Nightly · Hosted by Mika
Key Passages is an experimental show. Short nightly listens: a key passage from a classic book, introduced and discussed by Mika, a synthetic host. The readings are by real human LibriVox volunteers, not AI-generated, and Mika's analysis, dates, and details are AI-generated — please treat them as a starting point, not a verified record, and check important dates against the original sources.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World, Chapter 1 — ‘There Are Heroisms All Round Us’: a young reporter on the Daily Gazette fails to propose to Gladys Hungerton, who will only marry a man of great deeds. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Mark F. Smith, not AI-generated.
H. Rider Haggard, She, Chapter 1 — ‘My Visitor’: a young Cambridge fellow is visited just before midnight by a dying man carrying a heavy iron box and a five-year-old son, and handed a story reaching back two thousand years. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Lizzie Driver, not AI-generated.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland, Chapter 1 — 'A Not Unnatural Enterprise': three men on a scientific expedition up a great river, following guides' legends of a Woman Land. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Heather Ordover, not AI-generated.
Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Chapter 1 — 'A Runaway Reef': the year 1866, a phosphorescent monster at sea, and the press war over what struck the Moravian and the Scotia. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Piper Hale, not AI-generated.
H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapter 1 — 'The Strange Man's Arrival': a bandaged stranger arrives at the Coach and Horses in Iping on a snowy day, and Mrs. Hall cannot read his face. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Cate Barratt, not AI-generated.
H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Book 1 Chapter 1 — 'The Eve of the War': Mars watched from Earth, an older and cooler planet, the 1894 opposition light, ending on 'The storm burst upon us six years ago now'. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Stephan Möbius, not AI-generated.
H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, Chapter 1: the Time Traveller argues his case for time as a fourth dimension, then returns from his first journey with a story of the year 802,701. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Mark F. Smith, not AI-generated.
William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham, Chapter 1: journalist Bartley Hubbard interviewing Silas Lapham for 'Solid Men of Boston,' the Vermont paint-mine fortune, and Lapham's mother. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader BumbleVee, not AI-generated.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The House and the Brain, from the Short Ghost and Horror Collection 053: a friend's haunted house in London, an owner who cannot keep a lodger, and a narrator who asks for the address. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Grant Love, not AI-generated.
H. P. Lovecraft, The Alchemist, from the Short Ghost and Horror Collection 053: the story's opening — an old chateau on its wooded hill, a dwindling line of counts, and a curse spoken over the house. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Cliff Stone, not AI-generated.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, from the Short Ghost and Horror Collection 053. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Brenna Castor, not AI-generated.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown, from the Short Ghost and Horror Collection 053. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Heather Eney, not AI-generated.
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader David Wales, not AI-generated.
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Chapter 11. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader David Barnes, not AI-generated.
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Chapter I. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Ruth Golding, not AI-generated.
Bram Stoker, Dracula, Chapter 1. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Kara Shallenberg, not AI-generated.
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Ann Boulais, not AI-generated.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Chapter 5: the creation, on a dreary night of November. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox volunteers, not AI-generated.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34: Darcy's first proposal. Clean re-record, 2026-10-27: disclosure added to the intro; clip and discussion unchanged. Full book free on LibriVox. AI disclosure: this episode is hosted by Mika, a synthetic voice. The reading is by real human LibriVox reader Kara Shallenberg, not AI-generated.