Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon
Jules Verne
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
First published in 1881, Eight Hundred Miles on the Amazon is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, having elements of codes and cryptography. Unlike many of his other stories, it is not a work of science fiction. Rather, it describes a voyage down the Amazon River on a large raft, or jangada). Many aspects of the raft, scenery, and journey are described in detail. - Summary by not.a.moose, adapted from Wikipedia. (10 hr 15 min)
Chapters
Reviews
To do list?
librivoxbooks
What is this "to do" list of which you speak? ;) Multiple recordings of books are always welcome. There are some books now with five different versions. Just as the reader chooses what he wants to record, so also the listener can choose which he prefers to hear. I can't guarantee that there will ever be another version of this particular book, but if someone wants to, they will (as always) be welcomed with open arms. Oh, and by the way, it isn't a thankless task. We receive many, many thanks in one way or another, and it makes our day! :)
A little slow at the start, but great story!
A LibriVox Listener
lovely story and although not classified as a mystery, I found it had many of the neccecary elements. I put off listening to this book as so many of the reviews said the recordings were unintelligible, but this is absolutely not true. admittedly the sound of running water in the last chapter was a little weird, but i have listened to dozens of stories on librivox now and not only is this the only time i have ever heard background noise, it absolutely does not make the recording impossible to understand by any means. Good job to ALL the lovely volunteers, and to the rest of you, remember that the whole point of librivox is not to entertain bored westerners, but to help make classic literature more accessible to the entire world by being FREE. If you want American English and professional recordings, get off librivox and go buy them!
GREAT LESSON ON CIPHERS
Avid Listener
Another great travelogue/novel by Verne. A lot of criticism has been aimed at the readers, and much of it is due to different readers. I certainly have trouble understanding some of readers whose native language is not English, so I agree with that part of the criticism, but Librivox is to blame for letting this happen. Librivos is also to blame for allowing several different readers for one book. This is not fair to the listener, and it is equally unfair to the readers. When one is asked to read two or three chapters of a book, how is he to get into the flow of the work? Give everyone a break and let one person read a book, PLEASE?
A short comment on negative reviews
pizzaboss
My mum used to say...."If you can't say something constructive.....say nothing at all" If you can't make it better at least don't make it worse. NOBODY wants to hear negative without a suggestion about how to improve it. The negative comment reviewer should try themselves to read aloud to JUST themselves and see how much work it is. Fine, not every reading and reader is perfect but I've never met ANYONE yet in 71 years who is. Make allowance or do a better job yourself. North Canada
Quite uneven quality
robcat2075
This is the weakest audio book reading I've run into here on archive.org In many cases the audio quality is poor and one of the readers does not seem to be a native English speaker. The accent is almost impenetrable. The story itself is quite tedious (I've only gotten thru the first half) but i can't say it's really been given a fighting chance by the readers. I realize they are volunteers doing a thankless task, but it's troubling to think that this book is checked off as "done" in the Libravox "to do" list. Update: In the seven years since I posted my review above, no one else has come to review the work itself, but two people have logged in to complain about my review. Perhaps the commenters have confused "feedback" with "review." I didn't offer suggestions on how to improve the work as that doesn't help the intended audience of a review: people who are considering listening to this work. They won't be able to act on my suggestions any more than I can. It is disingenuous of this site to solicit reviews on the work if only praise is allowed or only comments from people who first prove they "can do better." What do we have to show before we're allowed review this? I'll note another substantial problem I recall (that seems to recur across many librivox titles)... the readers can't agree on how to pronounce the foreign words and character names.
Julia R.
More of a travelogue/murder mystery than Verne’s typical science fiction stories. Most fascinating to me was the description of the giant raft on which to travel for months down the mighty Amazon river for a family wedding. The accommodations for the wealthy family and their friends were delightfully described. Luxuriant potted plants covered much of lodging areas. Scores of servants were also housed on the raft in comfortable dwellings. Some readers felt the massive amount of biological, historical, cultural, and scientific descriptions were overwhelming, but for me they fit the leisurely pace of the raft trip. The murder mystery and character studies were nicely intertwined with all these details throughout the book.
The book gets 5 stars. The readers get 1, and I am being very generous.
S Mac
Replace the reader of the last chapter, by someone who takes it serious. I don't consider, doing dishes, belching and listening to the local community sirens going off, taking it serious. The lack of readers who cannot speak understandable English and readers who don't care what the mike picks up, lowers it to 1, and closes my wallet.
interesting
Osama Hammouda
I liked all the action and mystery in the story, but due to my lack of knowledge about the Amazon and its culture, the so many names and details spoiled the fun. However, such a good effort. keep it up.