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From the Fog City Divas Blog Archives "Candice on the Joys of Audio Books"
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When I used to have a day job (before quitting to write fulltime) I had a looooooong commute to and from work each day. And stupidly I kept taking jobs that were farther and farther south, each new mile increasing the drive time by several minutes. Without traffic, I could get to work in about 50 minutes. But there was always traffic so it was always longer. Much longer. And if there was an accident ... well, it was nightmarish. There was several times when it took 3 hours to get to work. Add the commute back home at the end of the day, and I spent more time in my car than almost anywhere else.
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It was during those dark Years of the Horrible Commute that I discovered books on tape. Not those little abridged things you can buy at Borders, but full-length unabridged books. The thought of an abridged book makes me shudder. Who decides what to cut out? I want the whole thing! Nowadays more and more books are recorded on CD, but only a few years back, everything was on cassettes. A book that was 2-4 cassettes in abridged audio might be anywhere from 10-20 cassettes in unabridged audio. Quite a difference! (The unabridged audio version of Diana Gabaldon's latest book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, is 42 cassettes!) So I always got the unabridged versions at the library. And I knew where all the best audio collections were, in every library between San Francisco and Sunnyvale. Not only did audio books help to keep road rage at bay, they sometimes got me so engaged in the story that I completely lost track of time. I didn't matter how long it took to get to work. In fact, I began to look forward to major traffic jams! It was not unusual to find me sitting in the parking lot at work until I got to the end of a chapter. I suppose I ought to have made better use of the time by listening to self-help or motivational books, or learning a foreign language or something. But I much prefer a good story. A good reader/actor can make almost anything engaging. But a bad reader can ruin a great book. After years of listening, I have my favorite readers, and others I tend to avoid. In general, I enjoy British voices. American accents can sometimes be flat or too nasal. However, my all-time favorite reader is Barbara Rosenblatt, an American actress with an amazing gift for voices. She reads all the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters. Even though I always buy and read those books in book format (I love that series), I also love to listen to Ms. Rosenblatt read them. Her snooty Amelia voice, her bombastic Emerson, and the spot-on foreign accents for every character that wanders on the page is simply stunning. And wonderfully funny. Her voice of Ramses as a child was priceless. She also reads all of the Amanda Quick books as well as many others. She is truly worth seeking out. (I just discovered online that Ms Rosenblat has also recorded Judith Ivory's Beast -- I would love to get my hands on that audio book!) Sometimes an author will read his/her own book which, quite frankly, is not always a good thing. Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you have the right voice to read it. A lot of nonfiction is read by the author, and I've listened to a few that were made dreadfully dull by a flat, monotonous voice. Others are quite good. Bill Clinton read his book, and it sounded great. And no one could have read Angela's Ashes better than Frank McCourt.
[A word of warning when listening to audio books in the car: Avoid books with children in jeopardy, sad endings, or lots of emotional trauma. Tears running down one's face are not condusive to good driving, as I discovered with Survivor in Death.] Earlier this year on another long drive to SoCal, I took 2 audio books by fellow Diva Barbara Freethy. It was fun listening to books I knew well. (Can you believe Barbara has never listened to her own books on tape?!) The reader for Don't Say a Word was quite good and kept me enthralled and surprised at plot twists I knew were coming. But the reader for Golden Lies, a personal favorite, almost ruined the book for me with her nasal Valley-girl voice. The author, of course, has no say in these things, so don't blame Barbara if you listen to that book. Ignore the whiney voice and enjoy the story!
Now that I don't have long drives to work, I miss my audio books. (Not enough to want to go back to work, though!) I get excited when I have a long drive like the recent one to SoCal (about 8 hours in each direction). It means I get to go to the library and plow through the books on tape. It's never easy to pick one ... there are just too many. I always check out two books on tape, just in case I don't like one, or if one will not last me the whole 16-hour drive. I lucked out this time with J.D. Robb, but then she's always a sure thing.
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candicehern.com |
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On my long drive to and from Southern California last week, I listened to J.D. Robb's Survivor in Death. I've listened to several books in this series read by the same woman, Susan Erickson, and she is terrific. Her voices for Eve and Peabody and McNabb and others are beautifully done. The Irish brogue for Roarke is a tad hokey, but I don't mind too much. This story included a 9-year old girl as a major character, and Ms. Erickson had just the perfect voice for her. It's hard to do children's voices without sounding like Minnie Mouse, but she captured the high, youthful voice beautifully.
One thing I have learned from listening to so many audio books is to read my own work aloud. It's amazing how something that looks fine on the screen or the page sounds perfectly stupid when read out loud. When listening to books read aloud you become attuned to repeated words and phrases as well as awkward sentence structures, etc. I remember one book I listened to where the hero "arched a brow" so many times I wanted to scream. You also learn which writers know how to write dialog that sounds realistic. There is one Very Famous Author (not romance) whose dialog has almost no contractions and sounds horribly stilted when read aloud. Nora Roberts, on the other hand, writes dialog so genuine it's frightening.
