A recent article in the The
Wall Street Journal
discusses the rise of audiobooks, due in large
part to the availability of titles and the fact that
smart phone users have instant access via Audible
directly to their devices, much like ebooks. The article,
by Alexandra Alter, is titled "Can
You Hear Me Now? The New Explosion of Audio Books."
(For those of us in the industry, "audiobooks"
is not two words; however the emphasis here is that
reading patterns are changing from print books to
downloadable titles.) Sales are up in multiple digits
to $1.2 billion. Some points made in the article are:
* Publishers are spending more on production, including
with multiple (famous) actors (as with World
War Z which included Alan Alda, John Turturro,
and Martin Scorsese as readers.) Colin Firth, Anne
Hathaway, and Annette Bening are profiled, but film
actors do not rate as highly with listeners as do
professional storytellers (Scott Brick, Juliet Stevenson,
and George Guidall are profiled.)
* Some film actors have switched more fully into
audio production, not just as part time projects between
films. (Stacy Keach, Alan Cumming,
etc.)
* Some novelists are bypassing print and writing
directly for audio. (David Hewson, Orson Scott Card.
My own novels Awakening
Storm and Fame Island
were first produced as audiobooks.)
* Since Amazon
owns Audible,
there has been a crossover technology where the ebook
and audiobook can be read (or heard) alternately.
You pick up on one device where you left off on the
other.
* Audible
is doing research into how people are affected by
listening as opposed to reading. One finding is that
men are more emotionally engaged by listening to an
audiobook than by reading a print book.
If you haven't tried audiobooks, you're missing out
on an experience that can enrich you life while saving
you time and eye strain! |
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Frederick Forsyth adds his own homage to the war on
terror with THE KILL LIST, read by
the inimitable George Guidall, who may be the most prolific
of all audiobook narrators. The list refers to a secret
file of names which Technical Operations Support Activity
(TOSA) keeps of terrorists they would like to eliminate.
The agency actually exists, as does the list. Forsyth,
the author of The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File,
has done his homework. The plot is simple: one terrorist
named The Preacher (because he trains young Muslim recruits
to assassinate Americans) has killed the wrong general---the
father of a man who is now known as The Tracker. So
it's a top gun sniper versus an elusive Al Qaeda operative.
What the novel is really interested in showing is not
so much a stereotypical two-dimensional rendering of
action sequences in the style of Brad Thor, (exciting
though those made be), or even the lovingly descriptive
essays on high tech weapons systems in the style of
Tom Clancy, but rather an insider's look at the mechanics
of how terrorism operates. The human element is most
important to Forsyth, as he recounts the thoughts of
hostage negotiators in Somalia during a piracy standoff,
or how a terrorist eludes the scrutiny of NSA hackers,
or from drones tracking him invisibly from 60,000 feet.
If you're expecting mindless slam-bang action without
letup, such as what Hollywood delivers to the lowest
common denominator, this is not your book. If you'd
like to see inside the minds of both terrorist and hunter,
it is. Guidall is up for the job of exploring the characters,
his steady, sonorous voice maintaining an air of mystery,
punctuated with suspense, which have served him through
almost a thousand titles over the past decades. |
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Roald Dahl was one of the most original and popular
children's writers in the world, producing many offbeat
stories that resonate with readers worldwide. Kate
Winslet is one of the rare talented screen actors
whose voice acting skills mirror her stage presence.
She offers a charming and sensitive performance with
MATILDA,
jolting to life the characters of Dahl's book with
nailed accents and depth of delivery.
Other Dahl books given new performances on audio
recently in this series are Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, and Charlie
and the Great Glass Elevator (read by
Douglas Hodge), The
BFG (read by David Williams), and The
Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (seven
stories read by Andrew Scott.) I predict that this
audiobook will be up for an Audie award next year,
and will win the Grammy (which is judged by
Hollywood.)
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The prolific and talented voice actor Barbara Rosenblat
is back with another Linda Fairstein mystery, DEATH
ANGEL. Central Park in New York City is the setting
for murders being investigated by Assistant DA Alex
Cooper and two detectives. With scandal brewing on
the side, Alex and Mike Chapman plumb the depths of
evil linked to the history of the park, with a special
focus on the enigmatic icon of the Bethesda angel,
as well as CSI techniques. Fairstein is former chief
of Manhattan's Sex Crimes Unit, and is an expert on
domestic violence and assault. Rosenblat has been
featured on page one of the NY Times for her exceptional
abilities as an interpreter of character and her many
voices. The combination make this a must-hear. |
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Narrator Jonathan Davis is the best reason to order
KENOBI
by John Jackson Miller. It's the latest Star Wars
novel, and there are plenty.
In fact, the Empire of Star Wars can
be likened to the war between Coke and Pepsi (Pepsi
being Star Trek.) The novels fill out the movies and
animated features within no less than seven distinct
eras, from the Dawn of the Jedi, the
Old Republic, the Age of the Empire,
the Rebellion, the
New Republic, the New Jedi Order,
and finally to the Legacy.
There are many writers for these novels, a current
one being Miller, who also authored Star Wars:
Knight Errant, Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith:
The Collected Stories, and fifteen
Star Wars graphic novels. "Kenobi"
hails from the Rebellion era, and is over 13 hours
long as it engages Obi-Wan in a battle on Tatooine
between the Sand People and local farmers. Tusken
Raiders are out of control, and only Obi-Wan, emerging
from the shadows with the power of the Force, can
level the playing field. Davis is a three time Audie
award winner with a panoply of vocal tricks up his
sleeve. Older listeners wishing to hear more original
science fiction than that presented within the Coke
vs. Pepsi universe should turn elsewhere. Which is
not to say that this novel isn't well written. It
is. It's just that I don't drink soda personally,
and try to avoid empty calories since I'm nearer,
now, to that age of ultimate doom, slowly becoming
more susceptible to the evils of a ravaging horde
of dark side diseases. In short, my own opinion holds
that Star Wars and Star Trek are for mass audiences
who may not be familiar with the works of...but that's
another story. |
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For those who were alive in the 1960s, or have an
interest in politics, try JFK'S
LAST HUNDRED DAYS by Thurston Clarke,
as read by the always easily followed and resonate-voiced
Malcolm Hillgartner.
The subtitle is "The Transformation of a
Man and the Emergence of a Great President."
It's a week by week account of John F. Kennedy's life,
the opposite of what is usually examined, (a president's
first hundred days.) Reagan's "evil empire"
challenged Kennedy in nuclear showdown, but JFK later
enjoyed the summer of 1963, his last. An elusive man
with many facets, Kennedy gave some of the best speeches
ever, including one called the greatest speech ever
given by a President on foreign soil. This is particularly
notable after considering Khrushchev's "we will
bury you" speech, and our current faceoff between
Obama and Putin, in which Obama plays the Kennedy
role (including being called a traitor and socialist
as Kennedy was,) and Putin the Khrushchev naysayer
"Age of the Empire" role. Some questions
the book raises and attempts to answer are "Would
the Vietnam War have happened, if JFK hadn't been
assassinated?" Kennedy challenged advisors about
Vietnam, and would have withdrawn advisors from South
Vietnam. "How would civil rights advances and
the war on poverty have played out?" and "Who
exactly was Kennedy, given that he showed different
aspects of himself to different people?" Clarke
reveals that this question is more important than
conspiracy theories about who shot him or was behind
the shooting. It is the main question the book seeks
to answer, sparking a tantalizing extrapolation of
where America might be today had he survived. JFK's
death was equivalent to killing Obi-Wan, causing "a
great rift" in the Force (which was JFK's personal
charisma and powers of positive and visionary leadership.)
The audiobook is a fascinating journey back to that
time, maybe not to the dawn of this flawed New Republic
Jedi Knight, but to incidents within his nearly royal
family which are less known to the public than is
Queen Amadala's in Star Wars.
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Jonathan's romantic suspense story/script Fannie
Mae & Freddie Mac
can be downloaded as a free PDF here: http://sites.google.com/site/audiobookreviewer
(Making news is someone in Florida winning over half
a billion dollars in the Powerball. Coincidentally,
my novel THE INSTANT CELEBRITY is
about a $552 Million Florida Powerball winner who
disappears, buys a Caribbean island, and finances
an attack on a corrupt dictator so that he can reemerge
a hero. The audiobook version is "Fame
Island," read by Emmy winning film actor
Kris Tabori.)
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