May 16, 2018

Rest in Peace Tom Wolfe: Five Fun Talks He Gave on Video

Author Tom Wolfe passed away this week at the age of 88. He was one of the leading writers of the literary nonfiction style known as New Journalism that was developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Always a pleasure to read, Tom Wolfe also gave some very enjoyable interviews and talks that we’ve featured over the years. Here are five fun talks he gave on video:

1. In Depth: Tom Wolfe

In this streaming video from C-SPAN’s BookTV, Tom Wolfe talks about his career as writer from The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby which he wrote back in the 1960s all the way up to his latest novel I Am Charlotte Simmons which explores college campus life in the present day. He fields call-in questions from people across the United States and tells us the secrets of his craft. Indeed, few writers today are as fun to listen to as Tom Wolfe.

2. Tom Wolfe on Modern Art

For an amusing talk on modern art, listen to author Tom Wolfe in this talk he gave at his 60th class reunion at Washington and Lee University. In the tradition of his 1975 book The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe skewers the modern art world of the 21st century. He presents slides of the work of famous “deskilled” and “hands off” modern artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Marina Abramovic. He talks about the art world establishment as consisting of about 3,000 people who determine the taste and value of modern art. If you’ve ever scratched your head while looking at a work of modern art, then this talk might amuse you. It is available as a video through YouTube with slides that show the works of art which Wolfe is referencing.

3. 2000 Boston University Commencement by Tom Wolfe

Watch this turn of the century commencement address from the great American author Tom Wolfe. While most commencement address speakers urge students to go out and change the world and fight the system, Tom Wolfe reminds graduates to keep up the current greatness of America and of our tremendous wealth and openness as a country. He praises our middle class virtues and laughs at movie actors and rock stars and other “intellectuals” who tear down the ordinary virtues of America with satire and cries of indignation. Throughout the talk Wolfe gives some of his own hilarious observations on America at the turn of the 21st century. It’s a unique commencement address from one of America’s most keen observers and most entertaining writers.

4. The Word According to Tom Wolfe

In this 30-minute interview with author Tom Wolfe, he provides his two cents on a wide variety topics from the death of the novel to the latest findings in neuroscience. He gives insight into his book that he was writing at the time Back to Blood and his thoughts on contemporary immigration in America. Wolfe provides some of his political opinions such as his support of President George W. Bush, which has proved very unpopular in his social circles in New York City. While most critics predict doom and gloom for the American Empire, Wolfe feels that we are on the verge of many great American centuries. At the end he provides a little moral advice: “Be happy with what you have!”

5. Tom Wolfe: What’s Southern Today?

In this streaming video offered by C-SPAN, author Tom Wolfe talks about the South as it is today. He provides observations about going to a NASCAR event, the origins of the term redneck, and the history of the right to own a gun in the South. Wolfe also fields questions from the audience about his career and he lets us know what he’s reading now. This entertaining hour-long video is available on C-SPAN.org.

May 4, 2018

All 60 LearnOutLoud Audio Books are Now Free!

We’ve decided to make some changes at LearnOutLoud and focus primarily on free audio & video learning going forward.

First off, starting July 1st, 2018 we will no longer be selling audio books directly on LearnOutLoud.com. We’ve had a good 12-year run as an audio book retailer, but we realize there are many better options for buying audio books now (notably Amazon’s Audible.com). If you’ve purchased audio books from us in the past, you’ll still be able to access them after July 1st, 2018, but we will no longer be selling audio books from that point on. We still plan to link to the best educational audio books as an affiliate of Audible.com and other audio & video learning companies, but our main focus now is going to be on providing you with the best free audio & video learning on the Internet.

Since we’re soon no longer going to be selling audio books, we decided it was time to give away all 60 of the audio books we’ve published on LearnOutLoud.com over the past 12 years. Since 2006 we’ve been featuring a free audio book of the month every month. Well now we’re giving away all 60 of those audio books we’ve published. Here are the audio books we’ve published that are now free on audio download exclusively on LearnOutLoud, now and forever:

Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell

Aesop’s Fables

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Art Masterpieces

The Art of Money Getting by P.T. Barnum

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Best of Steve Pavlina’s Blog

The Bhagavad Gita

The Book of Luke

Book of Proverbs

Character Building Thought Power by Ralph Waldo Trine

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Civil Disobedience & Life Without Principle by Henry David Thoreau

Classics of Western Philosophy: Volume 1

Classics of Western Philosophy: Volume 2

Classics of Western Philosophy: Volume 3

Classics of Western Philosophy: Volume 4

The Confucian Analects

Creative Mind by Ernest Holmes

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

The Dhammapada by Buddha

The Enchiridion by Epictetus

The Founding Documents of the United States of America

The Go-Getter by Peter B. Kyne

Great American Presidents

Great American Presidents, Volume II

Great Biographies in Time

Great Speeches in History

The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond

Greek Gods

Hawthorne Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Impersonal Life by Joseph Sieber Benner

Introduction to Poetry

Iron Will by Orison Swett Marden

The Jefferson Bible by Thomas Jefferson

Lincoln: The Great Speeches

Literary Summaries

The Madman by Kahlil Gibran

The Magic Story by Frederic Van Rensselaer Dey

A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Modern American Presidents

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Science of Being Great by Wallace D. Wattles

The Science of Being Well by Wallace D. Wattles

The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles

Selected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Selected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Volume 2

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Spiritual Classics

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

A Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham Maslow

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Thought Vibration by William Atkinson

The Way of Peace by James Allen

The Will to Believe by William James

In the coming months we’ll also be uploading all of these audio books to our YouTube channel which you can listen to there.

We’re very grateful to the millions of visitors that have used LearnOutLoud.com over the years. If you’d like to support us just keep visiting our site and you can also support us by signing up for one of our affiliates, which is a win-win-win situation for all of us. You can support us by signing up through the following links:

Audible Free Trial Offer:
Get your first 30 days of the Audible membership plan free, which includes two free audiobook credits. After your 30 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases.

Or from our more recent affiliate, that offers a truly amazing deal:

Scribd Free Trial Offer:
Get your first 30 days of a Scribd subscription free. With a free trial to Scribd, you’ll get unlimited access to over 90,000 audio books and over 900,000 eBooks, along with numerous magazines, documents, and more. After your 30 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $8.99 per month with ongoing unlimited access to their growing collection of audio books and eBooks. Scribd is truly becoming the Netflix of Audio Books & eBooks!

Or sign up for a free trial from one our all-time favorite audio & video learning companies, The Great Courses:

The Great Courses Plus Free Trial Offer:
You can now sign up for a 14-day free trial on TheGreatCoursesPlus.com When you sign up for The Great Courses Plus, you can then watch over 350 great courses and over 8,000 video lectures as much as you want, whenever you want! After the initial free trial, the price is only $19.99/month now! A bargain considering all the great courses you get access to. And if you sign up for a full year the price breaks down to only $14.99/month.

Thanks for Learning Out Loud! We can’t wait to dedicate our focus solely on providing you with the best free audio & video learning content on the World Wide Web!