It is no secret that I ♥ LOVE ♥ audio. I know many of you who comment here fall into one of the following categories:
You also LOVE audiobooks (listen whenever and WHEREVER you can)
You have dabbled a bit with audio and occasionally listen (long car rides, etc…)
New to audio… curious about it but no idea where to start, how to choose it,or where to choose…
Been there…tried that.. not for me, but since you are reading this post you will skim what is said here. 😉
Whatever category you fall into, please allow me this indulgence of a little “audio gush”. As I mentioned earlier this month, I am a fairly new audiobook listen around the 3-4 year mark. In that time I have found audio that I have just loved, not wanting it to end, and those are the audio books I want to share with you today – and I want you (audio book listeners) to share with me and the readers here as well so we can build a fun “fortress of audio LOVE” here.
Ready?
Let’s do this!
Ready Player One is one of my all time favorite audio. Wil Wheaton does an amazing job of narration. Seriously, the guy could come over and read me the back of the cereal box and I would be happy 🙂 This guy narrates so well that I have looked up books narrated by him just to get more. (True story!)
Yes -you have a good chance having read these books…or at least you much have seen the movies. Now – I challenge you, try these books on audio for an AMAZING experience! There are two narrators in the audio books of Harry Potter, Jim Dale and Steven Fry are fantastic narrators and I could not recommend one version over the other. Do it. Listen to these books!
R C Brays narration of The Martian is fantastic. I was delightfully surprised when protagonist Mark Watney comes off as a smart witty astronaut in this great novel.
Authors narrating their own books does not always work out ell but Rob Lowe is an exception. He has a wonderfully paced voice of a natural storyteller. I enjoyed both of his memoirs telling of his childhood, his movie career, and his life as an 80’s child star.
Liane Moriarty’s books are fun and in audio – a blast! Read by narrator Caroline Lee – this is another great listen.
Suspense lovers treat yourself to a Dan Drown audio book. Inferno is a wonderful audiobook with narrator Paul Michael.
I could go on and on but I really want you to share with me the top audio books you LOVED. Not only does this add to my audio wish list (picture a candy store but instead it is filled with beautiful shiny colorful mouth watering audio books!), I want to create a list of GREAT audio for all levels of audio lover-listeners- novices – newbies – and dabblists.
According to Sheila…. A Dabblist is one who partakes in the act of dabbling… “Jimmy was quite the dabblist when it came choosing just the right steaks to grill.”
Please share in the comments below the great audiobooks that you would recommend. This post is part of the June giveaway:
Please watch this site (Book Journey) for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
I’m up. I have been up since 5:44 am, because I thought it was 6:44 am and this is the last day of camp.
Today we will have breakfast together, share a morning session of introducing someone else from camp and what we have learned about them, then we will pack up and at noon, say our good byes.
Camp Benedict 2014 will be officially over.
I will chat a bit more about camp tomorrow with Saturday Snapshot but for now… in my tired state and the bitter-sweet moments of “Yay! I can go back home to my house, my dogs, my husband, and my bed!” to…
“it is over… and now I have to say good-bye to some amazing people whose paths I may or may not cross again.”
In a side topic, it is audiobook month and this week I have really listened to close to nothing. I don’t have a lot of alone time at camp as you can imagine and audio almost always required alone time. 😀 I did have a 10 minute session one afternoon while I was alone in my cabin washing my hair listening to Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood. Narrated by Kate Reading. It is awesome.
As far as other listening to it… it has been crickets, and birds, frogs and laughter, music and silence… and that…
is ok.
Just a reminder:
Please watch this site (Book Journey) for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
I’m Allyson Johnson, and I took a rather circuitous path to becoming an audiobook narrator. First let me just say that I have always, always loved books! One of my fondest childhood memories is going to the Chicago Public Library with my mother, choosing and checking out books, then taking them home, where I would proceed to read them aloud to my stuffed animals. (As an only child, this was as close as I could get to having someone listen.) So I guess, in a way, I was a narrator from the beginning.
It wasn’t until 7 ½ years ago, however, that I actually incorporated audiobook narration into my career. After moving to New York City with a Psychology degree, I did social work for a number of years, before making a career shift into tv production. It was there that I began doing voice-over work and found a calling, of sorts. After I left television, I started working with a coach, to learn the craft of voice acting, mic technique, etc. This led to work in commercial, promo, and industrial voice-over, which I’ve continued to do for almost two decades. But I longed for opportunities that would expand my skill set…that would allow me to depict characters who didn’t necessarily sound like me.
My first books were Children / YA titles, from early readers like “Corduroy”, to a lovely series about race relations in Depression-era Mississippi, by Mildred D. Taylor. Her “Let the Circle Be Unbroken” remains one of my favorites. I also voice the ongoing Honor Harrington space opera series (a genre that is such fun to record), by David Weber. I recently had the privilege of narrating “Harmony”, a wonderful sci-fi classic by esteemed scenic designer, Marjorie B. Kellogg. And I was honored to be chosen by author Ntozake Shange to read her poetic memoir, “Lost in Language & Sound”.
Allyson… the early years, the die was cast…
When I’m assigned a book, the first thing I do is get out notecards, a pen,and a pencil (some initial choices might need to be erased later). Even in this digital age, I prefer having hard copies of my notes to refer back to. Those cards have come in handy on more than one occasion. You should see the stack I’ve compiled for the Honor series! Next I open a couple of bookmarked dictionaries on my computer. Sometimes I need foreign language dictionaries, in addition to the English ones, depending on where a book is set. You’d be surprised how many words you think you know until you actually look them up! Rule of thumb – if there’s even a chance that you might get it wrong, check the dictionary.
Once I’m all set up, I settle in to read the book. The whole book, from start to finish. It’s important (especially with fiction) to know in advance where the story is going and how the characters develop / interact with one another. I also find it essential to know which characters, besides my protagonist, are going to talk a lot. Because I don’t want to give them voices that I can’t maintain for several hours. And there are many times when an author does not indicate where a character is from, therefore what accent s/he should have, until quite a ways into the story.
A shot from this year’s Audie Awards (L – R: narrator Eva Kaminsky, me, Audible Producer Kat Lambrix, narrator Lauren Fortgang)
My performing background is more musical than anything else. So I’ve always approached narration from that viewpoint. As I prep, I’m hearing the characters speak in my head and taking notes on any vocal traits the author gives me. There is an inherent rhythm to sentence structure, so I’m also marking places where I know I’ll need to breathe, and underlining words that need emphasis. Unlike rehearsing a play or a song, I won’t have the opportunity to go over and over a line (unless I mess it up in the booth…which happens all the time) so I find these little cues save me time. If I stay “in my head” while prepping, I can stay “out of my head” while recording.
If I stay “in my head” while prepping, I can stay “out of my head” while recording.
As I read, I’m marking my script so that I can tell who’s talking before I say the sentence. For me, this generally means writing the first letter or two of their name in the left margin. Some narrators highlight different characters in different colors, but my mind is a little more linear and a little less visual. Occasionally, I mentally yell at authors who have a predilection for creating multiple names that start with the same letter, but overall this system works for me. I like to keep two sets of notes for each book — one with character names, brief descriptions, and vocal choices, another with words and phrases that I need to look up, or ask the author about, later.
Nowadays, you can find many resources online, some with audio pronunciations (a godsend). For instance, there are sites like http://www.dialectsarchive.com/ where you can hear people speak English in a variety of native accents. http://www.forvo.com/ is useful for hearing foreign words spoken by natives. In addition, you can find all sorts of things on YouTube, like the way a “real” person says his or her own name, or how someone from a specific place says the name of a town. And I’m a huge fan of calling a local Chamber of Commerce or Embassy. The folks who work in these places are always friendly and eager to help you get their regionalism right.
Once all of the preliminary prep is done, I go back over my notes and make choices about how I’m going to do each voice. Frequently, I can simply write these down in shorthand. I don’t rehearse them, per se. But for books with lots of characters, I get out my digital recorder and read a few sentences in that person’s voice, so that I can refer to them in the session. With a series, this consistency is particularly important because sometimes you go months or even years between books. However, a listener might be listening to them back-to-back. I prefer to record with an engineer, whenever possible, to have another person’s ears helping me maintain my energy, my accents, and catching those mispronounced words that I was oh-so-sure I knew!
The hardest part of narration? Hmmm…. I guess that would be when there are lots of characters who are the same-sex, same basic age, from the same place, all speaking to one another in a scene. You have to come up with creative ways of distinguishing them, without taking the listener out of the story.
Allyson’s home studio
My favorite part of narrating happens in the booth itself. You know…the part most people assume narration is but that, like most worthwhile endeavors, can only happen after much work has been done. At this point, I get to sit down and do what I love to do best…tell a story. I can stop thinking about the book intellectually and just flow with the prose, living in the characters’ worlds for those blessed hours when I get to leave my own world behind. It is this experience of breathing life into the writer’s words that is the most fulfilling.
I asked Allyson a bonus question, “if she were to write a memoir, who would she want to narrate her story?” To be honest, I’m not sure who I would want to narrate my own memoir, besides…er…the obvious 🙂 I can’t really give you a specific name. But I’d want it to be one of my fellow journeymen…an audiobook narrator who’s had lots of experience recording books, who shares my reverence for the craft and art of making words sing.
To see more information on Allyson, please check out these links:
My name is Therese Plummer and I started narrating Audiobooks about 9 years ago. I have narrated over two hundred books. Some of my favorites have been The Virgin River and Thunder Point series by Robyn Carr, Tender is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Want Not by Jonathan Miles, Faith by Jennifer Haigh, The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson to name a few. I feel so lucky to have narrated so many amazing stories!
So a typical narration day for me starts with a really good nights sleep and plenty of it, 8-9 hours ideally. I will wake up and in the shower I will use a netti pot which clears out the sinus passages and do my vocal warm ups which include a variety of facial exercises, tongue-twisters and diaphragmatic breathing. I drink a liter of water. I will eat a light breakfast of a banana or oatmeal and have an almond milk cappuccino. Once I am at my studio, if it is going to be a six-hour day, I will ask my engineer if he/she will arrange the microphone so I can stand. I find my breath support is better on longer days if I stand. I will usually work an hour or hour and a half before taking a break. After two or three hours we will break for lunch and go back and work another few hours. A normal recording day is from 10am until 4pm. When I am done I usually don’t talk much for the rest of the night. If I have other prepping to do I will do that at home or just relax and get another good night’s sleep for the next days session.
What I enjoy most about the narration process is bringing this entire story and cast of characters alive. It’s like a one woman show every day. It’s amazing when I have been able to narrate with other actors on a story. It really is such a creative process. All of the theatrical experience I have has to come through my voice in the sound booth and it is imperative that I am able to convey that emotion vocally since that is all my audience has to go on. I am in someone’s earbud for hours at a time and as such the volume and intensity of stage acting must be minimized but just as effective to transport them through the story. It is such a creative challenge learning how to do this from book to book. I learn from every book I have recorded.
The other thing I love about my job is the community of actors I get to work with every day. The Audiobook community from the actors, engineers, producers, bloggers and publishers are the nicest group of people I have ever met and worked with. It is a big family and I hope I get to tell stories with all of them for a long time.
Morning everyone. 🙂 I am at Camp Benedict this week, doing my thing as a board member. It has been beautiful this week so far, talk of rain possible for today and tomorrow but right now looking at a clear blue sky I am not seeing it.
YAY!
I have been helping with craft projects, lining up horse back riding, massages, a few pranks (* ok, really only one where I took another board members shower curtain). 😉
I have been reading a little :
My roommate, Camryn (from my YA review tab) also brought a few reading materials with her:
Camryn is 15.
As I have been mentioning, it is audiobook month and I am hopeful that you have had a chance to check out the audio related posts that I have been putting up this month. Remember, we are having a giveaway this month:
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
Here are the posts that qualify that have gone up so far this month:
Johnny Heller is a narrator of audio books and as all narrators, considers himself an actor. With over 500 narrations, Johnny has narrated in almost all genres.
Johnny started his narrating career in the 90’s and holds to his name these (as well as many other narrations):
MASH
Marley and Me
The Mickey Rawlins Baseball Murder Mysteries by Troy Soos
THE GRIMM CONCLUSION.
the Platypus Police Squad series
The Horrible Harry books
The Vampire Files series by PN Elrod,
Dan Gutman baseball card time travel books
DAVE BARRY’S COMPLETE GUIDE TO GUYS
The NERDS series
BACK IN THE FIGHT
SHOT ALL TO HELL
HOUSE OF LIES
CLOSING TIME
THE LAST STRIPTEASE
THE FAT MAN – A Tale of North Pole Noir
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
When asked about the similarities between Narration and narrating, Johnny responds,
Audio book narration IS acting. People will often ask me -“are you still acting?” Of course I am! I don’t know that there is a more organic acting form than the audiobook narration. You have a script – the book; an audience; and you.
The major difference between stage and screen and the audio art is that the narrator plays all the roles. I am not – when narrating reacting to cues or the immediate response from an audience or playing camera angles or scenes as plotted by a director. The narrator is a story-teller. The narrator must be immersed in the truth of the author and faithful moment to moment to the text. It is essential that I share the author’s truth.
In a theater piece, the actor plays a single character and he immerses himself in the life of that one character. In narration, the actor (still acting!) plays the narrator and all of the characters – giving each one life as dictated by the authors’ truth which we get from the text. Each character has his/her own traits and the narrator must be adept making choices that propel the story forward. A flawed or faulty choice will halt the narrative flow because it disconnects the actor and therefore the audience from the authors truth.
It’s a very risky thing to narrate a book and one must make choices and one must be an actor with a gift for storytelling.
Johnny personally will read through a book once prior to narrating to get a feel for the voice of the book.
As I read, I make a list of characters and next to the character I note whatever I need to write to tell me who that character is. Is she mean, sweet…if I was casting it for a film, who would I pick. Is this guy a Clint Eastwood type or a Jon Cryer type? I make notes that may not make sense to somebody else but tell me what I need to know to help me make appropriate choices.
The hardest books to narrate according to Johnny are the ones that are emotionally wrenching. Out of his personal narrations he mentions Marley and Me,and A Day No Pigs Will Die. He especially is proud of an amazing book called The Education Of Little Tree. Written so beautifully he says, that he was brought to tears several times while narrating.
When asked if there are any “tricks of the trade, Johnny responded:
I have a few “tricks” although I’m not sure I’d call them that. I always have some tissues with me. Not just for tears! but you never really know what’s gonna come out of your body at any given moment until you are in a booth hoping for quiet!
I recommend remaining hydrated.
A slice of apple can keep your mouth moist (without being slushy) and settle those stomach noises.
When you find your mind wandering during your recording to things like: “hmmmm, I wonder what we’re gonna have for dinner” or “I really gotta do the laundry today…” YOU NEED A BREAK! I frequently step out of the booth and just take a few moments and not think about the project. Just to clear my head. If you find yourself wandering, you are not in touch with the text and you are not telling the story anymore.
And any mistake is fixable! Nothing is etched in stone — if you yawned, belched, yodeled – whatever, you can fix it, don’t worry. But note it because you really must fix it!
June is Audiobook Month. A time when we celebrate Audiobooks, Narrators, Great Audio, and more. If you read reviews here at Book Journey you know I listen to A LOT OF AUDIO. That was not always the case. In fact, there was a time I thought audiobooks were so geeky….
My Aunt and Uncle live in California. Every spring they bring a large RV back to Minnesota and stay with my other Aunt and Uncle here in Brainerd on their property until October. For their trek from California to Minnesota…. they listen to audio. One time I had to get something out of their RV I went in and seen this huge box of audio cassette tapes (bear with me… this was a while ago 😉 ). UGH I thought, how could you just listen to audio for hours on end? They must REALLY BE OLD. (yeah… I am not proud).
About 4 years ago I was offered audiobooks for review. I thought I would give one a try, and put it in my cars CD player. My world has never been the same. I fell in love with a story, and finished a book over the next couple of weeks while driving. Then I started listening to it while cooking, and cleaning, and mowing, and gardening, and playing scrabble on line…
Note: All audio is not AWESOME audio
You might be thinking “But Sheila, I tried audio once and I could not get into it. I can not handle someone reading to me!”
Good audio, as I recently discussed with Narrator Karen White, does not give you the feel that someone is reading to you. Good audio… makes you forget that… good audio, you never hear the narrator reading, instead you fall into the story, much like when you watch a tv show you do not focus that the actor is acting.
Audio Narrators Luncheon in New York
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
To give you a clue to what has already been posted this month that is audio related (including this one) – here are the links:
Hey there! Welcome to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading!
I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. Fair warning… this meme tends to add to your reading list!
What a week! Back from the expo, worked in my new office, first Author event of the summer at the library, a movie, a blogiversary, prepping for camp, and I leave tomorrow for camp for the week.
This has been a whirlwind week on the blog as well… here is what I posted here:
This next week I will be putting a lot of focus on Audiobook month – I am excited about it and I have some narrators working with me to share with you the full audio experience. Stay tune… giveaways too.
As for what I am planning for this week:
For my ears:
Summer, 1926. Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, take refuge from the blazing heat of Paris in a villa in the south of France. They swim and play bridge, and drink gin with abandon. But wherever they go they are accompanied by the glamorous and irrepressible Fife. Fife is Hadley’s best friend. She is also Ernest’s lover. Hadley is the first Mrs. Hemingway, but neither she nor Fife will be the last. Each Mrs. Hemingway thought their love would last forever; each one was wrong.
Narrated by Hemingway’s four wives – Hadley, Fife, Martha, and Mary – and peopled with members of the fabled “Lost Generation” – including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald – Mrs. Hemingway paints a complex portrait of the man behind the legend and the women behind the man, a riveting tale of passion, love, and heartbreak.
Rachel Wiltshire has everything she’s ever wanted: a close group of friends, a handsome boyfriend, and acceptance to the journalism program at her top-choice college. But one fateful evening, tragedy tears her world apart.
Five years later, Rachel returns home for the first time to celebrate her best friend’s wedding. Still coping with her grief, she can’t stop thinking about the bright future she almost had, if only that one night had gone differently. But when a sudden fall lands her in the hospital, Rachel wakes to find that her life has completely changed. Now the people she loves most are not the way she remembers them. Unable to trust her own recollections, Rachel tries to piece together what really happened, and not even she can predict the astonishing truth.
For my Eyes:
Shadowhunters and demons square off for the final showdown in the spellbinding, seductive conclusion to the #1 New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series.
Darkness has descended on the Shadowhunter world. Chaos and destruction overwhelm the Nephilim as Clary, Jace, Simon, and their friends band together to fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother. Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Infernal Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell. Nothing in this world can defeat Sebastian—but if they journey to the realm of demons, they just might have a chance…
Lives will be lost, love sacrificed, and the whole world will change. Who will survive the explosive sixth and final installment of the Mortal Instruments series?
I dont know how much I will get done being gone all week… but hopefully a little reading time 😀
How about you? How was your reading this past week? What is on deck for this week? Please share your Monday What Are You Reading posts below where it says click here:
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I just purchased a book I was pretty excited about. So excited in fact, that as soon as I was out of the book store I took a picture of the book and put it on Twitter:
Shortly after my return home with my purchase, I was reading on line and discovered an article on The Slate Book Review called AGAINST YA,
with a tag line that reads,
Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.
Oh…. dem’s fighting words.
According to Ruth Graham, author of this *set my soul on fire* article, states that as adults we are better than this.
Errr… excuse me?
Ms. Graham, also feels that by not becoming emotion over books such as Fault In Our Stars is not because she is heartless, but because she is grown up.
Well… here is my response to that.
I love YA. I am not ashamed. There are times throughout my reading where I am devouring YA book after YA book. Yes, I read many different genres, but YES, YA is among them. When I was growing up we did not have the wonderful YA choices of today. I remember I had Judy Blume (YAY Judy! *knuckle bump*) and that is about all I recall. I mean, Judy did a great job, but honestly most of her titles are more middle grade than YA.
Today’s YA is full on ENGAGING. It is PASSIONATE. And honestly, when I really think about it… I think that is what sells me. YA character’s are emotionally amplified. They are out… saving the world, dealing with bullies, family members, and harder topics than honestly I ever dealt with. They are teens so their emotions run HIGH and God Bless them…. I LOVE it.
YA character’s are emotionally amplified. ~ Sheila-age 40 something 😉
If reading YA means I am not “grown up”, and/or “emotionally immature” then so be it. Because if being a grown up means that I am segregated in what I read… well to heck with that. I will put on my pouty face, slam the front door, made annoying large bubbles with my gum, and sit on the step and read what I want to read.
Be sure to note that to the top left is all my Harry Potter books in Hardcover, paperback, and audio 😉
Over to you. Do you read YA books? Why or why not? If you do, what do you think draws you to them? How do you think YA compares today to previous generations?
Certainly by now you must have heard of The Fault In Our Stars by Author John Green. And if not the book, surely the movie. I was told that whatever the first John Green book I read would be my favorite. I will never know if that is true because my first John Green book was The Fault In Our Star and is my favorite. And while I have read all of his books (and enjoyed them), I can not imagine that if I had read any of the others first that they would have trumped my experience with this book.
I can not even put into words where this book took me… to attempt to understand, you would have to read my review of the book from April of this year; or my review of the book from July 2012. Yes I have read and reviewed it twice. I liked it THAT MUCH. 🙂
This week, on June 6th the movie was released (SQQQUUEEE!!!) and myself and my wonderful friend Amy went to see it:
I…
loved it.
Shailene Woodley who plays Hazel (and also plays Beatrice in Divergent!) is fantastic. She is witty and sickly and plays her role well. Ansel Algort (also in Divergent!) makes for a wonderful Augustus as well. Truly, these two just make a wonderful team.
IMO, the movie played close to the book. There are some lines that just made my heart leap because I knew them from the book. Of course, as in all book to movie renditions, there are always slight changes or leaving out, and I sadly missed a scene from the book where Hazel and Isaac are playing the video game at the end after Isaac can no longer see and the voice commands they shout at the game.
My thoughts? See the movie but read the book first. The book is of course where you fall in love with these amazing damaged characters; the movie… will just reinforce your love.
Our book club is reading this book now and will be reviewing this week. I look forward to hearing their thoughts on the book and yes, even though I have reviewed it twice here, I will review it again from a Book Club perspective.
Book Journey 