Neil Gaiman talks about audiobooks

Here's a great essay by author Neil Gaiman about his love of audiobooks:

Neil Gaiman Asks: Heard Any Good Books Lately?

From the article: "An audiobook is its own thing, a unique medium that goes in through the ear, sometimes leaving you sitting in the driveway to find out how the story is going to end."


Gaiman is the author of the excellent Anansi Boys, Stardust, and Fragile Things, as well as kids' books The Graveyard Book (which recently won the Newbery medal) and Coraline.

LA Times interview with Richard Dawkins

Love him or hate him, Richard Dawkins is one of our best sellers.  Check out this interview with Dawkins at the LA Times, and let us know what you think about his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sciw-dawkins-qanda4-2009nov04,0,4454290.story

From the interview: "I think the world's always a better place if people are filled with understanding."

And if you just can't get enough of Dawkins, check out the Globe and Mail for a review of The Greatest Show on Earth:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/endless-forms-most-beautiful-indeed/article1309860/

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs - review

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs is the latest in her Temperance Brennan series (which is the inspiration for the also excellent TV series Bones). In this installment, forensic anthropologist Tempe is accused of mishandling cases and has to figure out whether someone is deliberately sabotaging her work.

It's a bit of a departure from the earlier entries in the series because the story jumps back and forth in time between the case she's working on and the situation it ends up putting her in. It takes awhile sometimes to realize that you're not in the same time period anymore since you don't have visible chapter markings with an audiobook, but the situations are different enough that it usually clicks pretty quickly.

Other than that, it's a fun listen. Linda Emond returns as the narrator, and she is by far the best of the narrators who have read the Bones books. Like any mystery, it livens up a long, boring commute.

For those not familiar with the series, don't worry. You don't need to read them in order--each book is a separate mystery, and only the character development progresses from book to book. It's a great series for those who enjoy strong female protagonists, like Anna Pigeon in Nevada Barr's books, or Kate Shugak in Dana Stabenow's books.

Death By Black Hole by Neil Degrasse Tyson - review

Of all the audiobooks about science, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Death by Black Hole is definitely one of the most enjoyable. You may recognize Tyson from NOVA: ScienceNOW on PBS--he brings his characteristic humour and easy to understand explanations of complex topics to his audiobook. Although Tyson does not narrate the audiobook himself, Dion Graham manages to sound eerily like Tyson in his narration.

Death by Black Hole is a collection of essays on topics like what would happen if you were sucked into a black hole, the sort of bacteria that live in extreme environments, and how Hollywood gets their astronomy facts wrong. There is a bit of overlap between some of the essays, but there are enough different topics to make them interesting. Tyson's obvious passion shines through and makes 10 CDs go by very, very quickly. You don't need to know a lot about science to enjoy this one, and even those who do will be entertained by Tyson's fresh perspective.

On the durability of CDs

Here's an interesting article that argues that we'll continue to see CD-format audiobooks for a long time to come:

http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14938

"While the manufacturing community truly worries about how they will afford to get into Blu-ray replication and how they will get business, there is one area of optical discs that is booming: audiobooks."

Who reads these things, anyway?

We get a lot of questions about who reads audiobooks, so here are some answers for you!

Most audiobooks are read by actors, and you'll definitely see the same names popping up over and over. Scott Brick, Frank Muller, and Joyce Bean are all big names in the field, but you'll occasionally see someone like Julia Roberts pop up, too.

For more information on your favorite readers, check out AudioFile magazine's Golden Voices list: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/gvpages/index.shtml.

For biographies and personal growth audiobooks, it's pretty common for the author to read the book. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is a case where it works really well, but there are also definitely times when it might have been better to delegate the duty to an actor (Stephen King is definitely a love-him-or-hate-him kind of reader).

If you want to get involved in reading audiobooks as a career, you'll usually have to be an actor who does voice work. Local audiobook stores don't actually publish the audiobooks they carry, so check out the Audio Publishers Association at http://audiopub.org/resources-narrator.asp for more information.

If you're interested in volunteering, many local services for blind people need readers. In Canada, you can check out the CNIB for more information.

Like Dan Brown? Try. . .

If you've just finished Dan Brown's newest audiobook (The Lost Symbol) and want more books like it, here are a couple of great choices:

Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series feature a former US Justice Department agent who gets pulled into murder investigations involving the Templars, Alexander the Great, and other historical figures and conspiracies.

Listen to The Templar Legacy first, then The Alexandria Link, The Venetian Betrayal, and The Charlemagne Pursuit. (But don't worry if you read them out of order--you won't miss anything crucial). They're great thrillers for people who want a little international intrigue with their mysteries!

Check out http://www.steveberry.org for more info on the author and his books.

Daniel Silva is another great option for Dan Brown fans--his Gabriel Allon series revolves around an art restorer who is also a retired member of the Israeli Secret Service. His former job comes back to him in the form of Palestinian terrorists and mysteries dating back to World War II, as he travels all over the world.

The order of the series is: Kill Artist (unfortunately out of print on CD), The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, and The Defector.