Audiobooks

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month, a time to celebrate the great art of audiobook narration in this, the Golden Age of Audiobooks — as it will be remembered once AI takes over.

This month, AudioFile magazine honored three narrators — Dominic Hoffman (“Homegoing,” “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”), Robert Petkoff (“Barkskins,” “The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore”) and Kate Reading (“A Conspiracy in Belgravia,” “Dust”) — with the Golden Voice honor, for their contribution to the “audiobook art form.”

It is wonderful to see voice actors, who are often snubbed at the Grammys in favor of celebrities, recognized for their work. As audiobooks have evolved, narrating them has demanded more and more creativity and skill.

Transforming the pages of a book into a listening experience goes beyond simply reading aloud, and some people are better at it than others.

Audiobooks began their reign in 1975, the brainchild of former Olympic champion rower Duvall Hecht, founder of Books on Tape. He was specific in his requirements: no abridgments, no emoting, just straight, traditional reading aloud — which still has, for me, an old-fashioned appeal.

Soon enough, other companies and products entered the field for better (Recorded Books) or worse (abridgments). Thanks to CDs, and especially streaming, abridgments are now comparatively rare.

But the most momentous development has been narrators’ increased engagement with the text, especially fiction, moving from simply reading aloud to an active rendering, akin to interpretation.

Just how a narrator affects the ambiance of a story can be heard in comparing the two audio versions of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series (both from Pottermore Publishing).

Jim Dale’s rambunctious, supercharged delivery is what most Americans have heard — and, indeed, is so closely identified with the books that his narration of other high-adventure fantasy novels makes them sound like supplements to the Potter canon.

This is startlingly so in his narration of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s “Peter and the Starcatchers” (Brilliance, 8⅔ hours) and John Stephens’s “The Emerald Atlas” (Listening Library, 11⅔ hours).

In Britain and Ireland, however, a more restrained Stephen Fry narrated the Potter series (now available in this country). His manner leans toward the snobby, giving more play to the social comedy that arises from the English obsession with social class…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/06/22/best-audiobook-narrators/