Michael Sirois

4 books read for LibriVox

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Penguin Island Anatole France, translated by A. W. Evans
A nearsighted saint baptizes a colony of penguins by mistake, so heaven shrugs and turns them into people, and you get all of French history replayed as deadpan farce (the Dreyfus affair included). Read it if sly, cold-eyed irony makes you laugh; skip it if you want warmth.
Richard II William Shakespeare
Richard is unbearable while he's winning and mesmerizing once he starts to lose, talking himself into and out of kingship in some of the most musical verse Shakespeare wrote. It's all poetry and no sword fights, so come for the language or not at all.
The Jew of Malta Christopher Marlowe
You get a viciously funny, morally rotten theatrical ride through Barabas’s schemes, where everyone’s greed and hypocrisy keep feeding his ingenuity. The play is bluntly antisemitic in places, so it needs some historical distance, but its black comedy and gleeful distrust of piety still feel startlingly alive.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's only novel, and it's a strange one: what starts as a boy stowing away on a whaler slides into mutiny, starvation, and lots drawn among desperate men, then keeps getting weirder. If you like stories that end tidily, skip it; if you like a fever dream, go.

4 books read for LibriVox

filter sort genre era

Penguin Island Anatole France, translated by A. W. Evans
A nearsighted saint baptizes a colony of penguins by mistake, so heaven shrugs and turns them into people, and you get all of French history replayed as deadpan farce (the Dreyfus affair included). Read it if sly, cold-eyed irony makes you laugh; skip it if you want warmth.
Richard II William Shakespeare
Richard is unbearable while he's winning and mesmerizing once he starts to lose, talking himself into and out of kingship in some of the most musical verse Shakespeare wrote. It's all poetry and no sword fights, so come for the language or not at all.
The Jew of Malta Christopher Marlowe
You get a viciously funny, morally rotten theatrical ride through Barabas’s schemes, where everyone’s greed and hypocrisy keep feeding his ingenuity. The play is bluntly antisemitic in places, so it needs some historical distance, but its black comedy and gleeful distrust of piety still feel startlingly alive.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's only novel, and it's a strange one: what starts as a boy stowing away on a whaler slides into mutiny, starvation, and lots drawn among desperate men, then keeps getting weirder. If you like stories that end tidily, skip it; if you like a fever dream, go.