BW24 - The Audies 2013

June is the month to celebrate audiobooks and recently stumbled across The Audies 2013 sponsored by the Audio Publishing Association.  Up until a couple years ago I wasn't really a big fan of audiobooks.  I'm very picky when it comes to narrators and even when found one I liked, would end up tuning out, because my brain was simply too busy.  Then I got a new car radio which was USB capable and had a brilliant idea.  Why not listen to a book I'd already read.  So I began downloading books to my Iphone and listening to J.D. Robb's In Death series and before I knew it, started enjoying my drives more and training my brain to listen to audio books.

Now I find myself listening while cleaning the house, gardening or  occasionally just sitting there doodling.  And I discovered it's a great sleep aid for a busy mind and curl up in bed most nights, listening until I start to phase out.   I'm still picky about the narrators and mainly like female narrators but find myself branching out and discovering some of the guys do a pretty good job without sounding like off Broadway female impersonators. 

Which brings me back to The Audies.  I'm looking forward to checking out a few of these award winning titles.

Audiobook of the Year:  The End of the Affair by Graham Greene and read by Colin Firth

Fiction:  The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and read by Claire Danes

AudioDrama:  Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner read by Ellen Kushner and a cast of others

Classic:   Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens read by Charlton Griffin

Distinguished Achievement on Production:  Dracula by Bram Stoker read by Tim Curry and a cast of others.

There are a few other categories listing the winners and nominees for each category.  Be sure to check it out and listen to an audio book or two this month.  Looks like they are all available at Audible.com

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Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW2: Audible Atwood

Since we are starting out the new year with traveling through Canada, I thought we'd take along an audiobook or two or three.  Before you turn up your nose at audiobooks, you have to know that I haven't always liked them either. Up until last year, I  had great difficulties even listening to one.  My problem is voices.  If I find a voice annoying, then forget it.  So I have to listen to all the samples, make sure I like the narrator.  Then I discovered I have a preference for female narrators versus male.   The ladies just seem to do a better job of male voices.  The males end up sound like those performers in those off broadway female impersonator shows and throw me completely out of the story.  Just think Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes in To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar and you'll understand.   

I started listening to audiobooks in the car which had the interesting side effect of not worrying about all the idiot drivers on the road and enjoying the ride.  After a period of time found myself listening while gardening or drawing - relatively mindless, put your mind on auto pilot tasks, otherwise I'd tune them out.  Now I love audiobooks and have been working my way through J.D. Robb's entire series of In Death. I've already read the series twice but listening to it is an experience in itself.


Alright, have I talked you into trying an audio book yet?  Which brings us to our tour through Canada with Canadian authors.   Who better to start with than Margaret Atwood. She is most well known for the dystopian story,  The Handmaid's Tale,  which I read eons and eons ago.  I'm trying to decide which one of her other stories I should try now.

And if you enjoy dystopian, then you would probably enjoy the world of werewolves and demons with Kelley Armstrong  or William Gibson's world of cyberpunk. I just started reading Neuromancer which is supposedly the book that captured the imagination of lots of writers and inspired the film, The Matrix.  Looks like I'll be doing a book to movie comparison at some point. 

If fiction isn't your thing or you just want to learn a bit of Canadian history check  out  Pierre Berton, or Farley Mowat, or relax listening to the stories of  Alice Munro or Jane Urguhart or Miriam Toews.

There are a variety of free audio book sites online for your perusal:  

LibriVox

The Internet Archive

Project Gutenberg - eBooks

Books Should Be Free

Free Classic Audiobooks

Literal Systems

Telltale Weekly

Lit2Go

Creative Commons

Thought Audio

Opensource.org

Slashdot

BookCrossing

Maria Lectrix

Have fun! 

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Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.