Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 073


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

Twenty short nonfiction works chosen by the readers. "Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside." With these words, Kate Chopin decries the "crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath” that power the “mad pace" of everyday life. Broadway: the Backbone of New York presents a more up-beat view of city life. Reflections on difficult times are the substance of several volume 073 readings (The Influenza Epidemic of 1918; Plague in Ireland in the Tudor Period; Soren Kierkegaard in his Life and Literature; and Remarks to Madame Curie); while the clash of people and cultures is examined in Everyday Japan (1903), the Passing of Princess Kaiulani, Inca Land, Northern Europe and the Swiss Confederation, the Struggle between the Teutonic Order and Poland, and Pan-Turanism. Individual response to life's stresses and demands is the theme of Women Friendships, The Unadmiring, Spittler's Prometheus and Epimetheus, and Martha Maxwell, Taxidermist. Imagining the pleasures of home, Robert Louis Stevenson, in his The Ideal House, writes that "Bold rocks near hand are more inspiriting than distant Alps," and concludes "even greatness can be found on the small scale; for the mind and the eye measure differently." The mind-eye divide is what allows the illusionist to create amusing hand shadows (Dog and Rabbit); the novelist to create worlds from words (John Galsworthy, A Notable Englishman); and the mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton, to inscribe, with his pocket knife, in the stone of Brougham Bridge, the fundamental formula for quaternion multiplication, which had come to him in a flash of inspiration as he was out walking with his wife. Summary by Sue Anderson

Northern Europe and the Swiss Confederation and The Struggle Between the Teutonic Order and Poland were translated by John Henry Wright - (6 hr 48 min)

Chapters

Broadway: New York's Backbone (1905) 10:33 Read by BettyB
Carl Spitteler’s Prometheus and Epimetheus 23:46 Read by Craig Campbell
Everyday Japan (1903) 9:52 Read by BettyB
The Ideal House 13:54 Read by Paul Fleischman
Inca Land: Discovery of Machu Picchu 22:19 Read by hayduo
John Galsworthy - a Notable Englishman 24:34 Read by Availle
Martha Maxwell, Taxidermist, at the Centennial Exposition (1876) 19:08 Read by Sue Anderson
Northern Europe and the Swiss Confederation in the Fourteenth Century 35:53 Read by Piotr Nater
Novel Hand Shadows: Dog and Rabbit 8:49 Read by Sue Anderson
Pan-Turanism (1917) 30:02 Read by KevinS
The Passing of Princess Kaiulani 6:57 Read by Anita Sloma-Martinez
Plague In Ireland In The Tudor Period 5:00 Read by ChadH94
A Reflection 2:10 Read by April6090
Reflections on the Influenza Epidemic that Afflicted Washington, D.C. (1918) 28:27 Read by TriciaG
Remarks by President Harding to Madam Curie 7:25 Read by Anita Sloma-Martinez
Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) 36:20 Read by hayduo
Soren Kierkegaard in his Life and Literature 1:08:02 Read by Craig Campbell
The Struggle Between the Teutonic Order and Poland until 1466 35:20 Read by Piotr Nater
The Unadmiring 11:45 Read by Kelly S. Taylor
Women Friendships 8:00 Read by Kelly S. Taylor