Download 20 Popular High School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books

in Audio Books, Books, e-books, K-12, Literature | September 26th, 2011

Every year, thou­sands of Amer­i­can high school stu­dents read a com­mon selec­tion of great nov­els — clas­sics loved by young and old read­ers alike. Today, we have select­ed 20 of the most pop­u­lar books and high­light­ed ways that you can down­load ver­sions for free, most­ly as free audio books and ebooks, and some­times as movies and radio dra­mas. You will find more great works — and some­times oth­er dig­i­tal for­mats — in our twin col­lec­tions: 600 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 550 Free Audio Books. So please give them a good look over, and if we’re miss­ing a nov­el you want, don’t for­get Audible.com’s 14 day tri­al. It will let you down­load an audio book for free, pret­ty much any one you want.

1984 by George Orwell: Read Online
Although pub­lished in 1949, 1984 still cap­tures our imag­i­na­tion gen­er­a­tions lat­er because it offers one of the best lit­er­ary accounts of total­i­tar­i­an­ism ever pub­lished. And it’s sim­ply a great read.

Ani­mal Farm by George Orwell: Read Online — Free Ani­mat­ed Movie
Orwell’s 1945 alle­gor­i­cal novel­la took aim at the cor­rup­tion of the Sovi­et Union and its total­i­tar­i­an rule. The short book, which almost nev­er saw the light of day, appears on the Mod­ern Library’s list of the 100 Best Nov­els of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Brave New World by Aldous Hux­ley: eText — Free Radio Drama­ti­za­tion (by Hux­ley him­self)
Lit­tle known fact. Hux­ley once taught George Orwell French at Eton. And, years lat­er his 1931 clas­sic, Brave New World, is often men­tioned in the same breath with 1984 when it comes to great books that describe a dystopi­an future.

Franken­stein by Mary Shel­ley - Free ebook — Free Audio Book (MP3) — Radio Dra­ma ver­sion (1938) — Movie
Mary Shel­ley start­ed writ­ing the great mon­ster nov­el when she was only 18 and com­plet­ed it when she was 21. The 1823 goth­ic nov­el is arguably one of your first works of sci­ence fic­tion.

Heart of Dark­ness by Joseph Con­rad: Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes) — Radio Drama­ti­za­tion by Orson Welles (MP3)
More than 100 years after its pub­li­ca­tion (1902), Con­rad’s novel­la still offers the most canon­i­cal look at colo­nial­ism and impe­ri­al­ism. So pow­er­ful was its influ­ence that Orson Welles dra­ma­tized it in 1938, and the book also famous­ly inspired Cop­po­la’s Apoc­a­lypse Now in 1979.

Plays by William Shake­speare

No descrip­tion need­ed. None giv­en.

Romeo and Juli­et — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (MP3s)

Mac­Beth — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)

Ham­let — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (MP3s)

Julius Cae­sar — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (MP3s)

Note: You can find The Com­plete Works of Shake­speare here: Free eBook – Free ver­sion for the iPad

Pride & Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen – Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)
Jane Austen’s 1813 nov­el remains as pop­u­lar as ever. To date, it has sold more than 20 mil­lion copies, and, every so often, it finds itself adapt­ed to a new film, TV or the­ater pro­duc­tion. A must read.

The Adven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn by Mark Twain — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)
When you think Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, you think Great Amer­i­can Nov­el. It was con­tro­ver­sial when it was first pub­lished in 1884, and it remains so today. But nonethe­less Twain’s clas­sic is a peren­ni­al favorite for read­ers around the world.

The Call of the Wild by Jack Lon­don — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes)
The Call of the Wild, first pub­lished in 1903, is regard­ed as Jack Lon­don’s mas­ter­piece. It’s “a tale about unbreak­able spir­it and the fight for sur­vival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.”

The Cru­cible by Arthur Miller - Free Audio Book from Audible.com
Arthur Miller’s 1952 play used the Salem witch tri­als of 1692 and 1693 to offer a com­men­tary on McCarthy­ism that tar­nished Amer­i­ca dur­ing the 1950s. Today, The Cru­cible occu­pies a cen­tral place in Amer­i­ca’s lit­er­ary canon.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Stein­beck — Free Audio Book from Audible.com
This 1939 nov­el won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and lat­er helped Stein­beck win the Nobel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture in 1962. It’s per­haps the most impor­tant book to give lit­er­ary expres­sion to the Great Depres­sion.

The Great Gats­by by F. Scott Fitzger­ald – Free eBook — Free Audio Book from Audible.com
It’s the clas­sic por­trait of the Jazz Age, a tale of deca­dence and excess. And today The Mod­ern Library has called Fitzger­ald’s 1925 mas­ter­piece the 2nd best nov­el of the last cen­tu­ry.

The Odyssey by Homer – Free eBook — Free Audio Book
The West­ern lit­er­ary tra­di­tion begins with Home­r’s epic poems The Ili­ad (etext here) and The Odyssey, both writ­ten some 2800 years ago. It has been said that “if the Ili­ad is the world’s great­est war epic, then the Odyssey is lit­er­a­ture’s grand­est evo­ca­tion of every­man’s jour­ney through life.” And that just about gets to the heart of the poem.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hem­ing­way - Free Audio Book from Audible.com
It was Hem­ing­way’s last major work of fic­tion (1951) and cer­tain­ly one of his most pop­u­lar, bring­ing many read­ers into con­tact with Hem­ing­way’s writ­ing for the first time.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane — Free eBook — Free Audio Book (iTunes) — Free Movie
This Civ­il War nov­el won what Joseph Con­rad called “an orgy of praise” after its pub­li­ca­tion in 1895, and inspired Ernest Hem­ing­way and the Mod­ernists lat­er. The nov­el made Stephen Crane a celebri­ty at the age of 24, though he died only five years lat­er.

The Scar­let Let­ter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Free eBooks – Free Audio Book — Movie
Though set in Puri­tan Boston between 1642 and 1649, Hawthorne’s mag­num opus explores “the moral dilem­mas of per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the con­sum­ing emo­tions of guilt, anger, loy­al­ty and revenge” that were rel­e­vant in 1850 (when the book was pub­lished). And they remain so today.

To Kill a Mock­ing­bird by Harp­er Lee — Free Audio Book from Audible.com
Harp­er Lee’s 1960 nov­el takes an inci­sive look at atti­tudes toward race and class in the Deep South dur­ing the 1930s. It won the Pulitzer Prize a year lat­er.

Note: We list­ed Audible.com as an option when books were still under copy­right.

Mean­while, edu­ca­tors don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es. It fea­tures many free Lit­er­a­ture cours­es, includ­ing cours­es on Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture.

Download Popular High School Books From Audible.com

in | September 25th, 2011

Look­ing to down­load an audio copy of The Cru­cible, Brave New World, The Grapes of Wrath, or some oth­er nov­el beloved by stu­dents? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal offered by Audible.com.

If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com (click here or the ban­ner above), you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. They have over 180,000 books to choose from, which will play on almost any portable device or on your com­put­er itself. You can even get cours­es from The Great Cours­es through Audi­ble.

If you remain a sub­scriber to Audible.com’s ser­vice after the 30-day free tri­al, you will get 1 new audio­book per month and pay $14.95/month.

Just sign up, select the books you want, and begin your down­load. It’s that sim­ple. (And if you have an Amazon.com username/password, the whole signup process takes a mat­ter of sec­onds. Audi­ble is part of Amazon.com)

At the end of your free tri­al, you can opt out of the pro­gram and still keep the books. Or you can stay with this valu­able pro­gram, as I have, and keep enrich­ing your­self when­ev­er you want. To get start­ed, click right here.

Jazz Toons: Allen Mezquida’s Journey from Bebop to Smigly

in Animation, Music | September 24th, 2011

Allen Mezqui­da is an accom­plished alto sax­o­phon­ist. As a reg­u­lar on the New York jazz scene in the 80s and 90s, he per­formed and record­ed with many of the great­est musi­cians still play­ing at that time, like Art Blakey and Ger­ry Mul­li­gan. His 1996 solo album, A Good Thing, was well-received by crit­ics. In an ear­li­er age it might have been the begin­ning of a glo­ri­ous career. But as the 20th cen­tu­ry came to a close, Mezqui­da was becom­ing increas­ing­ly dis­il­lu­sioned.

“I was more frus­trat­ed with jaz­z’s tiny place in the cur­rent cul­tur­al land­scape than with my jazz career,” Mezqui­da told Open Cul­ture. So he turned to anoth­er of his artis­tic pas­sions. The visu­al arts–cartooning, in particular–had always attract­ed him.  “Mad mag­a­zine, Chuck Jones and var­i­ous art books held my atten­tion along­side Miles, Coltrane and Stan Getz,” Mezqui­da said. He began exper­i­ment­ing with dig­i­tal ani­ma­tion, and before long he moved to Los Ange­les and began receiv­ing work from Dis­ney, Warn­er Broth­ers, Sony and PIXAR. He con­tributed to Aladdin and Toy Sto­ry.

Mezqui­da found him­self where he want­ed to be: at the very heart of Amer­i­ca’s cul­tur­al land­scape. Still, some­thing was­n’t right. As he told The Dai­ly Beast in 2010, “I was just hold­ing an oar in the bow­els of a Viking ship. And exe­cut­ing the ideas of morons that I did­n’t respect.” Mezqui­da want­ed cul­tur­al rel­e­vance and artis­tic free­dom. As a con­se­quence, Smigly was born.

Smigly is Mezquida’s alter ego, an Every­man adrift in a dehu­man­ized, cor­po­ra­tized cul­ture in which social media serve only to inten­si­fy a sense of social alien­ation. As an artist, Smigly faces a soci­ety less inter­est­ed in art than in the degra­da­tion of artists. Like Char­lie Chap­lin, or Char­lie Brown, there is some­thing time­less about Smigly: a sen­si­tive soul pour­ing his heart out to an indif­fer­ent, or hos­tile, world.

The tri­als and tribu­la­tions of Smigly are chron­i­cled on Smigly.tv.  The lat­est install­ment, Kind of Black and Blue, is shown above. The piece was com­mis­sioned by Gor­don Good­win’s Big Phat Band, but Mezqui­da was giv­en com­plete cre­ative con­trol. Kind of Black and Blue moves like a Swiss watch, each part fit­ting tight­ly into place. A musi­cian’s sense of tim­ing is evi­dent. “I spend a lot of time think­ing about the clear­est way to visu­al­ly com­mu­ni­cate an idea,” Mezqui­da said. “It brings peo­ple into the sto­ry faster. Gary Lar­son, PIXAR and Don Mar­tin quick­ly come to mind as very pre­cise visu­al sto­ry­tellers. Coltrane made every note count. Same thing.”

Mezqui­da con­tin­ues to play music, per­form­ing with sev­er­al jazz groups in the Los Ange­les area. And many of his car­toon episodes fea­ture his sax­o­phone play­ing. With his grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty on YouTube, Smigly has helped Mezqui­da find a new audi­ence for his music. And so, Mezqui­da moves clos­er to that elu­sive com­bi­na­tion of artis­tic inde­pen­dence and pop­u­lar suc­cess. We asked him about his hopes for the future. “I want to expe­ri­ence a major exis­ten­tial cri­sis decid­ing what to do when a major cor­po­ra­tion wants to spon­sor Smigly,” he said. “I’m kid­ding. A lit­tle.”

For more Smigly, go direct­ly to Smigly.tv or begin by check­ing out a few or our favorite episodes:

Noise

Art and Com­merce

I Heart Jazz

Frank W. Buckles, The Last U.S. Veteran of World War I

in Film, History, Life | September 22nd, 2011

Frank Woodruff Buck­les was born on Feb­ru­ary 1st, 1901. At the age of 16, he enlist­ed in the U.S. Army by con­vinc­ing recruit­ing offi­cers that he was, in fact, 21. In this short film, Buck­les recalls this time so long ago and the last year of the Great War. There are two par­tic­u­lar­ly mov­ing pas­sages in this doc­u­men­tary: when he talks about the dif­fi­cul­ties vet­er­ans expe­ri­enced after return­ing home, and when Buck­les voic­es his opin­ions on war in gen­er­al, and par­tic­u­lar­ly war today (“How did we get involved in this thing, Iraq? It was crazy, we have no damn busi­ness in there.”)

Frank died on Feb­ru­ary 27th, 2011, at the age of 110. The last sur­viv­ing U.S. vet­er­an of World War I, he was prop­er­ly laid to rest at Arling­ton Nation­al Ceme­tery (find video of the cer­e­mo­ny here). There are two trib­utes to Mr Buck­les that offer more insight into his life: a short video by the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs and an obit­u­ary in the Wash­ing­ton Post.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

The Beatles’ Rooftop Concert: The Last Gig Filmed in January 1969

in Music | September 22nd, 2011

On a cold day in Jan­u­ary 1969, The Bea­t­les, who had­n’t played live since 1966, took to the rooftop of the head­quar­ters of Apple Records, locat­ed at 3 Sav­ile Row, in cen­tral Lon­don. And there they played an impromp­tu last gig, much to the delight of Lon­don­ers on near­by rooftops … and to the cha­grin of the police.

At the time, The Bea­t­les were record­ing their album, Let It Be, and the rooftop show let them run through var­i­ous tracks from that last effort. Songs played dur­ing the set include “Get Back,” where the Bea­t­les were accom­pa­nied by Bil­ly Pre­ston on the key­boards, and “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got A Feel­ing,” “One After 909,” and “Dan­ny Boy.” And final­ly “Dig A Pony” and anoth­er ver­sion of “Get Back.” We have the last song above. Watch a full playlist of videos here.

Famous­ly, The Bea­t­les’ live lega­cy ends with the police shut­ting down the show (it was a noise vio­la­tion, you know?) and John Lennon utter­ing the immor­tal words, “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and our­selves, and I hope we passed the audi­tion.” That’s going out in style…

Foot­note: It’s not clear which band played the first rooftop con­cert, but one thing is for sure. Jef­fer­son Air­plane played their own rooftop gig on Decem­ber 7, 1968, and Jean-Luc Godard filmed it. Once again, the police pay a friend­ly vis­it. Watch it here.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

The Aurora Borealis Viewed from Orbit (and What Creates Those Northern Lights?)

in Astronomy, Physics, Video - Science | September 21st, 2011

Ear­li­er this week, NASA astro­naut Clay­ton Ander­son tweet­ed a 14 sec­ond time-lapse film of the Auro­ra Bore­alis tak­en from the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion. The short clip called to mind a more exten­sive view of the North­ern Lights shot by Don Pet­tit, also work­ing in the ISS, back in 2008. (Watch above.) And it raised the basic ques­tion: What caus­es the Auro­ra Bore­alis any­way?

The beau­ti­ful nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non starts deep inside the core of the sun, and the rest of the sto­ry gets explained in a five minute ani­mat­ed video cre­at­ed by Nor­we­gian film­mak­er Per Byhring and the Physics Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo.

Both clips now appear in our col­lec­tion of 125 Great Sci­ence Videos.

via Coudal Part­ners Blend­ed Feed and Brain­Pick­ings

Kenneth Branagh Stars in Radio Dramatization of Epic Soviet Novel, Life and Fate (Free Audio)

in Audio Books, Books, Literature | September 19th, 2011

Le Monde has called Life and Fate “the great­est Russ­ian nov­el of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry,” and Mar­tin Amis once described its author, Vasi­ly Gross­man, as “the Tol­stoy of the USSR.” Now, if you haven’t read the nov­el, you can begin to under­stand the rea­son for all of the high praise.

Start­ing this week, the BBC will air an eight-hour drama­ti­za­tion of the mas­ter­piece that offered a sweep­ing account of the siege of Stal­in­grad, one of the blood­i­est bat­tles of World War II. Although orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in 1959, the book was offi­cial­ly cen­sored in the Sovi­et Union until 1988 because, in the esti­ma­tion of the appa­ratchiks, it threat­ened to do more harm to the USSR than Paster­nak’s Doc­tor Zhiva­go.

Ken­neth Branagh and David Ten­nant star in the 13-episode series that will be broad­cast from 18 to 25 Sep­tem­ber on Radio 4. You can access the audio files online or via iTues, RSS Feed, and oth­er for­mats here.

For more drama­ti­za­tions of lit­er­ary clas­sics, please vis­it:

Aldous Hux­ley Reads Dra­ma­tized Ver­sion of Brave New World

HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles

Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

50 Clas­sic Russ­ian Films (Includ­ing Tarkovsky’s Finest) Now Online

Foo Fighters “Perform” for Westboro Baptist Church

in Music, Religion | September 19th, 2011

If you’re not famil­iar with The West­boro Bap­tist Church, it’s a hate group seem­ing­ly mas­querad­ing as a reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion based in Tope­ka, Kansas. It has only 71 mem­bers, most­ly from the same fam­i­ly, and they’re known for taste­less­ly trav­el­ing across the U.S. and protest­ing against homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and gay rights at the funer­als of fall­en U.S. sol­diers. A log­i­cal con­nec­tion, right?

In late August, the “church” brought its mem­bers to Kansas City to protest at the Foo Fight­ers con­cert, cit­ing the band’s sup­port of “for­ni­ca­tion, adul­tery, idol­a­try and fags.” And the band did­n’t back down. Dave Grohl & Co. sang a mock­ing ver­sion of a homo­erot­ic tune Keep It Clean (above), all while wear­ing the same truck­er garb they had worn in a NSFW video to pro­mote their “Hot Buns” tour. The “Hot Buns” video (below) was shot around the same time, seem­ing­ly also to tweak the West­boro clan. Watch the cen­sored ver­sion below, and the uncen­sored ver­sion here.

via @jessebdylan

The Austin City Limits Music Festival & Miles Davis Streaming Online

in Music | September 17th, 2011

A quick heads up. This week­end you can watch The Austin City Lim­its Music Fes­ti­val stream­ing on YouTube. The 2011 line­up fea­tures Ste­vie Won­der, Arcade Fire, Cold­play, Kanye West, and Ali­son Krauss, among many oth­ers. Get the full list here.

Also for a lim­it­ed time, NPR is stream­ing Miles Davis, Live In Europe 1967: The Boot­leg Series Vol. 1. Davis is backed by Her­bie Han­cock, Wayne Short­er, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. What more can a jazz fan ask for?

Fol­low us on Twit­ter and Face­book, and we’ll keep point­ing you to free cul­tur­al good­ies dai­ly…

Duck and Cover: The 1950s Film That Taught Millions of Schoolchildren How to Survive a Nuclear Bomb

in Film, History | September 16th, 2011

After the Sovi­et Union test­ed its first atom­ic bomb in August, 1949, Amer­i­can anx­i­ety lev­els ran high­er. The fear of nuclear war was in the air. And a young gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­cans soon got its intro­duc­tion to Duck and Cov­er, the lit­tle tech­nique that would save lives if the U.S. ever endured a Hiroshi­ma-style bomb­ing. Or so it was believed.

In 1951, the US gov­ern­ment, work­ing with Archer Pro­duc­tions and stu­dents from Queens, NY, pro­duced a short instruc­tion­al film giv­en the no-frills title Duck and Cov­er. Shown to mil­lions of chil­dren nation­wide over many years, the film became a cen­ter­piece of the gov­ern­men­t’s emer­gency pre­pared­ness pro­gram. Since then, the film has been entered into the Nation­al Film Reg­istry (2004) and has inspired var­i­ous par­o­dies, includ­ing this recent goof from the “Aus­tralian Board of Civ­il Defence.” Hope you get some­thing from this nos­tal­gia-induc­ing piece of film.…

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:

63 Haunt­ing Videos of U.S. Nuclear Tests Now Declas­si­fied and Put Online

Kurt Von­negut Gives a Ser­mon on the Fool­ish­ness of Nuclear Arms: It’s Time­ly Again (Cathe­dral of St. John the Divine, 1982)

Haunt­ing Unedit­ed Footage of the Bomb­ing of Nagasa­ki (1945)

53 Years of Nuclear Test­ing in 14 Min­utes: A Time Lapse Film by Japan­ese Artist Isao Hashimo­to

How a Clean, Tidy Home Can Help You Sur­vive the Atom­ic Bomb: A Cold War Film from 1954