AN AUDIO GUTENBERG

At the end of the year, I wrote about the passing of Greg Newby, who was born in Montreal and died in Whitehorse. He played an important role on Project Gutenberg and was remembered as a " "Fourth Industrial Revolution visionary,” who helped marshal the chaotic, creative forces of the early internet to help serve the public interest....”  Thousands of books are now available and can be read for free via Project Gutenberg. 

Hugh McGuire & LibriVox

   Since then, I have learned that a Canadian in Montreal is also a  participant in another positive project involving the Internet, at a time when there is much about the Internet that is perceived  as having negative consequences.  His name is Hugh McGuire, and because of him people can listen, for free, to over 20,000 books that are in the public domain. He founded LibriVox over twenty years ago. 

   At Librivox.org, you can listen to books, or volunteer to read and/or record them. LibriVox:

-is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project

-donates its recordings to the public domain

-is powered by volunteers

-maintains a loose and open structure

-welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages.

You can learn a bit about Mr. McGuire at a site of his, which looks to be rather old and where he describes himself as “an aging idealist.” There is no Wikipedia entry for him, but there is for LibriVox , where the picture of Mr. McGuire was found.

He also started Pressbooks, a book publishing company, in 2011 and is still the Executive Chairman. If perhaps you want to publish a book of your own, Pressbooks is a "user-friendly digital" publisher.

I stumbled upon this information and thought the the accomplishments of Mr. McGuire, a Canadian, should be noted. I have to confess, however, that I have never listened to an audiobook and should do so. While looking for information about Mr. McGuire and LibriVox, I did discover an article by someone who does listen to audio books and, in it, she acknowledges the importance of LibriVox and McGuire during the pandemic. Here is a portion from: "Audio Books Aid Isolation of Pandemic; Louise Rachlis Takes Refuge From Today's Crisis in Classics From the Past, " Louise Rachlis, Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 21, 2020.

I had no Great Expectations, but discovering audio books has transported me Far from the Madding Crowd.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair ..." I marched in loops around the canal, over the Pretoria Bridge and the Flora footbridge, my iPhone in my pocket, the earbuds in my ears as the powerful words of A Tale of Two Cities distracted me from the pandemic at hand.

My isolation coping strategy hasn't been baking, but books. Audio books to be specific. I've walked, and sometimes run, with audio books for hundreds of hours. I'd never been an audio book person; I read pocket books while travelling, hardcover books in the bathtub, and e-books in bed. I always considered audio books were for long car trips, and I rarely had any of those. But suddenly in March, the only break from social isolation was to go for a walk in the neighbourhood. And during those walks, I discovered the joy and the distraction of LibriVox audio books. I loved that LibriVox was founded by Montrealer Hugh McGuire in 2005 to provide "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain." All the readers are volunteers, but you wouldn't know it from many of their professional-sounding voices."

Source:

Almost twenty years ago, this source discusses the origin of LibriVox: "Power of the Spoken Book: Hugh McGuire Went Online About a Year Ago to Look for a Free Audio Book Recording: His Surfing Took Him to Project Gutenberg, a Free Online Repository of Books and Other Works in the Public Domain - But He Came up Empty-handed," Craig Silverman, Montreal Gazette, Oct. 7, 2006.

"I went through the Gutenberg catalogue and found they had very little audio, which was a surprise," he says.

McGuire was searching for a recording of a Joseph Conrad novel whose copyright had expired, meaning anyone was free to make a recording of it. But no one had, and so McGuire, 32, a computer programmer and writer in Montreal, decided to fill the void.

He set up a blog to gather volunteers to record free audio books of works whose copyright had expired. McGuire called his project LibriVox and he then "emailed a bunch of friends and people doing literature podcasts and blogs to ask if they were interested in joining in," he recalls during the first of two meetings at a St. Laurent Blvd. cafe.

Within a few hours, McGuire had enough volunteers to produce a recording of the book.

McGuire, a soft-spoken man with glasses and a light beard, then picks up his coffee and casually delivers a massive understatement, "It was clear to me very early on that this was a very interesting project."

Though McGuire is loath to brag about it, LibriVox.org has in one year grown to become the single largest repository of free audio books on the Internet. Its roughly 2,000 volunteers have recorded over 150 books and more than 200 recordings of short stories, plays, speeches, poems and documents like the Magna Carta and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. LibriVox offers works in French, German, Japanese, Hebrew, Finnish, Latin, Italian and Russian, with recordings currently under way in Arabic, Spanish, Swedish and Chinese. (English is by far the dominant language.) Every LibriVox recording is offered free for anyone to download, listen to, copy and share as they please. About 25,000 LibriVox books have been downloaded over the past year, McGuire says. LibriVox's success is a study in how blogs and other collaborative Internet technologies are enabling large groups of people from all over the world to come together and build not just a community but also something tangible, a product or service. In the case of LibriVox, they created a library of free audio books. A similar but much larger project, Wikipedia.org, is a massive free online encyclopedia with 3.8 million articles in more than 100 languages written and maintained by 48,000 volunteers."

[That is a portion of the long article and the picture is also from it.]

Giorgio Taroni's Library

  Having provided you with material about the private libraries of three women (Nin, Brooks and Penny), here is the third library in MM created by a gentleman whose last name begins with the letter "T", the other two being Amor Towles and Peter-Ayers Tarantino. Here are some of the books owned by Mr. Taroni. Apparently around 10,000 of them are found in his home on Lake Como.

   He also collects 19th century paintings. In addition, the villa houses many beetles and birds, but I could find no images or information about them, other than what is found in the title of this article: "An Italian Villa That Houses 30,000 Beetles and a Flock of Porcelain Birds: Giorgio Taroni’s Home Overlooking Lake Como has Become a Cabinet of Curiosities, Filled with Collections of Oil Paintings, Books, Ancient Coins and Vintage Postcards," Nancy Hass (photos by Henry Bourne), The New York Times Style Magazine, March 21, 2023. 

   I did not have any luck finding out about the beetles, but I did find this about the family company, Taroni. See also, the GIORGIO TARONI ARCHIVE. 
   While typing this, I remembered that I have written about a library belonging to another fellow whose last name begins with a "T". If, like me, you are looking for a reason to stay inside on a very cold day, have a look at "Mark Twain and Libraries.

The American Forts Series

This will be the last post about a "Book Series" that is based on the bibliography compiled by Carol Fitzgerald and found in, Series Americana: Post Depression-Era Regional Literature, 1938-1980. I plan to say more about her work at a later date. The subject is forts, and like the other posts about books published in a series, it should be of use to book collectors since reviews are provided along with the bibliographic information.

Those focused on Canadian history will find three of the nine books to be of particular interest: Louisbourg: Key to A Continent, Three Flags at the Straits: The Forts of Mackinac, and Thundergate: The Forts of Niagara. (None of those books are listed in the bibliography, Canadian Forts.) Those interested in "Postcolonialism" will likely find these fort books easy to attack, since the books were written in less enlightened times and for the general reader. Let us hope that the books have not been removed from libraries for being too 'hurtful'. Perhaps they will be of some use to the growing number of "Preppers." I was pleased to see that almost all of these books are available in the Western Libraries, although they are in storage, at least for now. If you are a real fan of forts, this book is also available in Weldon Library: Forts of the United States: An Historical Dictionary, 16th Through 19th Centuries, by Bud Hannings.

There are likely many of you who are attracted more to books with interesting characters than to books about old, inanimate objects. In that case, see Sutter's Fort. The author, Oscar Lewis, was an anthropologist, who wrote books about poverty, one of which, La Vida..., won a National Book Award. John Sutter, for whom the fort was named, was a Swiss immigrant who attempted to establish a New Helvetia, remnants of which can be found in Sacramento.

"Stewart Holbrook, a widely respected regional writer, conceived and planned the "American Forts Series" in the early 1960s. Although he died before the first volume was published, he had planned eight of the nine books. In his words, it would be “a series of historical works centered around forts in the United States and Canada that were of significant importance to American history.” Prentice-Hall published the nine books between 1965 and 1973. Like many other Series Americana, the American Forts Series presents a wide swath of American history, spanning as it does nearly four centuries and focusing on many separate regions." (The above is from the introduction provided in Series Americana.)

Guns at the Forks, O'Meara, Walter.
“The American Forts Series”, edited by Stewart H. Holbrook, is introduced by a volume of particular interest to Pennsylvanians. More important, Mr. O'Meara's Guns at the Forks is lively, intelligent, and informative in content, well illustrated, and attractively printed.

   "The Forks" of the title are the forks of the Ohio River, at the present Pittsburgh, and the guns are those of the five forts that have stood there, identified by Mr. O'Meara as Fort Prince George, Fort Duquesne, Mercer's Fort, Fort Pitt, and Fort Fayette. Other writers have dealt with all these posts, but this is the first volume devoted explicitly to their successive

histories. The scope of the study is sufficiently broad to include colorful and explanatory background material that places the succession of forts in historical perspective.”Source: Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3 (July, 1966), pp. 377-378.

Fort Laramie and the Sioux Indians, Nadeau Remi. 

   “This volume in "The American Forts Series," however, has much more to say about Indians, primarily the Sioux and to a lesser extent the Cheyenne and Arapaho, than about Fort Laramie. The theme is the eternal conflict between the red man, on the one hand, and the army, traders, and pioneers, on the other. Using a chronological approach to his narrative, the author pens accounts of the Grattan incident, the Sand Creek massacre, the fight for the Platte River Bridge, the Fetterman massacre, the Battle of the Rosebud, the ghost dance craze, the Battle of Wounded Knee, and many other dramatic incidents.” Review by: W. Turrentine Jackson, Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Oct., 1967), pp. 228-229.

Sentinel of the Plains: Fort Leavenworth and the American West, Walton, George.
  [This one was panned.] Since the "American Forts Series" contains earlier works written by reputable historians, it is difficult to account for the acceptance and publication of this book.”Review by: Otis E Young, Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jun., 1974), pp. 211-212

Louisbourg: Key to A Continent, Downey, Fairfax.

This one is available in the Internet Archive. For an interesting discussion and maps of this fort see: "Streets Paved with Gold: Fortress of Louisbourg on Early Maps," J.Victor Owen, Mercator's World, Vol.8. No.2. March/April 2003. It begins with this quotation by Washington Irving: "The walls of an impregnable fortress, like the virtue of women, have their weak points of attack." "Considered the greatest fortress on the North American continent in 1744, the newly completed Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island was thought to be impregnable, a monument to French engineering and territorial dominance in eastern Canada. It took a group of bold New Englanders to prove this wrong."

Three Flags at the Straits: The Forts of Mackinac, Havighurst, Walter.

  ‘Planned by the late Stewart H. Holbrook, "The American Forts Series" appears to have been designed to give the layman a readable, accurate, one-volume history of each of the major strongholds that occupied strategic points on our frontiers.

Oscar Lewis' Sutter's Fort, published earlier in the series, is full of interest for

the reader. The narrative is lively, and it is based on the most important sources

and secondary materials. The present volume generally follows such a pattern.   The author has covered a number of midwestern themes in his previous volumes of fiction and history and is qualified to undertake a history of the rise and fall of Mackinac missions and forts. His book carries the story of events at the straits from the seventeenth century to modern times during successive decades of French, British, and American occupation. Close examination of chapters on the French period reveals the shadow of Francis Parkman's great history looming in the background, as, for example, in Havighurst's narration of Pontiac's Conspiracy. In later chapters there are generous quotations from the writings of such varied individuals as Robert Rogers, Jonathan Carver, and Henry Schoolcraft, whose careers touched the complex history of the straits. Schoolcraft, Indian agent at Sault Sainte Marie in the 1830's, loved the wild beauty of the area and was fascinated by his native wards. In 1845 the youthful Parkman marked the rotted stumps of Mackinac Island's old palisade. Today on Mackinac Island buildings of the fort are part of a historical museum portraying the romantic story of the past. Here, then, is an interesting, skillfully written book for the general reader. The bibliography covers the high lights of literature on the subject.

Review by: Wilbur R. Jacobs, The American Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Apr. 1967), pp. 1074-1075. For Canadian reviews see: Calgary Herald, Jan.13, 1967 & The Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 4, 1967.

 

Thundergate: The Forts of Niagara, Howard, Robert.
"Thundergate, at the waterfall of the Niagara River, has been the site of twelve forts, a large number of battles, and incessant drama extending over several centuries. Robert West Howard tells the story of the Indians, French, Dutch, English, and Americans who lived and fought here and skillfully gives life to the dramatis personae of the drama. He covers a period from the sixteenth century up to the Fenian raids against Canada in the post-CivilWar period. The author of over twenty books, Mr. Howard presents his story in eminently readable and well organized prose. He lists his sources in a chapter by chapter bibliography at the end of the book and ends the volume with a very helpful chapter, "The Memory Place," which is directed to modern readers who would visit the Niagara region. Wendell Tripp, New York History, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan. 1969), pp. 105-110.

Sutter’s Fort: Gateway to the Gold Fields, Lewis, Oscar. (See the introduction above.)

Forts of the Upper Missouri, Athearn, Robert.
This is available in the Internet Archive

 

Vincennes: Portal to the West, Derleth, August

  “With this volume August Derleth adds to his extensive bibliography and also adds another title to the American Forts series. Not intended for the specialist, these volumes are by competent writers who have made good use of source materials. Derleth's book meets these requirements and compares favorably with others in the series.”

Review by: Alan S. Brown, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 35, No. 2 (May, 1969), pp. 255.

POND HOCKEY

 

Regis Francois Gignoux (1816-1882)
   To change the subject, and to provide pictures rather than prose, I call your attention to the painting above. It can be purchased for $195,000 (USD), which is about $267,650 (CND) on Jan. 24.

   Canadians should be interested because, "This painting holds historic value as it is one of the earliest known scenes of boys playing ice hockey." Gignoux, the artist, is not from Quebec, but from Lyons, although the scene may be from Canada, or the northeastern, U.S. The painting and quote are both from Questroyal Fine Art.
  Another winter scene was found at another gallery. As well, Gignoux painted Niagara Falls. 

  He is known for his outdoor winter scenes, but this one is from underground at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. 

   Gignoux is a representative of the "Hudson River School", which, as I have indicated, produced paintings I admire. See, " The Hudson River School" and "Jasper Cropsey".

Sources: 
  Gignoux's picture is from Harvard Art Museums and this good description of the cave painting is found in: "From Historic Paintings of Mammoth Cave: Nature’s Underground Art Gallery," by Bob Thompson February 28, 2023, Kentucky Monthly. 

"Marie-François-Régis Gignoux (1816-1882) was a French landscape painter who was active in the United States from 1840-70. Gignoux visited Mammoth Cave in 1843 and painted a view of the cave entrance and the extensive Rotunda. At the bottom left is a party of four people. On the left is probably cave guide Stephen Bishop, with his torch-throwing stick and supplies for the cave trip carried around his shoulders. To the right of the guide is the artist, Gignoux (wearing the hat) and his tools of the trade to paint the underground wonder. To the right of the artist is Gignoux’s assistant seated in front of a rock with the artist’s selection of colors. Above the assistant, climbing up a ladder, is another cave guide with a number of lamps to help illuminate the darkness. What looks like a roaring fire actually is a number of the open-flame lamps brought together, which put out a great deal of smoke."

FACTLET (19)

 Logorrhea
   Here are the earliest definitions of the word as found in the Oxford English Dictionary:
1902–
Excessive volubility accompanying some forms of mental illness; also gen., an excessive flow of words, prolixity.
1902
Logorrhea refers to the excessive flow of words, a common symptom in cases of mania.
1907 In the case of a man suffering from the insanity known as logorrhea the ideas come rapidly tumbling over each other.

   I looked up the definition of " logorrhea" because it appeared in this piece: "It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea: How Many Polite Ways are There to Ask Whether the President of the United States is Losing It?, By Susan B. Glasser January 22, 2026, The Atlantic. Here is how it was used and the Factlet is in bold:
"Donald Trump is an editor’s nightmare and a psychiatrist’s dream. Amid all the coverage marking the first anniversary of his return to the White House, one story—which did not get the attention it deserved—stood out for me: a Times analysis of how much more the President has been talking and talking and talking. The findings? One million nine hundred and seventy-seven thousand six hundred and nine words in the Presidential appearances, as of January 20th—an increase of two hundred and forty-five per cent compared with the first year of Trump’s first term in office, back in 2017."

   I realize I recently said I would not bring up this 'subject' again, but technically it was brought up by someone else and you have to admit that the Factlet is an interesting one. Here the data are illustrated:

They are from this article, which indicates that Trump is talking far more this term than he did in his first. 

  The article also charts the use of particular words, geographic terms, company names and even superlatives. The article: "How Trump Is Talking Differently in His Second Term," Jonah Smith, Jan. 20, 2026, The New York Times. I am not sure how exactly the tabulations were made, but they seem to originate from this source: Roll Call's Factba.se. 
The Bonus: 
   Here is another interesting Factlet, found in a very good article in The New Yorker. The fact checkers at that magazine are known for their rigorous scrutiny. I wonder how long it took them to validate this statistic?
   "America’s busiest national park isn’t Yosemite or Yellowstone; it’s the Great Smoky Mountains, which straddles the heavily forested border of North Carolina and Tennessee. Half the country can drive there in a day."
   From: "The Backcountry Rescue Squad at America’s Busiest National Park: In the Great Smoky Mountains, an auxiliary team of élite outdoorsmen answers the call when park-goers’ hikes, climbs, and rafting adventures go wrong," Paige Williams, The New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2026.
P.S. About the fact checkers, see: "The History of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department," Zach Helfand, Aug. 25, 2025, The New Yorker.
  The last Factlet was about Menopause. 

Anaïs Nin's Library

    I will do this quickly in order to push the unpleasant post below, farther down the page. This one will be the third in a row about a private library assembled by a woman; the last two belong to Geraldine Brooks and Louise Penny. Here is what Nin's library looks like.

  Given Nin's interests, one can say that this is a library for adults only. If now you are interested, then simply go to the Wikpedia entry for Anaïs Nin, where you will likely spend the rest of the day. There is little need for me to say much more since you will surely go deep into the erotic rabbit holes hinted at in the article provided. She had, for example, two husbands (at the same time), one in the east and another in the west, which she referred to as her "bicoastal trapeze."

  

This is the outside of the house in Los Angeles. It was designed by Eric Lloyd Wright, whose grandfather was Frank and the Wikipedia entries for both will provide you with more interesting content than I am offering. 

    Her full name is, by the way, Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell and she was a flamenco dancer, who also practiced psychoanalysis and slept with her psychoanalyst, Otto Rank. 
    To provide a bit more content, which will push the unpleasant subject below out of sight, I will mention an earlier post about people with Very Long Names. 
    I have also written often about Single-Author Journals and Nin has two devoted to her: Anaïs: An International Journal and A Café in Space: The Anaïs Nin Literary Journal.
    If you are new to the subject of erotica, see my: "Erotica: A Beginner's Guide."
    I have also done several posts about collections of books by men. See, for example, "Boys With Books."
Source: 
 "Anaïs Nin’s Los Angeles Hideaway Still Keeps Her Secrets: Shrouded by the pines of Silver Lake, the erotic writer’s minimalist, midcentury residence is a lasting monument to her life and legacy," Kurt Soller, The New York Times Style Magazine, March 21, 2022. 

Doomscrolling Defined

             Headlines From the Front Page of the New York Times
     There is no escaping this subject, even when you turn to Mulcahy's Miscellany. You will be able to figure out quickly what the subject is, by looking at the following headlines. These are from just one day, today, Jan. 20, 2026. From one front page! There were a few more found on the e-edition of the NYT, where the same subject is involved, if not explicitly mentioned: "We Ask Only That You Don’t Harm Greenland" and "Volunteers in Minnesota Deliver Groceries So Immigrants Can Hide at Home."
    My resolution early in this new year is to not mention this subject again, but you know how difficult it can be to keep one's resolutions. There will be a massive global regret when we realize how much time we all spent on such a subject.

"The Trump Drama Hits Davos"
"Trump Threatens 200 Percent Tariffs on French Wine"
Trump Issues M.L.K. Day Proclamation After Criticism
"Trump’s First Year Could Have Lasting Economic Consequences"
"Trump 2.0: A Year of Unconstrained Power"
"How Trump Is Remaking America, State by State"
"When Trump Took a Whack at the C.D.C., Atlanta Lost Something, Too"
"Federal Reserve Inquiry Clouds Trump’s Supreme Court Bid to Oust Lisa Cook"
"How Trump Uses the Oval Office to Flex Power on the World Stage"
"‘This Is Trump’s Goon Squad, for Christ’s Sake’"
"After Trump Shut the Border, a Texas Shelter for Migrants Emptied"
"With Threats to Greenland, Trump Sets America on the Road to Conquest"
"European "Leaders Push Back as President Reinforces Greenland Threats"
"Falsehoods Fueled Trump’s First Year Back in Office"

                     The Subject Could Not Be Avoided, Even in Cartoons

And, again, even when not directly mentioned, the subject is obvious.