The Listening Post - Captivating Audiobooks and Radio Programs

[Resurgence]

For this thread, we will concentrate on a non-music format with a mix of audiobooks and interesting radio programs such as radio plays, audio documentaries, interviews, discussion, old time radio shows and more. It is meant to be like a spoken word radio station. It is a celebration of the spoken word listening experience.

I was inspired to create this thread while reflecting on my enjoyable years in the shortwave radio hobby. Before the advent of the internet, it was possible to listen in on broadcasts from all over the world with a shortwave radio. It always seemed magical to me to turn on the radio and hear stations thousands of miles away, all coming through the atmosphere.

There was such a wide variety of enjoyable programming - news, music, science programs, cultural programs, documentaries, dramas, weekly soaps for the ladies, language instruction and more, all commercial free. Listening to shortwave radio wasn’t just informative. It was also very entertaining.

In addition to the government-approved stations, there were also pirate radio stations who operated on their own terms without any governmental oversight. Those rogue stations were interesting to listen to as well.

When the internet came along, shortwave broadcasting slowly waned as stations found it more cost-effective to broadcast over the internet rather than through radio waves. Today, there are still a few broadcasts to be heard on shortwave. The hobby isn’t completely gone.

Radio Romania International is still broadcasting as well as a few others. Radio Romania does a good job and their programs are very popular, especially their travel program. Radio Slovakia International is another popular one.

In the spirit of the greatness that was/is shortwave, we can use this thread to explore and appreciate the listening experience with excellent audiobooks and radio programs.

I hope that you all enjoy the thread.


Rules:

1.) Let’s stay positive.

2.) Please avoid content with excessive profanity and crude themes.

3.) Please do not post programs of a political nature such as political talk radio shows. Such programming would be too divisive for this thread. We want good times and cordial fellowship here. If you have a hankering to post political radio programs, you can add them in the Politics section of SuprBay.



Please Note: Sometimes, audiobooks and radio programs don’t have a long lifespan on YouTube due to copyright complaints. Enjoy them while you can before YouTube takes them down.



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Frank Herbert

Dune


Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for.

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.


Published: 1965


This Audiobook Released: 2006


Read by Simon Vance with Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, Ilyana Kadushin and other cast members.


This audiobook has a combination of narration and dramatization with sound effects. It is very immersive.

[LZA]

Here is an Audiobook called The Four Agreements. It's a great book to help live a more positive life and a better way to look at things... I've read it a few times, and should probably read/listen to it again. Just a different way to look at things.



Here is a YouTube link to the 4 sections of the book:



Also, here is a link to TPB if you wanted a torrent of it.

The Four Agreements Don Miguel Ruiz


Take it or leave it, but the basic jist is you are what you agree to be, not what others tell you.

[Resurgence]

A Note to the Listeners:

It didn't take long for YouTube to remove the Dune audiobook, but fortunately the very same audiobook is available on The Pirate Bay.

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/7321956...ook(onion)


Evidently, wugsie forgot to include disc 14 when he posted the torrent above. Here is the link for that disc:

https://www.thepiratebay.org/torrent/740..._14(onion)


Thanks, wugsie for the great audiobook.



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Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell

April 9th, 1995


Art Bell interviews UFO abductee Travis Walton and his friend/co-worker Mike Rogers, who was one of the witnesses of the abduction.

On November 5, 1975, Travis Walton was working with a timber stand improvement crew in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest near Snowflake, Arizona. While riding in a truck with six of his coworkers, they encountered a saucer-shaped object hovering over the ground approximately 110 feet away, making a high-pitched buzz. After he left the truck and approached the object, a beam of light suddenly appeared from the craft and knocked him unconscious. The other six men were frightened and drove away. Walton awoke in a hospital-like room, being observed by three short, bald creatures. He fought with them until a human wearing a helmet led Walton to another room, where he blacked out as three other humans put a clear plastic mask over his face. Walton remembers nothing else until he found himself walking along a highway, with the flying saucer departing above him.

Walton reappeared after a five-day search. The Walton case received mainstream publicity and remains one of the best-known alien abduction stories. Walton wrote a book about his abduction  called The Walton Experience in 1978. His book was later adapted into the 1993 film Fire in the Sky.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers of Fire in the Sky took dramatic license and altered certain aspects of the story. The movie is entertaining to watch, but just be aware of the distinction between the true details of the story as told by Travis Walton and the witnesses and the alteration of certain details by the filmmakers. One glaring example of the misrepresentation of the story is the scene of the spaceship as being dirty with garbage around. Travis Walton stated that in fact, the alien craft was the opposite of that - very clean and clinical like a doctor’s office.

Art Bell follows the scenes of the movie in the interview to clarify the story and set the record straight.



The Abductee:




"If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't get out of the truck."



The Witnesses:




In 1975: "I've been working these woods for over ten years and this is the damnedest thing that ever happened to me!"

And in 1995: "I've been working these woods for over thirty years and this is still the damnedest thing that ever happened to me!"




"We couldn't believe what was happening. The horror was unreal."




"I know what I saw—and it wasn't anything from this earth!"




"I saw a bluish light come from the machine and Travis went flying—like he'd touched a live wire!"




"That ray was the brightest thing I've ever seen in my whole life!"




"The UFO was smooth and was giving off a yellowish-orange light."

[Resurgence]

Thich Nhat Hanh








Thích Nhất Hạnh (born as Nguyễn Xuân Bảo on October 11, 1926) is a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and peace activist. He founded the Plum Village Tradition.

During the 1960’s, as the suffering caused by the war between communist North Vietnam and US-supported South Vietnam intensified, Thich Nhat Hanh and other Buddhist clergy looked for ways to alleviate suffering and find a way to peace. In Vietnam, he established the School of Youth for Social Services (SYSS), a training program for young social workers wishing to bring practical aid and social support to war-torn villages. Realizing that the roots of the war were outside Vietnam as well as inside it, he agreed to come to the U.S. to represent the Buddhist clergy’s understanding of the war and its causes and consequences. In the U.S., he met with anti-war leaders, politicians, and religious leaders.

Because he advocated peace and reconciliation, rather than victory, he presence in Vietnam was not welcomed either by the politicians of South Vietnam, nor by the Communist Vietnamese leaders. When the Northern Vietnamese army took control of the south in 1975, he was denied permission to return to Vietnam. He remained in exile from 1966 until 2005, when he was allowed to return to Vietnam for a three-month teaching visit.

In the West, he led the Buddhist Peace Delegation at the Paris Peace Talks (1969-73) and later established spiritual communities in France, first to support Vietnamese refugees, and then later to train monastics and lay practitioners. The Plum Village Practice Center, established in southeastern France in 1982, flourished and now includes three hamlets or communities near Bordeaux, as well as Deer Park monastery in California, Green Mountain Dharma Center and Maple Forest Monastery in Vermont, and Magnolia Village in Mississippi.

From 1976 to 1977, he led efforts to help rescue Vietnamese boat people in the Gulf of Siam, eventually stopping under pressure from the governments of Thailand and Singapore.

He spent most of his later life residing in the Plum Village Monastery in southwest France, traveling internationally to give retreats and talks.

In November 2018, he returned to Vietnam to spend his remaining days at his "root temple," Từ Hiếu Temple near Huế.

He has published over 100 books, including more than 70 in English.

He has spent most of his life advocating for peace, promoting nonviolent solutions to conflict.

He is also a vegan.



"True peace is always possible. Yet it requires strength and practice, particularly in times of great difficulty. To some, peace and nonviolence are synonymous with passivity and weakness. In truth, practicing peace, to make peace alive in us, is to actively cultivate understanding, love, compassion, even in the face of misperception and conflict. Practicing peace, especially in times of war, requires courage." — Creating True Peace























































"Jesus Christ is manifesting himself in many thousands of ways. He is manifesting himself all around you. We need to be alert in order to recognize his manifestations. If you are not mindful or attentive you will miss him because you will miss his manifestations. In the morning when you practice walking meditation you may recognize his manifestation as a flower, as a drop of water, as a bird song or as a child playing in the grass. We have to be careful not to miss these things." — No Death, No Fear



Terms:


Dharma talk - a public discourse on Buddhism by a Buddhist teacher.


Interbeing - The interconnectedness of all life. The Western scientific approach tends to see each object as a discrete entity independent of every other object. Interbeing makes us see our place in the universe, our relationship to nature and our relationships to each other differently. The same life force that runs through you runs through me and through all other living beings. We are all connected in a complex web. The interbeing mindset enables humanity to look with the eyes of compassion to other humans, to animals or to nature as a whole.

An example of this sense of connectedness can be shown by a reflection of a very important part of your own body, the neocortex of your brain. The neocortex is the part of the mammalian brain involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, generation of motor commands, spatial reasoning and language. The neocortex is very special in function, but not separate.  It could not exist without the other parts of our brains, our bodies, the elements from nature that feed our bodies, the family and community that fostered our development from childhood to adulthood and the universe that houses our planet.


Thay (Vietnamese, Thầy - pronounced “Tie” as in, you tie your shoelaces) - Teacher. People who have studied with Thich Nhat Hanh call him “Thay.” Even people who never studied with him in person still call him this as his books and talks have influenced people all over the world.


Sangha - The community around you; also refers to the Buddhist monastic order community. Sangha makes up the Triratna in Buddhism (meaning “Three Jewels” in Sanskrit - In Pali, the language that Buddha spoke, it is Ti-ratana - also called The Threefold Refuge - The Three Jewels of Buddhism comprises the Buddha, the dharma (doctrine, or teaching), and the sangha.


Bodhisattva -  An enlightened being who, out of compassion, forgoes nirvana in order to save others. In Christian terms, you could think of a bodhisattva as a person who becomes like an angel on earth, working to make the earth a better place and trying to awaken others to greater love and compassion.
 


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Meditation for Beginners

Learn How to Meditate with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh


Thich Nhat Hanh’s key teaching is that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live happily in the present moment—the only way to truly develop peace, both in one’s self and in the world. This mindfulness is cultivated by meditation.







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Being Peace


Thich Nhat Hanh delivered this Dharma talk to an assembly of 700 gathered at Green Gulch Zen Center in Muir Beach, California, on November 3, 1985.

The teachings contained here provide a crucial antidote to our busy lives. Because of his experience with the Vietnam War and his willingness to face the realities of our time, these teachings are also about suffering, reconciliation, and peace.

[Resurgence]

The Hobbit

by J.R.R. Tolkien

A dramatic narration by actor Nicol Williamson


Originally released on a 4 LP box set in 1974.


This is an abridged version of the story, but it is so well done, it feels complete.

The voice of Nicol Williamson may be familiar with all of you. He played Merlin in the popular Arthurian epic film Excalibur (1981). He was a master at bringing this story to life with his rich voice and seamless transitions between narration and character voices. The music compliments the story with an earthy feel that transports the listener.







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Radio Documentary:


The New York City Blackout of 1977


On 13 July 1977 three lightning strikes caused a total blackout in New York City. The astonishing night is recalled here, as New Yorkers tell their own stories, with archive taken from the few local radio stations able to broadcast through the darkness to a terrified city.


The program was produced by BBC Radio 4, July 2008.

[Resurgence]

Radio Drama:


Last Bus To Woodstock



based on the novel by Colin Dexter


The radio play aired on BBC Radio 4‘s Saturday Night Theatre, June 1985.


Inspector Morse - Andrew Burt

Sergeant Lewis - Christopher Douglas



Beautiful Sylvia Kaye and another young woman had been seen hitching a ride not long before Sylvia's bludgeoned body is found outside a pub in Woodstock, near Oxford. Morse is sure the other hitchhiker can tell him much of what he needs to know. But his confidence is shaken by the cool inscrutability of the girl he's certain was Sylvia's companion on that ill-fated September evening. Shrewd as Morse is, he's also distracted by the complex scenarios that the murder set in motion. To grasp the painful truth, and act upon it, requires from Morse the last atom of his professional discipline.



Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse is the fictional character in the series of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter. Morse is a senior CID (Criminal Investigation Department) officer with the Thames Valley Police force in Oxford, England.

Morse presents, to some, a reasonably sympathetic personality, despite his sullen and snobbish temperament, with a classic Jaguar car (a Lancia in the early novels), a thirst for English real ale, and a love of classical music (especially opera and Wagner), poetry, art and cryptic crossword puzzles. He is assisted in his investigations by Sergeant Robbie Lewis. Morse's partnership and formal friendship with Lewis is fundamental to the series.

A television series, entitled Inspector Morse, was developed from the novels with John Thaw portraying the character. The series ran from 1987 to 2000 and consisted of 33 episodes.







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Docudrama on Vinyl:


The Story Of Tutankhamun



This Recording Released: 1978



Tutankhamun’s gold funerary mask, housed in The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities (known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or Museum of Cairo) Cairo, Egypt.




Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh who was buried in a lavish tomb filled with gold artifacts in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb, given the modern-day name "KV 62," was discovered in 1922 by an archaeological team led by British Egyptologist Howard Carter.

The tomb was mostly intact, an extraordinary find given that most of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings had been looted in ancient times.

But while Tutankhamun's tomb was lavish, historical and archaeological evidence indicates that the young pharaoh was sickly and spent his short rule trying to undo a religious revolution that his father had started.

Tutankhaten (as he was called at birth) was born around the year 1341 B.C. His father was the pharaoh Akhenaten, a revolutionary pharaoh who tried to focus Egypt's polytheistic religion around the worship of the sun disc, the Aten. In his fervor, Akhenaten ordered the names and images of other Egyptian deities to be destroyed or defaced.

Tutankhamun ascended to the throne around 1332 B.C., when he was about 9 years old. Given his young age he would have relied heavily on his advisers. At some point his name was changed to Tutankhamun, removing the word "aten" — a reminder of his father’s religious revolution — from his name.

Tutankhamun also condemned his father's actions in a stela found at Karnak, saying that Akhenaten's religious revolution caused the gods to ignore Egypt. Part of the stela reads "the temples and the cities of the gods and the goddesses, starting from Elephantine [as far] as the Delta marshes … were fallen into decay and their shrines were fallen into ruin, having become mere mounds overgrown with grass … The gods were ignoring this land…" [From "The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti," by Barry Kemp]

Archaeological evidence indicates that Tutankhamun suffered from ill health. A study of his remains published in 2010 found that he suffered from a variety of maladies, including malaria and Kohler disease (a rare bone disorder of the foot). A number of canes have been found in Tutankhamun's tomb, finds that support the idea that the pharaoh had difficulty walking at times.

It's not known what killed Tutankhamun. There have been numerous hypotheses put forward over the years. It's been suggested that he died from an infection caused by a broken leg or from injuries suffered in a chariot accident.

Tutankhamun was married to his half-sister, Queen Ankhesenamun, and the couple had twin daughters who were stillborn. Their fetuses were buried in jars in the pharaoh’s tomb. The couple left no heir to the throne. 

The boy king died in 1323 B.C. around the age of 18 or 19. His death was unexpected, and his tomb appears to have been finished quickly.

Research shows that Tutankhamun's tomb was prepared in a hurry. Microbes found on the wall of the tomb indicate that the paint on the wall wasn't even dry when the tomb was sealed.

After he died, King Tut was mummified according to Egyptian religious tradition, which held that royal bodies should be preserved and provisioned for the afterlife. Embalmers removed his organs and wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, a 24-pound solid gold portrait mask was placed over his head and shoulders and he was laid in a series of nested containers—three golden coffins, a granite sarcophagus and four gilded wooden shrines, the largest of which barely fit into the tomb’s burial chamber.

Howard Carter's team discovered the tomb's entranceway on November 4, 1922, and on November 26 they got inside.

"As one's eyes became accustomed to the glimmer of light the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one, with its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful objects heaped upon one another," Carter wrote in his dig diary.

Carter couldn't even begin to describe the treasures that his team had found. "Our sensations and astonishment are difficult to describe as the better light revealed to us the marvellous collection of treasures: two strange ebony-black effigies of a King, gold sandalled, bearing staff and mace, loomed out from the cloak of darkness; gilded couches in strange forms, lion-headed, Hathor-headed, and beast infernal …"

The discovery of the boy king's tomb caused a media sensation spurred on by a myth that the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb awakened a curse that killed those who helped find it.

While the treasures were incredible, the tomb was unusually small for a pharaoh's burial, containing only 110 square meters (1,184 square feet) of floor space. This space is divided among the passage corridor, burial chamber, antechamber and two rooms now called the "annex" and the "treasury."

The tomb's small size may have been because the pharaoh died young and unexpectedly and there wasn't time to carve out a larger tomb. Another hypothesis is that the tomb has two undiscovered chambers that were walled over when the boy king was buried and these chambers hold a second, so far undiscovered, burial.

[Resurgence]

Drama:

Inspector Morse

"The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn"


Nicholas Quinn is deaf, so he considers himself lucky to be appointed to the Foreign Examinations Board at Oxford, which designs tests for students of English around the world. But when someone slips cyanide into Nicholas's sherry, Inspector Morse has a multiple-choice murder. Any one of a tight little group of academics could have killed Quinn. Before Morse is done, all their dirty little secrets will be exposed.


Inspector Morse: John Shrapnel

Sgt. Lewis: Robert Glenister


The radio play first aired on BBC Radio 4, 1996.







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Interviews/Field Recordings on Vinyl:



The voices on this recording are the living testimonies from the actual people involved directly or indirectly to the JFK assassination.

What really happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963?

The testimonies presented here contradict the narrative as presented by the Warren Commission Report and the establishment.


This recording  is from the original soundtrack recording of the Emile De Antonio and Mark Lane documentary film, Rush To Judgment.

The documentary was based upon Mark Lane's number one best-selling book by the same name.


Narrator: Emile De Antonio


This Recording Released: 1967



Side A:

The Witnesses:


Marguerite Oswald

Sgt. Nelson Delgado

Governor John Connally

Dr. Robert R. Shaw

S.M. Holland

Lee Bowers Jr.

R.C. Dodd

Jams L. Simons

James Tague


Side B:

The Witnesses:


Orville Nix

J.C. Price

William Newman

S.M. Holland

Mary Moorman

Napoleon Daniels

Nancy Hamilton

Chief Jesse Curry

Penn Jones Jr.

Acquilla Clemons

[Resurgence]

Thread Maintenance:

Last Bus To Woodstock

Inspector Morse


 



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The Wench Is Dead

Inspector Morse

Inspector Morse, recovering from an ulcer in Oxford's Radcliffe Hospital, comes across an old book recounting a sensational murder case that took place in Oxford 100 years earlier. Convinced that the two men hanged for the crime were innocent, Morse sets out from the confines of his bed to prove it.

John Shrapnel - Inspector Morse

Robert Glennister - Sgt. Lewis







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Audiobook:


All Creatures Great And Small

by James Herriot


Read by Christopher Timothy


James Alfred Wight (3 October 1916 – 23 February 1995), known by the pen name James Herriot, was a British veterinary surgeon and writer who used his many years of experiences as a veterinary surgeon to write a series of books consisting of stories about animals and their owners.

In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are heart-wrenchingly difficult, such as one to an old man in the village whose very ill dog is his only friend and companion, some are lighthearted and fun, such as Herriot's periodic visits to the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo who throws parties and has his own stationery, and yet others are inspirational and enlightening, such as Herriot's recollections of poor farmers who will scrape their meager earnings together to be able to get proper care for their working animals. From seeing to his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

[Resurgence]

Thread Maintenance:



All Creatures Great And Small 



Audiobooks:

All of the audiobooks from James Herriot's  All Creatures Great And Small series are conveniently available in one pack at The Pirate Bay:

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5048607...tion3A6969



Ebooks:

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/9421614...es_Herriot



The TV Series:

There was a wonderful TV series made based on the books that ran from 1978 to 1990.

The whole series is on TPB:

Series 1:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046874...eason_1%29

Series 2:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046882...eason_2%29

Series 3:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046890...eason_3%29

Series 4:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046892...eason_4%29

Series 5:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046895...eason_5%29

Series 6:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046899...eason_6%29

Series 7:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046905...eason_7%29

The Specials:
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5046909...pecials%29



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Happy New Year!



Radio Docudramas:


Murder Most Foul


BBC Radio

1991


True tales of murder


Narrated by Nick Ross



Series 1:


Episode 1 - The Surgeon's Knife

Two bodies are found in a Scottish ravine. Dr Buck Ruxton's wife and maid are missing.
Nick Ross looks back at a case of murder from 1935.






Episode 2 - Cabin 126

Can you be convicted of murder if there is no body?

Nick Ross looks back at the death of the actress Gay Gibson, on board an ocean liner in 1947.






Episode 3 - The Major, the Scone and the Dandelions

One lump of arsenic or two? There were good reasons for Mr Martin to refuse an invitation to tea with the Major...

1920s Hay-on-Wye: Nick Ross reviews the case of Major Armstrong's fetish and his poorly wife.






Episode 4 - The Body in the Trunk

For Tony Mancini, the prospects of acquittal looked slim in May 1934. The police had discovered a body in his flat, and there seemed little doubt as to the murderer - but with Norman Birkett defending him, he still had a chance.






Episode 5 - Sheer Plod

Luton 1943: the discovery of a body in the River Lea sparks off a nationwide manhunt. But first the police must discover the identity of the dead woman.






Episode 6 - The New Year Nightmare

31st December 1960 - a gathering in an Essex pub leads to tragedy and a controversial court case.

[RobertX]

Resurgence, what an original thread you have here!

One question: if I was to make a contribution, can I include autobiographies? I want to submit recordings of an audiobook by Steve Austin from his wrestling autobiography, "The Stone Cold Truth."