OverDrive announced today that Penguin audio and eBook are now downloadable from their system. Libraries can add the titles to their collections by going to OverDrive’s collection development portal at www.contentreserve.com.
Penguin imprints include:
Curious how the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, a novel in the form of letters, would translate to audio, I asked AudioFile Editor & Founder (and EarlyWord contributor), Robin Whitten what she thought.
She likes it! A lot:
Guernsey succeeds brilliantly in audio from several aspects. The serial nature of letters lends itself to the unfolding story, and each letter writer is represented by a different narrator with clearly individual voices.
Books on Tape producer Kelly Gildea made smart choices–Susan Duerdin as Juliet Ashton, author and biographer; John Lee for Adam Dawsey, pig-farmer and devotee of Charles Lamb; Juliet Mills as Amelia Maugery, the motherly patroness; Rosalyn Landor cast as Isola, the herbalist and would-be Miss Marple, and as several of the other quirky island characters; Paul Boehmer reads the letters of Juliet’s editor Sidney, and her American suitor. I shouldn’t gush, but each voice/ character is perfect.
For the the full AudioFile review, click here.
Listen to a clip here:
Go to AudioFile for reviews of other current audio titles, including;
As we mentioned last week, Traffic appears on this week’s cover of Sunday’s New York Times Book Review (Slow-Moving Vehicle).
Turns out it got double covers, it was also featured on the cover of the Washington Post Book World (Life in the Fast Lane).
The book has received a great deal of other media attention (including NPR’s “Talk of the Nation“) and is now at #20 on Amazon. Holds are building in libraries.
Traffic
Tom Vanderbilt
I just discovered that there is an unabridged audio version of the new Starbucks pick. Below is the bibliographic information for both the hardcover and the audio:
The House at Sugar Beach
Helene Cooper
Talk about “being there.” Listening to the audiobook of Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic, Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) while driving, puts you right into one of those traffic study groups.
In beach traffic, your daily commute, or the next tollbooth queue you’re suddenly more aware of the other vehicles, other drivers, road conditions and traffic controls. Reading or listening you may never see traffic quite the same–a good thing!
NPR satirist and commentator David Slavin was tapped to read Random House’s abridged version. It’s a smooth, traffic-free road with Slavin’s straightforward 6-hour presentation. Nothing more is needed, as Traffic is full of interesting factoids and psychological insights.
Books on Tape has the unabridged Traffic read by Marc Cashman –a skilled, nonfiction narrator. His road trip is 11 hours.
Traffic, the book has been getting attention. It has been widely reviewed and is the cover review of this Sunday’s (8/10; not posted yet) NYT Book Review. it was also featured on NPR’s Fresh Air. Currently, it is at #124 on Amazon. Author Vanderbilt has a blog–How We Drive where, among serious references to the transportation studies and experts, you’ll also find his Favorite Traffic Films!
Libraries show modest ordering, with reserves building for the book. Most have not yet ordered either audio edition.
Traffic
Tom Vanderbilt
Robin Whitten, Editor and Founder of AudioFile, just let us know that the surprise hit of the season, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle will soon be available on audio (information on the audio was sketchy when we first wrote about the book).
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
David Wroblewski
- Audio CD: Unabridged, 18 CDs, 21.5 hrs., $39.95
- Publisher: Recorded Books, LLC
- Narrator: Richard Poe
- ISBN-10: 1436160308
- ISBN-13: 978-1436160308
- Shipping Date: from Recorded Books in 2-3 weeks; pre-orders for libraries available through the RB reps [BN.com lists it as September 16, 2008]
The narrator, Richard Poe, is profiled by AudioFile as skilled “in setting a mood and ‘dressing the set’ of a scene.” Robin says hes did a stunning job with George Packer’s The Assassins’ Gate and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian last year. Previous titles include Don DeLillo’s Underworld, Jane Smiley’s Good Faith, and Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons.
Why wasn’t this tile released simultaneously with the book? Simply because it wasn’t expected to be such a big success in hardcover. Once it began to pick up steam, Recorded Books bought the rights. Since it’s a long book, it takes a while to record and produce it.
Thanks to Robin for the information. We’re very pleased to announce that she will be contributing regularly to Early Word. In addition, whenever we list audio narrators, we will link to AudioFile’s narrator profiles.
AudioFile reviews nearly 400 adult and childrens audioboks every 60 days, focusing on the audio presentation. New reviews go up on AudioFile’s Web site every week.
It seems the abridged audio of Barbara Walters’s bestselling Audition is missing some important information — like her various love affairs, outlined in the chapters “Fun and Games in Washington: and “Special Men in My Life.”
Time magazine uncovered the omission (you gotta wonder; what made someone at Time sit down and compare the two versions?). Walters was the reader for the abridgment and approved the final version, so she’s not worried about what was left out.
This is not an issue for libraries, however. Most libraries own the unabridged, Books on Tape version read by Bernadette Dunne.
Maybe this is an opportunity for a new slogan? “Libraries: We Don’t Leave Out the Good Parts.”
Audition
Barbara Walters
- Unabridged Audio: $129.00
- Publisher: Books on Tape (August 5, 2008)
- Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
- CD: 9781415943663
- Tape: 9781415955000
Here’s a brilliant idea; NPR’s “All Things Considered” is beginning a series of audio reviews by truckers, called “Roadside Reviews.”
Truckers, who spend more time on the road than almost anyone, are also major consumers of audiobooks. The summer series will present truckers’ “recommendations of the best and worst books for listening.”
For the first in the series, Montana trucker Steve Brosnan recommends murder mysteries. He likes Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs, with the exception of Break No Bones (he felt a description of the main character’s dinner was overlong; “I’m not interested in her key lime pie for dinner. That’s not why I got the book.”)
The online piece has a link to Overdrive. No, not THAT OverDrive. This one is a magazine and website for truckers. Brosnan was their “Trucker of the Month” in March.
I just heard, via a note on Recorded Books web site, that beloved audio book narrator Frank Muller died earlier this month at the age of 57. There was a memorial service this past weekend in North Carolina.
Recorded Books links to Frank’s Web site, which gives more information. The site also has a list of all of Frank’s recordings — a good source for a memorial display — and this great tribute from a fan:
(When Frank reads) the blind will
see, the lame will walk, and the deaf
will hear.” - Stephen King
The hot news of the day is Overdrive’s press release, “OverDrive to Distribute MP3 Audiobooks to Booksellers and Libraries.”
So, finally, libraries will be able to offer audio titles for download to iPods. But, booksellers (Borders stores, through the Digital Centers in the new concept stores and Borders Digital Audiobooks site) will be able to offer more titles to their customers than libraries will. Random House, for instance, is not part of the library program. This was made clear in the February 21st letter to agents about RH going DRM free:
We are not making any changes at all to our library digital download program. That marketplace operates under very different conditions than retail. In the library environment, DRM is used not just to prevent copying, but also to control the limited borrowing privileges attached to the digital library edition. To be clear: all titles distributed in download form from our Books on Tape and Listening Library lists through our two existing library distribution partners, OverDrive and NetLibrary, will continue to have DRM.
Overdrive names “Blackstone Audio, Books In Motion, CSA Word, and Audio Evolution, among others” as the publishers whose titles will be available for library lending. The Borders program begins in May and the library program sometime after that.
Library Journal covered the story earlier today.
