Volume 3 of VASTA’s Voice and Speech Review. Includes my article “Marni Nixon: More Than You Know.” (Ms. Nixon is perhaps best known as the singing voice of Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn, but has many more achievements to her name.)

Although not actually a member of the staff of the NYPL, I am a senior writer of this guide to great works of literature and great authors, having contributed numerous entries of both kinds.

The IPA's guide to the IPA!

Very thorough guide, including historical information and unofficial uses of many symbols.

Excellent guide to phonetics, with exercises you can do to explore exactly how the sounds of the world's languages are made.

My preferred pronouncing dictionary, containing up-to-date entries for contemporary Received Pronunciation (RP; the prestige variety of British English pronunciation, associated with social standing rather than with geographic region).

Particularly good for the rhythms and intonation patterns of connected speech in RP. Much, though not all, is of equal use for Non-regional American.

This is the first volume of a three-volume masterwork on the great variety of English-language accents world-wide.

Top-drawer survey of accents and dialects in the British Isles.

The best overview of differences between British and American English I’ve found.

Puzzled by the terms you encounter in British plays, especially those written (or set) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? This excellent guide, designed for readers of Victorian novels, sheds light on many things that writers of those eras, and their original readers and audiences, took for granted. Some of the information remains relevant at least through the Second World War. Good for historical screenplays, too.

Newly updated, practical, easy-to-follow handbook on the care of your voice, by my fellow VASTA member, Joanna Cazden.

Accessible guide to vocal health, co-authored by my fellow VASTA member, Kate DeVore.

My colleague Gillian Lane-Plescia has produced a superb series of accent and dialect guides booklets, each for a single accent or a small group of related accents. Each booklet comes with a CD or cassette that includes instruction and native-speaker recording samples. This one, for Received Pronunciation, is her first. She packs a lot of information into a very small package, including detail about intonation, and era-based changes in RP.

My colleague Paul Meier has devised an excellent guide to commonly requested accents and dialects. Includes instructional CDs, and pointers to native-speaker samples on the web.

My colleagues Jan Haydn Rowles and Edda Sharpe have come up with a lovely guide to accent learning (English and American) for beginners.

Volume 3 of VASTA’s Voice and Speech Review.

Volume 2 of VASTA’s Voice and Speech Review.

A fabulous read-aloud book for articulation practice. Perfect for the little kid in all of us!

Brush up your Shakespeare! These CDs contain great historical recordings of actors from the beginning of the recording era. Includes material by Shakespeare performed by Ellen Terry, John Barrymore, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, among others, and a varieyty of material by Edith Evans, Noel Coward, even Laurel and Hardy!

Written by the superb English comedienne, Maria Aitken.