Stream 15 Audio Drama Podcasts & Get Through COVID-19: Features Rami Malek, Catherine Keener, Tim Robbins & More

At my home now, we con­stant­ly tell sto­ries: to dis­tract, soothe, entertain—telling and retelling, col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly author­ing over meals, lis­ten­ing to a ton of sto­ry pod­casts. These activ­i­ties took up a good part of the day before all hell broke loose and schools shut down. Now they guide us from morn­ing to night as we try to imag­ine oth­er worlds, bet­ter worlds, than the one we’re liv­ing in at present. We are paint­ing on the walls of our cave, so to speak, with brave and fear­ful images, while out­side, con­fu­sion sets in.

Lest any­one think this is kid stuff, it most assured­ly is not. Nar­ra­tive coher­ence seems par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for healthy human func­tion­ing. We may grow to appre­ci­ate greater lev­els of com­plex­i­ty and moral ambi­gu­i­ty, it’s true. But the desire to expe­ri­ence real­i­ty as some­thing with arcs, rather than errat­ic and dis­turb­ing non-sequiturs, remains strong. Exper­i­men­tal fic­tion proves so unset­tling because it defies accept­able notions of cause and con­se­quence.

From the tales told by plague-dis­placed aris­to­crats in Boccaccio’s Decameron to the radio dra­mas that enter­tained fam­i­lies shel­ter­ing in place dur­ing the Blitz to our own pod­cast-sat­u­rat­ed coro­n­avirus media land­scape…. Sto­ries told well and often have a heal­ing effect on the dis­tressed psy­ches of those trapped in world-his­tor­i­cal dra­mas. “While sto­ries might not pro­tect you from a virus,” writes Andre Spicer at New States­man, “they can pro­tect you from the ill feel­ings which epi­demics gen­er­ate.”

In addi­tion to advice offered through­out history—by many of Boccaccio’s con­tem­po­raries, for exam­ple, who urged sto­ry and song to lift plague-weary spirits—“dozens of stud­ies” by psy­chol­o­gists have shown “the impact sto­ry­telling has on our health.” Telling and hear­ing sto­ries gives us lan­guage we may lack to describe expe­ri­ence. We can com­mu­ni­cate and ana­lyze painful emo­tions through metaphors and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, rather than too-per­son­al con­fes­sion. We can expe­ri­ence a sense of kin­ship with those who have felt sim­i­lar­ly.

Per­haps this last func­tion is most impor­tant in the midst of cat­a­stro­phes that iso­late peo­ple from each oth­er. As real­i­ty refus­es to con­form to a sense of appro­pri­ate scope, as car­toon­ish vil­lains destroy all pro­por­tion and prob­a­bil­i­ty, empa­thy fatigue can start to set in. Through the art of sto­ry­telling, we might learn we don’t have to share oth­er peo­ple’s back­grounds, beliefs, and inter­ests to under­stand their moti­va­tions and care about what hap­pens to them.

We can also learn to start small, with just a few peo­ple, instead of the whole world. Short fic­tion brings unthink­able abstractions—the death tolls in wars and plagues—to a man­age­able emo­tion­al scale. Rather than show­ing us how we might defeat, avoid, or escape invis­i­ble antag­o­nists like viral pan­demics, sto­ries illus­trate how peo­ple can behave well or bad­ly in extreme, inhu­man cir­cum­stances.

Below, find a series of audio dra­mas, both fic­tion and non, in pod­cast form—many fea­tur­ing celebri­ty voic­es, includ­ing Rami Malek, Cather­ine Keen­er, Tim Rob­bins & more—to help you in your jour­ney through our nar­ra­tive­ly exhaust­ing times. Par­ents and care­givers like­ly already find them­selves immersed in sto­ries much of the day. Yet adults, whether they’re rais­ing kids or not, need sto­ry­time too—maybe espe­cial­ly when the sto­ries we believed about the world stop mak­ing sense.

Alice Isn’t Dead — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site — A truck dri­ver search­es across Amer­i­ca for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human ser­i­al mur­der­ers, towns lit­er­al­ly lost in time, and a con­spir­a­cy that goes way beyond one miss­ing woman.

Black­out — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google â€” Acad­e­my Award win­ner Rami Malek stars in this apoc­a­lyp­tic thriller as a small-town radio DJ fight­ing to pro­tect his fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty after the pow­er grid goes down nation­wide, upend­ing mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion.

LifeAfter/The Mes­sage — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — The Mes­sage and its sequel, LifeAfter, take lis­ten­ers on jour­neys to the lim­its of tech­nol­o­gy. n The Mes­sage, an alien trans­mis­sion from decades ago becomes an urgent puz­zle with life or death con­se­quences. In LifeAfter, Ross, a low lev­el employ­ee at the FBI, spends his days con­vers­ing online with his wife Char­lie – who died eight months ago. But the tech­nol­o­gy behind this dig­i­tal res­ur­rec­tion leads Ross down a dan­ger­ous path that threat­ens his job, his own life, and maybe even the world. Win­ner of the Cannes Gold Lion.

Home­com­ing — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Home­com­ing cen­ters on a case­work­er at an exper­i­men­tal facil­i­ty, her ambi­tious super­vi­sor, and a sol­dier eager to rejoin civil­ian life — pre­sent­ed in an enig­mat­ic col­lage of tele­phone calls, ther­a­py ses­sions, and over­heard con­ver­sa­tions. Star­ring Cather­ine Keen­er, Oscar Isaac, David Schwim­mer, David Cross, Amy Sedaris, Michael Cera, Mer­cedes Ruehl, Alia Shawkat, Chris Geth­ard, and Spike Jonze.

Lime­town — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site â€” The premise: Ten years ago, over three hun­dred men, women and chil­dren dis­ap­peared from a small town in Ten­nessee, nev­er to be heard from again. In this pod­cast, Amer­i­can Pub­lic Radio reporter Lia Had­dock asks the ques­tion once more, “What hap­pened to the peo­ple of Lime­town?”

Moth­er­hack­er — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site — The plot: Bridget’s life is a series of dropped calls. With a gift for gab, an ex-hus­band in rehab, and down to her last dol­lar, Bridget’s life takes a des­per­ate turn when she starts vish­ing over the phone for a shady iden­ti­ty theft ring in order to sup­port her fam­i­ly.

Pas­sen­ger List — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site — Atlantic Flight 702 has dis­ap­peared mid-flight between Lon­don and New York with 256 pas­sen­gers on board. Kaitlin Le (Kel­ly Marie Tran), a col­lege stu­dent whose twin broth­er van­ished with the flight, is deter­mined to uncov­er the truth.

San­dra — Apple — Spo­ti­fy â€” Web Site â€” Co-stars Kris­ten Wiig, Alia Shawkat, and Ethan Hawke. Here’s the plot: Helen’s always dreamed of ditch­ing her home­town, so when she lands a job at the com­pa­ny that makes San­dra, every­one’s favorite A.I., she fig­ures it’s the next-best thing. But work­ing behind the cur­tain isn’t quite the escape from real­i­ty that Helen expect­ed.

The Angel of Vine — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site — A present day jour­nal­ist uncov­ers the audio tapes of a 1950s pri­vate eye who cracked the great­est unsolved mur­der mys­tery Hol­ly­wood has ever known… and didn’t tell a soul. Star­ring Joe Man­ganiel­lo, Alfred Moli­na, Con­stance Zim­mer, Alan Tudyk, Camil­la Lud­ding­ton, and more.

The Bright Ses­sions — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site â€” A sci­ence fic­tion pod­cast that fol­lows a group of ther­a­py patients. But these are not your typ­i­cal patients — each has a unique super­nat­ur­al abil­i­ty. The show doc­u­ments their strug­gles and dis­cov­er­ies as well as the moti­va­tions of their mys­te­ri­ous ther­a­pist, Dr. Bright.

The Orbit­ing Human Cir­cus — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Dis­cov­er a won­drous­ly sur­re­al world of mag­ic, music, and mys­tery. This immer­sive, cin­e­mat­ic audio spec­ta­cle fol­lows the adven­tures of a lone­ly, stage-struck jan­i­tor who is drawn into the larg­er-than-life uni­verse of the Orbit­ing Human Cir­cus, a fan­tas­ti­cal, wild­ly pop­u­lar radio show broad­cast from the top of the Eif­fel Tow­er. WNYC Stu­dios presents a spe­cial director’s cut of this joy­ous, mov­ing break from real­i­ty. Star­ring John Cameron Mitchell, Julian Koster, Tim Rob­bins, Drew Callan­der, Susan­nah Flood, and fea­tur­ing Mandy Patinkin and Char­lie Day.

The Truth — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — Web Site — The Truth makes movies for your ears. They’re short sto­ries that are some­times dark, some­times fun­ny, and always intrigu­ing. Every sto­ry is dif­fer­ent, but they all take you to unex­pect­ed places using only sound. If you’re new, some good start­ing places are: Sil­vi­a’s Blood, That’s Democ­ra­cy, Moon Graf­fi­ti, Tape Delay, or what­ev­er’s most recent. Lis­ten­ing with head­phones is encour­aged!

The Walk — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — “Dystopi­an thriller, The Walk, is a tale of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, ter­ror­ism, and a life-or-death mis­sion to walk across Scot­land. But the for­mat of this sto­ry is — unusu­al. The Walk is an immer­sive fic­tion pod­cast, and the cre­ators want you to lis­ten to it while walk­ing. It begins with a ter­ror­ist attack at a train sta­tion; you are the pro­tag­o­nist, known only as Walk­er, and the police think you’re a mem­ber of a shad­owy ter­ror group called The Burn.” “Author Nao­mi Alder­man, whose lat­est nov­el was a best­seller called The Pow­er, is the cre­ator of The Walk.”

We’re Alive — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google â€” An award-win­ing audio dra­ma, orig­i­nal­ly released in pod­cast form. Its sto­ry fol­lows a large group of sur­vivors of a zom­bie apoc­a­lypse in down­town Los Ange­les, Cal­i­for­nia.

Wolf 359 — Apple — Spo­ti­fy — Google — A sci­ence fic­tion pod­cast cre­at­ed by Gabriel Urbina. Fol­low­ing in the tra­di­tion of Gold­en Age radio dra­mas, Wolf 359 tells the sto­ry of a dys­func­tion­al space sta­tion crew orbit­ing the star Wolf 359 on a deep space sur­vey mis­sion.

These pod­casts can be found in the new col­lec­tion, The 150 Best Pod­casts to Enrich Your Mind.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pan­dem­ic Lit­er­a­ture: A Meta-List of the Books You Should Read in Coro­n­avirus Quar­an­tine

How Can Boccaccio’s 14th Cen­tu­ry Decameron Help Us Live Through COVID-19?

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

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

Iggy Pop, David Byrne, and More Come Together with Bedtime Stories (For Grownups)

Many friends have expressed a sense of relief that their elder­ly par­ents passed before the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic hit, but I sure wish my step­fa­ther were here to wit­ness Iggy Pop cross­ing the rain­bow bridge with the heart­felt valen­tine to the late Trom­ba, the pooch with whom he shared the hap­pi­est moments of his life.

Iggy’s paean to his adopt­ed Mex­i­can street dog, who nev­er quite made the adjust­ment to the New York City canine lifestyle, would have made my stepfather’s grinchy, dog-soft heart grow three sizes, at least.

That lev­el of engage­ment would have pleased con­cep­tu­al artist Mau­r­izio Cat­te­lan, who launched Bed­time Sto­ries under the dig­i­tal aus­pices of New York City’s New Muse­um, ask­ing friends, fel­low artists, and favorite per­form­ers to con­tribute brief read­ings to foment a feel­ing of togeth­er­ness in these iso­lat­ed times.

It was left to each con­trib­u­tor whether to go with a favorite lit­er­ary pas­sage or words of their own. As Cat­te­lan told The New York Times:

It would have been quite depress­ing if all the invit­ed artists and con­trib­u­tors had cho­sen fairy tales and chil­dren sto­ries. We look to artists for their abil­i­ty to show us the unex­pect­ed so I am thank­ful to all the par­tic­i­pants for com­ing up with some gen­uine­ly weird stuff.

Thus­far, artist Ray­mond Pet­ti­bon’s smut­ty Bat­man rever­ie is as close as Bed­time Sto­ries comes to fairy­tale.

Which is to say not very close

Artist and musi­cian David Byrne (pic­tured here at age five) reads from “The Three Christs of Ypsi­lan­ti” by Mil­ton Rokeach. As part of its series of new dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives, the New Muse­um presents “Bed­time Sto­ries,” a project ini­ti­at­ed by the artist Mau­r­izio Cat­te­lan. Invit­ing friends and oth­er artists and per­form­ers he admires to keep us com­pa­ny, Cat­te­lan imag­ined “Bed­time Sto­ries” as a way of stay­ing togeth­er dur­ing these days of iso­la­tion. Read more at newmuseum.org. #New­Mu­se­umBed­timeSto­ries @davidbyrneofficial

A post shared by New Muse­um (@newmuseum) on


Musi­cian David Byrne picked an excerpt from The Three Christs of Ypsi­lan­ti by social psy­chol­o­gist Mil­ton Rokeach, who detailed the inter­ac­tions between three para­noid schiz­o­phren­ics, each of whom believed him­self the Son of God.

Artist Taci­ta Dean’s cut­ting from Thomas Hardy’s poem “An August Mid­night” speaks to an expe­ri­ence famil­iar to many who’ve been iso­lat­ing solo—an acute will­ing­ness to ele­vate ran­dom bugs to the sta­tus of com­pan­ion.

Rashid John­son’s choice, Amiri Baraka’s “Pref­ace to a 20 Vol­ume Sui­cide Note,” also feels very of the moment:

Late­ly, I’ve become accus­tomed to the way

The ground opens up and envelopes me

Each time I go out to walk the dog

…

Things have come to that.

Lis­ten to the New Museum’s Bed­time Sto­ries here. A new sto­ry will be added every day through the end of June, with a line­up that includes musi­cian Michael Stipe, archi­tect Maya Lin, and artists Takashi Muraka­mi and Jeff Koons.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dol­ly Par­ton Will Read Bed­time Sto­ries to You Every Week

An Ani­mat­ed Mar­garet Atwood Explains How Sto­ries Change with Tech­nol­o­gy

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

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Here lat­est project is an ani­ma­tion and a series of free down­load­able posters, encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to wear masks in pub­lic and wear them prop­er­ly. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

Audible Providing Free Audio Books to Kids & Teens: Introducing the New Service, Audible Stories

A heads up to all par­ents, Audi­ble has announced that they’re pro­vid­ing free sto­ries for kids dur­ing this peri­od of social dis­tanc­ing, which inevitably means wide­spread school clo­sures. They write:

For as long as schools are closed, we’re open. Start­ing today, kids every­where can instant­ly stream an incred­i­ble col­lec­tion of sto­ries, includ­ing titles across six dif­fer­ent lan­guages, that will help them con­tin­ue dream­ing, learn­ing, and just being kids.

All sto­ries are free to stream on your desk­top, lap­top, phone or tablet.

Explore the col­lec­tion, select a title and start lis­ten­ing.

It’s that easy.

Win­nie the Pooh, Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land, Beat­rix Pot­ter–they’re all avail­able as free audio.

You can find more free audio books in our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free…

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:

Enter an Archive of 6,000 His­tor­i­cal Children’s Books, All Dig­i­tized and Free to Read Online

A Dig­i­tal Archive of 1,800+ Children’s Books from UCLA

Clas­sic Children’s Books Now Dig­i­tized and Put Online: Revis­it Vin­tage Works from the 19th & 20th Cen­turies

 

Free for Audible Subscribers: James Taylor Releases a New Audio Memoir, and Michael Pollan a New Audio Book on Caffeine

This is a very quick FYI for any­one who hap­pens to be an Audi­ble sub­scriber. If you’re not, you can start a free tri­al here.

This month, all Audi­ble mem­bers can get free access to James Tay­lor’s new short mem­oir called Break Shot: My First 21 Years. Read by James Tay­lor him­self, the book revis­its the musi­cian’s tur­bu­lent child­hood and his emer­gence as an artist. It also fea­tures record­ed music by the singer-song­writer.

In addi­tion, Michael Pol­lan has released a new short audio­book, Caf­feine: How Caf­feine Cre­at­ed the Mod­ern World. Read by Pol­lan, the book (only avail­able in audio for­mat) “takes us on a jour­ney through the his­to­ry of the drug, which was first dis­cov­ered in a small part of East Africa and with­in a cen­tu­ry became an addic­tion affect­ing most of the human species.”

Both books are part of the Audi­ble Orig­i­nals pro­gram. So if you down­load them, you won’t be using any of your month­ly cred­its. They are free bonus mate­r­i­al.

And now for an extra bonus:  You can lis­ten to Annette Ben­ing, Jon Hamm, Matthew Rhys, Mau­ra Tier­ney and oth­ers read “The Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Report on Tor­ture.” It’s free for all–whether you’re an Audi­ble sub­scriber or not.

To sign up for an Audi­ble free tri­al, click here.

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:

Down­load a Free Audio Book From Audible.com

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

Get Two Free Audio­books from Audiobooks.com

Take UC Berkeley’s Free “Edi­ble Edu­ca­tion 101” Lec­ture Course, Fea­tur­ing a Pan­theon of Sus­tain­able Food Super­stars

 

Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save Available as a Free AudioBook and eBook: Features Narrations by Paul Simon, Kristen Bell & Stephen Fry

In 2009, Prince­ton philoso­pher Peter Singer pub­lished his prac­ti­cal handbook/manifesto The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Pover­ty. Bill and Melin­da Gates called it “a per­sua­sive and inspir­ing work that will change the way you think about philanthropy”–a book that “shows us we can make a pro­found dif­fer­ence in the lives of the world’s poor­est.”

Now, on its tenth anniver­sary, Singer has released an updat­ed ver­sion of The Life You Can Save. And he’s made it avail­able as a free ebook, and also as a free audio­book fea­tur­ing nar­ra­tions by Kris­ten Bell, Stephen Fry, Paul Simon and Natalia Vodi­ano­va, among oth­ers. You can get the down­loads here.

Singer’s web­site fea­tures a page where you can find the best char­i­ties that address glob­al pover­ty. Each char­i­ty has been “rig­or­ous­ly eval­u­at­ed to help you make the biggest impact per dol­lar.” If you are look­ing for an effi­cient approach, you can also make one sin­gle dona­tion to sup­port all of the char­i­ties vet­ted and rec­om­mend­ed by Singer’s orga­ni­za­tion.

The audio ver­sion of The Life You Can Save will be added to our meta col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Life You Can Save in 3 Min­utes, by Peter Singer

Peter Singer’s Course on Effec­tive Altru­ism Puts Phi­los­o­phy Into World­ly Action

The Jour­nal of Con­tro­ver­sial Ideas, Co-Found­ed by Philoso­pher Peter Singer, Will Pub­lish & Defend Pseu­do­ny­mous Arti­cles, Regard­less of the Back­lash

Richard Dawkins’ Uncut Inter­views with Peter Singer & Big Thinkers

 

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Hear Neil Gaiman Read A Christmas Carol Just as Dickens Read It

gaiman dickens

Image by New York Pub­lic Library

Last Christ­mas, we fea­tured Charles Dick­ens’ hand-edit­ed copy of his beloved 1843 novel­la A Christ­mas Car­ol. He did that hand edit­ing for the pur­pos­es of giv­ing pub­lic read­ings, a prac­tice that, in his time, “was con­sid­ered a des­e­cra­tion of one’s art and a low­er­ing of one’s dig­ni­ty.” That time, how­ev­er, has gone, and many of the most pres­ti­gious writ­ers alive today take the read­ing aloud of their own work to the lev­el of art, or at least high enter­tain­ment, that Dick­ens must have sus­pect­ed one could. Some writ­ers even do a bang-up job of read­ing oth­er writ­ers’ work: mod­ern mas­ter sto­ry­teller Neil Gaiman gave us a dose of that on Mon­day when we fea­tured his recita­tion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s “Jab­ber­wocky” from mem­o­ry. Today, how­ev­er, comes the full meal: Gaiman’s telling of A Christ­mas Car­ol straight from that very Dick­ens-edit­ed read­ing copy.

Gaiman read to a full house at the New York Pub­lic Library, an insti­tu­tion known for its stim­u­lat­ing events, hol­i­day-themed or oth­er­wise. But he did­n’t have to hold up the after­noon him­self; tak­ing the stage before him, BBC researcher and The Secret Muse­um author Mol­ly Old­field talked about her two years spent seek­ing out fas­ci­nat­ing cul­tur­al arti­facts the world over, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to the NYPL’s own col­lec­tion of things Dick­en­sian. You can hear both Old­field and Gaiman in the record­ing above. But per­haps the great­est gift of all came in the form of the lat­ter’s attire for his read­ing: not only did he go ful­ly Vic­to­ri­an, he even went to the length of repli­cat­ing the 19th-cen­tu­ry lit­er­ary super­star’s own severe hair part and long goa­tee. And School Library Jour­nal has pic­tures.

The sto­ry real­ly gets start­ed around the 11:25 mark. Gaiman’s read­ing will be added to our list of Free Audio Books. You can find the text of Dick­ens’ clas­sic in our col­lec­tion, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in Decem­ber 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil Gaiman Teach­es the Art of Sto­ry­telling in His New Online Course

Hear Neil Gaiman Read Aloud 15 of His Own Works, and Works by 6 Oth­er Great Writ­ers: From The Grave­yard Book & Cora­line, to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven & Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol

A Christ­mas Car­ol Pre­sent­ed in a Thomas Edi­son Film (1910)

O Frab­jous Day! Neil Gaiman Recites Lewis Carroll’s “Jab­ber­wocky” from Mem­o­ry

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture 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.

Hear a Full-Cast Reading of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, the Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale

A good heads up from Metafil­ter. They write:

Avail­able for a lim­it­ed time, BBC Radio 4 has a full-cast abridged read­ing of Mar­garet Atwood’s new nov­el, The Tes­ta­ments. This sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale picks up 15 years after the events in the pre­vi­ous book (very mild­ly reveal­ing review of The Tes­ta­ments by Anne Enright). All 14-minute episodes have now been released: The first episode is avail­able until Oct. 15, 2019; the fif­teenth and final episode is avail­able until Oct. 30.

Stream it all here. And find more audio books in our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

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:

Mar­garet Atwood Offers a New Online Class on Cre­ative Writ­ing

Pret­ty Much Pop #10 Exam­ines Mar­garet Atwood’s Night­mare Vision: The Handmaid’s Tale

Hear Mar­garet Atwood’s Sto­ry “Stone Mat­tress,” Read by Author A. M. Homes

Free: A Professionally-Read Version of the Ukraine Whistleblower Complaint, Released by Penguin Random House Audio

Lis­ten to the Whistle­blow­er Com­plaint released by the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, as read by Sask­ia Maar­leveld. Stream or down­load it above. Find more of Maar­leveld’s nar­rat­ed books on Audi­ble.

This record­ing will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.