­ry

19) Tobias Wolff Reads From His New Short Sto­ry Col­lec­tion

20) Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work


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Comments (5)
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  • I high­ly rec­om­mend the Hux­ley, Depp and Hop­per links. They are great.

  • Saatyaki S/o Seshendra Sharma says:

    Dear Friends ! Greet­ings
    Please add Sesh­en­dra Shar­ma , emi­nent poet , my father to your love­ly por­tal.
    Thank you / Regards
    ——
    Sesh­en­dra is a colos­sus of mod­ern Indi­an Poet­ry. His lit­er­a­ture is a unique blend of the best of poet­ry and poet­ics. His poet­ry web­site

    Sesh­en­dra : Vision­ary poet of the mil­len­ni­um

    http://seshendrasharma.weebly.com

    This site presents essence of the mil­len­ni­um in a pow­er­ful poet­ic style.

  • Saatyaki S/o Seshendra Sharma says:

    Sesh­en­dra Shar­ma bet­ter known as Sesh­en­dra is a colos­sus of Mod­ern Indi­an poet­ry.
    His lit­er­a­ture is a unique blend of the best of poet­ry and poet­ics.

    Diver­si­ty and depth of his lit­er­ary inter­ests and his works
    are per­haps hith­er­to unknown in Indi­an lit­er­a­ture.

    From poet­ry to poet­ics, from Mantra Sas­tra to Marx­ist pol­i­tics
    his writ­ings bear an unnerv­ing print of his rare Genius.
    His schol­ar­ship and com­mand over Sankrit, Eng­lish and Tel­ugu Lan­guages has facil­i­tat­ed
    his emer­gence as a tow­er­ing per­son­al­i­ty of com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture in the 20th Cen­tu­ry World lit­er­a­ture.
    T.S.Eliot , Archibald MacLeish and Sesh­en­dra Shar­ma are trin­i­ty of world poet­ry and Poet­ics.

    His sense of ded­i­ca­tion to the genre he choos­es to express him­self and
    the deter­mi­na­tion to reach the depths of sub­ject he under­takes to explore
    place him in the galaxy of world poets / world intel­lec­tu­als.

  • Readersmagnet says:

    Dis­trib­ut­ing had been fruit­ful where there had been nor­mal geo­graph­ic impos­ing busi­ness mod­els.

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