Category: Audiobooks

Happy November, audiobook fans!

I missed y’all last week but I know Amanda dazzled you with her wit and excellent book recommendations. I’ve been remiss recently in getting to the Links for Your Ears/audiobooks news roundups section of this newsletter. So this week, I’m bringing you all the audiobooks news I can fit in a single newsletter so we can all catch up.

---

Sponsored by Unbound Worlds

Build your library with a collection of classic science fiction and fantasy novels from Unbound Worlds! Fall is in full swing, and it’s the perfect time to cozy up with some classics. Unbound Worlds is giving away thirty-two books from timeless sci-fi and fantasy authors like Philip K. Dick, T.H. White, Anne McCaffrey, and Samuel R. Delaney, plus some bookish swag from Out of Print! Enter for a chance to win.

---

BUT FIRST: Can we talk about listening speed? I tried listening to a book at 1.25x and it was bananas. It makes the narrator sound like they’re an auctioneer. But I think it’s pretty common to listen to audiobooks at a higher speed? How do people stand it? What am I missing? Let me know: on Twitter or at katie@riotnewmedia.com.

Spooky, Scary!

I know, Halloween is over. But that doesn’t mean you have to let the spooky times go. The weather is getting colder, the nights are getting longer, you might as well curl up with a book that’s going to scare the bejeezus out of you. Bustle has you covered with a list of 8 Horror Audiobook recommendations for when you want a good scare. I’m currently listening to one of their recommendations, A Stranger in the House, and so far so good! (Also, one of the books on the list, This Darkness Mine, takes place at Oberlin College–- I was yapping about my alma mater to y’all a few weeks ago. Hoping to tackle that one next.)

I have not seen the Netflix Original Series Mindhunter because I’m worried it’s going to be too scary for me. BUT basically everyone else in the world says it’s fabulous. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, Mindhunter is a fictionalized retelling of the crimes committed by a serial killer named Ed Kemper. When Kemper was in the California Medical Facility State Prison, he started narrating audiobooks for the blind. The A.V. Club cites a “recently unearthed” 1987 Los Angeles Times article about a prison program in which incarcerated individuals narrate audiobooks for the blind. From the Times article:

“Kemper, a confessed mass murderer, has read onto tape cassettes more books for the blind than any other prisoner. He has spent more than 5,000 hours in a booth before a microphone in the last 10 years and has more than four million feet of tape and several hundred books to his credit.

Two large trophies saluting Kemper for his dedication to the program, presented by supporters outside the prison, are on display in the Volunteers prison office, which has eight recording booths, two monitor booths and a battery of sophisticated tape duplication equipment.”

I actually think this is a great program, especially in 1987, when audiobooks weren’t quite as ubiquitous as they are today. But it is a little creepy when The Lad Bible puts it this way, “Next time you’re settling down on the evening and you pop an audiobook on while you relax, bear in mind that you may well be chilling out to the dulcet tones of a convicted serial killer.”

On a completely different and way less serial killer-y note: Jim Dale is interviewed on the Children of Song podcast! Dale is the Tony award-winning narrator of the Harry Potter series (in which he narrates a Guinness Book Record-setting number of distinct characters, 174 to be exact. In this interview, Dale talks about  “how he came up with the voices behind those quirky characters, some of whom he met on the street, and others he borrowed from his eccentric family.” Well worth a listen to hear one of the greats.

Audiobook Review:

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Nobel winner’s best-selling audiobook got a rave review from James Kidd of Post Magazine. He says, “The story of a butler’s repressed love (for a passionate, frustrated woman and a weak-willed employer), it displays Ishiguro’s key strength: graceful prose that unravels to reveal powerful emotions, and which also conveys grand sweeps of history. This portrait of life denied and wasted is beautifully read by Dominic West, whose clipped, refined tones are perfect for Stevens, the writer’s personification of duty, self-sacrifice and moral neutrality.”

New Release of the Week: In the Midst of Winter by Isabelle Allende; Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Alma Cuervo

I love love love audiobooks with multiple narrators. Even though there are really talented narrators like Jim Dale (see above) you can do different voices well, there’s just something about multiple narrators that makes me feel like I, I don’t know, have really bad seats at a theater and am listening to a play.

From the Publisher: “In the Midst of Winter begins with a minor traffic accident – which becomes the catalyst for an unexpected and moving love story between two people who thought they were deep into the winter of their lives. Richard Bowmaster – a 60-year-old human rights scholar – hits the car of Evelyn Ortega – a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala – in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes an unforeseen and far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor’s house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz – a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile – for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.”

Obituary: Robert Guillaume

Guillaume won a Grammy award for his narration of The Lion King, but he was a theater, film, and television actor as well. Read his full obit here (and check out the Lion King video)!

Don’t forget (and really, how could you?), we’re giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter to win here.

Until next week,

~Katie

Hello audiophiles, it’s Amanda here (Book Riot’s Managing Editor), filling in for Katie while she’s on vacation. I’m usually a nonfiction-only audiobook listener because my brain can wander for a few minutes without missing an essential plot point, but this year I’ve discovered audiobooks are also my favorite way to ingest sci-fi and fantasy. Having the story read to me means I absorb the worldbuilding more thoroughly (I have a bad skimming habit), and don’t waste time trying to figure out how to pronounce the names of distant planets and alien races. This week, I’m recommending some SFF audiobooks I’ve really enjoyed.

---

Sponsored by Overdrive

Meet Libby, a new app built with love for readers to discover and enjoy eBooks and audiobooks from your library. Created by OverDrive and inspired by library users, Libby was designed to get people reading as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Libby is a one-tap reading app for your library who is a good friend always ready to go to the library with you. One-tap to borrow, one-tap to read, and one-tap to return to your library or bookshelf to begin your next great book.

---

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Jane Austen plus magic! Jane (the main character) is a plain girl from a respectable family (the mother’s weak nerves and tendencies to ~hysterics~ will be familiar to Austen readers), who is also extremely talented at working glamour–this world’s version of magic. Her sister, the beautiful and charming Melody, has more sensibility than sense, and also lacks Jane’s magical talents. The two fall in and out of love, attend many dances, and smell many English roses. This is great light fantasy for people who don’t want the full-on Lord of the Rings/dragons/political intrigue of high fantasy.

A Planet for Rent by Yoss, translated by David Frye

For the more old-school sci-fi fans! Yoss is Cuba’s most well-known science fiction writer, and he really deftly pays homage to classic sci-fi writers while using the tropes to criticize and analyze his home country. In the near future, Earth is so poor and environmentally savaged that the population allows it to be overtaken by alien colonizers, who turn it into a tourist destination for dangerous and untrustworthy species. The humans stuck under the rule of this galactic capitalist machine must make livings however they can–often in terrible ways.

Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee

Carr Luka is a rising star in zeroboxing (weightless mixed martial arts, where matches are held in a gravity-free cube). He’s escaped a dead-end life on Earth and is on his way to being rich and famous, until a huge secret and a blackmail plot derail his plans. The narrator (Stefan Rudnicki) has this excellent gravely voice, making the book sound like it’s being narrated by someone who probably coached Rocky at one point.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Kel Cheris is a disgraced military Captain, accused (and guilty) of using unconventional methods to win a battle (in this universe, being unconventional is functionally heresy and has terrible consequences). To redeem herself, she’s given the opportunity to retake the Fortress of Scattered Needles. The catch is: she has to let the undead consciousness of a genocidal General who never lost a battle take up residence in her mind to assist her. This is heavy sci-fi, and very mathematical, so not for the faint of heart!

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

Brujas! In! Brooklyn! Alex is a bruja, and one of the most powerful of her generation…but she hates it. Magic probably got her father killed and does nothing but complicate her life, so on her Deathday celebration she casts a dangerous spell to rid herself of her powers. It backfires, sending her whole family into through a magical portal. With the help of her best-friend-probably-crush, and a neighborhood brujo boy she doesn’t know or trust, Alex must travel through the portal to save everyone she loves.

That’s it for this week! Don’t forget we’re giving away a $500 gift card to the bookstore of your choice over on the site. Katie will be back next week for your regularly scheduled programming!

Hoo-boy, y’all, it has been a tragic couple of weeks. It feels like there have been non-stop tragedies: Hurricanes have done tremendous damage to the U.S. with many in Puerto Rico still in desperate need of basic supplies. The shooting in Las Vegas was horrifying and for the last week and a half, wildfires have been ravaging my beloved state of California. And that’s just a few examples from the United States; there’s no shortage of tragedy globally, either. So I asked readers of this newsletter and my Book Riot pals for soothing narrator recommendations. If you tweeted at me and you don’t see it here, I’m very sorry. I was going to do this last week, but the North Bay fires made things bananas and when I went back through my feed I couldn’t find them. I’m the worst! Feel free to tweet at me again and tell me what a dingdong I am.

---

Sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio

Listen to your book club’s next pick. Visit TryAudiobooks.com/bookclub for suggested listens and for a free audiobook download of The Knockoff!

With fall ramping up, it’s back to juggling busy school and work schedules with social engagements like date nights, yoga with friends, and book club. Luckily, you can listen to your book club’s next pick so you can stay on top of it all.

---

Before I get to those syrupy-sweet narrator voices, I want to take a second to appreciate firefighters. From the California firefighters who have been going days without sleep to the firefighters from around the country (and world!), who have gathered in California to help us, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Soothing Narrators

So which narrators do listen to when you need to mellow out? Reader (listener?) April recommends the Pulitzer Prize-winning Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. She says it’s “by far my favorite audiobook. The writing is exquisite and his quiet surfer drawl is so calming.  Whenever I have trouble sleeping I love to put an earbud in and set my audible sleep timer and let him lull me to sleep.”

If a voice could melt in your mouth, reader Myra says, Caroline Lee’s voice would. She says, “Caroline Lee has one of the most soothing, ‘melt in your mouth’ voices I’ve ever heard. Check out Silver Wattle by Belinda Alexandra.”

If you’re looking for YA with a great narrator, Beth recommends Will Patton’s narration of The Raven Boys  by Maggie Stiefvater. Want YA that’s a little lighter than that? Beth still has you covered. She says, “I’ll also listen to anything narrated by Rebecca Lowman. I fell in love with her renditions of Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park and Landline.”

 

When I asked my fellow Book Rioters which narraters make them feel peaceful, Aimee sang the praises of Fiona Hardingham. She says, “I’m listening to The Dark Days Club and she’s so wonderful. I first heard her in The Scorpio Races, where she reads opposite Steve West, who is Elias Viturius.  I had heard a lot about the rape-iness of An Ember in the Ashes, so I’d avoided it, but gave it a try solely for Steve and Fiona, and ADORED it.  Good narrators are SO good!  I wish their performances were listed on IMDB.” <— (ISN’T THIS A BRILLIANT IDEA?! CAN SOMEONE MAKE THAT A THING!?)

Jess echoes Aimee’s love of Hardingham, saying “she’s awesome in The Fair Fight and Sabaa Tahir’s books as well.”

Jamie noted that the audio of When Dimple Met Rishi got her through the days following the election, which is basically the strongest endorsement of “soothing” I can imagine.

Jessica (different from Jess but equally awesome) turns to Toni Morrison for soothing narration. She also wrote this list of books to read when the world is terrible, which we should all probably bookmark immediately…

While we’re talking Book Riot, how would you like $500 to spend at the bookstore of your choice? (Honestly, I find the idea of spending $500 on books LITERALLY AROUSING…) If it sounds pretty good to you, too, enter to win: https://goo.gl/cMpa5g

As for me, I love this recording of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Campbell Scott’s voice fits Hemingway’s prose perfectly–it’s simple, clear, and lovely.

New Release of the Week (publisher description in quotes)

Beyond the Messy Truth: How We Came Apart, How We Come Together by Van Jones

Longtime progressive activist Van Jones, “offers a blueprint for transforming our collective anxiety into meaningful change. Tough on Donald Trump but showing respect and empathy for his supporters, Jones takes aim at the failures of both parties before and after Trump’s victory. He urges both sides to abandon the politics of accusation and focus on real solutions. Calling us to a deeper patriotism, he shows us how to get down to the vital business of solving, together, some of our toughest problems.”

Famous People Narrating Audiobooks

A famous narrator isn’t always the BEST narrator, but there are some folks you just KNOW will probably be kickass narrators. There are two new audiobooks with famous narrators I’m excited about: Rosario Dawson is narrating Artemis, the second book from The Martian‘s Andy Weir. Read what Dawson has to say about narrating and listen to a clip of the audio here.

And if October is getting you in the mood for mystery, Kenneth Branagh narrates a new version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Branagh in anticipation of the star-studded film adaptation of the title he’s directing. Fittingly, the audiobook will be available for download on October 31st.

Let me know what you’re listening to, audiobooky things you’d like to see in the newsletter, or send me pictures of baby animals via katie@riotnewmedia.com.

Until next week,

~Katie

Hi, I’m Jeff O’Neal, filling in for Katie this week. Earlier this month, Book Riot celebrated its sixth anniversary, and it got me thinking about all the learning I’ve had to do to be part of running it. I went quickly from being an academic to trying to be a business person–with no experience at all in managing people, money, strategy, product development, and on and on.

---

Audiobooks! is sponsored this week by Overdrive for Libby.

Meet Libby, a new app built with love for readers to discover and enjoy eBooks and audiobooks from your library. Created by OverDrive and inspired by library users, Libby was designed to get people reading as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Libby is a one-tap reading app for your library who is a good friend always ready to go to the library with you. One-tap to borrow, one-tap to read, and one-tap to return to your library or bookshelf to begin your next great book.

---

But I am a bookish sort, so I turned to books to learn. And as I was trying to cram more book-time into my life, my ad hoc business education came via audiobook. By my count, over the last six years I’ve listened to about 150 books picked with the hope that they would help me be a better planner, manager, employee, thinker, leader, colleague, entrepreneur, and executive. And I wanted to try to do it humanely. Of the many, many books I’ve listened to, here are the five that stand above the rest. In no particular order:

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

There were many things that scared me about entering the world of business, but the knowledge that negotiation would become a near daily exercise was perhaps the most terrifying. Getting to Yes lays out a strategy for thinking about negotiations not as an irredeemably adversarial process, but one that can proceed rationally and collaboratively, given the right frame of mind. I’ve recommended this book to darn near anyone who will listen because, as Fisher and Ury point out, we negotiate in our daily lives all the time and the same thinking they suggest can offer improvements in almost all areas of your life.

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Working with people is difficult. They are, after all, other people. And even if you generally like the people you work with, conflict arises. Or even worse, it doesn’t. Things don’t get said that need saying. People aren’t told what they are doing wrong (and right). Our fear of confrontation or hurting someone’s feelings prevents us from having the hard, scary, and necessary conversations we should be having. Radical Candor, as the name implies, is a framework for being honest with co-workers, bosses, and employees that is uncommon in our lives. We’ve incorporated a lot of Radical Candor here at Book Riot, and while it has had its difficult moments, I think we are a markedly better place to work because of it.

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

We all have a lot of crap to do. A lot. We have spreadsheets and to-do lists and outlines and sticky notes and bullet journals and you know what? We still make mistakes. Gawande suggests that so many of our mistakes could be avoided by the good-old checklist. Using examples from surgery to aerospace, Gawande shows how common, and preventable, serious mistakes are among even the most expert professionals. It will be especially beneficial if part of your work includes repeated tasks, as it is in the moments when we are the least on the lookout for error that our most egregious screw-ups can happen.

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Where The Checklist Manifesto is about avoiding things you know to be errors, Thinking Fast and Slow is about the mistakes you didn’t even know you were making. In fact, it’s about mistakes all of humanity didn’t know humans were prone to making. It is a titanic work of far-reaching influence and applicability. And it is not super-fun to read. But, if you are interested in making better decisions, avoiding costly cognitive biases, and in general knowing why the heck you make the decisions that you do, there is nothing like Thinking Fast and Slow.

Grit by Angela Duckworth and Peak by Anders Ericcson.

I am cheating and am combining two picks for my last selection. Sue me. But, I do have a good reason to do so. Grit and Peak go really well together. Not only do they both have four letters, but they also are both about how to excel at…well just about anything. Peak is about how mastery is achieved through consistent effort and increasing levels of instruction and error-correction. Basically, if you want to get good at something, you have to put in the hours and figure out a way to identify areas that need improvement and how to improve them. The short version: practice a lot with a great coach.

Grit is about how important the motivation behind wanting to get good is. It’s easy to say “play the violin for 20,000 hours with a professional coach and you will get good.” What is hard is actually having the grit to put in the hours. How do we keep going? Can it be taught? Learned? What can we do to instill it in ourselves, our company, or even our children?

So those are my five (six) picks. I’ve read them all more than once. I plan on reading them all again, multiple times. I think, if you’ll let them, they can make your work, and life, better too.

Hey audiobookers! This week, we’re continuing our doing behind-the-scenes look at audiobook creation with a guest post by Jordanna Max Brodsky, author of The Immortals, which Whoopi Goldberg (a huge audiobook lover) picked as a Summer Reading Pick for The View. Before we get into that, though, I want to address the fact a lot of us feel like we are swimming in tragedy these days. There’s an ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico and other hurricane-devastated areas, the shooting in Las Vegas killed and injured a horrifying number of people–it’s just a lot. And while it can be a time to remember what we’re grateful for, or spur us to action, we also need to be soothed. So, I want to know which audiobooks and narrators you find the most soothing. Hit me up on Twitter or send an email to katie@riotnewmedia.com and I’ll compile a list for next week.

---

Sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia, partly because its creator James Halliday has hidden a series of keys in it. Whoever finds all the keys and solves all the riddles will win big time. When Wade stumbles on the first key, suddenly the race is on. Wil Wheaton narrates the audiobook edition of this pop-culture loving adventure-filled quest.

---

Without further ado, here’s Jordanna Max Brodsky on narrating her own audiobook and the unusual experience of being both storyteller and listener, reader, and writer.

A Novelist-Narrator’s Labor of Love 

by: Jordanna Max Brodsky

For the first time, I am both the reader and writer of my own book. The listener and the storyteller. Most thrillingly, I become its heroine, inhabiting her every emotion, her every action—even as I watch her tale unfold anew. That’s the power of narrating my own audiobook.

The recording booth feels like a sacred space. In it, I’ve found the sort of solitude and focus that novelists constantly seek and rarely acquire. At home, the phone rings, family intrudes. In the library, patrons bicker and children whine. Even when I’ve managed to unhook from the Internet and block out everyone I love, life’s ceaseless distractions beckon from afar. But when the heavy studio door whooshes shut and I raise the page of my book before my eyes, there’s only my story, my characters, and me. I have nowhere else to be, nothing else to do. Even the director, sitting just beyond the glass, is nothing but a disembodied voice who only occasionally interrupts my tale with a bit of encouragement or advice.

As a novelist, I reread my own book dozens of times before it goes to print. By the final copyedit, I know most of the passages by heart, and I’m capable of overlooking the same typo five times in a row. We’re often told to read our writing aloud to get a new perspective. That advice works great for a scene or a chapter, but no one ever mentions just how hard it is to read an entire four hundred-page novel out loud to yourself in the final editing stages. Sooner or later (usually sooner), your voice tires, you get bored, you start reading without listening to a damn word you’re saying. But step in front of a microphone, slide the headphone over your ears, and…magic. The story is reborn.

Inside the booth, I stop remembering previous versions of lines or worrying about whether chapter length. Instead, with my own voice echoing back through the headphones, I can read and listen at the same time—the best kind of ambidexterity for a writer. For hours at a time, for several days in a row, I live in my story. We generally record chronologically, so I get to experience the tale just as the reader does, from careful exposition to rousing climax to satisfying denouement.

I write because I’m happiest when completely subsumed in a story, and I can imagine no greater privilege than to create those stories for others. Yet it can be hard to fall into a story of my own creation in quite the same way. I know how the characters have evolved over the course of the process. Perhaps they’ve changed names or personalities or fates. Even though I see them more vividly than a reader might, I also see the shadows of their former selves, the scars of my sculpting and slicing. But in the recording booth, they jump off the page and take on lives of their own. As a writer, I create their words. As a narrator, I actually speak them. And unlike a reading at a bookstore or library, where I feel slightly absurd shouting or weeping or laughing through the dialogue, an audiobook demands that I inhabit the characters completely. When my heroine cries, I cry. When my villain growls, I growl. By the end, I’m exhausted, hoarse, and covered in sweat—but also reveling in the remembered thrill of writing the final line of the final chapter and turning off my computer for the night.

I wish all authors got a chance to record their own audiobooks. Not only for the pleasure, but for the instruction. Even as the story sweeps me along, I sometimes hit the odd boulder in the current: a word that I suddenly realize breaks the rhythm of a line, a phrase that feels out of place for a character, that last typo I could’ve sworn wasn’t there a month before. At that point, of course, it’s generally too late. The book is off to the printers, and all I can do is tuck away the lesson for the next novel. If I had my druthers, I’d sneak into the studio halfway through the writing process and record a version just for myself. I’d walk out with all sorts of insights I couldn’t get any other way—and probably an arrest record for trespassing.

So for now, I’ll leave the audiobook recording where it is: the final frenzied push in the long labor of bringing forth a novel, complete with sweat and screams and an aching back. When it’s all over, I get to hand over that squalling new child to the whole world. It’s not mine any longer—it belongs to those who read it. But unlike most authors, my voice will remain to shepherd it along. To give it life. I hope that’s a gift to my readers. I darn well know it’s a gift to me.

 

Happy Thursday, audiophiles!

Given how much I talk and write about audiobooks, it occurred to me that I haven’t given much thought into audiobook production. Instead of doing a round-up of audiobooks, as I usually do, I thought I would hunt down a bunch of different interviews with audiobook narrators and take a behind the scenes look at how some of the audiobooks we all know and love get made (cue The Room Where It Happens). We all intuitively know that being a good audiobook narrator requires a certain something, and it’s interesting to read how different narrators approach that.

---

Sponsored by Rakuten Kobo Inc.

Calling all listeners—audiobooks are now available from Kobo. Find all your eBooks and audiobooks together in the FREE Kobo App for iOS and Android. Save with a subscription for the best deal on audiobooks—your first 30 days are FREE.

---

Daniel Wyeman has narrated Peter James’ Roy Grace novels since 2013 and won Narrator of the Year at the Audiobook Production Awards in 2016. He did an interview with PanMacmillan this summer for #LoveAudio Week and described how he prepares for recording. First, he reads the text aloud with a pen in hand, so he can mark how the dialogue is supposed to be read, because the author often doesn’t make that clear until after the dialogue. Wyeman says, “Many authors only describe the character who spoke and how, after they have delivered their speech e.g., ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Alison shouted. Prepping like this means my reading can be more fluid.”

Physically engaging with the text doesn’t end there, Wyeman says, “I also mark-up inflection, intonation and pacing to help convey the drama of the story. I make lists of all the characters and note down what the author says about each character to help me imagine their voices, and then I record their voice so that I can keep it consistent over the course of the book.” Kinda makes you want to see the hard copy of the books your favorite narrators use when they’re recording, doesn’t it?

Once that’s done, Wyeman sits down with the producer and/or the author and goes through any questions he has about how something should be read, or the plot or storyline. He also talks about eating and drinking on a regular schedule when he’s recording to prevent any strange stomach noises that might disrupt the recording. On a personal note, I would give my right arm to hear a collection of Unfortunately Timed Farts Audiobook Narration Bloopers.

Not all narrators prepare the same way, however (#notallnarrators?), as this interview with Emma Galvin, narrator of the Divergent Trilogy among other titles demonstrates. She says, “I’m not a big technical prepper. I read the book as much as possible and just try and get deeper into the story, what the tone is, who the characters are, and I mark up big shifts in story, etc. But when I go in to actually record, I just work from a clean copy. It feels like a nice fresh start, like I’m discovering this world for the first time as I read.”

Galvin also talks about fighting various gassy urges during recording, so it must be something all the great narrators grapple with (everybody burps!). She says, “I happen to be a big belcher, especially when I’m talking a lot, so I usually just warn whomever I’m working with, and I also have a foul mouth, I think, compared to most people. But this one director/engineer I worked with, Mark Kondracki (great guy), put together a compilation of all of my burping and cursing during a book. It was pretty amazing. I think he called it his “Ode to Emma Galvin.” So that says a lot about me…” What is says about Emma Galvin, of course, is that I want to be best friends with her.

Here’s another interesting tidbit I came across while reading all these narrator interviews. Joel Leslie, narrator of many audiobooks, including the Skyler Foxe books, gives authors a one page character sheet to fill out. He says, “I ask [the author] to tell me for each character their Hollywood dream casting (vocally), age, level of education, who they are related to or from the same region as (You might accidentally miss that on page 264 you learn someone is someone’s sister and they grew up in the same town and you’ve been voicing them from totally different regions). I also ask them what kind of animal the character would be…knowing an author thinks of someone as a bear or a snake or an owl or a basset hound really helps me find the voice. Weirdly, for me, the minor characters with a couple of lines are the ones that are the toughest sometimes.”

New Release of the Week (publisher description in quotes)

Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History by Katy Tur

I cannot freaking wait to listen to this audiobook. Aside from the fact that she spells her name the wrong way (it’s Katie, Katy, OK?) I love Katy Tur. I’m an avid MSNBC viewer and it was really interesting (and depressing) to see the kind of vitriol and harassment Tur received from Trump and his supporters during the 2016 election. It was so bad, in fact, that “following one rally, during which Trump launched a personal attack against her, the Secret Service had to accompany Tur to her car. But Katy was not alone. Millions of Americans watched in disbelief as Trump ordered Tur to ‘be quiet’ during one of his many press conferences and called her ‘disgraceful’, ‘third-rate’, ‘not nice’, and ‘Little Katy.’ Unbelievable is an unprecedented eyewitness account of the 2016 election from an intelligent, dedicated journalist at the center of it – a thoughtful historical record that offers eye-opening insights and details on our political process, the media, and the mercurial 45th president of the United States.”

Book Riot Audiobook Posts You May Have Missed:

HOW TO BECOME AN AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR

Rioter Rebecca interviews Audie Award winning narrator Michael Levine about everything from audiobook narrator salaries to how to become an audiobook narrator.

8 GREAT MISSING PERSON MYSTERIES ON AUDIO

A selection of thrilling and addictive missing person mysteries that are as wonderful in audiobook format as they are in print.

10 WORLD OF WARCRAFT AUDIOBOOKS, TO GET YOUR READ ON WITH YOUR GAME ON

As they won’t take time away from the game, World of Warcraft audiobooks can be an excellent solution to get some reading in while gaming. Rah Carter tells you what you need to know to get started.

Feel free to get in touch any time, for any reason! I’m on Twitter at msmacb and/or you can reach me by email at katie@riotnewmedia.com. I’m always looking for suggestions or ideas for the newsletter, questions you’d like me to address, or hearing about whatever it is you’re listening to and loving.

Until next week,

~Katie (not Katy)

Hey there, audiobook lovers!

I love summer as much as the next gal but early fall always inspires a little school-related nostalgia. This year it’s particularly intense, as I just visited my alma mater (Oberlin College! woo woo!!) for the first time since my graduation ten years ago. I wandered through Tappan Square, browsed books and school supplies at the Oberlin College Bookstore, and felt very, very old. So this week, we’ve got a list of books set at college or boarding school. These are just a few of my favorites but if you’ve got additional suggestions, hit me up on Twitter and tell me what to read (or listen to!) next.

---

Sponsored by OverDrive

Meet Libby, a new app built with love for readers to discover and enjoy eBooks and audiobooks from your library. Created by OverDrive and inspired by library users, Libby was designed to get people reading as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Libby is a one-tap reading app for your library who is a good friend always ready to go to the library with you. One-tap to borrow, one-tap to read, and one-tap to return to your library or bookshelf to begin your next great book.

---

Back-to-School Audiobooks

Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

This is one of my favorite books in the whole world and has inspired many a boarding school-themed booklist in my day. It’s not just the boarding school that makes this book special, though– it’s the kickass protagonist Frankie Landau-Banks. During the summer between her Freshman and Sophomore years of high school, Frankie went from awkward duckling to super hot swan. Which is silly to even think about, she knows, because she’s still the same old Frankie. When dreamy senior Matthew Livingston takes notice of the new Frankie, however, Ms. L-B begins to see the perks of her new image.

Except. Except even though Matthew is her boyfriend now, he’s not being totally honest with her. Because Matthew Livingston is part of a long-heralded secret society at Alabaster Prep, The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. An all-male secret society. Barred from the club because of her gender and kept on the sidelines of Matthew’s world, Frankie decides to take matters into her own hands. And Alabaster Prep will never be the same.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Lee Fiora is the only student at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts from South Bend, Indiana, and she’s very aware of that fact. Now a senior, Lee understands how to navigate the school, though she never quite feels like she fits in. “Ultimately, Lee’s experiences–complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.”

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If you’re looking for a book about the halcyon days of youth, this ain’t it. Tartt’s first novel is dark, disturbing, and so very good. A group of students is selected by an enigmatic professor to be in his private Classics tutorial. The small cadre become absorbed with both the material and the professor. Their obsession has them teetering on the edge of sanity with lethal results.

 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

“As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.”

Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

I can’t wait to get my hands on this one as two fellow rioters have raved about it (the audiobook specifically!). “Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette’s desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.”

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

“On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political.”

 

New Release of the Week

Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years by David Litt

I’m not going to lie to you guys, when I saw this, a noise came out of my mouth that sounded like… a semi-aroused squawk? I’m not sure. I just know I got very excited and also wanted to cry. President Obama’s longtime speechwriter, David Litt, recounts his time writing for the forty-fourth president. “With a humorist’s eye for detail, he describes what it’s like to accidentally trigger an international incident or nearly set a president’s hair aflame…With nearly a decade of stories to tell, Litt makes clear that politics is completely, hopelessly absurd…In telling his own story, Litt sheds fresh light on his former boss’ legacy. And he argues that, despite the current political climate, the politics championed by Barack Obama will outlive the presidency of Donald Trump.”

If you like audiobooks, you’ll love Annotated!

It’s an audio-documentary series telling stories about books, reading, and language.

Links for your ears:

Hillary in My Head

Slate Magazine

Yeah, I know, I’m shoving my politics down your throat, I’m sorry, but I really do agree with this Slate review of HRC’s What Happened.

Why Audiobooks are the new Netflix

British GQ

I thought this was going to be snarky or something (because I’m a jerk, I guess?) but this is actually a really lovely, (informative!) endorsement of audiobooks.

If there are themes/topics/ideas you’d like to see me cover in this newsletter, please hit me up anytime on twitter or at katie@riotnewmedia.com

Until next week,

~Katie

 

Hey there, audiobook fans,

I love free and/or heavily discounted things. Love love love them. So much, in fact, that an ex-boyfriend used to call me “Bargain Bin MacBride” because if I see something that’s free, odds are I’m coming home with it. (You got a bunch of ugly refrigerator magnets at some work conference? Yes, I would love to take those off your hands.) Perhaps it makes sense that I gravitated towards a career in libraries–-they’re the OG free factory. (Yeah, ultimately you have to return stuff, but it’s still mostly free!). So this week, I thought it might be nice to review all the ways you can get your hands on (ears on?) free audiobooks.

---

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio.

Listen to your book club’s next pick. Visit TryAudiobooks.com/bookclub for suggested listens and for a free audiobook download of The Knockoff!

---

With fall ramping up, it’s back to juggling busy school and work schedules with social engagements like date nights, yoga with friends, and book club. Luckily, you can listen to your book club’s next pick so you can stay on top of it all.

First up: Your public library:

Most libraries I have encountered use Overdrive. Overdrive’s platform is pretty straightforward, you just download the app or go to the website and create an account using your public library card. After that, you can download to your heart’s content (or, to whatever your library’s limit is—I think my library has a limit of 10.)

Hoopla is another service your library might be able to hook you up with—it’s a streaming service, so you’ll  won’t actually be downloading the books, but if you’ve got an internet connection in your home or office or other boring places where you’d benefit from some story time, it’s definitely worth seeing if your library has access to Hoopla. (Hoopla also offers streaming music and movies, so if your library does subscribe, you’ll have endless hours of entertainment at your disposal.)

Librivox: Librivox is awesome because it offers free audiobooks that are in the public domain, all read by volunteers. It’s kind of like a giant, digital web of audiobook lovers reading their favorite books to each other. Want to volunteer to read one of your favorite books?

Audiobooky websites

Mind Webs is an awesome site that provides “perfectly-executed, haunting old-time radio dramatization of over 150 of the most classic science fiction short stories.” Rioter Nikki wrote about it in this post, and I am so glad she did.

Open Culture: Open Culture is a great site to find audiobooks of the classics and often really neat recordings of authors reading their own work or actors reading famous works of literature. For example, you can listen to Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” read by Christopher Walken and/or James Earl Jones. There are plenty of complete audiobooks to choose from, but I’m also very partial to the author-read short stories they have as well. In general, Open Culture is a hub of interesting and informative delights. I subscribe to the newsletter and it’s lovely to not just wake up to BREAKING NEWS: THE WORLD IS 10 SECONDS AWAY FROM ENDING emails, but also have a “hey The Getty just added 77000 images to its open content archive” email. You know, something to look at before we all go up in flames.

Scribl (formerly known as Podiobooks):

Podiobooks has merged with Scribl. You can still get free audiobook content in a serialized (podcast) form (you just have to put up with some ads) as well as ad-free audiobooks you can purchase, based on their crowd pricing system. Here’s the coolest part: every audiobook you purchase comes with the free ebook edition. DREAMS COME TRUE.

If none of the above strike your fancy, check out Rioter Ashley’s post about everything audiobook app-related. She talks about free and subscription services, so you’re almost guaranteed to find one that works for you. (If I am wrong and you still haven’t found an audiobook delivery method that works for you, you can tweet mean things at me at @msmacb).  

New Release of the Week (publisher description in quotes)

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

So I didn’t just pick this because I happen to be visiting Cleveland at the moment and the book is set in Shaker Heights, but that does add to the fun of listening to it right now. But I was interested in this title because Ng’s previous book, Everything I Never Told You, was such a powerful debut. Ng explores similar themes of family and identity here: Mia, a single mother, and her daughter move to the quiet Cleveland suburb. Mia rents a room from Elena Richardson, a steadfast rule follower.

“When old family friends of the Richardson’s attempt to adopt a Chinese American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town – and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.”

Links for Your Ears:

Netflix Hack Day Creates Audiobook Version

Apparently Netflix has a “hack” day where the employees “take a break from everyday work, have fun, experiment with new technologies, and collaborate with new people.” Some genius (I’m not being sarcastic) came up with the idea for an “audiobooks” feature, in which one could click icon while watching a show on Netflix and get narration, as though one is listening to an audiobook of their favorite show. There’s a demo here.

I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW BADLY I WANT THIS TO BE REAL. It likely never will be, for a million logistical reasons but oh man, I want audiobook Netflix!

Rosario Dawson narrates audiobook for The Martian follow-up Artemis

Count me in.

Kobo takes on Audible with its own audiobook subscription service.

via GIPHY

Until next week!

~Katie

 

 

 

The devastation climate change can bring shouldn’t be any surprise by now. The pictures of what Harvey did to Houston are heartbreaking and by the time y’all get this, Irma will have made landfall over Florida. Unfortunately, certain individuals (pretend to) believe that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese government (how powerful that government must be! What with the ability to direct hurricanes and all). So this week, we’re taking an educational perspective. Here are a few books about climate change based on, you know, science.

---

Sponsored by Overdrive

Meet Libby, a new app built with love for readers to discover and enjoy eBooks and audiobooks from your library. Created by OverDrive and inspired by library users, Libby was designed to get people reading as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Libby is a one-tap reading app for your library who is a good friend always ready to go to the library with you. One-tap to borrow, one-tap to read, and one-tap to return to your library or bookshelf to begin your next great book.

---

Climate Change Books for People Who Believe in Science

(publisher description in quotes)

Truth to Power: An Inconvenient Sequel by Al Gore

The sequel to the famous documentary and book duo, An Inconvenient Sequel discusses what we–-and the people we put in power–-need to do if we’re going to avoid total catastrophe. A star studded cast of narrators add an interesting mix to the important (and somewhat bummer-y) material.

 

Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster by Michael Eric Dyson

Like so much else, the effects of climate change aren’t distributed equally. For myriad reasons, poor communities and communities of color are often disproportionately impacted when natural disasters occur, as was certainly the case during and after Hurricane Katrina. “Displaying the intellectual rigour, political passion and personal empathy that have won him acclaim and fans all across the colour line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. Combining interviews with survivors of the disaster with his deep knowledge of black migrations and government policy over decades, Dyson provides the historical context that has been sorely missing from public conversation.”

Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Minds Are Wired to Deny Climate Change  by George Marshall

I can make all the snarky climate-denier comments in the world but the fact is, I kind of get why people want to deny it’s happening. I mean, it’s not awesome to think about. But instead of that genius description, George Marshall explains how “our human brains are wired – our evolutionary origins, our perceptions of threats, our cognitive blind spots, our love of storytelling, our fear of death, and our deepest instincts to defend our family and tribe.”

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert

Author of the (equally excellent and terrifying) The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert documents the way in which man has impacted the climate and how we know it’s different from the “normal ups and downs” of the planet (or whatever climate deniers are saying these days). Kolbert “interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science, draws frightening parallels to lost civilizations, and presents the moving tales of people who are watching their worlds disappear. Growing out of an award-winning three-part series for The New Yorker, Field Notes from a Catastrophe brings the environment into the consciousness of the American people and asks what, if anything, can be done to save our planet.”

Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes

One of the two fiction titles to make the list, this middle-grade novel tells the story of the orphaned Lanesha, a 12-year-old living in the Ninth Ward when Hurricane Katrina hits.  “Although Lanesha is different—able to see ghosts like that of her dead mother—she never feels unloved, an empowerment that helps her survive the devastating storm.” I’ve read this book with more than one reluctant reader in my day and it’s always a hit. The story doesn’t sugarcoat the horror of Katrina but is an inspiring story of resilience despite the odds.

Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich

Mitchell Zukor is a brilliant mathematician. His job? Calculate “worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming.” But when a worst-case scenario actually happens, Zukor is in a prime position to profit from it. But what would that entail and does Zukor have the stomach for it?

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein

The great Naomi Klein (author of The Shock Doctrine) looks at how capitalism has gotten us into our climate change mess but also how it can get us out of it. “Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift – a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.

New Release of the Week

Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies by Dick Gregory

The passing of Dick Gregory in August was painful for the millions who loved his comedy. In this collection of essays, the late author looks back on 100 key events in the history of black America. “In his unapologetically candid voice, he moves from African ancestry and surviving the Middle Passage to the creation of the Jheri Curl, the enjoyment of bacon and everything pig, the headline-making shootings of black men, and the Black Lives Matter movement…an engaging look at black life that offers insightful commentary on the intricate history of the African American people, The Most Defining Moments in Black History is an essential, no-holds-barred history lesson that will provoke, enlighten, and entertain.”

Links for Your Ears

All the Free Porn You Watch is Destroying the Industry

VICE talks to Jon Ronson about his new audiobook (and free porn).

Green Apple Books Celebrates 50 Years

OK, this isn’t really about audiobooks but it was slim pickins this week and it’s about an awesome (and local to me) bookstore.

Hello audiobook friends!

Last week was *very* exciting for me. WHY, you ask? Because two excerpts of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new audiobook, What Happened, (WHICH SHE NARRATES) were released. I have been an HRC superfan for a very, very long time. (I get it, not everyone agrees with me, I don’t wanna fight, I just want to say HOW EXCITED I AM FOR THIS BOOK). If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the excerpts, you can do that here.

---

Sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio

Help your children keep up with their reading by listening to audiobooks. Visit TryAudiobooks.com/Family-Travel for suggested listens and for a free audiobook download of MY FATHER’s DRAGON!

---

In the meantime, I’ve put together a list of badass women politicians. (No, I don’t agree with all of these women on everything, but they’re all accomplished and impressive, all the more so because of the heavily male political scene).

There are several women I wanted to include on this list, but their books don’t have audio versions. Specifically, Shirley Chisholm, Kamala Harris, and Cynthia McKinney. All of these successful Black women have books that haven’t made it to audio. Perhaps that needs to change, like, yesterday.

Awesome Women Politician Book List

(*Publishers’ description in quotes)

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 by Madeleine Albright

The first woman secretary of state takes the reader from “from the Bohemian capital’s thousand-year-old castle to the bomb shelters of London, from the desolate prison ghetto of TerezÍn to the highest councils of European and American government.” Through her memories of her family and childhood, Albright tells a story of grave struggles and fierce perseverance.

Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House by Donna Brazile

This is kind of mean of me because this book won’t be out until November 7th. But damn if I am not dying to read it. Not just because Brazile herself was a casualty of the DNC email hack but also because she’s a brilliant political mind.

It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton

The OG HRC book. Clinton has long been an advocate for children, specifically in the areas of healthcare and education. From the publisher: “Her long experience has strengthened her conviction that how children develop and what they need to succeed are inextricably entwined with the society in which they live and how well it sustains and supports its families and individuals. In other words, it takes a village to raise a child.” Not from the publisher, from Katie, “Love you forever Hillz! If you’re looking for a best friend I *am* available.”

My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Technically Supreme Court justices aren’t politicians, but they exist in the political realm and there are a couple of badass justices I’m just not going to leave off of the list. RBG is the very top of that list. Even if I didn’t personally admire her (which I do), her story is really impressive. Additionally, if you want some short but informative background info on RBG, check out this episode of the Baby Geniuses podcast. It features comedian Guy Branum, who gives an entertaining summary of Ginsburg’s’ rise to Supreme Court Justice-hood.

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

The third woman appointed to the Supreme Court (and the first Hispanic person) she “recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.” Winner of several Audie awards, My Beloved World is narrated by the great Rita Moreno.

Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court by Sandra Day O’Connor

This was a really excellent listen–-for precisely the same reason I was hesitant to listen to it. Sandra Day O’Connor’s name has always been synonymous with “deciding vote in Bush v. Gore” in my mind. The decision process (and her thoughts about it some 10 years after the fact) was fascinating to hear. Though the other stories O’Connor recounts are less controversial than Bush v. Gore, the whole book is worth a listen if you are a politics and law nerd.

Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice

Unlike many of the other books on this list, this title is more about politics than it is about the politician. Rice explores the various struggles for democracy across the globe and draws on her experience as a policymaker when offering her insights.

Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Eleanor Roosevelt

You know, Eleanor Roosevelt…of every inspirational quote ever? An advocate for human rights and those in need, Roosevelt had a distinguished legacy during her husband’s life and after. Following her husband’s death, “she became a U.N. Delegate, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, a newspaper columnist, Democratic party activist, world-traveler, and diplomat devoted to the ideas of liberty and human rights.”

This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class by Elizabeth Warren

The fact that Warren spent years writing and lecturing persuasively as a professor might have something to with how well researched and articulate this book is. Warren describes how the middle class flourished in the wake of the New Deal and began to shrink during the Reagan years. “Now, with the election of Donald Trump–a con artist who promised to drain the swamp of special interests and then surrounded himself with billionaires and lobbyists–the middle class is being pushed ever closer to collapse.”

New Release of the Week

How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb

This book sounds excellent but even if it didn’t, all I would have to tell you is J.K Rowling said the following, “Quite simply brilliant. I (genuinely) cried. I (genuinely) laughed out loud. It’s profound, touching, personal yet universal. I loved it.” and you’d be sold, right? Me too. Here’s what the publisher said, “Looking back over his life, from schoolboy crushes (on girls and boys) to discovering the power of making people laugh (in the Cambridge Footlights with David Mitchell), and from losing his beloved mother to becoming a husband and father, Robert Webb considers the absurd expectations boys and men have thrust upon them at every stage of life. Hilarious and heartbreaking, How Not to Be a Boy explores the relationships that made Robert who he is as a man, the lessons we learn as sons and daughters, and the understanding that sometimes you aren’t the Luke Skywalker of your life – you’re actually Darth Vader.”

Links for Your Ears from Book Riot:

How Audiobooks Made Me Appreciate Nonfiction

One reader was skeptical about audiobooks until she tried listening to nonfiction. (I definitely relate to this. I’ve always enjoyed both fiction and nonfiction on audio but I realized how much more information I retain when I listen to NF on audio as opposed to reading it.)

The 25 Best Children’s Audiobooks

Looking for audiobooks for kids? Look no further than this list of 25 of the best children’s audiobooks out there, including classic and contemporary books!

Thoughts? Feelings? Hit me up on Twitter at msmacb.

Until next week,

~Katie