Kestrell

Since the summer, I've been trying to find ways to deal with severe chronic fatigue, which has really cut down on the activities I've felt up to doing. It has, however, upped my intake of audiobooks and other things I can listen to. I recently discovered Audiobooks.com, which seems to have the largest selection of audiobooks and podcasts to search from, while also being very accessible and, as in the following instance, if it is a podcast, you have the option of either purchasing it to download or listening to it for free through the app.

So yesterday, while searching for new audiobooks, I came across this BBC Radio 4 series by Natalie Haynes and, being the classics and myth geek that I am, I listened to her Series 5, which began with Aristotle. I'm always interested in hearing more about Aristotle due to my obsession with _The Name of the Rose_. Since I've read a number of her books, I was quite prepared for Natalie Haynes to be witty and fascinating, but I had no idea that she was so *funny*!!! In addition, she has other classicists as guests who are *also* funny!

Haynes also makes it a point to feature as her subjects women of the classical world and recent archeological discoveries which support broadening our ideas regarding diversity in Western Europe. I can see how this show led her to write _Pandora's Jar_, in which she explores ideas regarding the role of women in Greek epic and drama, including lost and obscure works (note that _Pandora's Jar_ and other books by Haynes are available on NLS and on Bookshare).

Two episodes which I absolutely must recommend are "The Amazons" and "homer." During the latter, she announces that, since we really don't know anything about Homer, she will, instead, give a summary of all twenty-four books of "The Iliad" in the next twenty-four minutes and this turns out to have so many insights and poetic highlight that I am feeling excited about rereading the entire thing again.

You can find Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics online, including an episode list here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc/episodes/player

and you can also ask Alexa "Alexa, play Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.," although I'm not sure if Alexa has access to all the episodes that are available on the BBC website.

I don't actually listen to a lot of stories read out loud, but LeVar Burton is a truly amazing reader, and his podcast highlights a truly diverse selection of writers. His latest podcast features a Tananariv Due short story
http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/
which is doubly exciting because 1, I love her writing, and 2, she will be the guest of honor at this year's Readercon.

Note that the previous story read by Burton, titled "Miracle," features a blind character and was written by a Nigerian writer. Burton also reads a lot of speculative fiction, but I haven't delved very far back into the archived podcasts yet.

Another major plus for Burton's podcast: check out all the ways you can access it, including through a very accessible
online player. Burton is so cool, sometimes I forget he isn't actually blind.