05/31/12

How Do Audiobook Narrators Approach Their Work?

We came across this blog post from Paul Allen Ruben, an award-winning producer and director of audiobooks. His blog, Audio Book Narrators, is well worth a read if you’re looking for insight into the approach and direction taken by those men and women who vocalize the written word for our enjoyment.

How Do Narrators Read Audiobooks?

In this particular post, Ruben poses the question of how do audiobook narrators work – do they try and satisfy the listener or do they try and satisfy the author of the book.

Certainly, the author will have strong opinions on how their individual book is produced audibly. How does the written word come to life? What are the accents of the characters? Are they portrayed by the narrator as the author perceived or intended them?

Here is a snippet from the blog post…

I think what’s at stake is that narrators – particularly those who work alone, or with an engineer, or without the benefit of sub textual feedback from a director – may have a tendency to prioritize their vocal technique (ironically, especially if they are experienced, facile storytellers) over the author’s intent, rather than the reverse.

Why? I’m not sure. But I suspect that at least some of this desire is perpetuated by a kind of low hanging and tempting performance fruit: accolades and congratulatory notices from listeners and reviewers who mistake rock ‘em, sock ‘em energy for storytelling.

Read the full post here.

This is something to think about the next time you’re driving to work listening to a book. How much preparation went into the production of the book? How much direction was given from a producer/director or even from the author?

Listening to audiobooks brings great enjoyment. Narrators most often do wonderful jobs at bringing the stories to life. It’s interesting to get a better understanding of how they approach their work.

05/30/12

Revisiting The 10 Best Books Of 2010

It’s a little late, but we just came across this article from the New York Times Sunday Book Review and thought we’d share. Have you read (or listened) to them yet?

They were considered The 10 Best Books of 2010.

Some of these we’ve listened to and really enjoyed and some of them were even new to us. We’ve got new books to discover!

See the Top 10 Best Books of 2010 here.

One of the books, A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan is an audiobook we carry at On The Go Books.

Here’s a quick overview…

Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each others pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

This is an audiobook we highly recommend adding to your list. Hope you enjoy!

05/23/12

3 Must Listen Audiobooks Books for May 2012

Looking for some audiobook suggestions to listen to for the next few weeks?

Great Audiobook Reviews

We’ve got some great audiobooks that will keep you entertained!

Take a look at these 3 – you can rent them all at On The Go Books!

Rather Outspoken: My Life In The News – Dan Rather

Rather Outspoken is the memoir of Dan Rather, filled with insight and personal notes from his time on the air.

Below is a quick synopsis of the audiobook…

…is told in a straightforward and conversational manner so that you hear his distinctive voice on every page. Rather, — who has won every prestigious journalism award in his distinguished career — discusses all the big stories from his decades of reporting.

This very personal accounting includes his dismissal from CBS, the Abu Ghraib story, the George W. Bush Air National Guard controversy, his coverage of the JFK assassination, the origin of “Hurricane Dan” as well as inside stories about all the top personalities Dan has either interviewed or worked with over his remarkable career.

Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio – Jeffrey Kluger

Splendid Solution illustrates Jonas Salk’s quest to conquer Polio, a dreadful disease. Colorful, exciting…a great listen.

Below is a quick synopsis of the audiobook…

The riveting story of one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of the twentieth century. With rivalries, reversals, and a race against time, the struggle to eradicate polio is one of the great tales of modern history.

It begins with the birth of Jonas Salk, shortly before one of the worst polio epidemics in United States history. At the time, the disease was a terrifying enigma: striking from out of nowhere, it afflicted tens of thousands of children in this country each year and left them-literally overnight-paralyzed, and sometimes at death’s door.

Against All Enemies – Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy delivers another spellbinder…based on facts mixed with fiction, you don’t know where reality and fiction collide.

Below is a quick synopsis of the audiobook…

For years, ex–Navy SEAL Maxwell Moore has worked across the Middle East and behind the scenes for the Special Activities Division of the CIA, making connections, extracting valuable intelligence, and facing off against America’s enemies at every turn. And then…news of a potentially devastating coalition:

What if two of the greatest threats to the security of the United States were to form an unholy alliance? The Taliban is trying to exploit a Mexican drug cartel to which they supply opium as a means to bring the fire of jihad to the hearts of the infidels.

It is up to Moore, and his team, to infiltrate and dismantle the drug cartel, even as they hunt for those who would bring the ultimate terror and destruction to the streets of America. In a story that races from the remote, war-scarred landscapes of the Middle East to the blood-soaked chaos of the U.S.–Mexico border,

05/16/12

Listen To Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand On Audiobook

Ever considered listening the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand?

You should. It’s an amazing way to experience the book!

Thoroughly and expertly written by Hillenbrand – and wonderfully narrated by Edward Herrmann – this audiobook is especially spell-bounding and compelling. You will not want to hit the pause button – it’s a veritable page turner!

Here is a quick synopsis of Unbroken…

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

Rent Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand at OnTheGoBooks.com today!

Praise for Unbroken

“A master class in narrative storytelling…Extraordinarily moving…A powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Will you be able to put [Unbroken] down once you poke your nose into it? You will not. … No one delivers a play-by-play better than Laura Hillenbrand… No other author of narrative nonfiction chooses her subjects with greater discrimination or renders them with more discipline and commitment. If storytelling were an Olympic event, she’d medal for sure…”—Laura Miller, Salon

“Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it tells and for the way it’s told. A better book than Seabiscuit, it manages maximum velocity with no loss of subtlety. [Hillenbrand has] a jeweler’s eye for a detail that makes a story live.”—Newsweek

“Monumental… as mesmerizing as it is gut-wrenching. Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People

“Ambitious and powerful… Hillenbrand is intelligent and restrained, and wise enough to let the story unfold for itself. Her research is thorough, her writing crystalline. Unbroken is gripping in an almost cinematic way.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Hillenbrand is a muscular, dynamic storyteller… But she happens also to have located a tale full of unforgettable characters, multihanky moments and wild turns…A bang up research job.—The New York Times

05/16/12

Smithsonian.com’s Top 10 Lost Books

You may consider yourself an avid reader, but we’d wager you’ve not read these books.

In an article at Smithsonian.com in September 2011, the magazine outlines some of history’s top books that were lost to time.

Click through to the Smithsonian.com article here…

Each book sports a few paragraphs outlining it’s importance and what may have happened to the works. It’s a shame they’re gone!

Here are Smithsonian.com’s Top 10 Books Lost to Time

1. Homer’s Margites

2. Lost Books of the Bible

3. William Shakespeare’s Cardenio

4. Inventio Fortunata

5. Jane Austen’s Sanditon

6. Herman Melville’s The Isle of the Cross

7. Thomas Hardy’s The Poor Man and the Lady

8. First draft of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

9. Ernest Hemingway’s World War I novel

10. Sylvia Plath’s Double Exposure

05/15/12

Why Listening To Books Can Be More Enjoyable Than Reading Books

Yes, there are a large number of people who prefer listening to books rather than reading them.

And if it’s not necessarily a preference, there is certainly an appreciation for enjoying the books in a different way.

Listen To Books On CD

What do people find pleasurable about listening to books?

The ability to multi-task – ironing, gardening, cleaning house – is certainly appealing. Also, the convenience of taking the story with them – while walking the family dog, driving to work or traveling, etc. – is also appealing.

But perhaps more importantly – and what brings people back to listening to audiobooks – is the richness and complexity that a narrated story offers.

There is something powerful about the spoken word.

Hearing a story is just different. Characters come to life. Emotions are stirred deeper. There is a power that emanates from a well read book.

There is a robustness that is developed when you’re able to hear different voices and accents for various characters within the book. Listening provides a different perspective making you think about elements of the story in different ways. It’s akin to listening to a good story at a bar or a thriller around a campfire.

In some ways, it’s hard to explain the pleasure that audiobooks listeners enjoy. For some, it’s the only way to ‘read’ their books. For others, it’s downright odd. But if you’re willing to appreciate a story in a different manner than you normally would, listening to a book offers that chance.

Interested in listening to books? Visit OnTheGoBooks.com

05/11/12

Children’s Book Illustrator And Author Maurice Sendak Dies At Age 83

Celebrated children’s book illustrator and author Maurice Sendak has died at age 83.

Image Courtesy of The New York Times

Best known for his legendary book Where The Wild Things Are, Sendak was internationally beloved and appreciated for his insightful words that mirrored the thoughts and feelings of children. He was also a superb illustrator with a 50 year history of shared talents.

From the New York Times…

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

05/7/12

Super Moon Impressive – So Are Moon Title Books!

Did you see this past weekend’s Super Moon?

Audiobooks about Moons

According to USA Today’s Science Fair…

A Super Moon will rise in the east at sunset on Saturday evening. This unusually large full moon — known as a super “perigee moon” — will be the biggest in almost 20 years, according to NASA.

“The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993,” says Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington D.C. “I’d say it’s worth a look.”

Why the “Super Moon” label? “A ‘Super Moon’ is a situation when the moon is slightly closer to Earth in its orbit than on average, and this effect is most noticeable when it occurs at the same time as a full moon,” says James Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

With all this Super Moon talk, what are some good Moon books?

Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts:

Tory Bodeen grew up in a small, rundown house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt – and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. But she had Hope – who lived in the big house, just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn’t allowed to be at home: a child. Listen to Carolina Moon on Audiobook today!

After young Hope’s brutal murder, unsolved to this day, Tory’s life began to fall apart. And now, as she returns to the tiny town of Progress, South Carolina, with plans to settle in and open a stylish home-design shop, she is determined to find a measure of peace and free herself from the haunting visions of that terrible night. As she forges a new bond with Cade Lavelle – Hope’s older brother and the heir to the Lavelle fortune – she isn’t sure whether the tragic loss they share will unite them or drive them apart. But she is willing to open her heart, just a little, and try.

But living so close to unhappy memories will be more difficult and frightening than she ever expected. Because the killer of Hope is nearby as well.

Dark of the Moon by John Sanford:

Virgil Flowers-tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop’s-had kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First, it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport had brought him into the BCA, promising him, “We’ll only give you the hard stuff.” He’d been doing the hard stuff for three years now-but never anything like this. Listen to Dark of The Moon on Audiobook today!

In the small town of Bluestem, where everybody knows everybody, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd had perpetrated a scam that’d driven a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors swirling around: of some very dicey activities with other men’s wives; of involvement with some nutcase religious guy; of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, Flowers concludes, you’d probably have to dig around to find a person who didn’t despise him.

And that wasn’t even the reason Flowers had come to Bluestem. Three weeks before, there’d been another murder-two, in fact-a doctor and his wife, the doctor found propped up in his backyard, both eyes shot out. There hadn’t been a murder in Bluestem in years-and now, suddenly, three? Flowers knows two things: This wasn’t a coincidence, and this had to be personal.

But just how personal is something even he doesn’t realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victim . . .may be himself.

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik

The comic-romantic adventures of an American family in Paris as told by the author of “The New Yorker’s” popular “Paris Journal” column. Listen to Paris to the Moon on Audiobook today!

05/7/12

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Audiobook By Barbara Kingsolver

Enjoy Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as a book on CD!

Rent Barbara Kingsolver books on CD

In her first full-length nonfiction narrative, bestselling author Kingsolver reveals an old truth: you are what you eat.

When Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a year on a locally produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume.

“Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we’d know the person who grew it. Often that turned out to be ourselves as we learned to produce what we needed, starting with dirt, seeds, and enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals, and enough sense to refrain from naming them.”

Listen to the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle audiobook!

The book follows the family through the first year of their experiment. They find themselves eager to move away from the typical food scenario of American families: a refrigerator packed with processed, factory-farmed foods transported long distances using nonrenewable fuels.

Is eating this way possible…?

In their search for another way to eat and live, they begin to recover what Kingsolver considers our nation’s lost appreciation for farms and the natural processes of food production. American citizens spend less of their income on food than has any culture in the history of the world, but pay dearly in other ways — losing the flavors, diversity and creative food cultures of earlier times.

The environmental costs are also high, and the nutritional sacrifice is undeniable: on our modern industrial food supply, Americans are now raising the first generation of children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Is living this way possible…?

Believing that most of us have better options available, Kingsolver and her family set out to prove for themselves that a local diet is not just better for the economy and environment but also better on the table. Their search leads them through a season of planting, pulling weeds, expanding their kitchen skills, harvesting their own animals, joining the effort to save heritage crops from extinction, and learning the time-honored rural art of getting rid of zucchini.

How does the family do it…?

Inspired by the flavors and culinary arts of a local food culture, they explore farmers’ markets and diversified organic farms at home and across the country, discovering a booming movement with devotees from the Deep South to Alaska.

Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and complete with original recipes, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

Audiobook Blog | Reviews Of Audiobooks | Listen To Books

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Monthly Archives: May 2012

How Do Audiobook Narrators Approach Their Work?

Revisiting The 10 Best Books Of 2010

3 Must Listen Audiobooks Books for May 2012

Listen To Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand On Audiobook

Smithsonian.com’s Top 10 Lost Books

Why Listening To Books Can Be More Enjoyable Than Reading Books

Top Articles Remembering Author, Illustrator Maurice Sendak

Children’s Book Illustrator And Author Maurice Sendak Dies At Age 83

Super Moon Impressive – So Are Moon Title Books!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Audiobook By Barbara Kingsolver