I feel like I'm sort of afraid to study too much because I feel like I work as I go, but I want to study the classics and also the technical aspects of things. I'm always looking to understand more.
I chose Sony Classics, not just because of their practical experience, not just because of their wisdom in marketing, but mainly because of their integrity.
I've been recording audiobooks for more than 30 years. I've recorded over 500 titles on all sort of things. I'm a sort of genre-free recording artist - classics and romances, I just finished a sci-fi book, self help... just all kinds of things.
Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.
I read some older books when I worked at Barnes And Noble, like some of the American classics. I read a lot of Hemingway. I fell in love with Hemingway's prose and with the way he wrote. I feel like he's talking to me, like we're in a bar and he's not trying to jazz it up and sound smart, he's just being him.
I'd love to tackle a classic Shakespeare play or take on Nora Helmer in 'A Doll's House.' Musical theater, it's the classics like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter's 'Kiss Me Kate.' I'm much more a Julie Andrews-type soprano than an Idina Menzel.
I loved every minute of my three years majoring in classics at Berkeley.
Periodically, I return to the classics for inspiration and refreshment.
If you're looking for a book that's not been influenced by 21st century popular culture and that's guaranteed to be a good read because it's stood the test of time, you can't go wrong with the classics.
I've never studied the classics, but I'd like to. My teacher offered to show me how the Greeks were able to sculpt someone perfectly. From there, you can go off and experiment - sort of like jazz. Once you learn to play anything, you can break the form and go and do something even bigger.
