1978 The Hobbit (Bob Askey)

Release Date: 1978
Reader: Bob Askey
Language: English
Organization: American Printing House for the Blind
Translator: n/a
Copyright: © 1938 Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: n/a
Duration: 9 hours 59 minutes
Unabridged: Yes
Country: USA
Licenced: Yes
Formats: 2 C-90 : analog, 15/16 ips, 4 track, mono
NLS Book Number: RC 11497

Produced for the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled service of the Library of Congress. This is a complete reading of the book made purely for eligible members of this special library service and not available for commercial release.

Bob Askey narrated hundreds of talking books in a variety of genres from the 1970s into the 2000s and is a two-time winner of the Alexander Scourby Award from the American Foundation for the Blind. A college in the University of Nebraska, he was friends with the young Johnny Carson who went on to be a legendary late-night TV host.

This is the second of three recordings made so far by the Library of Congress. The first was by Alan Haines in possibly 1976 and then Carol Jordan Stewart’s reading in 2001.

The combination of C-90, 15/16 ips, and 4-track mono was a bespoke standard for the Library of Congress Talking Books program and the Royal National Institute for the Blind for several decades. To hear these properly, you would need a dedicated Library of Congress C-1 Cassette Player or a similar “Talking Book” machine, which has a specific switch for 15/16 speed and a Track Select knob (1, 2, 3, 4).

A standard music cassette plays at 1 7/8 ips (inches per second) and uses two tracks (Left/Right) for Side A and two for Side B. 15/16 ips is exactly half the speed of a normal cassette player. A C-90 tape (normally 90 minutes) now lasts 3 hours for one full pass of the tape. 4-Track Mono means that instead of two stereo tracks, the tape is divided into four independent mono tracks. You listen to Track 1, then flip or switch to Track 2, then Track 3, then Track 4.